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Vector and Bitmap Editing Tools

Layer manipulation falls into two categories: vectors and bitmaps. Vectors can be scaled to any size without losing quality, making it easy to export a design multiple times in different sizes—for example, when you need to support both Retina and non-Retina screens. The same, however, doesn’t apply to bitmaps. You may be able to scale bitmaps down in size without losing too much quality, but you certainly won’t be able to scale them up.

Sketch leans drastically towards being a vector app, which means that it only has a handful of bitmap tools. More often than not, you’ll be importing finished bitmaps into the canvas, rather than using Sketch to create them—for example, when your website needs a detailed background ...