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Acquire

The opening up and importing of files into a given software application. The term is applied differently in different types of software.With imaging software it is most often done through a TWAIN interface or plug-in mini-application.

Importing an image using the TWAIN interface in Photoshop

Additive color theory

A theory that has been developed to explain and describe how color is formed. Additive theory applies to transmitted light and relates to adding red, green, and blue together which forms white. The absence of color is black.

Additive color mixing is the mixing of projected beams of colored light to form other colors. Many people find additive mixing difficult to understand because it is so different from the color mixing theory that they have laerned in elementary school. Additive color mixing is how computer monitors produce color so it is important for digital artists to know.

The three primary colors of additive color mixing are blue, green, and red which can be mixed to produce cyan (blue and green), yellow (green and red), and magenta (red and blue). When all three colors are mixed together they form white. If white light is reflected through a prism, it reverses the process and produces a rainbow. The system is called "additive" because all three primaries "add up" to white, the total of all wavelengths of colored light.

Analog

An image that contains an infinite number of tones or colors. Color and black and white photographs are examples of analog images.

Analog format is also the opposite of digital format, the format used and interpreted by computers.

Animated GIF

An animated GIF is a web-based graphic which creates an illusion of motion. It consists of a series of images in GIF format that are displayed in sequence - much like a flip-book.

Animation

The creation of artificial moving images.

Antialiasing

A technique used on grayscale or color bitmap displays to make diagonal edges appear smoother by setting pixels near the edge to intermediate colors. For example, if you are creating an image that contains black text on a white background, all around the edges of the each black letter will be varying colors of gray pixels (black and white mixed) to create a smoother transition between the letters and the background.

Aspect Ratio

Refers to the height versus the width of an image. An image that is 400 pixels by 200 pixels is siad to have an aspect ratio of 2:1.