I don't have any experience with graphic design and similar arts. But my thesis is about photographic rules, and many of the rules there are derived from graphic design. I have a book about Photographic Composition and it mentions many terms that I am not sure I can distinguish between them, especially that some of them might have more than one of them. So could you please tell me that meaning(s) of the following terms?
Graphic
Graphic Design
Graphics (with s)
Graphic Controls
Thanks
EDIT: Some people asked me to put some context. Here is a context from Photographic Composition by Grill & Scanlon:
Graphic Controls
Despite photography's three-dimensional appearance, a photograph really consists of nothing more than a two-dimensional surface on which deposits of different tones and colors have been laid. In this regard, a photograph has much in common with a painting, a lithograph, a printed page, or any of the other two-dimensional media collectively referred to as the graphic arts.
Question: What does graphic controls mean here?
On a practical level, graphics--the interrelationships of the points, lines, shapes, and frame of a photograph--penetrate to the heart of photography.
Question: How is this definition of graphics related to computer graphics, which seems to be completely different, because the latter is actually the rendering of elements on screen, and it has nothing to do with interrelationships?! And what is the difference between graphic and graphics?! It is obviously not a singular-plural thing!
You see, I understand these words if they are put in a statement, but I want to know their exact accurate definition to deal with them correctly.