raster and vector

Unit 65 Leeanne Hibbert

Raster and Vector

A raster image is made up of thousands of little pixels which usually look like tiny squares, this will look clear to you when you zoom into any raster image. Raster images are a way to represent digital images such as photographs and this is why they are ‘Bitmap’ based images as they are suitable for editing and editing programmes agree with raster images. Each raster image takes a variety of different formats like the familiar ‘GIF, JPG and BMP’.

When a raster image is actually created the image on the screen that our eyes see as a digital image is converted into pixels. Each and every single pixel that creates this image has its very own job and is signed on to a specific value which determines the colour. Any raster image will use the ‘RGB’ system which means ‘red, green and blue’ and then an RGB value of the number ‘0.0.0’ is black. All of the values go all the way through to 256 for every colour; this means there will be a wide range of colour values, for photographs with fine shading this can be very valuable.

When you view a raster image the pixels normally smooth out visually for us meaning we cannot see the pixels there. But as said previously as soon as you blow up/zoom the image the pixels become very visible to our eyes. Depending on the resolution of the raster image some can be enlarged to extremely large sizes while others can become difficult for us to see. The smaller resolution the smaller the digital images file. Because of that reason people who work with computer graphics must find a balance between both image size and resolution.

Raster based programme – Photoshop

Photoshop is a programme where you can edit or create different graphics and this particular software is raster based.


So for instance this image above is the very

recognisable ‘Ford’ logo, it does actually look like it was created in Photoshop but it is actually a vector image. Every single line of this is actually just a point connected with an angle of curve, vector. This means that you could scale this image as large as you wanted without losing any detail of the image. If a curve is closed (meaning both ends join) then you can fill it with a colour.

This image below is the wireframe of a logo, which is followed by the same vector but now coloured in.

So as you can see it is still all a vector image.


However this image above is a close up of a raster image and this is how graphics will look like in the programme Photoshop when you zoom into a certain graphic. So you will see an image like this as the entire image is made up of the tiny pixels (little squares). As said before a raster image is just made up of lots of pixels which will have a numerical value for each colour. People must remember that raster images cannot be scaled up in size because they will look very pixelated just like the image above, when they are printed.

Other things you should know about Photoshop plus any other raster editing programmes are that they use vector images for the layout and elements such as text, but they are equipped to deal with the raster image basically down to the pixel and have special ways in doing so, such as the brightness/contrast or even adding lightening to the raster image in Photoshop. Photoshop and again other raster based applications are:. Touching up an image. Photo – realistic illustrations. Photo processing. Hand drawn illustrations. Collage

The other editing programmes that are suitable for raster images other than Photoshop are:Adobe illustrator; Paint; MS paint and painter.

Raster Image File formats

These image file formats below are what raster images can be saved by.


BMP – A BMP file format is a raster based file format and is also known as a bitmap and this is used to store bitmap digital images.

PNG- PNG stands for portable network graphic and this file extension uses index colours, this file format is basically for the portable, lossless and well compressed of the storage of raster based images.

JPG/JPEG- JPG or JPEG stands for joint photographic experts group. This file format is most commonly used for publishing images to the World Wide Web and storing photographs.

TIFF– the TIFF file format stands for tagged Image File Format. This is a high quality graphics format which is often used for storing images with lots of colour like for instance digital images. These can be saved in an uncompressed format which is lossless or may incorporate i.e. lossy compression.

PSD – The PSD file format actually stands for an adobe Photoshop document and this means that PSD can include editing images (so image adjustment) also layer masks and layers, plus file information and other Photoshop elements.

Gif – This stands for ‘ Graphical Interchange Format’ and this is the most common graphics format that is found on the internet. An ‘animated Gif’ is a GIF image that can be animated by combining images into a single GIF file.

Paint VS Photosop

As said above paint is also another raster based application and the reason why I am going to go into detail about this particular programme is because it is on every single windows computer there is, you do not have to download it as it is already there for you. Paint is different to photo shop as it is a very simple graphics painting programme and just has the basic tools.


This image above is what paint currently looks like. The programme saves the creation as a windows bitmap so JPEG and GIF file formats (without animation or transparency). This programme can be in colour mode or black and white, but unlike photo shop there is no grayscale mode.

Photoshop is a lot more powerful than paint as there are lots of features o Photoshop that are not included on paint. For example paint doesn’t have a tool used to replace part of a picture that you don’t want and remove it by replacing with its background. So Photoshop has a lot more options for editing images than the programme paint. The difference between these two programmes is that paint is a very simple drawing programme while Photoshop on the other hand is one of the most powerful drawing and editing programme there is.

Vector Images

A vector image is a format that your computer uses to actually create an image. These are a collection of individual objects; unlike a raster image which is more of a picture element. Vector images are connected by curves or shapes; this is unlike raster based images as raster images are created by pixels. Curves and shapes of a vector based image are ok to edit such as the colour;


outline and fill of it. Vector images are made up of mathematical equations so they are always created at the highest of quality.

Changing around of a vector image will not affect the object itself as you can change any number of attributes freely without destroying the basic object. Vector images are processed on software programmes such as: ‘Adobe illustrator’ or ‘CorelDraw’. Vector images can also be converted into a raster image by using a raster to vector conversion programme like ‘CorelTRACE’ and ‘Euro VECTOR’.

As I said previously adobe illustrator is a vector based programme and this approaches image creation in an entirely different way and do not render images on a pixel by pixel basis.

This image above as you can see is just made up of lines and dots, one on every corner. These are known as ‘vector points’ and these allow the computer to connect the dots. Each vector point has information that tells the computer how to connect each point with straight or curved lines, plus knowing what colour the inner space should be

Because the computer only has to keep four points in its memory, it is much easier for the computer to edit vector based images as file sizes are really small. If you re size a vector based image it loses little or no detail at all, the vector points spread out and the computer just redraws the image. Vector images are ideal for logos as they can be resized and adjusted without losing clarity, so when looking for a logo designer ensure the final files produced are vector based.

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe illustrator programme is probably one of the best applications there is for creating a vector based graphic. I myself have personally used this software to create my very own graphic and the best part about it was that I could save my image and it did not use any detail what so ever which is different to raster images as If I had created a raster image and resized it then once I save it, then it will probably lose quite a lot of quality.

The vector graphic I created was a pencil and pencil pot as you can see on the right hand side of this


page. The only problem with illustrator and vector based images is that they do look quite like clip art instead.

As you can see by my own image vector image it is just literally made up of lines; curves and different shapes. This is why you lose no quality what so ever when it comes to saving as it has no pixels that are the creation of the image to a raster.

Metafiles (WMF)

Metafile is a term for a file format that can store multiple types of data. Metafiles commonly include graphic file formats and these graphics can contain both vector and raster based. It can also combine raster and vector based images together such as the outline being the vector and the fill of the image being a bitmap. Also Microsoft windows uses ‘windows metafile’ and this was originally designed for Microsoft windows in the 1990s and does in some ways act very similar to the SVG files. Windows metafiles may contain both vector graphics and bitmap components. A WMF file actually stores a list of different function calls that have to be issued and approved by windows ‘graphic device interface’ also known as GDI.

Vector Image File Formats

EPS– The EPS file format stands for ‘Encapsulated Post Script’, the word ‘post Script’ is used to describe how the images are exported to desktop publishing programmes such as Postscript Printer or Microsoft Publisher. EPS files can mix pixel based images with Vector images into one file, however file sizes can be large so you do need a programme like ‘Postscript printer’ to print these images out.


AI – The AI file format stands for Adobe illustrator which is the most popular programme for creating vector images on. This programme is a ‘charter’ programme and deals with objects such as circles, squares and many other irregular shapes. These objects can be re-sized, re-coloured and moved. These shapes once made or edited can be stored into files as ‘geometric equations’ with a certain colour value, size and location.

FLA – The FLA file format stands for flash animation and is a 2D animation programme that is used to create vector based websites and create animation. The files are rather small compared to other web design programmes like ‘Adobe Dreamweaver’; this is because it is a vector based programme. The FLA file has advantages as it leads to much shorter download times when you are surfing the internet.

raster and vector

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