Digital imaging and graphics

Digital imaging and graphics means making and working with pictures — photographs, illustrations and graphics — using digital technology. These images are media products in their own right, and they also appear inside almost every other product, from adverts to apps.

Where the images come from

A digital camera captures a scene on a light sensor and saves it straight away as a digital file, so a photo of a school sports day is ready to use with no film to develop. A scanner does the opposite: it shines a light across a printed photo or a hand-drawn sketch and turns it into a digital image you can edit.

Not every image starts in the real world. Computer-generated images are built from scratch on a computer, such as a logo drawn from shapes, a cartoon character, or the texture wrapped around a 3D object in a game.

Software for working with images

• Image editing software changes an existing photo: cropping it, brightening a dull sky or removing a scratch.
• Illustration software draws new images from shapes and lines, which suits logos and icons because they stay sharp at any size.
• Desktop publishing software arranges images and text together on a page, such as a poster or leaflet layout.

Used right across the media industry

Because an image file is easy to copy and adapt, the same graphic turns up in several sectors at once. Print publishing uses graphics on posters and adverts, websites use them for banners and product shots, social media platforms are built almost entirely from photos and graphics, and digital games use them for character art and icons.

For example, a youth theatre group runs a competition to design a logo. A member sketches an idea, scans the sketch, redraws it neatly in illustration software, then puts the logo and a brightened photo of last year's show into a desktop publishing layout for a printed poster. The same logo file then becomes the banner on the group's website and the picture on its social media profile: one image used in three sectors.