What is Raster vs. Vector?
Raster Images Raster images are created through the process of scanning artwork or “painting” with a photo editing or paint program such as Adobe PhotoShop. A raster image is a collection of dots called pixels. Each pixel is a tiny colored square. When an image is scanned, it is converted to a collection of pixels called a raster image. Scanned graphics and web graphics (JPEG and GIF files) are the most common forms of raster images. If you take a .jpg at 300 dpi and increase it’s size in a graphics program, you can visibly see that the has gotten “fuzzy.” The only thing that happened is the tiny pixel squares got bigger and created jaggy edges on your image. In other words, raster images do not scale up very well. The quality of an imprint produced from a raster image is dependant upon the resolution (dpi) of the raster image, the capabilities of the printing technology and whether or not the image has been scaled up. File Formats Common raster image formats include BMP, TIFF, JPEG, o
