Glossary: Raster

Definition: You may be more familiar with a "raster" image as a bitmap image: an image in which each pixel's color value is strictly defined, saving an image in a fixed format as opposed to vector images, which define shapes and colors according to mathematical values and thus are more easily scalable. Common raster image formats are BMP, JPG, and GIF. Shrinking these images results in data loss, while enlarging them results in a loss in image quality.