Design & Publishing . / . WEB . / . Pixelsmith . / .Vector vs Pixel Page 1 . / .Vector vs Pixel, continued

Now, let’s take a step by step...

1 - Vector: Create your vector art in whatever program. Colorizing the art as you please is purely optional at this point. Get the drawing right first. Obviously you should have a color scheme in mind from the start.

2 - Colorize everything black or white.

3 - Explode the art. Move color areas out and away from each other. Save the file as B&W EPS (Like our illustration here)

4 - Import into Photoshop (ColorIT, wwwArt, or other raster program) running a reliable, Browser-safe CLUT. (Above is the file after imported.)

5 - Move the elements to their own layers, in registration position.

6 - Colorize the elements. At this point you can use blends, patterns, masks, textures, or whatever your heart desires. Have fun. Change and change back. Select browser safe colors right from the color dialog.

7 - Flatten and generate the GIF file using a GIF'89a export filter. (Now included as a default in many programs.)

It sounds like more work, and it may be. But it's not as much work as trying to fix a file once it has been re-rastered to the wrong colors -- and not nearly as frustrating as trying to tweak and test the rastered color output of EPS files generated by a vector based program. Somebody prove this wrong.

Take a closer look... A close-in look at the actual pixel structure shows what happens in the rasterization process. It would be very difficult indeed to ‘fix’ the graphic on the left because of the undefined color breaks. The file on the right shows the composite art we built using today’s technique. Color separation now is very clean and unmistakable.

The resulting file shows high-quality color in a very small file.

The art could have even been generated under a hand-dithered custom palette, guaranteeing still more fidelity in the colors! We get a smaller file as well. Try it. You might just like it!

;-) Happy Pixelsmithing!

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