Semiotics

Semiotics

The science of symbols

There are three sub categories of semiotics.

Iconic

These images are images that represent exactly what they are. Example Images would be pictures of Fire, hands in gears, signs with the word danger.

Indexical

These images are images that cause and effect. These images include smoke, ash, choking, and slipping.

Symbolic

Symbolic images are images that need to be taught to understand. Symbolic mages include symbols for the handicapped, restrooms radiation, and bio-hazard.

The restroom symbol

This symbol denotes the female restroom is beyond this door. The meaning of the symbol needs to be taught to a person, which makes it a Symbolic image.

Color Mode Exercise

Today we are playing with Color modes.

RGB

RGB’s scope of color is ~16.7 Million Colors. Each channel in the RGB color range has 256 colors that come together to make that ~16.7 million colors.

This image’s uncompressed size is 2.22m.

Indexed Color

Indexed Color’s scope of color is 256 or less. Indexed color has a variable number of colors, I chose to use 12.

This image’s uncompressed size is 759.4k.

Greyscale

Greyscale’s scope of color is 256. Greyscale only has the equivalent of one channel of RGB which changes the file size of the image.

This image’s uncompressed size is 759.4k

Bitmap

Bitmap’s scope of color is 2. Bitmap is a form of Binary art, where a pixel is either black or white.

This image’s uncompressed size is 1.61m

Quiz time

1: Can you change FILE FORMAT just y changing it’s name?

No, changing the file format in the name confuses the computer and makes it unreadable.

2: How Many colors are in the following COLOR MODES?

            RGB: ~16.7 Million

            INDEXED COLOR: 256 or less

            GREYSCALE: 256

            BITMAP: 2

3: What happens to the (Uncompressed) FILE SIZE as you change the COLOR MODES?

The file size changes; for example when you go from RGB to GREYSCALE the file size goes down to roughly a third its original size.

4: What happens to the visual quality of images as you REDUCE the number of colors by changing the color modes?

The removal of colors reduces the image’s quality. 

5: What is a good reason to convert PSD files to JPG?

PSD is the file type used for working as it saves more information. JPGs are used for delivery, for example posting to the web, because it saves less information.