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Vector Vs. Bitmap

If you don't know the difference between vector and bitmap art, see what this page at About.com has to say about it. Unless you've worked with both, it's difficult to explain. The simplest answer is that vector art can be resized as big or as small as you want, over and over, without any resolution loss, because it's based entirely on mathematical equations (and you thought you'd never need math if you went into art!). That's why it's great for logos and anything you need to constantly re-size. It's also appropriate for the images I create, because it allows me the maximum flexibility when creating and, if need be, revising the work.

Bitmap art, on the other hand, is based on how many pixels (the tiny little dots of light that make up your computer or TV screen) an image has, both in terms of physical dimensions, and in terms of resolution, which makes it impossible to enlarge the image without considerable loss of image-quality. If you enlarge bitmap art, the computer has to extrapolate, based on what the original image had, how many extra pixels to add and what to colour them. So if it has to add three pixels between a black and a white pixel, it adds tones of gray, making the image look blurry. You don't worry as much when you size the image down, although there is still a loss of quality. Photographs are turned into bitmaps (or "rasterized") in order to be handled in a digital environment, or when sent to a printer.