SHARPER PICTURES
with digital drawing

Why do vector drawings stay sharp at any size?

DRAWING EDITORS

COMPUTER DRAWING EDITORS are quite different from paint or photo editors, which lay down pixels one by one like a tapestry. Drawing programmes make pictures that stay sharp and clear however much they're magnified or reduced. They not only make sharper pictures, they make smaller files. Drawing editors use vector graphics, which are mathematically produced.

Vector pictures are re-created every time they're shown, from lines ('paths') and angles which make shapes for fills. They're used for cartoons, line art, diagrams or lettering. Make a graphic in Word, or create a Flash picture and you've made a vector drawing. Flash Lite and SVG Tiny are vector formats specially created for mobile computing.

DRAWING (OR NOT) WITH A MOUSE

Drawing is a very different experience from painting on your computer. You dot down 'nodes' on a line and push and pull at little handles alter shapes and angles.

When you get going, this kind of digital doodling is almost like making a sculpture.

If a mouse is your tool, computer drawing is marginally easier than computer painting. All the same, blundering round with a mouse is rather like signing your name with the back of a spoon. Consider getting a graphics tablet. Better still, a Palm, Pocket PC or even a touch screen phone that you can draw on with a stylus.

You won't regret investing in a stylus! My own mouse has been twiddling its whiskers for years in the bottom of a drawer.

Most major desktop art editors combine the Paint and Drawing methods, although they usually specialise in one or the other.

Bitmap programs like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or Painter use vector graphics for lettering and geometric shapes. Usually on a separate layer, although you can 'drop' or 'flatten' your vector creations to merge them with the paint. This converts them to a bitmap, which can no longer be pushed and pulled about in the same way.

Word processors like Microsoft Word (and Pocket PC Notepad) allow you to make vector drawings. Vector drawing is closely allied to text. In fact Pocket Notes will convert your handwriting (which after all, is a kind of drawing) to typewritten text. In most advanced word processors you'll usually find a toolbar that allows you to make diagrams and charts with geometric shapes, arrows and lines.

Major vector art editors like Flash can import bitmaps, use them as fills, and even convert them to vector so you can edit them as drawings. This may result in sharper pictures, but your image will lose its naturalistic nuances and look slightly posterised.) To keep the naturalistic look, photos are better as JPEG files.

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Sharper pictures with digital drawing

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