As digital imaging is becoming more popular, many of us are now finding ourselves needing to know the basics of graphics editing.  Concepts such as cropping and resizing are almost essential when dealing with digital imagery.  While concepts like layering and original graphics creation can be more difficult.

We will discuss some basic, but important graphics editing techniques.  This will give you a sample of the techniques used by graphic artists to create and edit attractive graphics.  Resizing and Resolution are two important concepts to understand, so let's talk about those.

Resizing - Large digital images typically take up alot of disk space, so it makes sense to keep your images to a size appropriate to your purpose.  For example, emailing a large image file as an attachment can go a long way to fill up the recipient's email inbox.  However, if you are using a digital image as a background on your computer or your are printing the images, you will want to retain as much size as possible.  As you resize the image, you will want to be aware of a concept called aspect ratio.  Aspect ratio is the ratio of image height to image width.  Graphic artists measure height and width in pixels or less commonly, inches or centimeters.  You will want to keep the aspect ratio intact, meaning that the ratio of height to width should be consistent with the original graphic's height to width ratio.  In other words, if the original graphic is 50 pixels by 150 pixels, you could resize the image to a size of 100 pixels by 300 pixels, but an image size of 100 pixels by 200 pixels would NOT be desirable. 

Resolution - Resolution has to do with how much detail is contained within the image.  For example an image with a resolution of 640 x 480 is lower than one that is 800 x 600.  A lower resolution will save you alot of storage space, and is often good for Internet purposes.  However, for the best looking pictures, you will want to have a high resolution.

MS Windows comes with simple image editing tools such as MS Paintbrush.  However, when doing much image work, you will want to use another tool.  Corel has fine products, but Photoshop is probably the most common professional-grade tool available on the market.  It provides all the basic features and more advanced features like layering and effects.  For best results, trust a graphic artist professional.  Tools such as Photoshop are designed for use by professionals who know graphics editing concepts such as layering, strokes, and channels.