Computer graphics courses enable students to create 2D and 3D designs, use animation techniques and study advances in the field. These courses are most commonly completed through a full master program.

These programs not only teach students to work with computer graphics but may also provide instruction in website design, digital video production, photography, and application programming.

Common topics in graphics courses include the following:

• Photo editing with Adobe Photoshop
• Advanced desktop publishing design
• Creating and editing images in Adobe Illustrator
• Image effects and graphic enhancements

Courses

Graphics Design Basics
The basic design elements of 2-D art are presented; this includes line, color, shape, form, texture and space. Students learn the organizational principles involved in the design of all visual compositions, including variety, emphasis, unity, balance and contrast.

Image Editing
Image editing refers to modifying or improving digital or traditional photographic images using different techniques, tools or software. Images produced by scanners, digital cameras or other image-capturing devices may be good, but not perfect.

Bitmap Graphics
A bitmap (also called "raster") graphic is created from rows of different colored pixels that together form an image. In their simplest form, bitmaps have only two colors, with each pixel being either black or white.  A bitmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits.

Vector Graphics
The term "vector graphics" is mainly used today in the context of two-dimensional computer graphics. It is one of several modes an artist can use to create an image on a raster display. Vector graphics can be uploaded to online databases for other designers to download and manipulate, speeding up the creative process.

Photoshop
Photoshop is Adobe's photo editing, image creation and graphic design software. The software provides many image editing features for raster (pixel-based) images as well as vector graphics. It uses a layer-based editing system that enables image creation and altering with multiple overlays that support transparency.

Image Calibration
Image calibration is achieved by placing the calibration marks on two points that are a known distance apart, and entering the actual distance spanned by the points in centimeters. An image can be recalibrated during analysis without work loss.

Corel Draw
Corel Corporation developed and released a software program called CorelDRAW, a vector graphics editor. The software is a robust graphics suite, providing many features for users to edit graphics. These features include contrast adjustment, color balancing, adding special effects like borders to images, and it is capable of working with multiple layers and multiple pages.

Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a software application for creating drawings, illustrations, and artwork using a Windows or MacOS computer. Illustrator is widely used by graphic designers, web designers, visual artists, and professional illustrators throughout the world to create high quality artwork.