angedawn
03-29-2006, 08:37 AM
A lot of times in Photoshop we will be working along and suddenly a window pops up that says "This layer must be rasterized before proceeding". Which leads me to ask, just what exactly does "Raster" mean?
To raster an image is to turn mathematically defined artwork into pixels. A great example of this is Text. Text can be resized into different point sizes mathematically, but if you want to filter the text (ie. Add noise or in some other way distort the text), that box will pop up and tell you that you must "Rasterize it" first. What this means is that you can no longer select the text with the text tool and use the text tool applications on it. You can however use the move tool to select it, move it resize it, etc. Much like you could with a word art file.
To rasterize an object before the warning comes up, go to Layer>Rasterize>Layer. You can also rasterize other vector based objects like shapes or designs created using paths.
To raster an image is to turn mathematically defined artwork into pixels. A great example of this is Text. Text can be resized into different point sizes mathematically, but if you want to filter the text (ie. Add noise or in some other way distort the text), that box will pop up and tell you that you must "Rasterize it" first. What this means is that you can no longer select the text with the text tool and use the text tool applications on it. You can however use the move tool to select it, move it resize it, etc. Much like you could with a word art file.
To rasterize an object before the warning comes up, go to Layer>Rasterize>Layer. You can also rasterize other vector based objects like shapes or designs created using paths.