What Vector Art Isn’t
To further my attempt at avoiding any confusion, today I’ll focus on what vector-based art isn’t.
Software overlap:
In my previous post, I had mentioned the fact that some programs may overlap to a certain extent. Indeed, in the same way software like Illustrator contains a set of raster tools, raster programs like Photoshop or PaintShop Pro also contain typical vector tools, in particular the famous Pen. However, this tends to create confusion regarding the output. To make things brief, the vector technique can be used in such raster software through the available vector tools; it’s much more of a roundabout way, but it works. However, even though the traced paths here are indeed vector objects, the layers must never be rasterized, else one won’t obtain anything else than a raster image in the end. The advantage of vectors’ scalability will be lost.
Filters vs Vector tools:
Whether a piece of work can be considered vector-based art or not depends entirely on the tools themselves. Lasso and paint bucket do not a vector make. The use of filters, whatever effect is rendered in the end, does create a raster-based image, not a vector one. Applying the Posterize filter on an image to then call it vector-based is usually seen like an act done in very bad taste.
Vector art also doesn’t mean “always flat-shaded”, much like “flat colors” doesn’t mean the image has been made in a vector-based software. The inclusion of gradient and meshes tools allows for high detailing in images, provided one learns to masterize them properly. Different styles of course call for different methods; some vector artists make a wide use of meshes, while other obtain beautiful results with flat colors. The art is what we make of the medium.
Tracing:
Last but not least, a vector isn’t “only tracing”. It can be—many artists do draw a preliminary sketch of the image to be used as a basis to work on in their vector software. On the other hand, tracing the contours of a photography, filling them with colors without adding anything to it, then calling it vector art and your own, is tracing at its simplest level, and will be considered as practice, never as art. An exception to that is when one is asked to trace (reproducing a logo for a company you’re working for is, evidently, a normal use of “tracing”). The line here can nevertheless be thin, and it’s not always easy to recognize whether a picture has been traced or composed from scratch.
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Read part 1: What Is “Vector Art”?