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2 Minute Tutes - Pictures
In 2 minutes, you should know:
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How to view a picture
In Windows XP:
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Click Start
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Click My Pictures
In Windows 98, 2000
& Me:
You will see all the pictures
available.
If the picture is
in a different location, you can either browse around your folders until
you find it, or click Start, Search (Find in Windows 95 & 98) and let your
computer find it for you. If the picture is in an email, open the email,
then double-click the icon attached. Sometimes this is indicated with a
paperclip.
Windows Me & XP make it easy to view
images, zoom in & move to the next image. Older versions of Windows
are not as good at this, so you may wish to download a better image
viewer, such as ACDSee.
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Image size & resolution With photos, it’s
easy to say how big a picture is, such as 10 x 15 cm. It’s not so easy
with a computer because any picture can be printed out at different
sizes. What we often want to know is how much detail
is in the picture. This is measured in pixels (short for picture
elements), the small dots that make up any picture. For example, an
image that you use as your desktop background may be 800 x 600 pixels.
On the screen, it may be 25 cm wide. When you print this image, it
may be bigger or smaller.
What determines the
physical size of an image? The answer is the resolution. This is usually
measured in dots per inch, or dpi. Monitors usually display about 75 dpi,
while your printer may be capable of 300, 600 or even 1200 dpi. More dots
per inch mean a smaller picture size, but the level of detail will stay
the same.
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The differences between
picture formats
The saying, a picture is worth a
thousand words is pretty true for computer images as well. Because
pictures are intended for many different uses (viewing, printing, sending,
zooming in etc), many different picture formats have been developed. The
following table lists the main formats and their pros & cons.
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Format |
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BMP (Bitmap) |
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JPG, JPEG |
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GIF |
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TIF, TIFF |
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WMF (Windows Metafile) |
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Image size & resolution With photos, it’s
easy to say how big a picture is, such as 10 x 15 cm. It’s not so easy
with a computer because any picture can be printed out at different
sizes. What we often want to know is how much detail
is in the picture. This is measured in pixels (short for picture
elements), the small dots that make up any picture. For example, an
image that you use as your desktop background may be 800 x 600 pixels.
On the screen, it may be 25 cm wide. When you print this image, it
may be bigger or smaller.
What determines the
physical size of an image? The answer is the resolution. This is usually
measured in dots per inch, or dpi. Monitors usually display about 75 dpi,
while your printer may be capable of 300, 600 or even 1200 dpi. More dots
per inch mean a smaller picture size, but the level of detail will stay
the same.
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Format |
Pros |
Cons |
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BMP (Bitmap) |
most basic format, no loss of quality |
very inefficient, large filesize |
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JPG, JPEG |
compatible with all types of computer, very efficient, small filesize,
excellent for photos |
Some quality is lost when an image is saved as a JPG. |
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GIF |
Very efficient, supports transparency, good for graphics like icons &
buttons |
Limited to 256 colours so not good for photos |
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TIF, TIFF |
No
loss of quality, filesize is compressed but not as much as JPG |
Although reasonably common, this format is not compatible with as many
computer systems as JPG & GIF |
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WMF (Windows Metafile) |
Good for logos & simple graphics, image is stored as a series of
strokes and is redrawn as you zoom in (you don’t get the blocky
effect) |
Only suitable for images that can be reproduced by lines & filled
areas, no good for photos |
Because some formats reduce the quality to reduce the file
size (while keeping the same number of pixels) a good measure of the level
of detail in a picture is the file size, measured in bytes, kilobytes (KB)
or megabytes (MB).
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H .
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How to email a picture
This procedure varies depending on which email program you use. An easy
way to email a picture is to open your pictures folder (see above) then
right-click the picture, point to Send To then click Mail Recipient. This
will automatically create a new email & attach the picture. All you need
to do is type the address and click Send.
If this doesn’t work for you, start an email in the usual way and click
Insert, File Attachment (or similar) or look for a button with a paperclip
on it. This will open a window where you can locate the picture you wish
to send.
How to edit a picture
In Windows XP, once you are viewing your picture, click the Edit button to
open an image editor program. In any version of Windows, you can open your
pictures folder, right-click the picture, the click Edit.
Once open you can usually click different tools, such as a paintbrush to
touch up parts of your picture, a paint bucket tool, to fill an area of
one colour with another colour (such as turning red eyes to black). A
powerful method of editing photos is to click the Selection tool, drag the
mouse pointer over an area of the photo, click edit, Copy . Then click
Edit , Paste and move the new part around to cover something up. Using
this method, you could copy an area of wall and paste it over a person to
completely remove them from a photo.
S
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