The use of Images for banners is often a Bugbear for people wanting to get a banner of their own.
Will it print out OK? Or will my image look bad once it is enlarged to the size I need for my banner?
This is a graphic that makes up part of a Gig Backdrop for a Band I am working with at the moment, Sonic Romance.
The raster image on the left is the original graphic the band supplied for me, to let me know what they want. To the right is the vector image I drew to replace it. The headphone wearing heart can now be enlarged successfully to banner size (Bridge size if you want – there is no size limitation).
Raster images are things like photos, and graphics that are in a BMP, JPG or PNG format (to name a few). They are composed of a series of coloured squares to make up the image. Raster images make up the bulk of the images we see online.
Vector images on the other hand are comprised of, lines and polygons. Every line and every is point connected with an angle or curve, a vector. These are usually in an EPS or AI file format.
With Vector images you can scale them to the any size and you won’t lose any detail.
Raster images on the other hand work fine till you enlarge them beyond their native size (like in the example). Once you pass this “native size”, the image quality starts to degrade. The larger you go, the worse the image looks.
This is why photos for banners need to be BIG.
A high resolution image does not need to be stretched beyond its native size, so it doesn’t distort and degrade at the sizes we need for most banners.
They print nicer this way, and they look a whole lot better.
If you are unsure about the images you want to use for your banner, I am happy to help. Use the green contact form on the right of this article to drop me a line. There’s no obligation, I am just happy to help.
I hope this is information is useful for you, have a great day.
Steve – the Vinyl Banner Guy
