Hardware

HARDWARE

Graphics tablet:

A graphics tablet is a device that enables the user to hand draw images and graphics. A graphics tablet allows the user to draw a picture without having to use a mouse or keyboard. A graphics tablet consists of a flat tablet and a pen or stylus. It may also be referred to as a drawing tablet or drawing pad.

Key tools and functions of a graphics tablet:

• portable
• wireless
• good for programmes that consist of drawing
• has a stylus which is much like using a pen

Limitations of a graphics tablet:

·         It can be more expensive than a mouse

·         Can be difficult to use

·         Not as precise as a mouse for menu control of software packages

·         Can take more practice to use

·         can be move difficult to control use of this between hand/eye and screen control

Digital Camera:

A digital camera mainly takes photos, but they can have extra features that enable it to do more, like take videos.

Key tools of a digital camera:

• you can zoom in and zoom out
• you can record videos aswell as take pictures
• the image quality is far better
• you can view the images you take 
• you can delete images 
• red eye remover

Limitations of a digital camera:

·         Printing images -May not print and display images anymore, just save them on computer.

·         Memory card problems- could break or become corrupt

·         May find that technology is continuously evolving so the quality of your camera may be out of date in 12months time

Software

Photoshop:

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Adobe Photo shop is a good software package used for editing and creating graphics. Photo shop can also be used editing and manipulating images.

Limitations of Photoshop would be that it is a very complex package with a lot of add-ons which would make it very difficult to know everything there is to know about Photoshop.

SUMO PAINT:

Sumo paint is a web based graphics editor with a variety of different editing tool. Sumo paint can be used as a paint program and photo editing program. With sumo paint you can save your artwork on your computer but also on sumo account in the web. This allows you to open your images from any computer. It is free online Flash-based image editor created in 2007. It is very similar to Photoshop, in that it features many of the same tools, but Sumo Paint is geared towards illustration, where other software such as Photoshop is more suited for heavy image editing.

Unlike Photoshop sumo paint does not have a lot of add ons so it is very limited to what you can do, and is also not as good as Photoshop. Another limitation is that you need access to the internet in order to use sumo paint.

Hardware Components Performance

Hardware compoinents can affect the performances of the computer system used to manipulate digital graphics.

Hard Drive: If hard drive is full it may afect the performance of your computer by making it run slower.

Graphics Card: The graphics card mainly affects watching videos and playing games.

Ram: If your computer is using too much virtual memory or spending a lot of time paging because you don’t have enough physical memory (RAM) to handle the resources/programs you are using then your computer will be considerably slower.

Processor: The processor will effect your computers preformance if your processor is slow then it will make your computer run slow and if your processor is fast then your computer will be faster.

Hardware components in digital graphics

There are various hardware components that can be used to create and minipulate digital graphics. i will now describe these components:

MOUSE:

For editing pictures you would want a mouse with a high dpi and the freedom to move easily, that’s why I would recommend using a wireless laser mouse.

MONITOR:

 Screen size, higher resolution monitors allow more information to be simultaneously displayed on the screen.

GRAPHICS TABLET:

 The Graphics Tablet is very similar to a mouse. It allows you to control what is going on, on screen. But yet it gives you the freedom to draw images, touch up and edit photos.  

DIGITAL CAMERA:

 This is a camera that does not use film, but instead stored the photographs in a digital format in memory on the camera. These images can then be downloaded to a computer. 

SCANNER:

 A scanner is needed when turning a photograph in a digital image on the computer.

USB:

Known as a memory stick, they are commonly used in the transfer of images, and graphic material. This form of transport is very quick and simple.










Firewire:

Is used for transfering information between digital devices. It is fast at transfering data, good for plug and play, and is eaisly used.