M

margin-style background

A background that is configured so that the image repeats vertically but not horizontally. This type of background appears as a continuous design down the depth of the page. It is a common visual element that helps unify the design of a Web page.

mask

An element that isolates and protects portions of an image. A masked area is not affected by image editing such as color changes or applied filters. Masks are stored as 8-bit grayscale channels and can be edited with Photoshop tools.

Match Color

A Photoshop CS image adjustment command for color matching based upon statistical data.

matting

Filling or blending transparent pixels with a matte color. Matting can be used with GIF, PNG, and JPEG files. It is typically used to set transparent image areas to the background color of a Web page.

metadata

Information about the file that is embedded in the document.

midtone

A tonal range of brightness values located approximately halfway between white and black.

moir pattern

An undesirable pattern in color printing, resulting from incorrect screen angles of overprinting halftones . Moir patterns can be minimized with the use of proper screen angles.

monitor profile

A description of a monitor s characteristics used by Photoshop to display images correctly on that monitor. One way to create a monitor profile is to make a visual calibration of your monitor by using Adobe Gamma and then save the resulting information as a color profile.

monitor resolution

The number of pixels that occupy a linear inch of your monitor screen. The resolution for most Macintosh RGB monitors is 72 ppi. Most Windows VGA monitors have a resolution of 96 ppi.

monospaced type

Type in which all of the characters are the same horizontal width.

Multichannel mode

A Photoshop mode that enables you to view the spot-color channels in color separations. The number of channels in a Multichannel document depends on the number of channels in the source image before it was converted. Each channel in a Multichannel document contains 256 levels of gray. Multichannel mode will convert RGB to cyan, magenta , and yellow spot color channels, and CMYK into CMYK spot color channels.