How to Make Your Own Rasters

Rasters are blurry pixel-ized images.

Rasters are blurred graphics with a manipulated pixel effect. Creating a raster is a straight forward process for anyone who owns a computer and basic image editing software. Many operating programs come with built-in image editing components, but be sure the software includes raster-based editing components. If necessary, purchase additional software suited to raster-based editing. Programs including Painter, MSPaint and GIMP include pixel manipulation -- as opposed to vector-based editing that only manipulate lines.

Things You'll Need

• Raster-based image editing program

Instructions

1. Upload your image or save your graphic to your Pictures file. Scroll to and double click the Start Menu in the lower left corner of your computer. Open the Pictures file. Select the image you wish to raster and choose the raster-based image editing program on your computer to open it.

2. Click on the "Crop" tool in your image editing menu. Scroll your cursor over the image. Click the mouse button and drag the cursor so the cropping box opens over the selected area you wish to raster. Release the mouse button to complete the crop. Crop the entire image if you wish to pixel-ize everything.

3. Scroll to and click the "Blur" or "Raster" tool in the editing menu. If necessary, select the "Inverse" tool first -- to blur only the cropped image while keeping the rest of the graphic untouched -- and then proceed to "Blur" or "Raster." Save the image before signing off.

References

• ResizeIt: Advanced Tools -- Opening, Resizing, Cropping and Blurring Instructions
• Sign Industry: Raster Images versus Vector Images

Resources

• Computer Hope: What Program Can I Use to View, Edit, or Create Images?