In computer graphic world, there are two types of graphic, raster, and vector. First, let's talk about raster, raster graphic, or images made up of numerous small squares. When you see images like this, for example, it looks nice and smooth. But notice when we zoom in, we start to see the reality that this image is actually made of these small squares. These small squares are called pixels. The word pixel is actually came from the abbreviation of picture element.
Each of the pixel has only one color applied to it. Because raster images are made of pixels, they are resolution dependent. What do I mean by that? If we have an image of 100 by 600 pixels resolution for example, it means it has 100 columns and 600 throes of total pixels. high resolution images will have finer detail because more color information can be contained by the image, but the file size will be bigger. Basically, the higher the resolution, the bigger the file size, vector graphics or images made of points, curves connecting those points and color fields inside the area formed by those curves.
These points and curves and color fields are stored as mathematical values, not as pixel great data like raster images do so as the result and generally speaking, vector images are smaller in file size than the raster image version. Vector Graphics are also resolution independent. I am using Adobe Illustrator here. Notice when we zoomed in to as far as we can go won't see any pixels. We can resize or scale vector graphics to any size we want without the risk of losing any graphical information. Working in vector also gives us more flexibility.
Because we can always go back and change things around. For example, when we draw a circle like this in Illustrator, we can always select it and tweak the shape, or recolor it as we like, the shape is still alive and editable. This is something that you cannot do in purely raster images. You might be wondering why now, why not we just use a vector for all of our graphics. Well, the answer is not all images best represented by a vector graphics, complex images like photograph, due to the nature of it is best represented in raster images. Also because vector graphics are basically a A bunch of mathematical values that need to be calculated and rendered in real time to be displayed on the screen.
Generally speaking, complex vector images will require more computing power than the raster counterpart. So to recap, the pros and cons of raster graphic against a vector graphic, in terms of resolution, raster is dependent and vector is independent. In terms of the file size vector is the winner as a generally smaller size than the raster, in terms of flexibility, or editability. Vector Graphics is better than raster for displaying photos or natural images. raster is better than vectors. And Leslie for computer processing, generally vector need more processing power than raster because there are advantages and disadvantages of using both of these Graphic types and that you cannot force one graphic type to handle every type of images.
Therefore, there are two type of graphic software in this world raster based category and vector based category. In raster based category, there are Photoshop, GIMP, Corel, Paintshop, Affinity Photo, etc. in vector based category, you can find Adobe Illustrator Inkscape, Corel, draw, Affinity Designer, etc. Okay, so what about Krita? Well, Krita is essentially a raster graphic software, but with some vector features inside it. So Krita is more or less like Photoshop, or GIMP, or Corel Painter.
The big difference between Photoshop and Krita is that Photoshop at the core is image manipulation software with some digital painting capabilities. Krita is actually the other way around. At the core. It is a digital painting software, but with some image editing capabilities, so it is more like Corel Painter instead of Photoshop. Now in terms of vector support, although Photoshop do support some vector editing features, but it is very limited. creators vector tools are actually way better or more advanced compared to Photoshop.
Of course, creators vector tools are not as sophisticated as the ones you can find in real vector software such as Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape. But they are more than enough for professional quality digital painting or illustration in general. That is why in this course, we will cover how to utilize the vector tools in Krita to their maximum potentials. This will greatly help us in creating beautiful artworks faster. We will Discuss create us vector tools not in the basic level, but later on more advanced section of this course.