There are two types of artwork: vector and raster. Both can be used for screen printing, but the way they are created and separated are completely different.

Vector artwork is created with programs like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, or Affinity Designer. It is made up of lines and shapes formed by paths and points. This allows them to be scaled up or down without losing clarity or sharpness. The images are generally reproduced using solid areas of color, but halftones can be used to reproduce tints or shades of colors as well as gradients.

Raster, or bitmap, artwork is created in programs like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Photo-Paint, and Affinity Photo. Digital photos are an example of raster artwork. This type of art is made up of a series of dots or pixels in a continuous tone of colors. Raster artwork cannot be resized as easily as vector artwork and still maintain clarity. Greatly enlarging a raster image can result in a pixelated or blurry image, which will not produce a clean, sharp image when printed.