Vector vs. Raster

Want to sound like an art pro?

Distributors and suppliers in the promotional product industry know just how much good quality art is pivotal to a beautiful end product. So with that in mind, read on and stay tuned for our Digital Art 101 series.

Seeking to dispel the most common art questions and confusions.

Today we are covering the difference between the two types of digital art files, vector, and raster.

While all manufacturing processes can accept vector art, many cannot use Raster.
So, when preparing art for production it is extremely important to know what type of art you need for your final product.

As large as a billboard, or as small as a penny, vectors can do it all.

Making them valuable for any production process.
Vector art is required for our silk-screen, metal, mold, laser engraved, pad printed, and woven products.

Raster Art

While vector art is made with math, raster art is made up of tiny little squares called pixels.

Raster art is always used for photography, scanned objects, and is commonly used for traditional
or digital illustrations altered or produced in Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo, GIMP, or Corel Paint.

Raster art is acceptable to use in any final product that describes the imprint as CMYK, offset printed, full-color digital print.
Our plastic cards, offset printed lapel pins, stickers, door hangers, Colorsplash drinkware, and buttons are just some examples of our full-color products.

Raster quality is variable and has restrictions on what is considered high-quality enough for print.
Standard print quality is 300 dpi at inset size, so be careful to review and make sure you don’t end up with a blurry end product.
If it looks blurry at 100%, it will likely print blurry.

As always, IDProductsource® is here to help you answer all your questions.
If you are unsure if your art is up to snuff, send it in with your order and we will help
you make the highest quality end product with our 5-star rated customer service team!