Technical data

Color and Input/Output Options 91
This chapter ties together a variety of loose ends... mindful of the fact
that every PhotoPlus user will arrive with different needs and prior
experience. The other Companion chapters focus on step-by-step
procedures to build familiarity with tools and functions. Much of the
important theory that underlies the program’s workings has had to take
a back seat.
As you read through the topics here—all dealing in one way or another
with different ways of representing pictures as on-screen bits and
bytes—you’ll realize how indispensable these underlying concepts are.
Although this is the final chapter, it can make a good starting point, too.
Color Concepts
It’s always difficult to draw a line between concepts you should
understand before you get started, and those that can wait until you
absolutely need them. Here we’ve collected a few key terms and
concepts relating to color, and presented them roughly in order of
priority, trying to keep it simple without oversimplifying. So we suggest
you just begin at the beginning, and treat this as a reference section you
can revisit at any time.
Bitmaps
First of all, PhotoPlus is all of the following things and more: a “photo
editor,” a “paint program,” a “bitmap editor.” It lets you create
manipulate images called “bitmaps,” “paint-type” images,” or “raster
graphics.” Don’t be overwhelmed by the jargon—all these terms
communicate a single concept! Bitmaps (let’s settle on that term) are
digital pictures (which may or may not be photographs) represented by
lots of colored dots (“pixels”) on a computer screen (“raster”). You
create these images by “painting” or filling in regions on the screen,
regions that can be as small as a single pixel or as large as the whole
screen (or larger).