Sign-A-Rama Syracuse

VECTOR vs RASTER IMAGES

To understand the differences between a Raster or "bitmapped" image and Vector based images, look at either a newspaper or here online. What you are looking at is a tight series of Dots called pixels.

These pixels render images with smooth transitions from one color to the next. Vector images on the other hand are NOT rendered by pixels, rather they are mathematically defined vectors. Vectors are objects with both Magnitude (size) and Direction (angles, curvature,and so on).

The files that store Vector images consist of lines, with information on their location, direction, length, color, and curves.

In the illustration below you can see the difference between the two.

Raster = .jpg-.bmp	Vector = eps-cdr-ai

It is here within the Vector Images that Designer's use to create a Sign. They need clean and scalable images so that they can either increase or decrease the size of the object without losing any of the detail contained in the image. If you decide to supply any images for a sign, you should submit them in a Vector Format such as Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw ect...ect..

Raster Images on the other hand as mentioned above are pixelated so colors can merge with each other to give a tone to a picture. There are many different formats such as jpg, gif, bmp, psd and they are used prodominetly in Print and Web Graphics, they, like Vector files can be manipulated to suit your needs, But these type of graphics are not good at stand-alone images like Vector Based are.