Reference
EPS & graphics glossary
Quick, plain-English definitions of the terms you'll meet when working with EPS and vector files.
- EPS (Encapsulated PostScript)
- A vector graphics file format that stores artwork as PostScript, designed to be embedded in other documents and scaled without quality loss.
- PostScript
- Adobe's page-description language that tells printers and renderers how to draw text and graphics. EPS is a self-contained PostScript graphic.
- Vector graphic
- An image defined by mathematical paths (points, lines, curves). Scales to any size with no quality loss. Examples: EPS, SVG, AI, PDF.
- Raster graphic
- An image made of a fixed grid of pixels. Great for photos, but blurs when enlarged past its native size. Examples: PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP.
- Rasterize
- To convert a vector graphic into pixels at a chosen resolution — for example, exporting an EPS to PNG.
- SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
- An XML-based vector format built for the web. Lightweight, scalable, and styleable with CSS.
- AI (Adobe Illustrator)
- Illustrator's native, fully editable working file. Best kept as a master and exported to other formats for sharing.
- PDF (Portable Document Format)
- A universal format that can hold vectors, fonts and images. Opens almost anywhere and is preferred by modern print workflows.
- Bounding box
- A header value in an EPS (%%BoundingBox) that declares the artwork's exact dimensions so apps can place and scale it correctly.
- Ghostscript
- A free PostScript and PDF interpreter that tools like Inkscape and GIMP use to read and render EPS files.
- CMYK
- A four-ink color model (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) used for print. Looks duller on screen than RGB.
- RGB
- The Red-Green-Blue color model used by screens. Brighter than CMYK and the right choice for web images.
- Lossless compression
- Compression that preserves every detail of the original image (used by PNG). Contrast with lossy compression (JPG).
- Transparency
- Areas of an image that are see-through. Supported by PNG, SVG and PDF, but not natively by EPS.
- DPI / PPI
- Dots- or pixels-per-inch — a measure of raster resolution. Higher values mean more detail and larger files.
- Outlining text
- Converting fonts into vector shapes so the artwork no longer depends on the font being installed — a reliable fix for font problems in EPS.