What Is a Drawing Program?

While a lot of people see drawing as something done with a pencil and a piece of paper, many illustrators choose to use drawing programs that can be purchased and installed on their computers. These programs are economical and more convenient in many ways.

Identification

1. 
   Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Blake Patterson
   Your computer can be used to create illustrations using drawing programs.
   Drawing programs allow users to create drawings using a computer. These drawings are saved in file formats that can be opened by other programs. These images can usually be printed by a printer.

History

2. The first vector program, Adobe Illustrator, was created in 1987. The first raster program, Adobe Photoshop, was created in 1990.

Input

3. Drawing programs use a variety of input devices to create the art, such as scanners, tablets, webcams, mouses and keyboards.

Types

4. Drawing programs are raster or vector. Raster images are made out of small pixels colored differently. Vectors are made out of lines and points. Vectors are more difficult to edit and take up more space than raster images, but they can be resized without ruining the resolution of the image.

Benefits

5. Drawing programs allow users to create drawings that can be mass produced and that do not degrade in quality. Large quantities of drawings can be stored on a computer and money can also be saved over time, since drawing supplies do not have to be replaced.