Chapters 4 & 5 Summary

Whenever you are thinking about how you should save your raster images, you need to think about what you will be using them for. Most of the time, you are limited to the file types supported by the software you are exporting the images to. Most commonly us formats have usually been TIFF and EPS.

File formats you should not use for print include PNGs,BMPs, GIFs and JPEGs. All of these are primarily used for onscreen and Web. PNGs have no support for CMYK color space, as with BMPs. GIFs tend to have low resolution and a color palette limited to 256 colors. JPEGs compress image information, which causes pixelated looking images in print.

JPEG vs RAW
JPEGs offer a compress format, and most cameras deliver their images as JPEGs. Now some higher level cameras can deliver images as Camera Raw. RAW has little to no compression, which is greater for the quality of your images, but you also end up with larger file sizes. RAW files can also be color corrected without losing much information in the file.

The word "pixel" is short for "picture element." Pixels are the smallest unit of measurement in a digitized image. Zoom into any image onscreen and you'll see the little squares of color that make up the image.
ppi stands for pixels per inch. Knowing how many pixels there are per inch tells us the resolution of an image. When it comes to Web, the final image resolution is always 72 ppi. Typical resolution for print is said to be at 300 ppi, while some say you should have a little more and others say it's okay to have a little less. It mainly depends on what type of products you're printing and what you think the final product should look like.

Bitmap images are sometimes called "line art images." This is because they only contain black and white pixels with no shades of grey. Bitmap images are very compact, so they can have a very high resolution, but still have small file sizes.

 When it comes to cropping, you can't always anticipate what all you will need to include in an image when saving a digital file or scanning in an image. Sometimes you can guess ahead and go ahead and crop out what you don't need while placing the image into your computer, but if you aren't completely sure you should go ahead and place the whole thing onto the computer. You can always crop it out later.
When you rotate images, the only completely safe way to to so is to rotate in 90 degree increments. If you rotate at any other degree, you will cause the image to lose information and look softened/blurred.

Vector images are pixel free, so this means that you can scale vector images as big or small as you'd like without the images looking pixelated or jagged. Shapes always stay smooth when they're vector. Vector file formats include EPS, which is the most common file type, or the AI format, which is native to Adobe Illustrator. Adobe PDF can also store vector images. If you are planning on placing the vector images in InDesign, it would be a good idea to save the files as AI. InDesign allows you to use transparency and blending modes that are available in Illustrator. Vector formats that are not appropriate for print include WMF, EMF or raster formats.

When you embed fonts in an EPS file or AI file, then that will allow you to be able to see that font information for display and printing. While that is very helpful, it does not allow you to edit embedded fonts. You still have to have that font active on your computer if you need to edit the text.

Outlining texts get rid of the "hints" that font files carry, and some don't like that fact.  But you shouldn't have to worry about outlining fonts if you are printing with a high resolution platesetter or imagesetter. Lower quality printers cause outlined text to look bloated, but you won't have that problem with higher quality printers.

When you are working with vector images, sometimes you draw out your own paths to create shapes. You may think that the more points you include in the paths of your drawing will mean that you have a more details or better drawing, but you can still achieve the same image with less points. And if your images turn out a bit bumpy, Illustrator has tools that help smooth out the paths. The more points you have on the paths you make, the larger the file size, and we all should like to save space where possible.