PSD File

A digital file created in Adobe's illustration and photo manipulation software Photoshop. PSD files are used to edit images, create graphics, art, icons, images, among a plethora of other things.

More terms you might want to know

Printer's Proof

A print that the printer receives to monitor the progress of production. Proofing is a matter of looking at the print to ensure that it has been printed correctly and that the colours are rendered accurately.

Kerning

The process of adjusting the spacing between individual letters to improve or avoid particular visual distortions.

Aperture

The setting on a camera's lens which controls how much light comes into the camera. Aperture settings can usually be set to F-stop values ranging from F1.4-F22. The higher the aperture value, the smaller the opening is, and vice versa, which affects the depth of field in photos and how much light reaches and illuminates a subject or scene in a photo.

Readability

A measure of the ease of understanding text.

Prototype

Usually the first functional form of a new product, created to test a concept or prove out some aspects of design.

Agile Design

A process that involves assigning people to work on different parts of the design and making sure that they focus on one area at a time. This method is an excellent way to release products more quickly and with higher quality.

The most common types of agile methods are Scrum, Kanban, XP and Agile Modeling. It can often be difficult for companies to make the switch because it requires significant changes in how product development occurs.

Crop Marks

Also called trim marks, are markings on artwork that tells the printer where to cut the page.

Material Design

A design language developed by Google. The goal of Material Design was to create fluid, natural movement for users on any platform they happen to be using.

Proximity

The placement or otherwise of a thing in relation to other things. In design, proximity may be considered as the distance between two items in space or their relative location to each other.

Heuristic Evaluation

A usability assessment method that is used to evaluate a design against established usability principles or heuristics. It is based on the idea that designers can use their experience to find areas of poor design without extensive user testing.

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