DGI-Invisuals News and Information

Acronyms Revealed!
Digital design and imaging has a language all its own.

EPS - Encapsulated Postscript (Could be Photoshop or Illustrator)
PostScript (.PS) file that may contain vector graphics, bitmap images, and text; includes an embedded
preview image in bitmap format; often used for transferring between different operating
systems.

GIF - Graphics Interchange File Format (Compressed image format for use with Internet)
GIFs are common format for Web graphics, especially small images and images that contain text,
such as navigation buttons.

JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group
Compressed graphic format standardized by the JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group); compressed
using lossy compression, which may noticeably reduce the image quality if high amounts
of compression are used. JPEG images are commonly used for Web graphics and for storing
photos taken with a digital camera. More commonly seen with a .JPG extension.

PNG - Portable Network Graphic (Alternative to GIF format for web)
Image format that uses indexed colors and lossless compression (like a .GIF file), but without
copyright limitation.

TIFF - Tagged Image File Format (Standard raster file format usually from Photoshop)
High-quality graphics format often used for storing images with many colors, such as digital photos;
short for "TIFF;" includes support for layers and pages.

AI - Adobe Illustrator native file
Vector image file created by Adobe Illustrator; composed of paths, or lines connected by points,
instead of bitmap data; may include objects, color, and text; often referred to as a Illustrator drawing.
Illustrator documents can be opened with Photoshop, but the image will be rasterized, meaning it
will be converted from a vector image to a bitmap.
Drawing (or vector image) created with CorelDRAW; proprietary format used by Corel software
and is not recognized by most image editing programs; if opened in CorelDRAW, the file can be
exported in other more compatible formats.

INDD - InDesign Document
Professional page layout project created by Adobe InDesign; includes page formatting information,
page content, linked files, styles, and swatches.

PDF - Portable Document Format
Cross-platform document created by Adobe Acrobat or a program with the Acrobat plug-in; commonly
used for e-mail attachments or for saving publications in a standard format for viewing on
multiple computers; usually created from another document instead of from scratch.
May contain text, images, forms, annotations, outlines, and other data; preserves fonts and formatting
electronically across multiple platforms.