What is a Vector?

[Carson]

Hey guys, I have been in the forums for a little over a week now, and I've heard the word vector thrown a round. What is a vector? What does it do? How do I use it? What are some good tutorials? What can they be used for in photoshop? These are a few questions that have ran through my mind. Some might think I should just go google it, but I feel it is better to ask to gain Personal thoughts on vectors.

Thanks to all that helps

 

[iDad]

Vector graphics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[dv8_fx]

Someone call my name?...... VECTOR.... I thought victor..... lol

Basically.... a vector or vector images is a collection of individual objects that as a whole, make up an image. The objects could be points, shapes, polygons . The lines created by Vector apps have no white back ground that's why when zoomed up close to maximum, the pixels are sharp and jagged.

Applications that use vector graphics include ILLUSTRATOR and COREL DRAW..... Images created by theses apps, when imported into Photoshop are crisp and clear. In their native apps, the images can be tranformed or enlarged/shrunk down and still retain its crispness and clarity.... whereas if we do that in PS, the image quality will be affected.

 

[Carson]

Thanks, I apprecaite the info

 

[Patricia0709]

Vectors are usually done with the pen tool or AI. It can be resized and it would not lose its quality. That's just my definition though.

 

[dv8_fx]

Vectors are usually done with the pen tool or AI. It can be resized and it would not lose its quality. That's just my definition though.

In AI, yes... But a vector image (be it done in AI or COREL) exported and opened PS, it takes on a different characteristic. Vector images opened or done in Photoshop with the pen tool are what could be describe as pseudo-vectors....

 

[Carrie56]

Also your photoshop text is a vector. This is why you can make the text large or small in its editable form and it will always have those nice sharp edges. Basically a vector is an image created by a series of points to create a line or a shape as apposed to a jpg image that is created by pixels.

 

[dv8_fx]

Also your photoshop text is a vector. This is why you can make the text large or small in its editable form and it will always have those nice sharp edges. Basically a vector is an image created by a series of points to create a line or a shape as apposed to a jpg image that is created by pixels.

TRUE... if you selected none in the text anti-aliasing method setting.

BUT ... PS merely assigned a single solid color to every pixel that makes up the letter to display the font, like a VECTOR. But if set to crisp, sharp, smooth or strong, you'll see the difference. This is the true way PS displays an object/ image's color/pixel values... one pixel at a time. And if rasterized so it can be merged with other layers, the text takes on those characteristics. Try adding a gradient to an un-rasterized text layer in PS.... It will not. PS will ask you to first rasterize the layer....

The elements that make up a true vector has only one color value. Regardless whether a vector image contains a million shades of color, EACH solid object, line, polygon or point in the image has only one color value. Even in COREL DRAW, the Radient created with the Radient Fill function creates a grouped object with mutiple layers of solid objects each with one shade or value of color. This gives the impression of a radient. In PS, a radient is not a grouped object... but a single object with varying pixel color values.

 

[LadyJemima]

To elaborate on the original question, a raster image (i.e. a photograph) is made up of many tiny pixels (squares). If you change the size of the image, you are stretching out those squares and distorting them, making your image jagged (this is most obvious when you scale up).

A vector drawing in Illustrator (or Corel) is actually based on invisible points on a mathmatical grid. You're basically telling the program, "draw a line from x,y to x,y" (those being any given values on the grid). Thus it can be scaled up or down indefinitely, because whether you're using a tiny grid or an enormous grid, the program will find those two points and draw the line. Hope that makes sense!