TCS - Getting Started with Graphics -- Report

Getting Started with Graphics -- Report

by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the August 1997 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter

We had a decent turnout of 15 people Wednesday June 18 to attend the Getting Started with Graphics program. Paula Sanders helped me with the meeting, and Don Sanders was a big help too, taking down each question that was asked, so that I could write this report and make certain the answers were understood by going over each question again and attempting to answer it in writing. I believe that this is an effective way of both letting people know what goes on at these meetings, and the questions that are asked, so that if they have similar questions they will know to make the next meeting. Unless it is absolutely necessary for the question to be understood, we will not say who asked what, so people need not fear their privacy will be violated by having their questions printed publically.

We started the meeting by describing some of the sources of graphic files, which include clip art that comes on CDs with programs, phographic images that comes on CDs with programs, photos or drawings that were scanned in using a scanner, photos taken with a digital camera, photos taken with a regular camera but where the lab was asked to provide a floppy disk or CD with the scanned images on it, instead of or in addition to prints, and drawings made with special drawing programs, using a mouse or a pen-like device on a special drawing tablet. One of the attendees pointed out that one can also use a device called a Snappy together with a video camera or a video tape (this technique was used to provide the two images of kids at the Bethesda Boys Ranch that were printed in the Refurbishing Computers article in May issue of the I/O Port). Two members brought their digital cameras to show attendees, and one offered to take their pictures and bring them to them on a disk at the next meeting (much like we did at the Midi Music and Multimedia meeting a few months ago). A member also brought a copy of the cd, floppy disk, contact sheet, and prints that Seattle Film Works produces when they process film and provide scanned images along with photographic prints.

We also described several graphic file formats like GIF (used on the internet primarilly for drawings and clip art), JPG (used on the internet primarilly for photographs and paintings), BMP (used by the Paintbrush applet that comes with Windows) and also used for Wall-paper as a background on Windows), PCX (also used by the Paintbrush applet), and TIF (a fairly common graphic format that originated in the Mac world, but which has become a standard in the PC world as well).

We also told how all graphic files were either a bitmap (or raster) format, where each pixel (little dot), together with the pixel's color and intensity, is stored in the file, or vector-based, where information about mathematical expressions describing the image is stored (such as the x,y coordinates of one end of a line and the direction and distance to the other end of the line). This prompted the first question:

Are GIF Files Bitmap or Vector?

The answer I gave was correct, but since I had a little more time while writing this article I double checked it by going onto the internet and checking with the Dictionary of PC Hardware and Data Communications Terms By Mitchell Shnier ISBN: 1-56592-158-5 532 pages, $19.95 at http://www.ora.com/reference/dictionary/ where I learned that GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format, a file format developed by CompuServe Information Service (in 1987) for storing 256 color, raster (as opposed to vector) graphical images; it is based on the LZW data compression algorithm.

What is the Difference Between GIF 87a and GIF 89a?

As I indicated at the meeting, I believe 89a is the later format, and it is capable of handling transparent backgrounds, so it is the one I use myself, but I thought while I had the time, why not check the help list for LView (the program I used when describing these different formats). Well I did not find the differences between GIF 87a and 89a, but I found a number of other questions with fantastic answers about image loss during conversion, converting from GIF to JPG, etc. I thought about including them here, but they were a bit technical for an article about a beginner's program, so I have given them to Paula and asked her to work them into the article she is working on regarding various graphic file formats.

How Do You Get These Pictures?

As indicated at the top of this article, images can come with software you buy, or on special CDs you buy that just contain images, they can come from your scanner or from the scanner of a friend, there are services like Kinkos that will scan images for you for a price, you can buy a digital camera, or have your film developed and printed, and at the same time get scanned images on a disk or CD, etc.

How Do You Print Multiple Pictures on One Page?

When you lay a picture into a word processing document, it occupies a specific place on the page, and is of a specific size. The rest of the page is open to contain either words, which will flow around the images, or other images, and you lay the second, third, and subsequent image into the page the same way you laid the first image. Exactly how you do that depends on the specific word processing program you are using, but in Word Perfect, which is the program I demonstrated with, you just click the Graphics menu, and select Image from the drop-down menu, and then selecting the desired drive, directory, and file from the resulting file selection box. Once you have the image on your document, you can put the mouse in the middle of the image (which on Word Perfect gives you a four pointed arrow) and this means you can click and drag the image to any place you want on your screen. If you put the mouse on one of the boxes (handles) in the center of one of the sides, you can drag that side, enlarging but distorting the image, and if you put it on one of the boxes (handles) on the corners of the image, (and by holding down the shift key to maintain the proper aspect ratio) you can enlarge or shrink the image size.

How Do You Save the Word Processing Document with the Pictures?

You save it just like a regular word processing document, just click File, and Save (or Save As, if you want to change the file name or location). At the meeting I said that I thought the image in Word Perfect was stored external to the document, because we had just experienced that in some testing before the meeting with Photo Recall, and that is certainly the case with some programs (like Photo Recall), but I did some testing before writing this response, creating a WP text document, adding an image, and enlarging the image to fill almost the whole page, and based on the sizes: test1.doc 1,220, test2.doc 10,717, and test3.doc 10,880 I now think that the actual image is included in a Word Perfect file, but that when you enlarge the image, it does not significantly enlarge the file, so it must just store information on the exact coordinates and size of the image in the WP document.

Is It Faster to Save and Send Separate Images or Combined Images?

The reason for combining images is not for speed and sending; it is so that you have some control over what the composite page looks like, i.e. which image is where, and what size. If you merely have several graphic files you want to email to someone, you can just put them into a zip file (using PKZIP or WINZIP) and send that file.

How Do You Save Pictures on the Internet to Files on the Computer

Put your mouse over the graphic image and press the right mouse button, select the Save Image button, and select the drive and directory you want the image saved in, and if you wish to, modify the file name to whatever you want, but leave the extension unchanged.

Explain Mosaic in Corel Draw 3

I no longer have Corel Draw 3 on my system, but on Corel Draw 5's Mosaic the help system shows that you can create a new collection by

(1) Choose New Collection in the File menu

(2) In the New collection dialog box, type a name for the new collection in the File Name box

(3) In the List Files of Type box, choose the type of collection to be created. The choices are library files (.CLB) and catalog files (.CLC).

(4) Choose the drive and directory where you want to save the new collection. Click OK.

(5) Open a directory, or other collection, that contains files you want to add to the new collection. Press and hold the mouse button over a thumbnail you want to add to the new collection.

(6) Drag it to the new collection and release the mouse button. The thumbnail has been moved to the new collection. Pressing the shift key while you drag copies the thumbnail instead of moving it, i.e. the original thumbnail remains in the first collection.

(7) Repeat steps 5 and 6 to build your new collection.

How Do You Create a Directory to Hold Images You Save?

In Windows 3.1 go to the File Manager, select the drive you wish, and if necessary select the directory you want the new directory in, press File, then Create Directory, and enter the name of the desired directory.

For Windows 95 right click the start button, select explore, move to the desired drive and click the plus sign beside the drive letter. If you want the new directory to be a subdirectory of some other directory, select that directory. Once you have the right hand side showing the other directories that are in the same drive/directory where you want to create the new directory (folder), click file, move the cursor over to new, then to folder, and click, and it will create a new folder called "New Folder". You can change this to whatever you want the folder called.

How Do You Set Wallpaper in Windows?

In Windows 3.1 select Control Panel (in Main), then select desktop, and the entry for Wallpaper is on the left side, below Screen Saver and above Sizing Grid. Enter the complete file name (with drive and any necessary directories of a file that is in the "bmp" format in the box called File, and select center if you want that image placed in the center of your screen, and select tile if you have a small image that you want replicated over and over till it fills the screen. If you want to put your bmp file in your WINDOWS directory, you can just select it from the pull down arrow, and not worry about entering the drive and file information.

For Windows 95 right click somewhere on your desktop where there is not any icon, select Properties, and it should come up the background tab already selected. There are two entries, pattern and wallpaper. Select wallpaper, browse till you find the file you want and select it. Choose tile or center, as desired.



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Tulsa Computer Society 07/07/97
Don Singleton, President
tcs@galstar.com