What are bitmap graphics?
Bitmap graphics are sometimes referred to as “digital,” “raster,” or “paint” graphics. The advantage of a bitmap over a vector is that it can represent a much more complex range of colours and shades—photographic detail. Bitmaps, of course, are found everywhere. The images digital cameras and scanners produce are bitmaps, as are most of the graphics you see on the World Wide Web. A bitmap image is very different from a vector. Instead of connect-the-dots think paint-by-numbers. A typical bitmap is divided into a grid of thousands of tiny rectangles (A) called “pixels” and each pixel can be assigned a different colour or shade of gray. Generally speaking, bitmaps are far easier to create than vectors but they present a complication: they are “resolution-dependent.” Resolution refers to the number of pixels there are in every linear inch of the image. The more pixels per inch (ppi) the higher the resolution. The idea is to keep the pixels small enough that the human eye blends them into
