A way out of the maze of image formats
Even if you’re interested in the mysteries of the digital world, it’s not easy to navigate the different file formats. But if you are not, the task is even more difficult. When, for example, you need to send your winery’s logo in some format to the capsule manufacturer or images for a pr article. In this week’s newsletter, we help you get the basics straight.
There are two broad categories of images: vector graphics and bitmaps. Both have advantages and disadvantages, so let’s get to know them!
Vector images
Vector images are all mathematical representations of drawings created with a graphics program, usually used for logos, illustrations and simple drawings. Everything can be delimited by a precise line, so it can only display simple images. However, it has the huge advantage of being a small file size and can be freely enlarged without loss of quality. So from the same 100 kilobyte file, you can print a business card, a logo capsule or even a roll-up. If your file has an ai or eps extension, chances are you’re dealing with vector material, but there’s also a chance if the file ends in pdf, cdr or svg.
Pixelgraphic images
Bitmaps or pixel graphics are mainly photographs. The file size of these images is usually larger, as they contain information about each pixel, i.e. pixel, and unfortunately they cannot be enlarged without loss of quality. For this reason, their size is usually an issue, which also determines their potential uses. In most cases, if the width of your image is at least 2400 pixels for a still image and 3600 pixels for a landscape image, it can be used in A4 format for printing. Most images are found on the internet, where three types of image formats are supported by browsers: gif, jpg, png. In this case, size is less critical, an image 1000 pixel wide is considered to be very large.
We wouldn’t encourage anyone to tackle the graphics themselves, but there may be fewer misunderstandings the next time a vector logo is requested by a wine carton manufacturer.
László Burai