Xerox DocuColor 12 Printer with Fiery X12 Merkblatt

Two broad categories of artwork can be printed from a personal computer to a color 
printer: raster and vector images (plate 11).

A raster image, also referred to as a bitmap, is composed of a grid of pixels, each 
assigned a particular color value. The grid, when sufficiently enlarged, resembles a 
mosaic made from square tiles. Examples of raster images include scans and images 
created in painting or pixel-editing applications, such as Photoshop and Painter.

The amount of data found in a raster image depends on its resolution and bit depth. 
The resolution of a raster describes the compactness of the pixels and is specified in 
pixels per inch (ppi). The bit depth is the number of bits of information assigned to 
each pixel. Black and white raster images require only one bit of information per pixel. 
Grayscale images require 8 bits per pixel. For photographic quality color, 24 bits of 
RGB color information are required per pixel, yielding 256 levels of red, green, and 
blue. For CMYK images, 32 bits per pixel are required.

When printing raster artwork, the quality of the output depends on the resolution of 
the source raster. If the raster resolution is too low, individual pixels become visible in 
the printed output as small squares. This effect is sometimes called “pixelation.” 

In vector images, picture objects are defined mathematically as lines or curves between 
points—hence the term “vector.” Picture elements can have solid, gradient, or 
patterned color fills. Vector artwork is created in illustration and drawing applications 
such as Illustrator and CorelDRAW. Page layout applications such as QuarkXPress also 
allow you to create simple vector artwork with their drawing tools. PostScript fonts are 
vector-based as well. 

Vector artwork is resolution-independent; it can be scaled to any size and resolution 
without danger of pixels becoming visible in printed output.