What is meant by "pixel vs vector"?

After order confirmation of your favorite giveaway, we always need optimal print data from all our customers to reach best possible imprints of the product. In this context, we distinguish between pixel and vector graphics. These two disciplines often raise questions from the clientele. We would like to remove these inconsistencies, so we give you a kind of "guidance" and explain briefly what we mean when we use words such as vector and pixel files.

Pixel graphics, also known as rasters

A pixel graphic consists of several square pixels, each of them is stored with a color. If the graphics are greatly enlarged, they are visible as colored squares (see figure) and finally on your printed promotional product. Thus, it can be said that a pixel graphics is not infinitely scalable and therefore not suitable for printing processes such as tampon and screen printings.

The pixel graphics are well suited for processes such as digital or sublimation printing. In this case, however, you must ensure that the graphic has a resolution of 300 dpi corresponding to the print area and is set in the CMYK color space.

Pixel graphics can be created with editores like Adobe Photoshop, Fireworks, or PaintShop Pro and often end with those endings: .jpg, .png or .tif.

The following printing techniques are possible for using pixel graphics: digital print, digital-transfer print, doming, offset print, flexo print and sublimation print. More informationen about KSi print techniques you can find here.

Pixel vs Vektor

Vector graphics

If we need vector graphic from you, we would like to receive a file with the suffixes .ai, .eps or .pdf. Vector graphics are created with Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.

Compared to pixel graphics, vector files consist of fixed points, lines, and curves. These, in turn, are defined by so-called vectors, which describe the graph by means of their geometry. Please pay attention to the CMYK color space! When creating a vector graphic, please do not rely entirely on placing pixel data. Important! Fonts must, if possible, always be converted into paths. If this is not the case, the corresponding labels should be sent as .ttf or .otf.

Vector graphics are suitable for nearly all printing techniques, because they can be scaled without any loss of quality (see figure).