Ubuntu® Linux® Bible

Chapter 12. Working with Graphics

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Overview of digital graphics

• Working with images

• Using drawing tools for Ubuntu

• Working with vector graphics

As a writer, I've always somewhat resented the old saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words." Can't I just do the thousand words and we can all move on?

I'm kidding of course—there are many times when a picture is worth far more than any number of words, such as the screen shots in this book, photographs and artwork in advertising, or various publications that specialize in glorifying the human form. No one has ever described a text-heavy document as eye-catching, even despite the best efforts of typographers and the layout artists at Wired. Even if you're not a graphics artist, there are times when everyone needs software for editing graphics and creating drawings, whether you just want to remove the terminal case of red-eye from all of your vacation photographs or produce simple illustrations for a card, letter, or presentation.

If you've worked with graphics packages such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, or CorelDRAW, or Corel's Paint Shop Pro (formerly from JASC), you'll be happy to know that open source packages with most of the capabilities that you'll need to do the same sort of work are freely available for Ubuntu Linux. Some are pre-installed, and some are located in Ubuntu repositories and are therefore just a download away.

This chapter helps you make some sense out of the maze of acronyms, general terminology, ...