Image Basics
A single still video image, whether created by a drawing or paint program or scanned from a book or shot with a video camera, can be stored in any of a wide variety of file formats. The data will be stored in a raster or a vector file format. A raster image is one composed of a field of pixels; each characterized by a color, and is usually created in paint programs, by scanning a picture or by grabbing an image. A vector format is created almost always by a drawing and consists not of pixels, but objects such as curves, shades and characters. Raster formats can be generally separated into 2 categories loosy formats and lossless formats. Lossy formats lose resolution when converted while lossless formats preserve image formation.