illustrator is a vector based program, rather than the rastor based photoshop. that means that anything you design in illustrator can be resized (larger or smaller) without losing any detail, where-as resizing in photoshop means losing quality.

well, that's it in a nutshell anyway.i can go into more detail if you want.

Oh okay.. I see. But I'm also really curious as to how people make their designs so nice. Like do they take a real image and then do a vector of it? Or do they draw over it with the pen tool or what? Haha, I'm sorry I'm just really curious.

well the only way to have full control of an image is to draw it yourself, so obviously the best designs are drawn completely from scratch, or a trace of an image. i'm sure the automatic tracing does a decent job, but they'd definitely be cleaned up manually afterwards.

if you trace an image then you'll frquently have to touch it up afterwards anyway. drawing exactly what you see doesn't often produce a lifelike picture.

i usually like something to use as a referance, but don't usually trace from it unless i have to (my latest submission has a tree in it, which i can't just make up because i can't get them looking right ever :P)

Oh okay thanks =) I really want to get better at Illustrator because I have some awesome ideas for shirts~