Difference between Photoshop and Illustrator

Sometimes we especially the beginners are confused about the function of Photoshop and Illustrator. What’s their task? Which one is best? Though they looked like same but they are not. There are some basic differences between them. Both are best on their respective area.

Before differentiating between them we need to know some terms. Such as what is vector image, what is bit mapped image etc?

Vector graphics or image is a total geometrical image. It means vector graphics are created by using geometrical points, lines, curves and polygons etc. Simply, vector images or graphics created by tools which are based on mathematical equations.

Bitmap means map of bits or array of bits. It is also known as raster graphics. They generally define a rectangular grid of pixel or point of color. Its original extension is BMP or DIV (device independent bitmap). There are also some other formats like ILBM, PBM, XBM etc. Some other image file format like JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF also store bitmap images but they are not called as bitmap because of their variation in storing as they compressed it internally.

Printing media defines raster graphics as contones and vector graphics as line work as they only consists of geometrical shape. Contones means continuous tone.

Vector graphics or Images are more flexible than bit-mapped graphics because they are saleable and scaling won’t cause degradation of quality. You can resize it in any size.  On the other hand, bit-mapped images become ragged when you shrink or enlarge them.

Now the difference between Photoshop and Illustrator will be easy to understand as their difference lies in between these two key word vector graphics and bitmap images.

Photoshop is a program that process and manipulated the images which share a common fundamental structure: pixels in a bitmap. So Photoshop is a pixel base image processing tool good for creating bit-mapped image and doing various photo effects by modifying, adding, subtracting pixels of images. It also produces digital files where the whole image is part of a fixed pixel structure (the "bitmap").

On the other hand Illustrator is a postscript drawing program which fundamental is based on vector graphics. It creates various elements of the image as individual vector objects and these objects hold their characteristics and do not become part of a bitmap. It’s not like photographs that are taken by camera. These images look just as good no matter how big you scale it. So when some create drawing he should use illustrator cause latter you can resize it in any size without losing its quality. And quality is a very important when printing requirement considers.