Photoshop got its fame upon its name. As the name indicates, it completes all the needs of a user who need modification and creation of imaging ideas. Photoshop is the famous image editing and creation software which perform all the multimedia activities including image and video editing. The enormous tools and feature along with a user friendly platform makes it easy to learn and work with it. Photoshop comes from world famous software development group ‘Adobe’. Photoshop has number of versions and is still under the development process for new features and functions. It is the one among the truly updating software.
Photoshop CS6 is the latest and advanced version of Photoshop. It includes various tools and functions which help to improve the artist in you. Vector graphics allows the user to perform all the image editing techniques like rotation, mirroring, skewing, stretching etc. Vector art is well suited for printing purposes because the quality and the size of the file will not compromise at any situation. Vectors give crisp and sharp images which can be resized without affecting the sharpness or quality.
Vectors and Bitmap Images- A clear-cut view
Before dealing with vector drawing techniques, let us look into vector graphics and bitmap graphics. A Bitmap image basically consists of rectangular grids of picture elements known as pixels to represent a picture. Each of these pixels has their own color code and location. So a bitmap image processes with pixels rather its shape or texture. Bitmap images are the most common electronic picture representation form including digital arts, digital photography because of its greater flexibility that comes with graduation of shades and colors.
Clarity of bitmap images depend on resolution, a fixed number of pixels in a particular resolution decides the clarity of a bitmap image. As a result, the quality of picture may lose upon zooms and also while printing on a printer of different resolution when compared to the original picture’s resolution. Along with these drawbacks, bitmap images require large storage space than other format of image. Sometimes, bitmap images need to compress to keep the file size low for some versions of Photoshop.
Vector graphics uprooted all these drawbacks of bitmap and is widely in use for various graphical and image techniques. Vectors, is a familiar term for every individual. Vectors are mathematical objects made up of lines and curves. In the view of graphical and image processes, vectors describe an image according to its geometric nature and characteristics. Resolution independency of vector graphics helps to edit an image without losing its clarity. The crispness of edges are preserved upon all printing activities, pdf format of the picture, imports on vector graphic applications etc. all these characteristics of vector graphics made them unique and today many digital or modern artistic work are done on vector graphic base.
Vector Graphics
In Photoshop CS6, vector is created by drawing a vector path using a pen tool or free form pen tool. Path is a straight or curved line segment drawn using any of the drawing tool. The vector graphics is not only beneficial from the resolution aspects alone. Vector images can be reshaped or stylized. Bu most of the filters require the shape to be rasterized before the editing or reshaping proceedings
Tools and process – in detail
The most essential tool for vector drawing activity is the patience, especially for the beginners. You should not expect a perfect output in the first, second or even at the third try. Now, the tools for vector imaging include pen tool, path selection tool, shape tool etc. Among these pen tool is the simplest and most popular tool for drawing purposes, even a beginner can use the pen tool to create an outline of the drawing.
Now, when we are closely looking into the process, we can begin with an image to work upon. Normally images will comes under the format of jpeg, so the first step of the vector process is to convert the image into Photoshop file format or in psd format. For this you can open your picture in jpeg format and then you can ‘save as’ in psd file format. Duplication of the present layer or the image is the next step. With the pen tool, draw the outline of the part that you need to create the vector image. Make necessary anchor points and compete the drawing by clicking at the beginning point.
With convert anchor point option, all the necessary anchor points are wrapped. Try to get close wrapping to make your picture a good looking stuff. After completion, you will see, some of the anchor points drawn in the beginning are not necessary. So using ‘delete anchor points’ option, you can remove all the unnecessary anchor points. We need to duplicate the present layer and all the necessary colors are applied in this duplicated layers. Colors are selected from the color palettes.
Now the original image is considered for further drawing. Required areas are selected and subtracted from the duplicated image by holding ctrl+alt key while dragging. Now the image requires only some simple drawing techniques for its completion. Some of the areas need to fill with colors and textures from the original image. Along with the addition of colors and textures, you can improve its quality through other effects like bevel and emboss. Now you can include necessary backgrounds and shadows for a professional picture.
Many image technicians and professional photographers look vectors as a best feature to highlight their work it gives a photo finish look for the entire work. Vector diagram is easy to work with and beginners with little effort can be an expert in vector drawing techniques. Like other tools and functions in Photoshop, vector drawing is also very prominent in the list. It helps to create many new creative and innovative image stuffs which help to stand the work as a unique piece among other pictures. Even now, it’s not too late to learn the vector drawing techniques in Adobe Photoshop CS6, the most wanted Multimedia package in the world.
Author Bio: Matt loves to write articles on best website designing Company in Mumbai and in his free time he does lots of survey of web development market.