{"id":1557,"date":"2019-09-16T18:34:41","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T18:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.eciad.ca\/comdtech\/?p=300"},"modified":"2025-09-10T20:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T20:01:14","slug":"vector-graphics-and-raster-graphics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/palette.ecuad.ca\/comdtech\/2019\/09\/16\/vector-graphics-and-raster-graphics\/","title":{"rendered":"Vector Graphics and Raster Graphics"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you’re working with digital graphics, it’s important to understand the difference between vector art and raster art.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Vector Graphics<\/h1>\n

\"\"Vector graphics are made up of a series of anchor<\/strong>\u00a0points\u00a0<\/strong>(sometimes\u00a0 just\u00a0called “anchors” or “points”), connected by lines and curves. One major benefit is that they are scalable<\/strong>, which means the size can be changed without any loss in quality. The math that creates the shapes (the placement of points, and the angles of lines between them) stays the same no matter the size, so the art can appear smooth and crisp whether it is printed at the size of a business card, or a giant poster. That’s also the reason why you can print fonts at large sizes without losing quality: almost all modern font files intended for print (.otf, .ttf) use vector shapes of the letterforms, created by the type designer using vector tools.<\/p>\n

Vector art is required for some processes where a machine needs to be able to follow a path. At school, for example, that’s the laser cutter in Digital Fabrication, or the sticker cutter at the DOC.<\/p>\n

Raster (Pixel) Graphics<\/h1>\n
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A very low resolution image<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With raster graphics, the image information is made up of a grid of tiny squares called pixels<\/strong>, and the number of pixels per inch is the\u00a0resolution<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>The pixels will become visible if you zoom in on the artwork enough. Raster art depends on resolution, which means it doesn’t look the same at every size like vector art does. Increasing the size will result in a loss of image quality. For example: an original file that is 2000px wide just contains more image information in its pixels than a file saved at 100px wide. Trying to increase a file’s pixel size to make it larger than the original artwork means that the software will be making up new pixels to fill the gaps, and the result usually looks blurry or degraded.<\/p>\n

The term\u00a0pixel art<\/strong> is also used for styles of raster graphics where artists and designers work at a small scale with individual pixels, and avoid digital blending and smoothing effects in favor of hard edges and efficient pixel placement (think about retro-style video game art and icon design.)<\/p>\n

Side By Side<\/h1>\n

These two graphics in a working file look almost identical….<\/p>\n

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…but if we zoom in, it gradually becomes noticeable that the vector art stays smooth and the raster art edges start to look a little blurry:<\/p>\n

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…and eventually, the pixels become visible, and the difference is very obvious.<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0<\/strong>If you zoom in on the website here, or save a copy of the images, you’ll see that all the samples you see here are raster files! That’s because they’re saved as png files (a file type for screen and web) to display on this website. The original working .ai file that I used to demonstrate how the vector version looks smoother zoomed-in included both vector and raster art.<\/em><\/p>\n

File types that are always raster art:<\/strong> jpeg, gif, png<\/p>\n

File types that can contain vector art, raster art, or both<\/strong>, depending on how you build and save them: pdf, ai, psd, indd, tif, eps, svg<\/p>\n

Is Photoshop for raster art, and Illustrator for vector art?<\/h1>\n

Short answer: yes!<\/p>\n

Longer answer: It’s not quite that simple, and there’s some crossover:<\/p>\n

Photoshop:\u00a0<\/strong> mainly has advanced tools for creating and editing raster artwork…but also some simple tools for drawing vector shapes, the ability to include vector layers as geometric shapes, layer masks, or placed smart objects, and the ability to create vector paths from selections.<\/p>\n

Illustrator:\u00a0<\/strong>mainly has advanced tools for creating and editing vector artwork…but also has the ability to place raster art,\u00a0 crop it and do\u00a0a few basic colour adjustments, and add some raster-based special effects to vector art.<\/p>\n

Converting: Rasterizing, and Vector Tracing<\/h1>\n

Rasterize<\/strong> is the word for converting vector graphics to pixels. It’s available in Illustrator’s Object menu, and Photoshop’s Layer menu. Rasterized artwork\u00a0does not keep any vector point information, and can’t be enlarged bigger than its original size without losing quality \u2013 but if it’s rasterized at an appropriate size and resolution, the quality can look very similar to the original.<\/p>\n