Hi, this is Anne with Graphic Design How-To, and today I'm going to tell you the difference
between raster and vector graphics. And these two types of images are very,
very common. We see both every day, and this is something that was really confusing to me
as a new graphic designer because it just wasn't explained to us very well. Usually,
it was just Illustrator for vector and Photoshop is for raster, but both of those programs can use
both of those types of files. So first, let's go over what vectors are and what rasters are,
and I'll give you some examples of each. We'll also go over file types of each.
Now, you might be wondering, "Well, why does it even matter? Why do I need to know this?" Really,
if you're not a graphic designer, you probably won't need to know this. But if you are, the type
of file can really matter with the quality. For example, when I need a company's logo,
I always ask for a vector. That way, I can use it any size. If I don't specify that information,
they'll usually send me a really small JPEG, and then when I make it bigger, it gets all
blurry. So let's tackle vectors first. Vectors are drawings made using anchor points and mathematical
formulas, even though the person drawing them doesn't have to know those formulas or be good
at math or anything like that. A few defining characteristics of these: If you zoom in really,
really closely, the graphic will still look really clean. You can enlarge them as much as you want
without them looking blurry or losing quality. Vectors usually end up as rasters, though,
because vectors aren't supported in a lot of cases. So if you're in a program like Illustrator,
which is the one I'm in right now, you can export your vector as a JPEG. A JPEG is a raster image
that's accepted on most websites. When you're storing your files, you'll have a vector format,
and you'll also have your raster formats like JPEG. SVG is a vector format that is
now accepted on the web, so it's becoming more popular as a web graphic. Vector file sizes are
usually really small because they just need to include the information for the paths and
anchor points used to create them. Illustrator is a vector-based program, so most of the time,
if you use the tools in Illustrator over here to draw something like a logo, then that's going to
be a vector image. Common file types for vector images are AI, SVG, EPS, and PDF.
Raster graphics are made up of pixels. If we zoom in really, really close, we can start seeing
these little pixels here. But if you have a very high-resolution image, you won't see those pixels
when you're just viewing it at full size. So here are a few things to know about rasters. As I said
before, if you zoom in as much as possible, you're going to start seeing the individual pixels,
which gives the appearance of blurriness. Photos, JPEGs, and PNG files are all raster graphics,
so when you zoom in, you're going to see those. But if your resolution is high enough,
you won't see them until you zoom in, of course, and your image will look crisp and clear like this
one does. When you take a high resolution photo, that means there are more pixels in every inch and
that gives your photo a crisper look, but it also increases the file size. But even still, with the
best most crisp raster image, you can always still zoom in and start seeing the little pixels. Raster
file sizes are a lot bigger, generally speaking, because the file has to hold all those tiny little
pixels. Photoshop is a raster based program, so when you're editing photos most of the time
you're working with raster images. Common file types for raster images are JPEG, PNG, and GIF.
But there are tools in Photoshop like the Pen tool that will allow you to create
vector images inside Photoshop. The same goes for Illustrator. Illustrator does have some
raster capabilities. So, if raster images lose quality when you increase the size,
why use them? Well, it's best to use them when you need something really detailed like photos. Also,
most vectors have a cartoonish look like this. And while you can create photorealistic vectors,
they're super time-intensive. This image is not a photo, it is a photorealistic vector. So it looks
very realistic. Once you zoom in though, you can see that it's not a photo. This artist who created
this image shows us this process. He first had to draw this image in Illustrator, and then he used
the Gradient Mesh tool to get these really nice gradients on the skin and hair. I'm sure this took
a long time to make. Another reason to use rasters is that on the web, raster images are standard,
although as I said before, SVG files which are vectors, are becoming more and more common for
web graphics. Alright, if you like this video and you want to see more videos like this,
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time a new video comes out. Alright, I'll see you in the next video. Thank you!!