Vocabulary
As you learn more about graphics programs, you will come across a
variety of words that have specific connotations in such programs.
Here are a few of the more common ones. If you have a word you
think should be on this vocabulary page, please contact us.
- Frames
- Term used for sequential images that
will appear one after another. Used to make animated products, like
Animated GIFs or Flash documents. Frames are also used in making
rollovers with Fireworks. Drawn from the use of the same term in
film.
- Guides
- Most graphics programs have a grid and
guides that can be turned on and off. Guides are used to make sure
that images line up properly and that different pieces of images align
with each other.
- Handles
- Often used in connection with
paths, handles allow you to change the direction/severity of
the curve around a certain point.
- Hotspot
- Hotspots are areas on an image that
are hotlinks. Used most often with image maps.
- Layers
- Layers are a system used in graphics
programs to make it easy to separately manipulate small parts of
images. (See our help page on layers for
more information).
- Opacity
- Refers to how opaque
(opposite of transparent) something is. Usually given in a
percentage. Something 100% opaque would be entirely visible;
something 0% opaque would be entirely transparent.
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|
 |
| 100% opacity | | 50% opacity |
|---|
- Path
- A line used in graphics programs to
determine how a line will be drawn. Usually, paths have points and
handles on them that allow the curves and angles to be
changed. See our Freehand help for more
detailed description of path-manipulation.
- Raster
- A term for graphics composed of pixels
(as opposed to vectors). See the NWE's help
page on raster and vector graphics for more information on that.
- Slice
- When making a rollover (or more
often, a set of rollovers), sometimes an image is broken up into an
invisible table, so that only part of the image "rolls over"
when the mouse passes over it. Each section of this table is called a
slice.
- Vector
- A term for graphics composed of a
series of instructions (as opposed to raster pixel graphics). See the
NWE's help
page on raster and vector graphics for more information on that.
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