Apparel artwork types compared: vector, raster, spot color, halftone and simulated process

What to take away

These terms answer different questions. Treating them as competing file formats creates poor decisions. A photograph can be raster art separated into process-color halftones. A logo can be vector art printed with three spot colors. A distressed shirt graphic may combine vector lettering with a raster texture and one spot plate.

What each term means

Vector artwork

Vector artwork keeps objects such as paths, curves, fills, strokes, and text as separate mathematical or semantic elements. The W3C's SVG 2 introduction describes SVG graphics as vector shapes, images, and text that can be grouped, styled, transformed, and composited.

That definition explains why an SVG file is not guaranteed to be purely vector. It can include raster images and other objects.

Vector is a strong choice for flat logos, lettering, borders, geometric forms, and artwork that needs several physical sizes. It allows clean object-level color changes and plate assignments.

It can still fail production. A stroke may expand unpredictably, an effect may rasterize, a clipping path may hide stray work, or a tiny gap may be below the output limit. Fonts can be unavailable. A vector path can also contain far more points than needed, making edits and output unstable.

Raster artwork

Raster images represent tone through pixels. Photographs, scanned paintings, soft texture, and detailed tonal work often belong in raster form. Suitability depends on original pixel dimensions, final physical size, compression, bit depth, color data, and the output process.

Scaling a raster image down raises its effective pixels per inch; scaling it up lowers them. A 2,400-pixel image has very different detail at 4 inches and 20 inches. Saving it as PDF or placing it in a vector application does not change that relation.

Raster also supports deliberate one-bit or screened output. The question is not whether pixels are inferior. It is whether the pixel grid holds the information the chosen process can reproduce.

Spot-color artwork

Spot artwork assigns defined areas to named outputs. In apparel screen printing, each spot color commonly maps to a screen and ink. In cut vinyl, it may map to a material. In embroidery, artwork colors may guide thread assignment, though stitch data adds another layer.

Spot work suits flat palettes, bold logos, controlled limited-color graphics, and special materials. Each color needs a unique name, physical target, order, and interaction rule. Duplicate swatch names or visually similar values can create extra or wrong outputs.

Process-color artwork

Process color separates continuous tone into a fixed ink set, commonly cyan, magenta, yellow, and black in commercial print. The behavior depends on color management, dot structure, substrate, ink, and registration.

A USGS report on offset printing raster map files describes converting an RGB map image to CMYK for separation and identifies resolution and color shifts as production concerns. It also notes that some RGB colors fall outside the reproduced CMYK range. That case concerns offset maps, not garments, but it clearly supports separating screen appearance from a specific ink-and-output gamut.

Standard CMYK artwork is not automatically the best route for every apparel print. Garment color, opaque inks, coarser screening, surface texture, and available presses can require a different separation design.

Halftone artwork

Halftones use discrete dots to create the visual impression of lighter values or blended tone. Control includes dot shape, frequency, angle, minimum and maximum printable dot, tonal curve, positive or negative output, and interaction with mesh or device resolution.

Halftones can extend one spot ink from solid to tint and can build photographic tone from several colors. They also introduce risks: dots can close, disappear, interfere, form moire, or change on a rough garment. Test a tonal target through the actual output path.

Simulated-process artwork

Simulated process uses selected ink colors, often with an underbase and halftones, to reproduce complex or photographic art on a colored garment. Separators shape each plate to work with the garment and ink set. It may use more colors than standard process and does not depend on one fixed palette.

Its strength is visual control on substrates where transparent standard process inks would struggle. Its costs include separation labor, more screens, tight registration, longer setup, and process sensitivity.

Select by the production question

Use vector objects when clean geometry and scaling matter. Use raster when pixel-level tone or texture carries the image. Use spot colors when discrete materials or inks define the result. Use process or simulated-process separations when tonal blending is necessary. Add halftones only where the system can hold them.

The final artwork may use several of these approaches. Approve the combined result at output size and through a physical sample, not by awarding one label to the whole file.

Common questions

Is PDF vector or raster?

It can contain vector paths, text, raster images, or all three. Inspect the objects and placed assets.

Is spot color more accurate than process color?

It can target one named ink more directly, but accuracy still depends on ink mixing, garment, underbase, deposit, cure, lighting, and control.

Are halftones only for photographs?

No. They can create tints, gradients, shading, texture, and color transitions in flat or illustrated work.

Is simulated process the same as CMYK?

No. Simulated process generally uses a custom set of separations and inks shaped for the artwork and garment, often with an underbase.