Marketing Resources

1. Marketing Resources My research.

2. Graphics Cards A graphics card is a piece of hardware for a computer that draws every image you see on your computers screen. It is an essential piece of hardware that everyone needs. Some Motherboards contain onboard chips which borrow some memory from the computers ram to function in the same way as a graphics card which has dedicated memory.

3. Graphics Tablets Graphics tablets are classified as hardware and they are basically a big pad that responds to pressure. The devices come with a pen that is known as the stylus which is used to apply the pressure without causing damage to the Tablet and to get a precise input. They are normally used by artists to draw in the same way as they do on their paper but they can draw directly onto the computer so they don’t have to scan anything in. The same technology can be used on things like touch screen phones, iPods and there are now pads which you put your signature on digitally.

4. Digital Cameras A digital camera is a camera that stores your images on a memory card instead of storing it on a piece of film. This way of storing the image has a number of advantages and disadvantages. One of the main advantages is that you can transfer the images directly to your computer, in the exact same quality they were taken at. On a film camera the main advantage is the quality but this advantage only applies if you are going to have the picture physically rather than digitally because you have to scan the picture from a film camera if you want it digitally and then you lose the quality that you were originally trying to get.

5. Printers A printer is a device that can put text or images onto various different materials. There are printers specialized in printing on certain materials such as acetate but most just print on Paper of A4 size. There are a few types of printer but the one you will see and use the most is a Line printer. This kind of printer prints fast but with lower quality than the other types. Among the other types is Laser which prints slower and is considerably more expensive but prints with a much better quality.

6. Monitors The monitor on a computer displays the signal that the Graphics Card send out. The graphics card determines what colour every pixel is going to be and the monitor displays these pixels. Monitors are now mainly LCD monitors because they have a better quality and a much smaller size than their tube counterparts but have a slight delay between your actions and them being displayed on the monitor.

7. CD-Rom A CD-Rom is a Compact Disc, they come in two sizes. 8cm and 12cm. The 12cm disk can hold considerably more but requires more space to store it in. These disks can contain anything that is the right size. They are primarily used to store Music. They were used to store Games and Videos before DVDs were around.

8. HDD HDD is short for Hard Disk Drive. This is a disk in which data can be stored onto. There are heads floating above them on the cushion of air generated by their spinning motion which can read this data magnetically.

9. Memory SD Card An SD card is a small device that is used by a lot of electronic devices such as Cameras, Phones, MP3 Players and some Laptops. An SD Card just stores information but is very small for the amount it can store. Since they were first developed they have become increasingly smaller and it is their main advantage over other ways of storing information. They are also rewritable. You can store information then remove it and store something else.

10. Vector Graphics Software Vector Graphics Software is any Software/Programme that can create a Vector Graphics Image. Programmes like Corel and Visio are these kind of programmes. Vector graphics uses sets of shapes to make up images, it can use Points, Lines, Curves, Shapes and Polygons to create an image. This way the image retains it’s quality when you magnify it, unlike bitmap images which appear as blocks of colour. This kind of image can be very useful for creating large posters but not as useful if you need to send the images to others because they can become very large, very fast.

11. Bitmap Graphics Software Bitmap graphics software is any programme that creates an image using the bitmap technique. Bitmap is where you choose the colour of individual pixels to create a whole image. This can create much smaller files than Vector that look great in their native size, the size they were created in, but if you want to zoom in or make the image larger then you get what’s known as ‘pixelation’ where you see the boxes that the image is made up of. Bitmap can create very small files but the images can be less useful if you want to make them larger for printing big posters or detailed images.

12. Photo Manipulation Software Photo manipulation software is a type of software that can edit images to create something that either looks completely different and doesn’t resemble the starting image at all or you can make very subtle changes but even these can radically change the way in which the audience may interpret the photo. The most used and best example of a piece of Photo Manipulation Software is Adobe’s Photoshop. Photoshop can read and save Vector images along with Bitmap images. Photoshop also has the capability to create animations and edit different media types.

13. Which is the best? I believe that Adobe’s Photoshop is the best programme for most uses because it can read both Vector and Bitmap images, it has a large number of tools that can do a variety of different things to get the image you want and it can save very high quality images however it does have some disadvantages over other products, these include a steep learning curve. The variety of tools is a double edged sword because the sheer number of options can confuse new users. It is also extremely expensive at $650, that’s about £450.

14. File type File type determines the way that a files is stored, opened and read by programmes. Converting a file could be done for a few reasons. The most common reason is to make it work in a different programme but other reasons are to reduce file size or to get better quality.

15. File Sizes Files are measured in something called Bytes. As computers have got the ability to store, read and write more information Bytes are normally not used, the smallest unit of measurement used is normally the kilobyte which is 1000 bytes. After this is a megabyte which is 1000 kilobytes, then a gigabyte which is 1000 megabytes and a terabyte which is 1000 gigabytes! Files sizes will continue to increase as computers gain the ability to store, read and write more information quicker.

16. Why name files? Naming files helps you organise your files so you can find what you want a lot easier and a lot faster. Further than naming you can organise files into folders which can be organised into folders or sub-folders to make it even easier. If you don’t name anything you will find it extremely hard to get to the work or files that you want to get to.

17. The different types of file. There are literally thousands of file types that can be used, different programmes read different files. Often files types are created for specific programmes like Photoshop. Adobe created their own file type called .psd which is used to save and read Photoshop projects. Photoshop can also save and read all basic image types like .jpeg and .gif

18. The different image files. The most common image file is .Jpeg which is a simple and small image format but it can’t hold moving images or images that have a transparent background. To hold moving images you can use a file format called .gif which has a lower quality and larger size than Jpeg but can have a moving image in it. If you want an image that has a transparent background you need to use .png, it has a larger file size than Jpeg and a better quality.