Graphics Editors (Adobe Photoshop Macromedia
Fireworks)
What
is a graphics editor? A graphics editor is a computer
program that allows users to compose and edit pictures
interactively on the computer screen and save them
in one of many popular "bitmap" or "raster" formats
such as TIFF, JPEG, PNG and GIF.
Two
major graphics editors are
Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia
Fireworks.
Adobe
Photoshop is a bitmap graphics editor published by
Adobe Systems. It is the market leader for commercial
bitmap image manipulation. It is usually referred
to simply as Photoshop.
As
with most of other Adobe's applications, Photoshop
is available for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows; versions
up to Photoshop 7 can also be run under operating
systems such as Linux with an emulation program such
as CrossOver Office.
Fireworks
is developed by Macromedia and is bundled as of the
Studio MX suite. This program is built to allow web
designers the ability to manipulate vector and bitmap
graphics. It is often compared to likes of Adobe's
Photoshop, even though the functions are very limited
and less sophisticated. It is perfect for editing
graphics in web site design templates. View our
web site design templates.
Two
popular graphics image formats are JPG and GIF.
In
computing, JPEG is a commonly used standard method
of compressing photographic images. The file format
which employs this compression is commonly also called
JPEG; platforms with short file extensions may use
.JPG or .JPE to identify this format.
The
name stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group.
JPEG itself specifies only how an image is transformed
into a stream of bytes, but not how those bytes are
encapsulated in any particular storage medium.
JPEG/JFIF
is the most common format used for storing and transmitting
photographs on the World Wide Web.
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a bitmap image
format that is widely used on the World Wide Web,
both for still images and for animations.
"GIF"
is often pronounced giff with a hard g (that is, like
"gift" without the final t), but the correct
pronunciation as specified by the creators of the
file format in the official documentation is jiff.
Arguments over the proper pronunciation of GIF have
become a popular stereotype of computer geek society.
GIF
was introduced in 1987 by CompuServe in order to provide
a color image format for their file downloading areas.
Fairly large images could therefore be downloaded
in a reasonable amount of time, even with very slow
modems.
You
can often find graphics editors software like Adobe
Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks at a discount on
eBay. A software store may
have gotten surplus copies of graphic editing software
and wish to reduce their graphics editing software
programs due to an updated version and will sell new
copies of graphics editor programs at a reduced cost.
Following
are graphics editing software auctions on eBay.
Freeware
Graphics Editors:
