When someone refers to manipulating graphical elements in a photo,…

Jul. 25th, 2007

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Jul. 25th, 2007

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5:04 PM

When someone refers to manipulating graphical elements in a photo, wallpaper, background, etc. and they say they "vectored" something or that something in an object is a "vector"... what the holy fuck are they talking about?

I've never seen that word used that way and suddenly it seems it's being used to refer to something very specific that I just don't get.

Are these fuckers referring to putting a dark line around something? I've seen people refer to posterizing things as "vectoring" theme.... which is a goofy and pretty incorrect use. Is this just more of the same?

I'm old and I don't understand. Help me.

( 8 comments — Leave a comment )

skreidle

Jul. 25th, 2007 09:53 pm (UTC)

Hmm.. I haven't seen that specific usage, but if I had to guess, I'd go toward abstract mathematics--spaces (or vector spaces) and maps. To summarize, a "vector" can be a description of a mathematical manipulation of an object--and in computer graphics, that can result in a graphical manipulation.

If I had to guess. :)

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maddening

Jul. 25th, 2007 10:07 pm (UTC)

See, I'm used to the concept of mathmatically based/manipulated graphics. Some of the earliest "computer graphics" you saw in movies were "vector graphics". So what you described is basically what I think of when I think of vectoring.

But this is coming from kids making wallpapers in anime communities. Like... they cut out an image of a person from a still and place it on a background and play around with a bunch of brushes in Photoshop. And they're referring to whatever they did to the image cut out as "vectoring". The only thing I actually see that has any consistency is a dark, hardline around the figure. These kids are just using Photoshop...these aren't traditional vector graphics and they certainly aren't creating these images on their own (beyond MAYBE using some custom made brushes in photoshop).

I dunno. I'm pretty sure this isn't a case of the specific replacing the general...but I can't figure out where this came from either. And searching turns up the correct (mathematically based) usage and not this usage.

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punkalicia

Jul. 25th, 2007 11:01 pm (UTC)

yeah, those would be kids who have NO idea wtf they are talking about.

now, it's possible that they converted the image to a vector, for scaling...but you'd probably be able to tell.

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punkalicia

Jul. 25th, 2007 10:45 pm (UTC)

i have no idea what level of graphics crap you do, so i dunno if you've played with photoshop CS2 and CS3. buy, you can now have actual vector objects, without rasterizing them when imported.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics

and "vectoring" something is pretty specific, but i'm betting $5 is being used incorrectly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_to_vector

in other news: a mosquito bit the bottom of my foot. i'm not even sure how to begin dealing with that.

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maddening

Jul. 25th, 2007 10:54 pm (UTC)

Okay ... That makes total sense. I don't do a lot myself but I usually "get the process behind things. These people are using "Vector" to describe any addition or subtraction of elements from an image - which is just... uh... adding and subtracting elements. heh. So when they say "nice vectoring" they mean "you did a good job of making all the layers of your project look cohesive".

*bottom* of your foot is fucked up

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punkalicia

Jul. 25th, 2007 11:03 pm (UTC)

i'm going to stifle my nerd fury upon hearing that misuse.

but i will have you know: i am twitching like a mofo over here.

yeah, i'm confused as to how it got under there, myself. but since the little fuckers delight in screwing with me, i figure: at least it's not a joint this time.

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maddening

Jul. 25th, 2007 11:06 pm (UTC)

Speaking of which... I just took the dog out... swatted away mosquitoes several different times... still ended up with a bite on my right elbow and my left elbow pit.

fucking bug fuckers.

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skreidle

Jul. 27th, 2007 08:06 pm (UTC)

Hmm.. maybe it's absorbed a corporate buzzword somewhere? I know that in blogs, folks sometimes us "vector

such_and_so" to indicate the source of a link or piece of info--not that that applies here, but maybe there's something similar going on. (However, I'm inclined to think "bastardization of vector graphics.")

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