The most frustrating among business owners who don’t know anything about graphic design is that they basically are involved in creating print materials like the catalog printing pieces almost on a daily basis. And yet when they come across a certain term or file format, what they usually know goes out of the window.



And more than likely, when it comes to optimizing images for catalog printing projects, obviously, someone who is not versed with the topic would have a tough time understanding one topic to the next. What is the difference between how an image can be reduced in file size, while others have to have a huge file in order to look better? And how are images optimized? How can you design a catalog printing project with smaller images? What is a vector image? A bitmap image?

What are vector images?

Vector images may not be as popular as that of the bitmap images, but they do have their own virtues that make them very useful in catalog printing projects.

Vector images are different from bitmap images because they are made up of numerous individual, scalable objects identified by mathematical equations. The images may consist of lines, curves and shapes which you can easily edit.

Advantages of vector images for catalogs

One advantage of having vector images in your catalog printing project is that they can be rendered with the highest of quality. This is because vector images are not made up of pixels.

In addition, they are often easily edited – its color, fill and even its outline. Even if you change the qualities of a vector image, the correction you made will not affect or alter any part of the object itself. Hence, you can change any part of the vector image and yet maintain your basic catalog printing object.

Modifying your vector image in your catalog printing project can also be done by shaping and transforming your object. This is made possible by the application of nodes and control handles to the vector image.

Another advantage is that vector images are scalable that is why most of the images that you’re going to include in your catalog printing project would not be tied up with any resolution that you’d apply to it. You can either add or subtract from the size of your catalog printing image and still have the same crisp and sharp lines. What’s more, no matter where you view your catalog printing image, if its vector, they remain true to the original whether on screen or in print.

Lastly, vector images are great for your catalog printing project because they are not constrained to a rectangular form like that of the bitmap. Vector images in your catalog printing project can be placed over other objects without having to cover the object underneath it.