Airbrush - A propellant using compressed air that to spray a liquid, such as paint, and ink. Often used in used in illustration and photo retouching.
Alignment - The adjustment of arrangement or position in lines of a text or an image — left, right, centered, etc.
Alpha Channel - The process of incorporating an image with a background to create the appearance of partial transparency. Alpha channels are used to create masks that allow you to confine or protect parts of an image you want to apply color, opacity, or make other changes.
Anchor Point - Anchor points allow the user to manipulate a path’s shape or direction by clicking the point and moving it in a direction. They appear along the beginning of a path, at every curve, and at the end of a path. You can also add or subtract anchor points on a path.
Asymmetrical - This is when graphics and/or text are not identical on both sides of a central line.
Baseline - An imaginary line upon which letters sit and descenders extend below the baseline.
Bevel - A tool in design software for drawing angles or modifying the surface of your work to a certain inclination.
Bezier Curve - A parametric curve that represents a vector path in computer graphics. They are frequently drawn using a pen tool and by placing anchor points which can be controlled to form shapes or lines.
Bitmap - A series of bits that forms a structure representing a graphic image. The color of each pixel is individually defined.
Bleed - When a graphic object extends through another in an unwanted manner. It is then trimmed so there is no chance for a white line on the edges.
Border - The decorative design or edge of a surface, line, or area that forms it’s outer boundary.
Canvas Size - Allows you to change the complete size of the document without adjusting the contents of the document
Clipping Path - A tool or shape that’s used to cut out an image.
Cloning Pixels - A function that allows you to replicate pixels from one place to another.
CMYK - Stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key color (aka — black); this color model (also called process color, four color) is a subtractive color model used in color printing.
Color Palette - A set of colors that make up the total range of colors used in graphic computers.
Contrast - The difference in color found between the light and dark parts of an image.
Copy - Copy refers to editorial text supplied for incorporation into a design or website.
Crop - A tool that removes portions of an image. It is usually used in digital photography.
Dodge - This is when you lighten or reduce part of an image by shading.
Double Page Spread - A double page spread is a layout that extends across two pages.
DPI (Dots Per Inch) - A term to describe the measure of sharpness within an image.
Drop Shadow - Is a visual effect added to an image to give the impression the image is raised above the background by duplicating the shadow.
Element - Any distinct part of a layout such as the logo, headline, images, or borders.
Embedding - Process of transferring all the data of a font or image into the file itself.
Emboss - To give a three-dimensional effect to a text or an image by using highlights and shadows on the sides of the illustration.
Export - To save a file in a format supported by other programs.
Feathering - A tool used in graphic design software that makes the edges of an image appear softer.
Filter - A filter is a pre-created effect that can be applied to images to acquire a certain look.
Focal Point - In graphic design terms, the focal point is where you want to draw the reader’s or viewer’s eye.
Frames - Refers to animation. A frame is a single graphic in a distribution of graphic images. The speed of an animation is judged by frames per second.
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) - GIF images display up to 256 colors. It supports animation and allows an individual palette of 256 color for each frame. The color limitation makes the GIF format inappropriate for reproducing color photographs and other images with consistent color. GIF images are compressed using the LZW lossless data compression method to decrease the size of the file without corrupting the visual quality.
Gradient - A function in graphic software that permits the user to fill an object or image with a smooth transition of colors.
Gutter - In book production, the white space formed by the inner margins of a spread near the books spine.
Highlights - Lightest part of a photograph or halftone, as opposed to mid-tones and shadows.
HLS - A color space that stands for hue, lightness, and saturation.
HSB - A color space stands for hue, saturation, and brightness.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Electronic Group) - A common process for compressing digital images.
Justify - To make a line of type a certain length by spacing out the words and numbers.
Kerning - Modifying the horizontal space between letters.
Keyframe - Any frame in which a specific aspect of an item (its size, location, color, etc.) is specifically defined.
Layers - A tool within graphic software that permits the user to gather, organize, and re-edit their artwork.
Leading - Refers to the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of text.
Lossless - Refers to a form of data compression where the detail is maintained and no data is lost after file downsizing. The lossless compression method is often used in TIFF and GIF formats.
Lossy - A form of data compression where detail is deleted as the file size is decreased. JPEG is an example of a lossy compression method.
Luminosity - The brightness of an area arranged by the amount of light it reflects or diffuses.
Master Page - A property found in a page layout software that allows the user to create a constant page layout. Repeating elements—like page numbers—are created once on a master. This permits the user to stay clear of adding the numbers for each page manually.
Midtones - In a photograph or illustration, tones composed by dots between 30 percent and 70 percent of coverage, as opposed to highlights and shadows.
Mock Up - A recreation of the original printed material; could possibly contain instructions or directions.
Negative Space - Also known as white space. The area of a page that doesn’t contain images or words.
Noise - Noise is a term used to describe the development of pixels that contain random colors.
Opacity - The degree of a color or tonal value. The opacity of an image or object that can range from transparent (0% opacity) to opaque (100% opacity). The ability to edit the opacity of specific objects allows the designer to create images that seem to flow into and through one another.
Pica - A unit of measurement for type. Commonly used for typewriters.
Pixel - The smallest picture content that can be individually assigned a color.
PNG (Portable Network Graphics) - PNG (usually pronounced “ping”), is used for lossless compression. The PNG format displays images without jagged edges while keeping file sizes rather small, making them popular on the web. PNG files are generally larger than GIF files.
Rasterize - An image is said to be rasterized when transformed from vector image to a bitmapped image. When opening a vector image in a bitmap-based editing program, you are generally presented with a dialog box of options for rasterizing the image.
Resolution - The resolution of an image is an important factor in deciding the attainable output quality. The higher the resolution of an image, the less pixelated it will be and the curves of the image will appear smoother.
RGB (Red, Green, Blue) - RGB is the color model used to project color on a computer monitor. By combining these three colors, a large percentage of the visible color spectrum can be represented.
Saturation - The intensity of hue. The quality of difference from a gray of the same lightness or brightness.
Text Wrap - A term used in page layout software, specifically to the way text can be shaped around the edges of images.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) - A graphic file format used for storing images . TIFF is a commonly used file format for high color depth images.
Typography - The art of arranging type—which includes letters, numbers, and symbols—so that it is pleasing to the eye. This includes not only the font that is used but how it is arranged on the page: letter by letter, size, line spacing, etc.
Vector Graphic - Vector graphics allow the designer to expand or reduce the vector graphic in size without any loss in quality using curves, points, lines, and polygons.
Verso - The left-hand page of a book or a manuscript.
Web-Safe Colors - A color table containing only 216 out of a possible 256 colors, used to accurately match the colors of graphics and pictures in cross-platform web browsers.