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Raster (pixel-based) image editing programs include Photoshop, Painter, Photo-PAINT, and others that edit graphics composed of pixels. In contrast, drawing or CAD programs like Illustrator, Freehand, Flash, CorelDRAW, and AutoCAD produce vector, or shape-based, graphics. Any scanned image is made up of pixels, and is therefore a raster image. Some raster graphic formats are JPEG, GIF, and TIFF, and others.
When working with 3D software applications, models are stored as vector (geometric) data, but rendering generates a raster image (made of pixels) for a final result. Since rendered images are raster images, it is sometimes feasible to use a raster image editor and/or a plug-in effects filter such as Kai's Power Tools to create graphics that look like they were rendered in a 3D program. I refer to these graphics as pseudo-3D.
This section of the site shows some simple pseudo-3D objects, each created in minutes in a raster editing program. The techniques in this section are often similar to one another, even when using different software. Click the links for details.