The WebDev Buzz

The first version of Adobe ImageReady, labeled 1.0, was originally considered a program which is separate from any other programs produced by the Adobe Systems. The second and later versions, however, was packaged together with the Adobe Photoshop. Here is a condensed form of Adobe ImageReady’s history.

• July 1999 – The version 2.0 of Adobe ImageReady was shipped together with Adobe Photoshop 5.5
• October 2000 – The version 3 of Adobe ImageReady was packaged together with the Adobe Photoshop 6.0
• February 2002 – There was no versions 4, 5 and 6 for Adobe ImageReady. The version 7.0 was released. The number was synchronized with that of Adobe Photoshop 7
• October 2003 – With the creation of the umbrella company Adobe Creative Suite, the names of all Adobe programs were changed and now contain the initials CS. Thus, the Adobe ImageReady version 8 is really called Adobe ImageReady CS. This version is again packaged with Photoshop CS
• May 2005 – The most recent version of Adobe ImageReady was released. It is the 9th version and it is called Adobe ImageReady CS2, similar to that of Photoshop CS2.

The reason why Adobe ImageReady was packaged with Adobe Photoshop is that its features complement those of the latter program. The Adobe ImageReady is a bitmap graphics editor. This means that it is a software that enables the user to paint or create pictures and diagrams using the computer screen. It also allows users to edit the already existing pictures.

Once a picture or diagram is created, the Adobe ImageReady may it in any of the raster formats, such as bitmap, JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), PNG (Portable Network Graphics), GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format).

Aside from the above capabilities, the Adobe Image Ready can be used to produce animated GIF images. The GIF is a bitmap image format which was introduced in 1987 by CompuServe. A GIF image has an upper limit of 256 distinct colors. GIF is ideal for websites because it is a compressed file. The smaller size allows it to be transferred over a network connection.

The Adobe ImageReady is great for web designing because it can generate HTML (HypertText Marked-up Language). It is also capable of optimizing image compression. After using it for editing web graphics, this software can further reduce the size of image files. The image compression may be “lossy” or “lossless”.

A lossy compression must be done for natural images such as photographs of people or scenes. This is because whatever is lost during the compression is almost imperceptible. A lossless compression, on the other hand, is ideal for diagrams, drawings, or icons.