Closing Thoughts
Your interface design choices are truly unlimited when working in Photoshop. Once you're comfortable with the techniques covered in this chapter, you can start building your own inventory of fresh and fascinating interface elements. One good way to start is to go to your favorite Web site, look closely at the interface elements, and try to recreate them on your own. I'm not suggesting you steal ideas, but this is a great way to test out your skills.
Ben's Techno-babble Decoder Ring
Anti-aliasing: A technique that blurs lines slightly by mixing together the colors on both sides of a curved or a diagonal line (which may look jagged on your computer monitor, since it's made up of a grid of square pixels). Viewed from a distance, the anti-aliased line appears smooth.
Dithering: The simulation (by placing small dots of color next to each other) of a greater range of colors than a given monitor can correctly display.
8-bit color: A technical term used to describe an image or computer that is displaying only 256 colors.
System palette: A special set of colors that are used to create all the interface elements used in a computer operating system.
Web-safe colors: A special set of 216 colors common to both the Macintosh and Windows operating systems that will not become dithered when viewed using 256-color displays.