"Blender has basically two types of textures, which are
procedural textures and bitmap textures. Each one has both positive
and negative points. Which one is the best will depend on your
project needs.
"Procedural: This kind of texture is generated by the software
at rendering time, just like vector lines. This means that it won't
depend on any type of image file. The best thing about this type of
texture is that it is resolution independent, so we can set the
texture to be rendered with high resolutions with minimum loss of
quality. The negative point about this kind of texture is that it's
harder to get realistic textures with it.
"Bitmap: To use this kind of texture, we will need an image
file, such as a JPEG, PNG, or TGA file. The good thing about these
textures is that we can achieve very realistic materials with it
quickly. On the other hand, we must find the texture file before
using it. And there is more. If you are creating a high resolution
render, the texture file must be big."