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The Tools: Graphics

ENG 260 Business And Professional Writing

Medaille College - Fall 2009

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Figures

Figures are everything that's not text, headings, or tables. Figures are charts, graphs, maps, pictures, and anything else that you include to make your report more accessible and attractive.

Figures are all the things that go into the box (see box model) that you insert to break up the flow of text or to let the text flow around.

In computer terms, the box "floats" if the text flows around it.

software

While a lot of plug-in and standalone software will help, the one we are going to use for this purpose is the charting plug-in that comes with Excel.

examples

This timeline chart puts a lot of information in one place: Wikimedia Growth

image formats, image editing, screen shots

palettes

Choose a set of colors that work well together -- four or five will usually suffice.

ColorJack and ColorJack's Sphere

Record the hexdecimal values -- (0 - 10, A - H, for a total of 16) ex: C399BA -- for next month when you design your web.

common image editing software

Paint is on every Windows computer (Start | Programs | Accessories)

PaintShop Pro - made by Jasc, owned by Corel, trial version installed on all new Dell computers

Photoshop or Photoshop Elements on the school computers

GIMP -- see below

Irfan View -- see below

expectations

Now that you know the basics of image editing, we can expect that

your still images will be appropriately sized

your still images will be effectively cropped

you will know how to place text onto an image as part of the image

you can combine images into collages

common image editing tasks

crop the image leaving space for the text away from the point of main interest in the image
resize the image
put text on it -- descriptive, informative, funny comment -- and place the text in the space you left for it. If you want to be fancy, put the text on a path.
combine multiple images into one image

Specialized software that may have come with your computer or your camera will often perform these basic tasks quickly and efficiently. However, they probably don't do much else. When you reach the limits of that specialized software, then you will need to start learning the tools in a more powerful piece of software such as those above.

Microsoft Paint

You will find it in Start | All Programs | Accessories | Paint

It can do only the basics, chief among them cropping, resizing, and adding text

crop

With an image file open, drag one of the handles on the bottom, right side, or lower right corner.

Pull down Images | Attributes and type in a new size.

or (recommended)

Use the Select or Free-Form Select tool to draw a dotted-line box around your selection, then copy, File | New, and paste.

resize

With an image file open, pull down Images | Skew and type in new percentages for Horizontal and Vertical.

Less than 100% will shrink it.

The same percentages will preserve the original aspect ratio.

add text

With an image file open, select the text tool (A).

In the Font box that appears (or pull down View and enable it), select font and size.

In the palette, select the color for foreground/text and, by right-clicking, the color for background/box.

Select an insertion point and start typing. The box can be resized and repositioned.

combine images

With an image open (and perhaps already cropped and resized), pull down Edit | Paste From ... .

Select another image. Press Open to open it in its "natural" (full) size, bounded by dashed lines, that is, pre-selected.

Crop and resize using the directions above. Re-position by dragging the box.

Notes:

If the inserted image came from your digital camera, it may well be very large, and you will have to wrestle it smaller.

Paint will not let you change the transparency of the element in your collage. Use a more full-featured image editor.

GIMP

GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program - on the H215, H225, and NMI computers

I recommend that you download GIMP for Windows to your own laptop or PC -- it's free of charge -- install it, and use it yourself. Use the Download links below. It's a professional tool at an unbeatable price.

The GIMP for Windows (version 2.2.13, fixed installer) - Download

If this is the first time you're installing The GIMP, you will also need GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment (version 2.10.6, for Windows 2000 and newer) - Download

Wikipedia summary

GIMP documentation | tutorials | help |

beginner's tips

Talk - Community - discussion forum with lots of tutorials and tips

That's Wilber the Wizard himself there on the left.

Irfan View

This software is freely available at no charge. Wikipedia's Irfan View. Without plug-ins, it will do the following:

Add Text, Crop, Cut/Copy selected area, Paste-Into selected area, paste from PrintScreen, Resize/Resample, Rotate, Flip Vert/Horiz, JPG lossless transformations, Color Adjustments, Greyscale, Red-Eye Reduction, Sharpen, effects/filters, Own and 8bf (Photoshop) plugins compatibility, edit IPTC info, Move, Copy, Delete, Rename, Convert, batch conversion, batch renaming/resizing/cropping, panorama creation, send email

With plug-ins (link of left column of welcome page), it will do much more.

NGfL Cymru's IrfanView Guide

Milleneum's IrfanView Tutorial

Associated Content's Irfanview: How to Crop and Resize Pictures

OnLineHowTo.net's Irfan View

basic image editing tasks

University of Texas' An Introduction to the Gimp

resize, crop, eliminate red-eye, add text to images, select parts of images, combine images, layers, transparencies, filter

resize

UT's Image Cropping, Resizing, and Saving in JPEG Format :

resizing

There is a difference between the "full size" or "natural size" of an image and the size at which the image is being displayed.

When images open, they are resized to fit the screen space available. The percentage of "full size" at which it is being displayed shows on the bottom left.

If you are going to combine images or parts of them, they will combine at their "natural sizes", not the display sizes.

how to resize

To resize, pull down the Image menu and select Scale Image ....

crop

UT's Image Cropping, Resizing, and Saving in JPEG Format

cropping

how to crop

cropping - use the crop tool

cropping to leave space for text

The original is below.

I want to emphasize the star, and I don't need the tree on the left or the barn on the right. I also need to leave room for text.

In this crop below left, there is room for text in the lower half of the image, but I may not want to obscure the porch. So I can use the crop below right.