In today's world, graphics are everywhere. While the advent of computer technology discouraged graphics, due to its initial text-based existence, once GUIs were developed the number of and quality of graphics began to increase.
To begin with, it is clear that the web is rife with images and interactive features. Austerity in a website must be a carefully considered organisational theme, not the result of ineptitude of the design or development departments. Not only that, printed promotion, movies, many software and games all utilise high-end graphics (though only the last two could be considered interactive).
Interactivity is an eagerly sought commodity. Programs which request user inputs and change their outputs based on what inputs are entered are interactive. Games are a good example of this, and the technique of giving the user multiple crossroads to choose from which will determine the flow of the story is becoming more prevalent.
But the use of graphics isn't a simple matter of just having or not having them. Not all graphics are created equal, and so not all graphics will suit the same need. There are many aspects that need to be considered when capturing and editing graphics for a specified purpose, because it is the use and purpose that the image is being made for that will determine many of these factors.
Picture Quality vs File Size
Typically the balance between quality and file size will be determined by the context of the image's use. These are determined by the resolution of the image as well as file type.
High resolution TIFF files might possibly look the best, however if the images are meant to be for an online product catalogue, it will be far more important to keep the file size to a minimum. TIFF files contain much data about the image, like layers, and are barely compressed so files tend to be large. JPEG images on the other hand are very compressed, and while the quality of the image may suffer slightly, the small file size is much more appropriate. It may also be necessary to shrink the images themselves to the smallest possible for use in context.
However, for something like a game or a poster, the file size typically is not as imperative as the quality of the image itself. For this, PNG file types may be more suitable. There may also be a requirement to maintain the resolution at a fairly high minimum.
A company like Square Enix, for example, put a great deal of effort into ensuring high-quality graphics with high attention to detail. For them, the quality of the game assets is clearly paramount to the time taken and often leads to the size of the software being considerable.
The difficulty in predicting the suitability of various file types, resolutions, capture and storage methods lies in the fact that these are heavily influenced by the resources at hand. What storage space does the company have? What software does the company use (some file types may not be compatible)? What storage space will the ultimate user/viewer of the image need? How much money and time is available to spend on attaining a particular quality of image, and how imperative is the quality?
How useful an image can be is affected further by how its is captured. Photographs taken for websites are typically stored as JPEGs when they are captured. JPEGs render very high quality images with low file size when used this way (and in fact, few other file types perform as well here). However, game assets created or drawn in Photoshop should probably be stored as TIFF images instead to ensure that relevant data is retained about them.
How an image must be captured or generated and later stored is defined by what the image must be used for. As seen in previous examples, the simple factor of whether the image will ultimately be printed or not already makes a major difference to what matters when the image is being edited. Hence being fully aware of the ultimate purpose and use of the image is key.
Below is a slideshow review of the key points of interactive graphics.
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