Polaroid BLL Generator - Manual (Page 32)

Important Concepts 33
Bitmaps and Objects
Images can contain bitmaps, objects, or both. Bitmaps consist of dots or pixels. Objects consist of
mathematical descriptions of a shape, such as a polygon or line. Applications that create bitmaps are
often called “paint” programs and those that create objects are often called “draw” or “illustration”
programs. Both graphics and text can be bitmaps or objects.
Graphics
At high-resolution, bitmaps look the same if the film recorder resolution exceeds the resolution of the
bitmap but objects get sharper.
You can usually tell bitmaps from objects by watching how the image is created when it is first displayed
on the screen. Bitmaps are usually drawn on the screen from top to bottom in one chunk. Objects are
assembled in pieces.
Text
Text can be a bitmap or an object, just as graphics can. Text that is part of a bitmapped graphic with
lower than film recorder resolution remains jagged at high-resolution. However, text that is an object
can get sharper when output at high-resolution.
Text created with ATM (Adobe Type Manager) or TrueType fonts is sharp at any size and resolution.
In addition, ATM and TrueType fonts will look the same on screen as on the slides printed by
WinRascol.