When to use Raster or Vector Images

The Marfield Guide is here, and we aim to bring you reliable information each month about all things print! With 50 years in business, we have learned a lot about our craft, and we’re excited to share our expertise with you.

This educational blog will help you to become a master when deciding which printing processes are right for you, what to look for in paper stocks, specialty finishes, and so much more. We hope you will follow along on the journey to educate our customers on a topic we hold dear, printing.

In this article, we are going to cover a question which we come across all too often with our customers. What are raster and vector images, and how are they different?

In the world of graphics, we divide digital images into two categories.
• Raster, or Bitmap images, are comprised of pixels.
• Vector images are a collection of points and lines, called Bézier curves.

The following infographic will go into further detail about each image type, its proper use, file extensions, and what programs they perform best.

Marfield-Rastor or Vector Infographic

To download a full resolution copy of this infographic, click here.

Thank you for reading our first article, and don’t forget to check out our future blog posts. Comment below and let us know about which topics you’d love us to cover in future articles, or questions you’d like answered. Follow us on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/ LinkedIn @MarfieldPrint

About the Author: Tiffany Waggoner

Tiffany Waggoner is the Creative Director for Marfield, Inc. In 2003, Tiffany graduated from The University of North Texas with a B.A. in Art, specializing in Digital Media. After a quick moment of panic...wondering what to do with an Arts Degree...she soon found her home and career in Print and never looked back! Ten years ago, Marfield, Inc. took a chance on a young prepress professional and hired Tiffany to run their Prepress Department. During this tenure, Marfield's customers could trust her as their brand identity expert, and she honed her craft as a graphic designer. In 2018 Marfield took another venture and moved Tiffany into the role of Creative Director. In this position, Tiffany has been able to combine her knowledge of content creation, social media, brand identity design, and creative print to engage and educate Marfield's audience on all things print.

2 Comments

Scott Braud 01/30/2019 at 3:48 PMLog in to Reply

Thanks Tiffany,
It’s always easier for me to print out something like this for clients than to try and explain the difference in Vector vs Raster.
You’ve made it easy for all the dumb clients out there.

Appreciate your work,
Scott Braud
- Tiffany Waggoner 01/30/2019 at 3:55 PMLog in to Reply
  
  Thanks, Scott!
  
  I’m so pleased that you’ll be able to use this blog/infographic to help educate your clients. If you ever have a subject that you continuously have to deal with let us know, and we’ll add it to our list of subject matter to cover in the future.

When to use Raster or Vector Images