8-bit color 256 different colors per channel.

16-bit color 65,536 different colors per channel.

24-bit color 16.7 million different colors per channel.

32-bit color 4.3 billion different colors per channel.

action-safe area The action-safe area of an image is the outer box of the safe grid. All action taking place on screen should be composed inside this area, or it will not be seen when viewed on a television set.

Actions Scriptable macros within Photoshop that allow you to record your steps in the design process and easily repeat those steps multiple times. Actions can be assigned to f-keys and used to batch process files. Virtually all menu commands and processes are available to be recorded as actions.

additive color model A color model that creates white when the primary colors of the model are added together. For example, adding red, green, and blue in the RGB model will create white.

Adjustment Layer A layer that is placed above an art layer that creates adjustments to the layers below it. Adjustments can be levels, curves, color balance, hue saturation, and many others. Adjustment layers provide a nondestructive way of altering your image.

Adobe Acrobat Adobe Acrobat software lets you convert any document to an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Anyone can open your document across a broad range of hardware and software, and it will look exactly as you intended—with layout, fonts, links, and images intact.

Adobe After Effects Adobe After Effects software delivers a comprehensive set of tools to efficiently produce motion graphics and visual effects for film, video, multimedia, and the Web. You can explore unlimited creative possibilities with precise control while working in a 2D or 3D compositing environment.

Adobe Illustrator Adobe Illustrator software defines the future of vector graphics with groundbreaking creative options and powerful tools for efficiently publishing artwork on the Web, in print, everywhere.

Adobe ImageReady Adobe Image Ready is an application by Adobe Systems that prepares Photoshop images and others for Web output. Image Ready provides support for GIF animations, rollovers, and a variety of other Web-based graphic applications. It was discontinued with the release of Photoshop CS3.

Adobe Photoshop Elements Photoshop Elements is the replacement application for Photoshop LE from Adobe Systems. Photoshop Elements provides an excellent platform for editing images. Photoshop Elements is a thinned-out version of Photoshop that provides many of the similar functions as Photoshop, but lacks in the complexity of control that is available in the full version of Photoshop.

Adobe Premiere Pro Delivering strong hardware support, Adobe Premiere software is an adaptable video editing tool. Premiere Pro allows you to work more productively with Real-Time Preview. You can also take advantage of the Adobe Title Designer, MPEG-2 export, DVD authoring, powerful audio tools, and more.

Adobe Type Manager Adobe Type Manager is an application by Adobe Systems that manages the fonts in your system and allows you to activate fonts and sets of fonts quickly and easily. This application has been discontinued. You should look for an alternative for type management.

aliasing Aliased images are images that have a rough or jagged edge to them. This is caused by the fact that all raster or bitmapped images are created from tiny square pixels, which inherently cannot create perfectly smooth edges.

anti-aliased images Images that have a smooth appearance to their edges. Anti-aliasing is achieved by varying the opacity of the pixels on the outer edge of the object, giving the appearance of a smooth edge. Different tools in the palette window have an anti-aliasing option, such as the Marquee tool and the Text tool. Your images will look smoother and cleaner if you have this option turned on. Anti-aliasing introduces the problem of the background color within your image being visible around the edges of your graphic when your graphic is keyed.

Align Linked Align Linked allows you to link a series of layers and align the contents of each layer to the parent layer. This is the same function as left, right, or center aligning text in a word processor.

alpha channel An alpha channel is the fourth channel in an RGB image. This channel is used to key out certain portions of your graphic. The alpha channel acts as a cookie cutter to remove portions of the image and replace them with underlying video. In most video systems, any area in the alpha channel that is white will show the graphic when keyed, and any area that is black will pass video through. Some systems, however, such as Avid systems, reverse the black and white areas. This is referred to as an inverse alpha channel. Alpha channels also support varying levels of opacity in an image. Shades of gray in an alpha channel show areas of the graphic as partially transparent. The closer to white the gray area is, the more opaque the graphic is for the corresponding pixels, and the closer to black the gray is, the more transparent the corresponding pixels are.

anamorphic D1 and DV video signals can be shot for playback in a 16:9 format. Anamorphic 16:9 is video that is squeezed horizontally so that when it is played back in 16:9 mode, it is stretched back to its original size to display a normal-looking image.

aspect ratio An aspect ratio is the general size of a given video format. For example, NTSC has a 4:3 aspect ratio so that all television sets are four units wide for every three units tall.

ATSC The Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) is the governing body that sets the standards for HDTV.

Bezier curve A Bezier curve is the curve created in Photoshop using the Pen tool that creates vector-based artwork. Bezier curves are the foundation for artwork created in Adobe Illustrator.

bitmap See raster graphics.

blending modes Modes used in Photoshop to mathematically blend a layer with visible layers beneath it.

BMP A BMP is a standard Windows image format on DOS and Windows-compatible computers. BMP format supports RGB, indexed color, grayscale, and bitmap color modes. You can specify either Windows or OS/2® format and a bit depth for the image. For 4-bit and 8-bit images using Windows format, you can also specify RLE compression.

brightness Brightness is how light or dark a color is. It is independent from saturation.

Button mode A mode available in the Actions palette that displays all of your actions as buttons. Actions can be executed by clicking these buttons. When in Button mode, color labels and keyboard shortcuts are visible on the buttons.

Calculations command This command lets you blend two individual channels from one or more source images. You can then apply the results to a new image or to a new channel or selection in the active image.

Camera Raw The Adobe Camera Raw dialog box lets you open raw images. These files contain all of the raw data captured by the digital camera.

CCIR 601 DV and D1 signals are both NTSC non-square pixel video formats. However, CCIR-601 (sometimes called D1) is 720×486 pixels while the DV, or digital video standard, is 720×480 pixels, 6 fewer than the D1 standard. If this difference is not addressed in your designs, your graphics may not look correct when output to video.

Character palette The Character palette allows you to edit text attributes such as font size, kerning, leading, line spacing, as well as the font name and color.

clipping path An image clipping path is a path set in Photoshop that lets you isolate certain portions of an image and make everything else transparent when the image is printed or placed in another application.

CMYK The CMYK color mode is used primarily in the print world. It stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (or key). The images in this color mode are comprised of these four colors. Logos that you receive for your broadcast graphics will most likely be in the CMYK color mode. These need to be converted to RGB before they can be used. Menu: Image>Mode>CMYK Color Pasting them, or simply moving them to your broadcast graphic will automatically convert them to an RGB color mode.

codec, Animation Codec stands for compressor decompressor. The animation codec is a codec used to encode QuickTime movies in an uncompressed file. This is the highest quality codec you can use that is the most compatible with other systems.

codec, None When you choose to render a clip without a codec, you are rendering at a quality higher than an animation codec with virtually no compression.

color gamut Color gamuts are the range of colors that a particular graphics system can display. All hardware differs in ability to reproduce colors. RGB and CMYK are different color spaces that represent different color gamuts. However, color gamuts go far beyond that. Macintosh and Windows systems have slightly different color gamuts as well. And most important, computer and televisions have very different color gamuts. Inevitably, colors may tend to change when viewed on different systems.

Color Picker The Adobe Color Picker in Photoshop allows you to select foreground and background colors to be used in your images. Colors can be selected using Lab, HSB, RGB, CMYK, and HEX settings, or simply by clicking on a given color.

color swatches The Swatches palette is a place to store frequently used colors. You can store any combination of colors in the Swatches palette and save them to swatch files for easy color cataloging.

composition A composition in After Effects is similar to a canvas in Photoshop in that it is made up of multiple layers. A project can have multiple compositions, and a composition can have multiple layers, which can include other compositions.

Conditional Mode Change This is a command that allows you to batch convert a series of images to a given color mode, depending on its original color mode. For example, you can tell the dialog to convert all open images with a CMYK or grayscale color mode to an RGB color mode, leaving all other images untouched.

Constrain Proportions Constrain Proportions means to equally scale height and width proportionally to each other. This prevents an image from being stretched when it is resized.

contours You can use contours to shape the appearance of an effect over a given range in the Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Inner Glow, Outer Glow, Bevel and Emboss, and Satin effects when creating custom layer styles. For example, a Linear contour on a Drop Shadow causes the opacity to drop off in a linear transition, while a Custom contour can be used to create a unique shadow transition.

contrast See contrast ratio.

contrast ratio The contrast of an image is how many steps of gray exist between the white and black areas of the image. This is typically expressed in terms of a ratio. The typical contrast ratio for video is 40:1, meaning that the brightest part of an image can only be 40 times brighter than the darkest area. Some digital cameras with high-quality CCDs can reach a contrast ratio of 100:1.

Copy Merged Copy Merged copies a merged image of the visible layers in your Photoshop document to the clipboard.

crop Cropping an image decreases the canvas size of the image without scaling or resizing pixels.

D1 DV and D1 signals are both NTSC non-square pixel video formats. However, D1 (sometimes called CCIR-601) is 720×486 pixels while the DV, or digital video standard, is 720×480 pixels, six fewer than the D1 standard. If this difference is not addressed in your designs, your graphics may not look correct when output to video.

DCS The Desktop Color Separations format is a variation of the standard EPS format. It is for saving color separations of CMYK images. This format has no uses for video applications.

De-interlace filter A filter that removes the interlaced scan lines of an image captured from a video card using either duplication or interpolation.

Defringe command The Defringe command replaces the color of any fringe pixels with the colors of nearby pixels containing pure colors (those without background color). For example, if you select a yellow object on a blue background and then move the selection, some of the blue background is selected and moved with the object. Defringe replaces the blue pixels with yellow ones.

Desaturate command The Desaturate command converts a color image to a grayscale image in the same color mode. For example, it assigns equal red, green, and blue values to each pixel in an RGB image to make it appear grayscale. The lightness value of each pixel does not change. This command has the same effect as setting Saturation to −100 in the Hue/Saturation dialog box.

Direct Selection tool This tool allows you to select individual points in a path for further manipulation.

DNG The Adobe Digital Negative format is a standardized file format introduced by Adobe. It is meant to be a unified way to store several different Raw camera file formats.

dots per inch (dpi) This is considered the resolution of your image, and it is a measurement of the number of dots or pixels displayed per unit. This is referred to as dpi. The screen resolution or dpi of video is often expressed as 72 dpi (although this is inaccurate as it is really pixels per inch or ppi).

duotone This mode creates two-color grayscale images using two inks. Images must first be grayscale before converting to duotone.

DV DV and D1 signals are both NTSC non-square pixel video formats. However, D1 (sometimes called CCIR-601) is 720×486 pixels while the DV, or digital video standard, is 720×480 pixels, six fewer than the D1 standard. If this difference is not addressed in your designs, your graphics may not look correct when output to video.

dye-sublimation printer A printer that uses colored film that is heated and impressed onto the paper as a vapor to achieve color images. Dye-sub printers have better printing quality than ink-jet printers because they are continuous tone and undithered.

EPS The Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) language file format can contain both bitmap and vector graphics in RGB, Lab, CMYK, indexed color, duotone, grayscale, and bitmap color modes. It is a widely supported format in the print world. When asking for logo files, an Illustrator file (.ai) or an EPS file created in a vector program is desirable. When opening an EPS file containing vector graphics, Photoshop converts the vector graphics to pixels. There are no advantages to the EPS format for video applications.

Equalize command The Equalize command redistributes the brightness values of the pixels in an image so that they more evenly represent the entire range of brightness levels. When you apply this command, Photoshop finds the brightest and darkest values in the composite image and remaps them so that the brightest value represents white and the darkest value represents black. Photoshop then attempts to equalize the brightness; that is, to distribute the intermediate pixel values evenly throughout the grayscale.

Export The Export command opens several specialized commands including Video Preview.

Eye icon The Eye icon turns the visibility on and off for a given layer or channel. Turning the eyeball off will hide the layer or channel, and turning the eyeball on will show it.

Fade Filter command The Fade Filter command allows you to fade the effect of a filter that has been applied based on percentages. It also gives you the option to apply a blend mode to the filter that was applied. Under Photoshop CS3 you can also click on Edit Blending Options icon if a Smart Filter was used.

Feather The Feather function allows you to smooth or soften the edges of a selection.

field All NTSC television signals are made up of 60 fields per second. Television signals are made up of horizontal lines stacked from the top of your television screen to the bottom. NTSC is made up of 525 lines of video. Showing all of the odd lines (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc.) at once is one field. Showing all even lines (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) at once is the other field. It takes two fields of video to make one frame. PAL is made up of 625 lines of video, and interlaces the images the same as NTSC does, only with more lines. This creates an interlaced image, interlacing fields to create frames of video. Fields can create problems when video stills are brought into Photoshop. These lines are visible on your computer monitor and need to be removed by de-interlacing the image.

fill signal The fill signal is the RGB graphic portion of an image. This is the image that you want your viewers to see. The fill signal fills the image where the key signal allows it to pass. This signal is derived from the color information of your graphic.

Filmstrip The Filmstrip format is used for movie files created by Adobe Premiere. Every frame of video is saved to one file, which you can open in Photoshop for rotoscoping. This generally does not produce smooth results because you lack the ability to keyframe or ’tween items. If you change resolution, delete alpha channels, or alter the color mode, you won’t be able to save it back to Filmstrip format. For more information, look in your Premiere owner’s manual.

FireWire FireWire is the brand name for IEEE 1394, a high-performance serial bus for connecting devices such as hard drives and cameras to your computer. Apple computer lead the development of FireWire in 1986.

frame All NTSC television signals are made up of 30 frames per second. All PAL television signals are made up of 25 frames per second. Frames of video are essentially a series of still images flashed on the screen in rapid succession to create the illusion of movement. Two fields of video make up one frame.

Full Screen Mode The Full Screen Modes in Photoshop allow you to set the entire screen to your canvas, hiding the desktop in the background. You have up to three full-screen modes available.

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) was originally developed by online service provider CompuServe. (If you remember them, add one point to your Geek IQ.) This format displays 8-bit or indexed-color graphics and images in HTML documents on the Internet. Because of its small color range and compressed images, this format is not very useful for video editing.

Gradient Fill Layer You fill an area with a gradient by dragging in the image with the gradient tool selected. The starting point (where the mouse is pressed) and ending point (where the mouse is released) affect the gradient appearance, depending on the gradient tool used. Gradients will be applied only to selected areas within your image.

Gradient Map The Gradient Map command maps the equivalent grayscale range of an image to the colors of a specified gradient fill. If you specify a two-color gradient fill, for example, shadows in the image map to one of the endpoint colors of the gradient fill, highlights map to the other endpoint color, and midtones map to the gradations in between.

Group Multiple layers in a document can be grouped into a folder. This can assist with organization of complex files as well as allow masking of the grouped layers.

halftone Images that are created where detail and tone values are represented by a series of evenly spaced dots in varying size and shape.

Hardness This command controls the size of the brush’s hard center. Type a number, or use the slider to enter a value that is a percentage of the brush diameter.

HDRi High Dynamic Range imaging allows for a wide range of image data to be captured and accessed. They generally work in 32-bits per channel mode and are often referred to as float.

HDTV HDTV stands for High Definition Television and is an emerging video standard. HDTV has a 16:9 aspect ratio. It also has a variety of standards including interlaced signals, progressive signals, and a variety of sizes (either 720 or 1080 horizontal lines.) The two most common HDTV formats are 720p and 1080i. The p refers to a progressive video format and the i refers to an interlaced video format. HDTV formats are set by the Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC).

History palette The History palette is a road map of the work that you do in Photoshop. Each change that you make to your image is stored in the History palette. This is useful for going back to previous states of your image or for creating a new image from a specific history state. You can also paint from one history state to the image using the History Brush.

HSB HSB is a color model that generates colors based on the hue, saturation, and brightness of a given color.

hue Hue is the color reflected from or transmitted through an object. It is measured as a location on the standard color wheel, expressed as a degree between 0°and 360°. In common use, hue is identified by the name of the color such as red, orange, or green.

image size Image size is the size of a given image, which is determined by the resolution (dpi) and physical dimensions of the canvas.

import Importing allows you to bring a variety of different elements into an open image in Photoshop or to a new image. You can import anti-aliased PICTs, PDF images, annotations, and PICT resources. TWAIN imports allow you to import images directly from a scanner or digital camera.

indexed color The indexed color mode is limited to 256 colors. This color mode is most commonly used with GIF images and Web graphics. Because the number of colors is limited for each image, file sizes remain small. Images that you incorporate into your broadcast designs from the Web will most likely be in this format. These images need to be converted to the RGB color mode before they can be used. Menu: Image>Mode>Indexed Color

intellectual property An intellectual property is any product of the human intellect that is unique, novel, and non-obvious (and has some value in the marketplace). Examples include an idea, an invention, an expression or literary creation, a process, presentation, or a formula.

interlacing Interlacing is combining fields of video to create frames of video.

Inverse command The Inverse command is used to convert a selection to its exact opposite. If you have a selection in the shape of a circle and you inverse the selection, you now have a selection of everything but the circle.

Invert command The Invert command inverts the colors in an image. You might use this command to make a positive black-and-white image negative or to make a positive from a scanned black-and-white negative. When you invert an image, the brightness value of each pixel in the channels is converted to the inverse value on the 256-step color values scale. For example, a pixel in a positive image with a value of 255 is changed to 0, and a pixel with a value of 5 is changed to 250.

IRE IRE is the unit of measurement set forth by the Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers (SMPTE) that measures the overall brightness of your analog video signal. 100 IRE is pure white, 0 IRE is black.

JPEG The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format is used to display continuous-tone images (such as photos) on the Web. Most digital cameras use JPEG because it provides excellent compression; the maximum setting provides comparable quality to much larger files. The JPEG format supports RGB, CMYK, and grayscale color modes, but does not support alpha channels. JPEG is a lossy compression and should not be used as a storage or production file format. If you are using it as a source format, be sure to set the digital camera to maximum quality.

kerning Kerning is the process of adding or subtracting space between specific letter pairs. You can control kerning manually, or you can use automatic kerning to turn on the kerning built into the font by the font designer.

key signal The key signal is the grayscale image that is sent to a hardware device that tells it what portions of an image to pass video through, and what portions of the fill signal should be visible. This signal is derived from the alpha channel or a matte.

L*a*b color In Photoshop, Lab mode (the asterisks are dropped from the name) has a lightness component (L) that can range from 0 to 100. In the Color Picker, the a component (green-red axis) and the b component (blue-yellow axis) can range from +128 to −128. In the Color palette, the a component and the b component can range from +120 to −120. Lab color is the intermediate color model Photoshop uses when converting from one color mode to another.

Layer Styles Sometimes known as Layer Effects, Layer Styles allow you to add drop shadows, glows, bevels, and a variety of other effects to any layer in Photoshop. Once Layer Styles have been applied to a layer, they can be removed or edited without permanently altering the contents of the layer.

Layers Layers in Photoshop act like separate images within a given canvas that contain image and opacity information. Layers are visually stacked one on top of another and are used to hold shapes, text, images, and any other element within your designs.

Levels The Levels dialog box lets you correct the tonal range and color balance of an image by adjusting intensity levels of the image’s shadows, midtones, and highlights. The Levels histogram serves as a visual guide for adjusting the image’s key tones.

lightness Lightness is used in the hue saturation and replaces color operations. Lightness moves a given color closer to white as it is increased, and closer to black as it is decreased.

linear key A linear key is a key that is achieved using an alpha channel or matte. This type of keying provides the greatest amount of flexibility. Linear keys allow for soft anti-aliased edges, partially transparent portions of your graphic, graphics that fade, drop shadows, and edge glows. Linear keys look to the alpha channel for the opacity level of each corresponding pixel in the image. Most video systems and software packages will support linear keys. If the system you are using does support them, use them. Your keys will be cleaner and more accurate with linear keys than with any other method of keying.

lines per inch Screen frequency is the number of printer dots or halftone cells per inch used to print grayscale images or color separations. Also known as screen ruling or line screen, screen frequency is measured in lines per inch (lpi) or lines of cells per inch in a halftone screen.

link Layers can be linked in Photoshop by selecting a layer and activating the chain icon on other layers that you wish to link to the parent layer. Layers that are linked can be moved in one operation, moved to layer sets, or deleted as a group.

load selection You can load the selection of a layer, channel, or layer mask. This operation reads the transparency of a layer or the selection that is represented by a channel or layer mask. You can load the selection of an element under the select menu, or by clicking (+clicking) on the layer, channel, or mask.

lossless compression A method of compressing an image where detail is not lost in the compression process.

lossy compression A method of compressing an image where detail is lost in the compression process. JPEG, TIFF, and PDF are examples of file formats that support lossy compression.

luminance key A luminance key is a key that is achieved using the black background of an image. Luminance keys are very limiting and do not provide a great deal of creative control over how your graphics are keyed over video. Luminance keys do not allow for anti-aliased edges or partially transparent portions of your image. Luminance keys should only be used if your system does not support linear keys. Graphics that are luminance-keyed need to be placed on superblack.

LZW compression LZW (Lemple-Zif-Welch) lossless compression; supported by TIFF, PDF, GIF, and PostScript language file formats. Most useful for images with large areas of single color.

macro A small script or routine that automatically repeats a series of operations within an application. Actions are macros that can be recorded and played in Photoshop.

matte A matte does the same thing as an alpha channel. They both create key signals for a visual element. Mattes are typically not attached to the object for which they are creating a key signal. Mattes are separate files or footage applied to another clip or image. Alpha channels are typically attached to the element for which they are creating a key signal.

merge Combining the elements within multiple layers to a single layer. Merging layers is a destructive function in Photoshop.

moiré Moiré patterns are caused from tight, highly contrasting patterns of objects in your video. The effect is a vibrating rainbow pattern over the top of your video.

multi-session disc A session on a CD or DVD includes a lead-in area, a program area (data or audio tracks), and a lead-out area. A multi-session disc is one that has multiple sessions on one disc. Each session has its own lead-in, content and lead-out area, and is linked together with other sessions. Disc recorders that support multi-session recording must also support this feature. In terms of optical storage, this allows the capability of storing more data on a previously recorded recordable media.

Navigator palette The Navigator palette provides a thumbnail representation of your current canvas and allows you to zoom in and move your visible area around easily.

non-square pixels Pixels that are native to your computer are all square. However, pixels in a few television signals are not, because the image dimensions of the file do not fit in a 4:3 aspect ratio defined by the NTSC. Therefore, they are squeezed taller to fit all the needed pixels into the aspect ratio. The National Television System Committee, otherwise known as the NTSC, has set the standard that television, as we know it today, has a 4:3 aspect ratio, excluding HDTV, which is 16:9. This means that the size of a television image is three units high for every four units wide. Video hardware that uses the 640×480 dimension standard is in a 4:3 aspect ratio. 640×480 images have an aspect ratio of 4:3, which means that the square pixels on your computer stay square once converted in your video hardware. This is the easiest system to design for because you don’t have to convert your images before going out to video. However, video hardware that outputs 601 video (sometimes called D1) has a size of 720×486, which does not work out to a 4:3 ratio. This introduces the problem between square and non-square pixels. Because the 720×486 image must fit within a 4:3 aspect ratio, the pixels in that image are not square. They are taller than they are wide, roughly 0.9 to 1. Therefore, images created on your square-pixel computer monitor may look stretched out vertically when they go to NTSC video and stretched out horizontally on PAL video. The same holds true for DV images. They are 720×480, which is not a 4:3 aspect ratio, either.

NTSC NTSC stands for the National Television Standards Committee. This is the governing body that sets the standards for video signals in the United States and North America. It states that video signals in the United States must be in a 4:3 aspect ratio and must be 30 frames/60 fields per second, excluding HDTV.

NTSC color filter This filter restricts the gamut of colors to those acceptable for television reproduction to prevent oversaturated colors from bleeding across television scan lines.

opacity Opacity is a measurement of how opaque or transparent the pixels in your layers are. An opacity setting of 100 will make the elements in your layer completely opaque, and an opacity setting of 0 would be completely transparent.

OpenEXR The OpenEXR format is used by the visual effects industry for high dynamic range images. It was developed by Industrial Light and Magic and was released under an open source license. The format supports multiple lossless or lossy compression methods. It is designed to supports both 16-bit and 32-bit images. Its primary benefit is that it allows for over 30 stops of exposure (which gives it incredible range of lights to dark). For much more information, see http://www.openexr.com/about.html.

OpenType font OpenType is a font format for scalable (outline) files that extends the existing font file format used by Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh. OpenType was developed jointly by Microsoft and Adobe and allows an Adobe file to be part of a TrueType font file. Prior to OpenType, Adobe did not support TrueType fonts as well it did its own font format, Type 1, for printers that use PostScript. PostScript is an industry-standard printer formatting language for higher-quality and more sophisticated printers. OpenType is also known as TrueType Open v. 2.0.

Options bar The Options bar is the bar that sits at the top of your monitor directly under the Application menu. This palette allows you to set the options for all of the tools that are available in the tool palette.

orphan When laying out text, an orphan is a stranded word on a line by itself. This is something that you want to avoid. Work to balance out word spacing and wrapping so that this doesn’t happen.

out of gamut A gamut is the range of colors that a color system can display or print. Different color models include a different set or range of colors. Colors that are represented in one color model may not exist in another. These colors would be considered out of gamut.

overscan Televisions crop the edges of your visuals because of a condition called overscan. The edges of a television set are covered partially by the case of the television, and the ray gun inside the television that generates the image will slightly overshoot the surface of the viewable area of the TV. This keeps unwanted portions of a video signal from being visible to the viewer. However, this will also cut off portions of your signal that you want to be seen. Using safe grids will help you monitor what will be kept and lost during transmission. Some video monitors have a feature called underscan, which will cause the image on the monitor to be squeezed down so that all of the image can be seen on screen. This is not an accurate representation of what the audience will see when they watch your program.

PAL PAL is the most common video format used outside of North America. PAL video signals are a 4:3 aspect ratio and are 25 frames/50 fields per second.

panning A camera movement that adjusts the composition of a shot from right to left. Often photos are taken from Photoshop into After Effects (or another compositing application) so that they can be panned. Be sure you have extra pixel information so you can pan or zoom.

Pantone Used for printing solid-color inks, the Pantone Matching System includes 1114 solid colors. To select a color, use a Pantone color guide printed on coated, uncoated, and matte stocks.

Paragraph palette You can use the Paragraph palette to set formatting options such as alignment and line spacing for a single paragraph, multiple paragraphs, or all paragraphs in a type layer.

Paste as Pixels The Paste as Pixels command allows you to rasterize a vector object in your clipboard and paste the resulting pixels into your image.

Paste Into The Paste Into command will paste the contents of the clipboard into the selection of the active layer as opposed to creating a new layer for the pasted object.

PCX The PC Paintbrush format is used by PC-compatible computers. The format is designed to match the standard VGA color palette. PCX supports RGB, indexed color, grayscale, and bitmap color modes, but does not support alpha channels. It is commonly a compressed file and supports bit depths of 1, 4, 8, or 24. Because of its small color range and compressed images, this format is not very useful for video editing.

PDF The Portable Document Format is an amazing, cross-platform, cross-application file format. PDF files accurately display and preserve fonts, page layouts, and both vector and bitmap graphics. You can also transfer Photoshop’s annotation notes (both text and audio) into the PDF. The Photoshop PDF format is the only one that Photoshop can save, and it supports layers and other Photoshop features. You do not need to flatten to save a PDF file. This file can then be transferred to others for review and comment using Adobe Acrobat or viewed with the free Acrobat Reader. This is an excellent format for review purposes, but will not be understood by all video-editing applications.

Pen tool The Pen tool allows you to create Bezier curves for vector objects or paths in Photoshop.

PICT file The Macintosh Picture format is widely used by video editors. Its popularity can be traced back to many editing packages, which historically required graphics to be in the PICT format. Its popularity has suffered as other options became available, but the technology behind the format still makes it the best format for video. The PICT format supports RGB images with a single alpha channel, and is very effective at compressing large areas of solid color. This compression results in huge file savings for alpha channels, which are mostly black or white. When saving, be sure to pick 32-bit pixel resolution. On the Mac platform, you have choices of additional JPEG compression. Avoid these because they cause import problems on PCs, and the file savings are not worth the quality loss.

PICT resource file The PICT resource is a PICT file that is contained in a Mac OS file’s resource fork. This format is often used to create startup screens for software. While similar to a plain PICT file, avoid it. Resource files generally confuse video editing applications. You can edit a PICT resource file by importing it into Photoshop.

Pixar file The Pixar format is designed for high-end 3D applications. It supports RGB and grayscale images with a single alpha channel. If you also create 3D animation, you may use this format.

pixels per inch (ppi) The number of pixels displayed per unit of printed length in an image, usually measured in pixels per inch.

Place You can use the File>Place command to place artwork into a new layer in an image. In Photoshop, you can place PDF, Adobe Illustrator, and EPS files. Starting with Photoshop CS3, the new object can be added as a Smart Object.

PNG The Portable Network Graphics format provides lossless compression for the Web. The PNG supports 24-bit images and with 8-bit transparency. Because only newer browsers support it (and the file sizes are bigger), you will not find it widely used. If you have to use a Web image in your video, look for a PNG.

PostScript font Each character (or to be more precise, each glyph) in a font has a shape, and there are various ways of describing that shape on a computer. PostScript fonts generally describe the outline of the shape and then color in the interior of that outline; this coloring process is called rasterizing.

PPI See pixels per inch.

pre-multiplied alpha channel A pre-multiplied alpha channel is an alpha channel that follows the edge of your graphic material exactly. This is the type of alpha channel that Photoshop will output from your images. The potential problem from this type of alpha channel is that you run the risk of the background color of your image being present on the edges of your graphic. This is caused by the anti-aliasing that Photoshop does to your images. The edges of your image are partially transparent to give them a smoothing effect. However, this creates partially transparent edges on your alpha channel as well. This will allow part of the background color of your image to be visible when keyed. Some applications, such as After Effects, can address the problem of pre-multiplied alpha channels. You can tell the software that the image has a pre-multiplied alpha channel and it will un-multiply the background color from the edge pixels of your image.

primary colors Primary colors are the colors from which all other colors are made up. Red, green, and blue are the primary colors in the RGB color model; cyan, magenta, yellow, and black are the primary colors of the CMYK color model.

profile mismatch Color Settings lets you specify how Photoshop handles the files it opens and saves. It is especially important when opening files that have no embedded pro-file or that have a profile that doesn’t match the current setup profile. Profile mismatch occurs when Photoshop encounters a file with an embedded profile that doesn’t match the current setup profile. How Photoshop handles the mismatch depends on what you’ve set in the Profile Mismatch Handling section of the Color Settings dialog box.

progressive scan A progressive video signal is a video signal that does not have interlaced fields. Computer monitors, some HDTV standards, and some mini-DV cameras display progressive images. That means there are 30 full frames per second, not 60 fields, or half frames per second. Images that were shot in a progressive format are much cleaner and easier to work with inside the computer.

PSD The Photoshop format is the default file format. This format is the only format that supports all of Photoshop’s features. Always save your design files in this format for maximum editing ability.

Quark Xpress Quark Xpress is a page layout application that is used for prepress and page layout for anything from simple brochures to entire books or other publications. These files cannot be opened by Photoshop, so be sure to ask the designer for all of the elements and a PDF file of the layout.

raster graphics Raster graphics, sometimes referred to as bitmapped graphics, use a grid of colors known as pixels to represent images. Each pixel is assigned a specific location and color value. For example, a circle in a raster image is made up of a mosaic of pixels in that location. When working with raster images, you edit pixels rather than objects or shapes. Raster or bitmap images are the most common electronic medium for continuous-tone images such as photographs, because they can represent subtle gradations of shades and color. Raster images are resolution dependent; that is, they contain a fixed number of pixels. As a result, they can lose detail and appear jagged if they are scaled larger.

rasterize Rasterizing is the process of converting vector images into bitmapped or pixel-based raster images.

Raw The Raw format is a flexible (and confusing) file format for transferring between applications and computer platforms. Essentially, a text file is written containing a stream of bytes describing the color information for the image. Every pixel is described in binary format. Avoid this format. It is not to be confused with the Camera Raw format.

resolution-dependent Resolution-dependent means that an image has a fixed resolution. Raster or bit-mapped images are resolution-dependent because they cannot be enlarged without losing resolution or clarity.

resolution-independent Resolution independent images, on the other hand, can be enlarged infinitely without losing any resolution or image quality. Vector-based artwork is considered resolution-independent.

Revert command The Revert command will discard any unsaved changes in your current image and return the image to the state in which it was last saved.

RGB The RGB color mode is the one used for television graphics. All graphics that are displayed on video systems need to be created in or converted to the RGB mode first (Menu: Image>Mode>RGB Color). All colors in the RGB color mode are made from a combination of red, green, and blue. These are the primary colors used to create color images on television. Other color modes will not work for video. The Channels palette in an RGB image will have a Red channel, a Green channel, and a Blue channel. It is best to design in the RGB color space because all of the filters in Photoshop work in RGB mode.

Rubber Stamp tool The Rubber Stamp tool is now called the Clone Stamp tool. The Clone Stamp tool takes a sample of an image that you can then apply over another image or part of the same image. Each stroke of the tool paints on more of the sample.

Rubylith mask Traditional color of masks used in printing.

run length encoding Lossless compression; supported by some common Windows file formats.

safe grid A grid that shows you what areas of your image will be safe and what areas of your image will be lost when transferred to video. Overscan on television sets will cut off approximately 10% of the edges of your image. All of the action within a given shot must be within the action-safe area, and all of the titles or graphics of an image must stay inside the title-safe area.

saturation Saturation is the intensity of a color. A saturated blue has a lot of blue in it; an unsaturated blue has very little blue in it.

Save selection as channel This command will take the active selection in your image and store the selection as channel in your Channels palette. You also have the option of saving the selection as a channel in other open images.

Scitex file The Scitex Continuous Tone format is used for high-end print work on Scitex computers. This format needs special scanners and rasterizing formats, and is designed for output of high-quality print such as magazines and art prints. While you may receive this format, you will never need to save in it for video output.

scratch disk This is the physical hard drive that Photoshop uses to write information to when RAM becomes full.

SCSI SCSI stands for small computer serial interface, and it is a serial bus on computers that allows the connection of external hard drives or scanners. SCSI is starting to phase out and be replaced by USB and FireWire.

sepia tone Conversion of a black-and-white image in silver to sepia (a brownish gray to dark olive brown) by metallic compounds. Sepia was the most common tone used, and was used in black-and-white prints of films for special sequences to enhance the dramatic or pictorial effect.

skew Skewing an image is vertically or horizontally distorting an image. This can be accomplished with the Free Transform tool.

slices Slices are dividers in Photoshop that allow you to prepare or cut up an image for Web deployment. Each slice you create in your Photoshop image can be saved as a separate file with an associated HTML file for the Web.

SLR Camera A single lens reflex (SLR) camera is a still camera where the viewfinder is actually looking through the lens at the exact same image that will be exposed to the film.

Smart Filters Starting with Photoshop CS3, you can apply filters to Smart Objects. These filters are applied as Smart Filters, which leave the filter editable even after it has been first applied.

Smart Object Smart Objects were first introduced in Photoshop CS2. They allow you to embed a full-resolution raster image or a vector image into a layer. Additionally, several layers can be grouped into a new Smart Object. This adds greater flexibility when scaling or modifying a layer.

Snap When Snap is enabled, your selections and drawing tools will snap to a combination of guides, grids, selections, and document bounds. Under the View>Snap to… command, you can select what Photoshop will snap to.

Snapshot command The Snapshot command lets you make a temporary copy (or snapshot) of any state of the image. The new snapshot is added to the list of snapshots at the top of the History palette. Selecting a snapshot lets you work from that version of the image.

Sponge tool The Sponge tool subtly changes the color saturation of an area. In grayscale mode, the tool increases or decreases contrast by moving gray levels away from or toward the middle gray.

square pixels Pixels that are native to your computer are all square. However, pixels in a few television signals are not, because the image dimensions of the file do not fit in a 4:3 aspect ratio defined by the NTSC. Therefore, they are squeezed taller to fit all the needed pixels into the aspect ratio. The National Television System Committee, otherwise known as the NTSC, has set the standard that television, as we know it today, has a 4:3 aspect ratio, excluding HDTV, which is 16:9. This means that the size of a television image is three units high for every four units wide. Video hardware that uses the 640×480 dimension standard is in a 4:3 aspect ratio. 640×480 images have an aspect ratio of 4:3, which means that the square pixels on your computer stay square once converted in your video hardware. This is the easiest system to design for because you don’t have to convert your images before going out to video. However, video hardware that outputs 601 video (sometimes called D1) has a size of 720×486, which does not work out to a 4:3 ratio. This introduces the problem between square and non-square pixels. Because the 720×486 image must fit within a 4:3 aspect ratio, the pixels in that image are not square. They are taller than they are wide, roughly 0.9 to 1. Therefore, creating images on your square pixel computer monitor may look stretched out vertically when they go to NTSC video and stretched out horizontally on PAL video. The same holds true for DV images. They are 720×480, which is not a 4:3 aspect ratio, either.

straight alpha channel A straight alpha channel is an alpha channel that does not follow the edge of your graphic material. An example would be an image of a green circle. Instead of the shape of the circle being determined by the color information of the graphic, it is defined by the alpha channel. The graphic would look like a solid green canvas, and the alpha channel would be in the shape of a circle. This allows the edges of the color to extend outside of the alpha channel, giving you a much cleaner key without the chances of a thin black or white line around the edge of the circle. This is the preferred type of alpha channel. However, Photoshop cannot calculate this for you. If you want to obtain this type of alpha channel out of Photoshop, you need to plan your design ahead of time to be this way. To achieve this kind of alpha, you must place a solid color layer into your background that matches the color of your glow/drop shadow/soft edge. After Effects is one application that can take an image file with an alpha channel and turn the image into a new file with a straight alpha channel. Note: When referring to a straight alpha channel, the alpha channel is actually no different than any other alpha channel; it is the color information in your image that is different.

subtractive color model A color model that creates black when the primary colors of the model are added together. For example, adding Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (black) in the CMYK model will create black.

superblack Superblack is a level of black below 7.5 IRE, usually at 0 IRE. This is used for luminance keys. The areas of your image that you want to be keyed out should be superblack, and the areas of your image that are black that you want to keep should be at 7.5 IRE.

tablet A tablet is a secondary input device that uses a pen to control the computer as opposed to a mouse. This is extremely useful in Photoshop because it allows for pressure sensitivity and the feel of drawing with a pen instead of a mouse. Wacom is the most popular manufacturer of tablets.

TARGA file The TARGA format was designed for systems using Truevision video boards. It has become a standard format for PC users because it supports 24-bit RGB images (8 bits; 3 color channels), and 32-bit RGB images (3 color channels plus an alpha channel). Photoshop 7.0 shipped with a bug in its TARGA module that improperly saved the alpha channel. The free update to 7.0.1 or a separate TARGA download fixes this.

TIFF file The Tagged-Image File Format is a common cross-platform format that is supported by several applications. Several scanners can create TIFF files as well, and it is a more efficient format for saving non-layered images. The TIFF format supports RGB, CMYK, Lab, indexed color, and grayscale images with alpha channels. Photoshop can also save layers in a TIFF file; however, other applications only see the flattened version. TIFF is a good format for storing source photos.

title-safe area The title-safe area of an image is the portion of the image where all of the titles or graphics should be. This is the inner box on a safe grid. Any graphical elements that extend outside of the title-safe area run the risk of being cut off by the viewer’s television set.

TOYO TOYO Color Finder 1050 consists of more than 1000 colors based on the most common printing inks used in Japan. The TOYO Color Finder 1050 Book contains printed samples of TOYO colors and is available from printers and graphic arts supply stores.

trackball A computer input device similar to a mouse. Instead of moving the mouse, you roll a ball in a cradle to make equivalent mouse movements. Trackballs provide more sensitivity and accuracy than a mouse, and some have four buttons that can be assigned to various functions.

tracking Tracking is the process of creating an equal amount of spacing across a range of letters.

TrueType font A scalable font technology that renders fonts for both the printer and the screen. Originally developed by Apple, it was enhanced jointly by Apple and Microsoft. TrueType fonts are used in Windows, starting with Windows 3.1, as well as in the Mac System 7 operating system. Unlike PostScript, in which the algorithms are maintained in the rasterizing engine, each TrueType font contains its own algorithms for converting the outline into bitmaps. The lower-level language embedded within the TrueType font allows unlimited flexibility in the design.

Type Mask tool The Type Mask tool will create a selection of the shape of the text when type is entered as opposed to a color.

underscan Televisions crop the edges of your visuals because of a condition called overscan. The edges of a television set are covered partially by the case of the television, and the ray gun inside the television that generates the image will slightly overshoot the surface of the viewable area of the TV. This keeps unwanted portions of a video signal from being visible to the viewer. However, this will also cut off portions of your signal that you want to be seen. Using safe grids will help you monitor what will be kept and lost during transmission. Some video monitors have a feature called underscan, which will cause the image on the monitor to be squeezed down so that all of the image can be seen on screen. This is not an accurate representation of what the audience will see when they watch your program.

Unsharp Mask filter Unsharp Mask locates pixels that differ from surrounding pixels by the threshold you specify and increases the pixels’ contrast by the amount you specify. In addition, you specify the radius of the region to which each pixel is compared.

USB 1 USB stands for universal serial bus. USB 1 was the original version of USB that had a maximum data transfer rate of 12 mbits/second. USB is used primarily for connecting keyboards and mice to computers. However, there are USB scanners, cameras, and hard drives.

USB 2 USB stands for universal serial bus. USB 2 is a high-speed serial bus that has a maximum data transfer rate of 480 mbits/second. USB is used primarily for connecting keyboards and mice to computers. However, there are USB scanners, cameras, and hard drives.

Variations command The Variations command lets you adjust the color balance, contrast, and saturation of an image by showing you thumbnails of alternatives. This is a good method for beginners, but does not offer the precise control of the other adjustment methods.

vector graphics Vector graphics are made up of lines and curves defined by mathematical objects called vectors. Vectors describe an image according to its geometric characteristics. For example, a circle in a vector graphic is made up of a mathematical definition of a circle drawn with a certain radius, set at a specific location, and filled with a specific color. You can move, resize, or change the color of the circle without losing the quality of the graphic. Vector graphics are resolution-independent; that is, they can be scaled to any size and printed at any resolution without losing detail or clarity. As a result, vector graphics are the best choice for representing bold graphics that must retain crisp lines when scaled to various sizes—for example, logos.

video filters Filters in Photoshop that are video-specific, such as De-interlace and NTSC colors.

Web Photo Gallery The Web Photo Gallery can be found under File>Automate. This function will automate Photoshop to generate a Web gallery of a folder of images on your machine. It will generate thumbnail, HTML files, and the full-size images. You can control the layout, image sizes, and content within the pages.

white point The white point of an image is a reference for what Photoshop believes to be the brightest portion of your image that is white. From this white point, Photoshop can adjust the color balance of your image. The white point is set in the levels or curves palette.

Wide Gamut RGB Wide Gamut RGB provides a very wide range of colors by using spectrally pure primaries. The downside is that most of the colors in this gamut cannot be displayed on standard computer monitors or printed. When editing a file, colors are often forced into the display space (clipped) and, consequently, your color adjustments may not appear as visible changes on the screen.

WORM disc WORM stands for Write Once Read Many. Any single-session CD-R would be considered to be a WORM disc.

YCC Color space developed by Eastman Kodak that defines colors by luminance (Y) and two levels of chrominance (C and C).