8.5

Pictures
You can import and paste pictures from image-editing or other graphic applications into
QuarkXPress. Once a picture is in a box, you can perform a number of operations on it,
such as altering its position, changing its size, or skewing or flipping it.
Understanding pictures
Picture files come in two fundamental varieties: Raster and object-oriented.
Bitmap pictures
Bitmap pictures (sometimes called raster pictures) are made up of individual pixels (tiny
dots). The pixels align on a grid, which your eye blends into a single image.
Color mode describes the way colors are represented in a file; bit depth is the number of bits
used to represent each pixel. The simplest color mode is 1-bit (also known as "line art" or
"black-and-white"). More complex images, such as photographs, have depth because they
contain multiple-bit pixels that can describe many levels of gray or color.
Dimensions describe the physical size of a picture (for example, 3" x 5"). The dimensions
of a picture file are determined by the application that creates it, and dimensions are stored
in the picture file.
Resolution is the number of pixels (dots) per inch in a picture. Resolution is dependent on
dimension. In other words, if you change a picture's dimensions, you change its resolution
too. For example, consider a 72 dpi picture that's 1" x 1". If you scale that picture to 200%
after importing it, its effective resolution drops to 36 dpi, because the pixels are enlarged.
To determine the effective resolution of an imported picture, use the Effective Resolution
field in the Classic tab of the Measurements palette.
Object-oriented pictures
Object-oriented pictures contain information that describes how to draw the position and
attributes of geometric objects. You can then reduce, enlarge, stretch, and rotate these
pictures without worrying about how they will look — object-oriented pictures look
smooth, no matter what their scaled size may be, because the are not made up of pixels.
160 | A GUIDE TO QUARKXPRESS 8.5: PLUS EDITION
PICTURES