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Chapter DIGITAL
08 IMAGING and
Towards a New Age Graphic Design

PRINTING
G raphic designers work with visual images, either for
print media or for digital media. With the advent of
computers, most of the graphic designer’s work is being done
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using computers. From graphical point of view there is a vast

difference between images on paper such as drawings, sketches
or photographs and images that you see on the screen of the

Digital Imaging and Printing

computers. Images that are created, manipulated and displayed
using computers are called digital images. Digital images are
different from images drawn or painted on paper in many ways.

Types of Digital Images

There are two major categories of digital images: raster images
and vector images. When images are stored in a computer in
the form of a grid of basic picture elements called pixels, then
these images are called raster images. The pixels contain
the information about colour and brightness. Image-editing
programmes can replace or modify the pixels to edit the image
in various ways. The pixels can be modified in groups, or
individually. There are sophisticated algorithms to achieve this.
On the other hand vector images are stored as
mathematical descriptions of the image in terms of lines,
Bezier curves, and text instead of pixels. This is the main
difference between raster and vector images. However, this
difference is responsible for the development of two major
categories of graphic technologies namely: Raster Graphics
and Vector Graphics. Therefore, the image-editing software
used by the practicing graphic designers falls under one of
these categories.
Since the Vector images are in the form of mathematical
descriptions of the basic components of an image, it is easy
to modify and manipulate them as well as transform them
into Raster images. Vector images are easily scalable to any
resolution. Major problem is that though vector images are
mathematically precise many a times a graphic artist feels
that the graphic quality is compromised. Raster images
can also be manipulated and modified in various ways but
transformation of a raster image into a vector image requires
sophisticated computational algorithms. Raster images are
comparatively more precise visually.

Digital Image Editing

Graphic designers frequently use both the types of digital
images. There are tools to convert images on the papers
into digital images. These devices are called scanners.
Such digital images can be further modified or manipulated
digitally. There are software programs to create, modify and
manipulate digital images. Such programs are called digital
image editors. There are digital image editors for two
dimensional image processing as well as three dimensional
image processing. Using digital image editors, a variety of A vector object with
operations on the images are possible. Some of the common editable path and visible
operations are discussed are as follows: nodes
 Selection
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Image manipulation requires selecting either a part of the
image or the entire image to make changes. If you select the
entire image then you can change the orientation, size, colour
etc. If you select a part of the image then all the changes you
Towards a New Age Graphic Design

wish to make will be applicable to selected part. Therefore

‘selection’ is the basic operation in digital image making.
Various image editors provide number of ways to select either
the whole image or part of the image.

Layers
Activity 1 Layer is another most basic but equally important feature
of digital image making. Idea of layers is very simple. If you
Sketch an image of draw a part of the image on one transparent paper and then
size 10 x 10 cms. draw rest of the parts of the image on separate transparent
Separate the image in papers and finally put these transparent papers on each
three different layers other, so that you will see a complete image. Layers are just
to explain the layer like transparent sheets of papers, only difference is that they
concept according are digitally transparent layers. Since parts of the digital
to the image-editing image are separated in terms of separate layers it provides
software. tremendous flexibility for manipulation of the digital image.
l The top layer (the bird) is moved to the left.
l The top layer is moved to the right.
l The top layer (the bird) is partially transparent, so the
background can be seen clearly through its wing.

In this picture the top layer has a drop shadow, a red colour
overlay of 40 per cent, a gradient overlay from red to yellow of
20 per cent opacity, and a slight bevel effect.
Layer Mask
l The blue sky used as the background layer.
l The greenery used as the top layer.
l The layer mask that was applied to the top layer.
Image Cropping
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Cropping is an operation which is frequently done in digital
image manipulation. Image-editing programs have tool that
provide all the facilities to crop the image. Cropping includes
selecting a part of an image and then taking it away from the

Digital Imaging and Printing

image and create a new digital image of the cropped part. All

the digital properties such as resolution etc. of the original

image are preserved in the new image. A primary purpose of A. Uncropped image
the cropping is to improve the visual composition in the new from camera
image.
B. Resort cropped out of
Histogram the larger image

Image-editing programs have facilities to show a graph called

histogram of the image being edited. The histogram shows
the number of pixels in the image on the vertical axis of the
graph and brightness value of the pixel on the horizontal
axis. The editor allows the user to make changes in the
histogram visually and then accordingly the desired changes
are automatically made in the image.
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Towards a New Age Graphic Design

Some editors have a facility to select parts of the image and

then make desired changes in the colour.
Digital imaging is a vast area. There are many operations
that can be performed on digital images. The digital imaging
tools such as digital camera, scanners, digital image editing
software have widely been used by graphic designers. Due
to these software many of the traditional tasks of designing
Histogram of Sunflower image have become easier and faster. These tools give tremendous
flexibility to graphic designers. As one starts using these
tools one realises the potential of the digital image making
technology. This section gives brief information about the
digital image making tools and technologies. These tools are
also highly user-friendly.

Digital Printing
Conventional printing techniques discussed last year, i.e. in
the XI standard textbook on graphic design, are known as
conventional printing techniques. While the technology that
uses computers now-a-days for printing is called digital
printing technique. In digital printing the original design or
Activity 2 the art work is in the digital form on a computer. Therefore
one does not need to make blocks, plates or silk-screens for
In this activity you have to printing. The art work or design is stored in the digital form
make a signage for your and one can take test-prints as a trial and if necessary can
school based on the design be manipulated or modified using suitable editing tools. The
brief given by the school computer is linked to a printer, e.g., inkjet printer or a laser
management. You will start printer. The design is printed on to the paper, fabric or any
with making thumbnails for other suitable material surface in the form of an image with
your design and execute the the help of overlapping colored dots usually of four colours, viz.,
same using an image-editing cyan, magenta, yellow and black- CMYK. Thus the original
software. art work or design in the form of digital data is converted
into the printed image without the help of screens/blocks.
In conventional methods lot of time goes into making blocks,
plates, and screens. Thus it used to be very difficult and 95
costly to take test-prints and make changes in the art work in
those days. In digital printing there are no such intermediate
processes. However, a graphic designer has to take extra care
about colors. The colours that a graphic designer sees on the

Digital Imaging and Printing

computer screen need not be the same when they are printed
on the paper or other materials. Therefore, one needs to take
test-prints and make the required colour corrections in the
original art work till one gets the expected quality of colors in
the print.
Due to digital printing it is possible to print small textual
works such as poetry, or short essay etc. and artworks in
limited quantity. That led to the concept of `Print-on-Demand’.
In this case digital printing can be highly personalised. One
can publish photo albums with individual names or books
for gifts with individual names by using appropriate image
editing tools. One can print just one copy of the book or an
art work whenever and wherever it is required. Even one can
think of printing a part of the book with innovative binding
techniques. `Print-on-Demand’ is a revolutionary concept in
the field of publication.
Retail industry is greatly benefited by digital printing because
advertising became easier for wide range of printable media
with varying sizes from small gift vouchers to huge displays,
hoardings and banners. Digital printing has become very
popular because it has many advantages over the conventional
methods. It is very easy to use and less time-consuming. Also
it is cost-effective in terms of money. Thus digital printing has
opened up a new era in the publication industry.

Exercises
1. What are the differences between Vector images and
Raster images.
2. What are the advantages of using layers in the image-
editing software.
3. Which are the software you have been using of images.
Compare any two by giving their advantages and
disadvantages.