Art, no matter how you produce it, requires tools. As we approach the real millennium, the favorite tool for many artists is the computer. While hardware makes it possible to create digital graphics, software enables the artist to harness the computer's energy and create illustrations, photographs, and drawings.

To those computer users who don't work with graphics software on a regular basis, the difference between programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia FreeHand might not seem significant. While digital designers use both programs to create art, that's the only aspect that paint and draw programs have in common. The real difference between these two kinds of software boils down to the fact that paint programs, such as Photoshop, work with bitmapped images, while draw software, like FreeHand, works with vector-based images.

Why so many programs?

There are three basic classes of graphics image files: bitmap, metafile, and vector. A bitmap (sometimes called raster) file is made up of a collection of individual pixels-one for every point on a computer screen. The simplest one-bit files are monochrome images and are composed of a single color against a background. Images that display more shades of color or gray need more than one bit to define those colors. In fact, the more bits in a file, the more colors that can be displayed and manipulated. Paint software, such as Adobe Photoshop and Ulead's PhotoImpact all work with bitmapped image files.

Graphics files saved in vector formats are stored as points, lines, and mathematical formulae describing the shapes that make up a drawing. Photographs are not typically saved in this format because the formulae would either be too complex or would not render the photo sufficiently. When vector files are viewed on your screen or printed, these formulae are converted into a dot pattern and displayed (or printed) as bitmapped graphics. Because all of the pixels that you see are not part of the file itself, the file can be resized without losing image quality. You often see this term used in conjunction with draw programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand.

(Some computer users call vector-format files by the term object-oriented graphics, because of the way vector graphics are coded. But this is a bit of a misnomer. In reality, there are many proprietary vector graphics formats whose code more closely resembles procedural rather than object-oriented programming. Recent work in a standard vector graphics (SVG) format for the Web may enable a closer approximation to the object-oriented paradigm, because of its basis in XML. SVG has made its way into some of these draw programs, making it a requirement for any new draw program purchase. But for this article, when we refer to vector graphics, we mean one of several proprietary formats used by the programs mentioned.)

A metafile is a multifunction graphics file type that accommodates both vector and bitmapped data within the same format. While seemingly more popular in the Windows environment, Apple Computer's old standby PICT format is a metafile. Many kinds of graphics program will work with metafiles.

Bitmap me!

I have often called Photoshop the 600-pound gorilla. While there have been many pretenders to the throne, no challenger has endured. The Windows-only PhotoStyler didn't survive the Aldus-Adobe merger; LivePicture fell victim to machinations I can only guess at; and Painter bounced around like a volleyball before landing in Canada with Corel, whose own PhotoPaint has been a worthy competitor but never mounted a serious attack. Indeed, the only true competitor now is Jasc Paint Shop Pro (PSP), which is popular as much because of its price as its feature set. But PSP fits better in the all-in-one category than in the pure bitmap category.

The latest version of Photoshop is impressive and a much-rumored version 6.0 may be available by the time you read this. Like all previous versions, Photoshop 5.5 is an evolutionary version of what's gone before. The joy of Photoshop is that it is at once easy to use, yet difficult to know completely. For some, it's not a program, it's a way of life.

Though complete understanding of Photoshop is a lifelong project, several features let Photoshop 5.5 users become productive instantly. In previous versions, if you wanted to create graphics for the World Wide Web, you might add plug-ins or reach for another program. Not anymore. You need look no further than the Save for Web command in the File menu that simultaneously shows up to four versions of your original image, allowing you to determine the best combination of compression and resolution for fast download or high image quality.

Photoshop allows you to save files in many Web-safe graphics file formats, including GIF, JPEG, and PNG, as well as a Lossy GIF format that reduces file size as much as 50 percent with minimal image quality loss. You can also preview graphics in any Web browser. At a casual glance, the familiar interface appears unchanged except for a Jump To button located at the bottom of the tool palette. Clicking it transfers the image you're working on into ImageReady-after it's been saved. Photoshop includes Adobe ImageReady 2, which will no longer be sold as a standalone product, as part of version 5.5.

It wouldn't be Photoshop without some interesting new special-effects tools, and version 5.5 has an Art History Brush that lets you apply realistic paint strokes. You can control the brush's size, opacity, fidelity, tolerance, and stroke-style options. If all this sounds like a valentine, I'll admit that it is; just as a kid looks forward to presents under a Christmas tree, I look forward to the next version of Photoshop. As I said, it is a way of life.

Draw me!

While there are many different kinds of bitmapped-graphics programs with price tags ranging from under $50 to upwards of $500, the action in draw programs that do vector images has been, for many years, a shoot-out between Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand. Macromedia introduced FreeHand 9 early this year, and Adobe recently countered with Illustrator 9.

Adobe claims that Illustrator 9 offers graphics capabilities that were previously impossible with other software applications. Whether this is true depends on the user. While someone with no experience using a Paint program can learn to do rudimentary tasks in Photoshop with 30 minutes (or less) of instruction, someone with the same level of training would be hard-pressed to do more than draw a few lines and boxes using vector-based software.

As with the rest of Adobe's fleet of graphics software, the interface of Illustrator 9 integrates with GoLive, LiveMotion, and Photoshop, as well as Premiere and After Effects. In fact, Adobe has created a set of software collections-the Web Collection, Publishing Collection, Dynamic Media Collection, and Design Collection-that are being updated to bundle with Adobe Illustrator 9.0. Not surprisingly, many of the changes to Illustrator have to do with Web graphics.

Designers can use Illustrator to transform editable artwork into compact vector, raster or animated Web graphics using familiar Adobe tools and the same Illustrator interface that many of us have grown accustomed to. The program's Pixel Preview mode makes it easy to see how vector graphics look when rasterized by a Web browser. Via the program's support for Macromedia's Flash and SVG formats, designers can produce smaller vector files that download faster and display more accurately on your screen. The transparency capabilities found in version 9 can be used to apply transparency effects to any object, including bitmapped images and type, so that any underlying objects are visible.

Macromedia's FreeHand 9 has a vector graphics tool set that deigned for artwork intended for print or (surprise!) the Web. Like Illustrator, FreeHand 9 is available in both Macintosh and Windows versions, and is offered in Macromedia's Flash 4 FreeHand 9 Studio bundle. With more than 200 million users, Macromedia's Flash Player is the Web standard for on-screen vector graphics display. Flash enables designers to add Web-based motion, sound, and interactivity to content originally produced for print. FreeHand 9 users also can work with Flash printing technology, which enables high-quality printing from Web applications, including coupons, greeting cards, ad banners, and vector-based city and street maps. FreeHand 9 offers additional Web features, such as a release-to-layers feature that creates animations and other effects without a timeline, letting designers rapidly deploy animated Flash content. Other Web-based features include integrated HTML publishing with URLs, embedded Flash files, and Macromedia Dreamweaver formatting for cross-media publishing. A symbol library allows designers to use master elements across multiple pages and designs.

FreeHand 9 has a customizable user interface, including a new Perspective Grid feature that lets designers represent three-dimensional media in a two-dimensional environment, with customizable vanishing points, snap-to-grid guides, and live grid manipulation and updating. A live enveloping tool lets artists warp and distort graphics in real-time. The AutoTrace feature allows users to convert bitmap graphics into vector objects, while a Magic Wand tool produces automatic tracing of unique sections within an illustration. Additional features include color management options, interactive transformations, and greater control and precision with the FreeHand tool than with the previous version. FreeHand's new vector lasso tool can be used to quickly select areas or objects within an illustration.

Have it both ways

Back in the early days of the Macintosh, one of my favorite graphics programs was Deneba's Canvas. For some time, the program has been available in both Mac OS and Windows versions and over time the program has grown in complexity and capabilities-and, alas, price.

Unlike the other programs mentioned here, Canvas 7 Professional lets you easily move back and forth between the world of vector and bitmapped graphics. The current version has a new Bézier editing engine, with live preview editing of strokes and fills. There's even a Fit Bézier command that converts polygons (often found in technical file formats such as CGM, DXF, and DWG) to smooth curves. Canvas 7 features an Auto Curve tool that generates smooth curves based on simple clicks, making it useful for tracing applications. A Reshape tool lets you edit curves by dragging the mouse to add or remove curves to an existing shape, and the Push tool can turn every path into organic material that you can tug and poke to produce new shapes.

The bitmapped portion of Canvas lets you create transparency masks that can be edited with painting tools for any vector, bitmap, or text object. You can give any object any level of opacity, and nine transfer mode options let you attach vector, bitmap, and text objects to other objects. The transfer mode also can be used to create a transparency map. You can also apply directional, rectangular, radial, and elliptical transparency blends to any object.

Contributing Editor Joe Farace has written more than 20 books on digital graphics and imaging.

Graphics file formats

Often the most difficult aspect of working with graphics involves understanding the lingo. Here's a quick look at some of the acronyms for some of the common file types used in bitmapped and vector graphics programs.

BMP: Often pronounced "bump." This acronym is a file extension for a specific kind of Windows-based bitmap graphics file.

CGM: A vector graphics format that's designed to be portable from one PC-based program to another.

CMX: Corel Presentation Exchange (graphics file format).

DWG: The filename extension for drawing files created by AutoCAD.

DXF: Drawing Interchange Format, utilized by AutoCAD.

FlashPix: An industry-standard file format for digital imaging that is built around a multiple-resolution image file format using Microsoft's OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) structured storage.

GIF: The Graphics Interchange Format developed by CompuServe is completely platform-independent: The same bitmapped file created on a Macintosh is readable by a Windows graphics program. A GIF file is automatically compressed, and consequently takes up less space on your hard disk. Because some image and graphics programs consider GIF files to be indexed color, not all software read and write GIF files, but many do.

There is some slight controversy over the pronunciation of "GIF." Lovers of language can visit the controversy at http://www.netcrusader.net/~olsens/gif.

HPGL: Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language. A vector graphics file format for use in plotters http://www.hp.com.

JPEG: This is an acronym for a compressed graphics format created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group http://www.jpeg.org within the International Standards Organization. Because of the three-letter suffixes used by Windows-based computers, this is often shortened to JPG.

Metafile: This multifunction graphics file type accommodates both vector and bitmapped data within the same file. While seemingly more popular in the Windows environment, Apple Computer's PICT format is a metafile.

PCX: A bitmapped file format originally developed for the popular program PC Paintbrush. Most popular Windows and DOS graphics programs read and write PCX files.

PHOTO CD: Kodak's http://www.kodak.com proprietary process that places digitized files of photographs onto a CD-ROM. PhotoCD facilities can digitize images from color slides and black-and-white or color negatives.

PICT: Another acronym without a strict definition, this time for a metafile file format. As a well-behaved metafile, PICT files contain both bitmapped and object-oriented information.

PNG: Pronounced "ping." Portable Network Graphics is the successor to the GIF format widely used on the Internet and online services, such as CompuServe.

SVG: A new vector graphics format for the Web, based on XML.

TIF, TIFF: Tagged Image File Format is a bitmapped file format originally developed by Microsoft and Aldus. A TIFF file (.tif) is used in Windows) can be any resolution from black-and-white up to 24-bit color. TIFFs are supposed to be platform-independent files, so files created on your Macintosh can (almost) always be read by a Windows graphics program.

J.F.