Preparing Designs for Printing - Vector VS Raster Size/Sharpness Question

[Gemini80]

Hi everyone!

I am inching towards completing & selling one or two of my designs but am still learning Designer so I hope some of you with more experience can share your thoughts. While I *think I understand the main difference between Raster & Vector I wanted to ask about scaling sizes beforehand.

For example, a graphic designer I know mentioned that when uploading designs to websites for purchase you should upload a minimum of 13,000 x 13,000 pixels to make sure that the design will also scale nicely at a large poster size. That makes sense to me.

So my question is: If I start a design document that is 13,000 x 13,000 pixels and use raster brushes, will the raster elements (theoretically) be sharp up to 13,000 x 13,000 pixels but if printed at a larger size start to lose sharpness?

So, as far as sharpness goes between vector and raster, one is not sharper than the other, it is just that a vector project started at a certain size will scale upwards with no loss in sharpness but not a raster design?

Thanks for your patience! 😊

[Amdival]

I see no one has responded to this. It's hard to know where to start.

What is the print size?
You are describing a 13,000x13,000 document. When printing, you also want to know what size the printed product is. That is 13,000x13,000 squares of color. The larger you make the document, the larger those squares are. At 13,000x13,000 You can print a 43" x 43" document and have [roughly] 300x300 squares of color per every inch. You can also print a 86"x86" document and have 150x150 squares if color per every inch.

Raster vs Vector
Raster and Vector art is fundamentally different. You can scale vector art to any size and never lose sharpness. Raster is is made up of squares. You can also enlarge raster art to as large as you would like, but you are also making those squares larger.

Typically for print items that are going to be viewed within arms length, such as things that people hold, aiming for 300dpi is standard. Things that are viewed from further away can get away with a lower dpi.

Like I said, it's hard to know where to start, but understanding the fundamental difference between the two different graphics technologies helps a ton.

[Gemini80]

I appreciate you taking the time to reply and share your knowledge! Yeah, I basically understand the differences between vector and pixel but wrapping my head around prepping designs for online sites like red bubble is overwhelming when you are a newbie like me, hehe. But I will figure it out! Thanks!