There is a difference between images and drawing programs I think applies here, but may not matter to most people. Here is a brief and simplistic explanation. You may recognize that a "paint" program (e.g., Adobe Photoshop) and a "draw" program (e.g., Adobe Illustrator) store image information in different ways. A paint program stores images as a collection of pixels (colored dots if you will) and a draw program stores images using vector graphics (mathematical information). The one practical difference I am aware of is that vector images can be scaled without a change in quality - the mathematical properties do not change. In comparison, "paint" images can be enlarged, but at some point the dots become big blocks that distort the image. Typically, complex images such as the photographs we capture with digital cameras are much easier to represent as a collection of pixels. The CCD (charge coupled device) in a digital camera collects information in this format (note the common reference to how many megapixels a camera is capable of representing).
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