While itвЂ™s almost always okay to take a raster from a higher resolution to a lower one, you canвЂ™t start small and then go big вЂ“ youвЂ™ll wind up with an image thatвЂ™s blocky, blurred, and pixelated. For now whatвЂ™s important is that rasterized areas donвЂ™t scale the way vectors do. These rasterized areas do have a resolution and this is where your document size and IllustratorвЂ™s default 72 ppi become relevant. When you print or export an AI file to a format that doesnвЂ™t support transparency, the file goes through a flattening process that produces a combination of vectors and rasterized areas. If your Illustrator file contains nothing but straight up vectors, then document size and resolution are essentially irrelevant вЂ“ you can export vectors to any size and format and get what you expect.Д«ut most Illustrator projects arenвЂ™t straight up vectors вЂ“ quite often they contain live effects, blend modes, drop shadows, feathered & glowing edges, and other styles involving transparency. While there are screens capable of displaying much higher resolutions, 72 ppi is a standard web resolution and is Adobe IllustratorвЂ™s base resolution for exporting files.ДЄn easy way to see that Illustrator uses 72 pixels per inch as its base unit is in the New Document dialog вЂ“ set the document size to 72 pixels and then toggle the units selection.ДЇrom this you can see that 72 pixels = 72 points = 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters. On a desktop monitor in a browser, youвЂ™re generally seeing 72 pixels per inch. Getting an image to look good on screen is about matching the imageвЂ™s resolution to what the screen is capable of displaying. Pixels are arbitrary & abstract вЂ“ there are always 2.54 centimeters in an inch, but there can be any number of pixels in an inch. If I want to print a 12вЂі x 12вЂі document at 300 dpi and have it look good, then my source file needs to have at least 3600 dots x 3600 dots of information (if not higher) and the printer needs to be capable of laying down 300 dots of ink per inch.Д¬ommon print resolutions are 150 dpi, 300 dpi, 1200 dpi, and any multiple of 144 dpi.ДЇor the web, resolution is expressed as pixels per inch. In the print world, resolution is expressed as dots per inch or points per inch вЂ“ this is a physical ratio tied to the printerвЂ™s capabilities, the dimensions of the print, and the level of detail in the source file. Simply put, resolution is the amount of information/detail packed into a given unit of measurement. IвЂ™ve always understood the concept of image resolution, and IвЂ™ll bet you do too. I work on projects for print and for web. First, I didnвЂ™t understand how Illustrator defines the abstract pixel and its relationship to physical measurements like the inch.

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