1-bit Black & White Bitmap

A type of bitmap image that contains only pure black or pure white pixels. Used in situations where shades of grey are not present as with scanned text or line drawings. Should be scanned at high resolutions above 1200dpi.

Acrobat

Adobe software product that converts page layouts into a standard format based on the Postscript language. It translates text, vector and bitmap information into PDF files which can then be viewed and printed on any machine regardless of platform. A useful format for printers as all images and fonts are contained and compressed in the same file enabling fast transfer over the internet. Files have a .pdf extension.

Aliasing/Anti-Aliasing

Aliasing is the visual stair stepping of edges (jagged edges) that occurs in an image when the resolution is too low. Anti-Aliasing is the smoothing and removing of aliasing effects by electronic filtering and other techniques such as blending of hard edges.

Alpha Channel

An image editing software channel containing information used to mask or partially reveal areas of a bitmap image. Useful to remove backgrounds from objects.

Ampersand

The "&" symbol which stands for the word "and". It is actually a stylistic combination of the letters that make the Latin word 'et' which means 'and'.

Art Paper

A smooth coated paper obtained by adding a coating of china clay compound on one or both sides of the paper.

Banding

Patterns (stripes) on a print caused by insufficient colour or greyscale ranges within the output devices image processor, or insufficient information contained within the original scan. Creates harsh, well defined transitions between different tonal ranges, where a smooth transition was required.

Beziér Curve

Curved line segments created by establishing endpoints or anchor points, and at least one transient point or node. A common method used to create irregular lines and shapes in design software.

Bitmap

A bitmap image is composed of a grid of dots (also called pixels or bits). All the digital photographs on your hard drive are bitmaps. If you zoom right up close in your software applications you will actually notice the image is composed of squares those are the bits. Bitmap images cannot be easily scaled up in size without loss of quality.

Black Generation

The calculation determining the degree of black ink to be added when separating an RGB colour image into CMYK colours.