What is Vector?

Vector images are scalable graphics, when you change their size vector images do not lose their quality. That means you can resize them as much as you can and it will still give you crisp quality that it has.

vector image resized, doesn't lose its quality

On the other hand other web images like .jpg, .gif and .png are called raster images, these are non-vector images that do lose quality when you resize them, especially when you resize smaller images to bigger sizes (see below):

non-vector image resized, loses its quality

Therefore, vector images have many advantages over raster images. Web and graphic designers prefer vector images because they are re-usable and are great for printing – and even for t-shirt printing! Just take your vector image to any printer company and they will print your own custom t-shirt with your vector image.

Vector File Types

There are several vector image file formats that are widely used. In this site, we will be using three most popular vector image types, namely:

  • Ai – Adobe Illustrator file format.
  • EPS – Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) is a standard file format for importing and exporting PostScript files. EPS files can be generated by all drawing applications as well as most layout applications.
  • PDF - Scalable Adobe Acrobat file format.

All these file formats can be edited by softwares like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, CorelDRAW etc. If you need free vector editing software, try Inkscape or Xara XS.