Function "Image tracing" on Adobe Illustrator - this is the most quick way Convert an image to vector format for high-quality printing of any size. With the introduction of an improved feature Image Trace

Adobe Illustrator CS6 and subsequent updates, a whole world of possibilities has opened up for graphics software users who want to be able to trace line art and photographs and turn them into vector images. Users can now convert raster images to vectors and files with relative ease PNG to SVG files using Illustrator.

Illustrator often used to convert images, either scanned or drawn in a pixel art program, e.g. Adobe Photoshop , into clear vector lines. There are two ways to track images in Illustrator CC. You can manually trace them using template layers and drawing tools, or use the "Image Tracing"

So, let's begin.

Unlike raster images, vector images are composed of mathematical paths that allow the design to be scaled indefinitely while maintaining its quality.

Here's how to easily convert a raster image to vector using the tool Image Trace in Adobe Illustrator:

Step one.
By opening the image in Adobe Illustrator, select " Window» > « Image tracing".This will bring up the panel Image Trace.

Step two
With the image selected, check the box Preview. This will give you a lively look at your vector image. Don't worry if it doesn't look great.
Step three
Select the drop-down menu " Mode” and select the mode that best suits your design.

Step four
Then adjust the slider " Colors», « Grey" or " Threshold" This slider will change depending on the mode you select, however the functionality remains similar between the three sliders.
Colors - maximum amount colors used for tracing.
Grace- grayscale accuracy from 0 to 100.
Threshold- Pixels darker than the threshold are converted to black.

If it's too low, it can make your image look too plain. And if it's too high, it can make your image look too complex. However, it all depends on your unique image.

Step five
Switch menu " Additionally» down to open additional options.

Step six
Adjust the slider " Paths».

It sets the number of paths in your design. Fewer paths means a simpler design, but too few paths can distort your image or make it look square. Conversely, too many paths can make the edges of your design look very rough. Again, it all depends on your unique image - so it's best to find a happy environment.

Step seven
Adjust the slider " Angles».

This controls the number of angles in your design. Fewer corners will make the curves of your design more rounded, while more corners will make the curves of your design more defined.

Step eight.
Adjust the slider Noise.

What is the tracing function used in Illustrator? It is used primarily to convert a raster image into a vector one. And this, in turn, is necessary for the production of logos and all kinds of advertising images.

Using tracing in Illustrator, you can simple drawing, made by hand with a pencil, create a multi-colored interesting graphic picture. Adobe Illustrator is designed exclusively as a vector graphics editor. But today designers use it for various purposes: for making advertising brochures, greeting cards, logos. A vector graphics editor is widely used in publishing because it has a large set of tools. With it you can not only draw, but also control color and text.

Why is tracing needed?

In order to answer this question, it is worth imagining the following situation. A designer develops a corporate identity for a particular company, and along with it a logo. In the future, this mark will be used on the company’s official website, on products, and on advertising banners. However, the sizes required are different everywhere. Even with the most careful scanning, it is impossible to create a perfect raster image. The only option is to use a vector editor. But creating an image from scratch in such a program is not the fastest or best way.

The main task of tracing is to obtain a vector analogue. True, in practice, designers create not one such analogue, but several, which generally correspond in shape and proportions to the original raster image.

Create a sketch

So where to start? How to trace an image in Illustrator? First of all, you should create a drawing, which will subsequently be processed in a graphics editor. You need to draw a sketch. Today, all kinds of inscriptions are very common and popular, mainly on English language. In order to understand how to make a trace in Illustrator, we will use a similar simple drawing as an example.

Any design project begins with creating a sketch. Is not piece of art, but only a way to capture the idea. Even a person who does not have drawing skills can learn to create sketches. To do this you just need to be able to create on paper geometric figures and, of course, know some tricks.

Scanning

When the sketch is ready, it should be scanned. This can be done using a camera or phone. It is desirable, of course, that the quality of the device be as high as possible. The resulting image in GIF format should be transferred to your computer. Before scanning, it is advisable to outline the outlines of the sketch with ink or black gel pen. Why this needs to be done is described below.

In a finished GIF image made by photographing a drawing, the background often appears grayish. But this flaw is easy to fix. Any graphics editor contains the “Brightness” and “Contrast” functions. A simple program such as Photo Skype can improve the quality of photography. After the image is loaded into the editor, you need to use the “Deepen” and “Lighten” functions (the “Brightness, Color” button). But in many ways the final result depends on the quality of the original drawing.

Convert to vector image

Open Adobe Illustrator. Click "File", then "Open". Then you need to click on the image using the “Select” function. And let's proceed directly to tracing. In Illustrator, this function can be found by clicking on “Object”, then selecting “Trace” from the drop-down menu. There is another reason why you can't leave the image in GIF format. By tracing in Illustrator, we convert a raster image into a vector image. This allows you to not depend on the extension in the future. You can change the image scale many times, its quality will not suffer.

It is important to remember that the initial picture should have maximum contrast. It should not have many shades or halftones. That is why ideal option is a drawing made in ink or ink. There is no point in creating a sketch in color. It should be clear, black and white. What is manual tracing in Illustrator? This is the use various instruments(“Pen”, “Brush”) to give clarity to the drawing.

Settings

Tracing has several levels. In order to select the appropriate one, you need to click on the "Style" button, then select suitable option. This could be “Technical drawing”, “Black and white logo”. When starting to work with the Adobe Illustrator editor, as with other similar programs, it is worth experimenting more often, without relying solely on the instructions of professionals. This is the only way to learn and gain experience. If you are not satisfied with the trace level, it is easy to cancel it. To do this, click "Edit", then "Cancel" and try another option.

Quick tracing in Illustrator CC can be found in the Object tab. Trace Options will then open. Here you can select the color mode. You must select 6 as the maximum number of colors, then click on “Trace”. If desired, the picture can be made clearer. For example, selecting "Maximum number of colors 60". Which of these options will be the best depends again on the original image. Here, too, it’s worth experimenting and comparing different options.

Making changes

Ready-made images can be changed many times in the future. For example, make the letters smaller and more elongated. Some items can be permanently removed using the Eraser. In order to do this as accurately as possible, you should zoom in on the image.

You can delete, change the size and shape of individual elements using the Knife tool. New details are added when using the "Brush". Thanks to tracing, the sketch is reduced, changed, edited. Raster images are regularly converted into vector ones primarily by stockers, that is, those who produce and sell images. We can say that tracing is the basis of vector illustration.

Often, designers are faced with the need to process complex line illustrations for use in full-color brochures and advertising posters, on a company website, in an annual report, on souvenirs, in catalogs, etc., and in many cases significant scaling of illustrations and printing with using various technologies in color or black and white. Scanning, as a rule, cannot provide transformation capabilities without losing the quality and necessary versatility of the raster image, so the only way is to obtain an identical vector image. Creating a vector version from scratch is not the optimal or fastest option; it is much easier to use tracing (vectorization) of a raster (scanned) original.

Today there are quite a lot of programs on the market (both stand-alone applications and those included in graphics packages) for tracing raster images. It should be noted right away that the review offered to the attention of readers does not pretend to be complete and comprehensive. For example, we won't cover applications like CorelTrace and Live Trace, which are included in the Corel Graphics Suite and Adobe Illustrator, respectively. Most designers are well aware of their pros and cons. The advantages are mainly that these tracers are included in the above-mentioned programs and there is no need to buy anything additional, but the disadvantages are that with the default settings it is almost impossible to achieve a satisfactory result, and sometimes even a very experienced user cannot improve these settings . Fortunately, today the market offers a wide selection of tracers from other manufacturers. These are what we will consider next.

TraceIT

Manufacturer: Pangolin Laser Systems, Inc.

TraceIT is a rather interesting program that uses original tracing algorithms (Fig. 1). The image loaded into it is first processed by filters to remove “garbage” (noise, color noise), after which it is traced.

An interesting feature - in addition to processing images in common formats BMP, GIF, TIF, JPG, PSD, etc., it is possible to load video files in AVI, MOV or MPEG formats and process only selected frames, a certain range or the entire video file. You can save the result in a dozen formats, including BMP, JPG and EMF.

RasterVect

Manufacturer: RasterVect Software

RasterVect (Fig. 2) is a simple program with a minimum number of settings, which is aimed at users of the AutoCAD package. The settings in it are kept to a minimum: loading a raster image (supports 15 formats), choosing a tracing method and choosing a vector image format (DXF, EPS, AI, WMF or EMF). Optionally, you can pre-process the raster image (only the simplest operations) and apply masks.

Vector Eye

Manufacturer: Siame Editions

The main difference between Vector Eye (Fig. 3) and other similar applications is that during the tracing process several image options are created, corresponding to different combinations of settings, and from this series the user selects the most optimal one for further use. Raster images can be loaded in BMP, PNG, JPG, TIFF and AVI formats, and the result of the program is exported in SVG, PS and EPS formats.

Vextractor

Manufacturer: VextraSoft

Vextractor is a fairly powerful program, which has built-in effective algorithms for cleaning a raster image from “garbage”, a tracer with average capabilities and a good built-in editor for fine-tuning the vectorization result (Fig. 4). Supports import of the most common raster image formats and export to popular vector formats, including DXF, EPS and SVG.

Acme TraceART

Manufacturer: DWG TOOL Software

A multifunctional and complex program designed primarily for vectorization of drawings, diagrams and various types of maps (Fig. 5). Supported a large number of raster and vector formats. The quality of tracing cannot be called outstanding, but the program has other advantages - for example, it provides a convenient function for previewing the result even before tracing, and also allows working with multi-page images and dividing tracing results into layers.

Potrace

Manufacturer: Peter Selinger

Potrace is a free program that is constantly being improved (Fig. 6). Included in distributions of such packages as FontForge, mftrace, Inkscape, TeXtrace, etc. A good alternative to other vectorization programs listed here. Of the common raster formats, only BMP files are “understood”. The resulting vector image can be exported to EPS, PS, PDF and SVG. One of the disadvantages is the obvious “swimming” at the intersections of curves at an obtuse angle, which, however, is a disadvantage of almost all tracers. Otherwise, the program has an almost complete set of settings for edge detection, color quantization, etc. The program distribution can be downloaded for such operating systems like Linux, Sun Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, AIX, Mac OS X and Windows 95/98/2000/NT.

Raster to Vector Conversion Toolkit / Photo Vector

Manufacturer: AlgoLab, Inc.

Two quite popular programs from the same manufacturer, aimed at users of CAD/CAM systems (Fig. 7). The programs do not have significant pros or cons. The only thing I would like to note is the implicit and not entirely clear vectorization settings.

Raster to Vector

Manufacturer: Raster to Vector

Another "black box". The input is raster images in the most common formats (BMP, JPG, TIF, GIF, PNG, PCX, TGA, etc.), and the output is vector (DXF, HPGL, EMF, WMF). No significant adjustments are suggested (Fig. 8).

WinTopo Raster to Vector Converter

Manufacturer: SoftSoft.net

A good multifunctional program with enough settings to obtain a satisfactory result (Fig. 9). There are extensive capabilities for pre-processing a raster image, including transformations, editing saturation and contrast, clearing debris, etc. There are not many tracing settings, but enough to somehow influence the result of the program.

A free version is offered, which lacks some features (in particular, color image tracing).

As mentioned at the beginning of the review, all the programs presented have their pros and cons, but one thing is undeniable - with the default settings it is almost impossible to achieve a satisfactory result. However, a thorough knowledge of the settings does not guarantee a good result, which is explained by the imperfection of the tracing algorithms.

In principle, any raster image can be traced, but the result will directly depend on its quality. Decisive role At the same time, the purity and clarity of the image play a role. In addition, tracing is usually used only for images with solid fills and extremely clear outlines. In other words, in order to get a good result from a tracing program, the designer must first carefully prepare the original bitmap. The use of specialized raster editors is more preferable than the use of “garbage” cleaning tools built into tracers.

So, by tracing without preliminary preparation, you can quickly get a vector image of poor or average quality, but for a good quality vector image you need to spend a lot of time carefully setting up the tracing program and preliminary preparing the raster image.

Neuro Tracer - a new generation program

Manufacturer: Brand Security Systems GmbH

When the review was almost ready, the author came across the Neuro Tracer program, which I would like to talk about in more detail. The main feature of Neuro Tracer is the use of neural adaptive image filtering technology. Its essence lies in the possibility of intelligent preliminary preparation of source raster images for tracing, taking into account the user’s wishes. For example, the user can specify which areas in the image should be ignored and which should be reproduced.

The adaptive neural filter included in this software product allows you to clean even a very “dirty” scanned image in a semi-automatic mode in a matter of minutes. The filter is given small areas of the scanned image with hints about what it is actually desirable to see in a given place in the image. After training, the program applies the proposed processing method to the entire image.

In Fig. 10 in the image of an ancient engraving, areas with drawing strokes are marked in red (including in places where they are poorly visible), and areas with “garbage” that should be removed are marked in blue. The result of cleaning the image from “garbage” is shown in Fig. eleven.

Optional parameters for processing a raster image during the tracing process can be set in the filter settings and subsequently applied to all types of raster images. Filter settings can be saved and later applied to various images of the same type. If the saved filter does not contain information about a certain part of the new object, the filter can be “retrained” using new additional information.

Neuro Tracer has other features that the author has not encountered in any other tracer, for example, tracing indicating the shape and direction of objects. So, in Fig. 12, engraving pointilles were indicated as significant elements.

IN following example(Fig. 13) only lines of a certain direction were indicated as significant objects.

An important feature of the tracer filter is the ability to parse an image into color components. Figures 14 and 15 show the result of parsing the scanned illustration. Of course, each color is located on its own layer.

In Fig. 16, a rather dirty fingerprint image is cleaned and traced in three clicks without any significant time investment.

Neuro Tracer allows you to load raster images in 20 most common formats, including JPG, PCD, PSD, PSP, TIFF, BMP, etc. The result is exported in AI format.

All of the above allows us to conclude that the Neuro Tracer program is intended for professional work on vectorization of raster images.

In today's article I will talk about my method of tracing (converting a raster image into a vector format), and also explain why I prefer not to apply vectorization to my work.

Modern versions of vector graphics programs, such as Adobe Illustrator, have become so smart that sometimes a traced vector image is difficult to distinguish from a basic raster image. Thus, the paper drawing acquires one of the most advantageous properties of vector graphics - scalability without loss of quality. However, when it comes to detailed large-format drawings, software tracing capabilities can provide very mediocre results. From time to time I receive requests to create prints in Vectron format, but in 100% of cases I reject such offers. The only exception I make is when tracing ink sketches for Creative Market. IN Lately I occasionally add new sets to my collection.

Thus, today's post will be half an opportunity to peek at my tracing process, and half a visual answer to the question of why I avoid this procedure for complex works.

How to turn a raster image into vector form?

Here is a drawing to demonstrate my process. These sketches “live” on a sheet of A4 paper, which was scanned at 600 dpi, and then slightly edited in Adobe Photoshop (Brightness-Contrast and removing visual debris using an opaque brush white). I will make a reservation that it is not strictly necessary to scan all drawings at a resolution of 600 dpi. 300 dpi will be quite enough. Moreover, with a resolution of 300 dpi, the likelihood that your computer will think and flatly refuse to work further is reduced.

I place this image in Adobe Illustrator (I use this program because it is kind of the standard in its industry, and it is very good at tracing).
This is the panel Image Trace(you can find it in the menu Window). In my screenshot, this panel is in expanded form, with advanced settings open. I specifically marked the most important settings for us with red dots, because if you are not familiar with this program, it will be easier and simpler to navigate what I am writing about.

Strictly speaking, we don’t need to know in detail what each of the settings does, since only a few of them are truly important. I'll tell you about them, and then you can get down to business if you plan to try to trace some of your images with me.

The first option is Preset. There are many options, from High Fidelity Photo before Black and White Logo, depending on what needs to be turned into a vector. Since our example is an ink sketch, the best option will choose Sketched Art.

The next important setting is Threshold. Simply put, the closer the slider is to the right edge (more), the darker the vector result will be, the more intense all the shadows in your work will be. And vice versa, if we are talking about the proximity of the slider to the left edge (less).

Paths, Corners And Noise.
Paths- the higher this percentage, the more points there will be in the vector image. Corners- the lower this value, the smoother the result will be. Noise- the higher the value, the more details will disappear, because they will be perceived by the program as harmful garbage. These three functions require constant experimentation, because it is impossible for any work, even done using the same technique, to find an absolutely suitable, ideal combination. Only an individual approach.

And finally, I highly recommend enabling the checkbox Ignore White when tracing black and white ink illustrations. This way, the Illustrator understands that there is no need to waste resources on white space, and only black ink in vector format is obtained.

As soon as I choose Sketched Art preset, the program begins to work magic on my image. On at this stage I haven't configured anything yet, just Preset and Ignore White.

I'm not happy with the result; a lot of details were lost. Therefore, I’m starting to tighten up those options that I talked about a couple of paragraphs ago:
- Threshold it was decided to leave it at the default, 128, because a shift in one direction or another disrupted the light and shadow balance of my image,
- meaning Paths increased up to 90%
- Corners- slight increase, only 6%
- Noise- the slider went almost all the way to the left.

Finally, the last step that needs to be done to make the image truly vector is to press the button Expand on the top toolbar.

Is it possible to do better?

We just looked at fast way image tracing with comparative big amount details (after all, we have three sketches here on one sheet of paper). If you have a similar situation with the number of objects, you can use a similar algorithm of actions, or, if time allows and you want to achieve a better result, apply a different strategy and trace each drawing separately. In my case, this means that I select each sketch one by one, and repeat the steps that are already familiar to you.

Let's compare the two results. On the left is the one that resulted from tracing three sketches at once, and on the left is the one that I separately selected in Photoshop and then traced according to the previously proposed principle, setting all the options specifically for this ice cream drawing.
I think the version on the right retains a lot more detail and looks more like the original ink work. As you can see, Illustrator shows the best results when it is not overloaded with a large number of objects that need to be processed.

Thus, the main advantage of tracing each small drawing separately is the ability to obtain more high quality images and control this process, which gives you confidence that everything in your power has been done for an excellent result.

Pros and cons of tracing ink graphics, or can you always rely on the program’s capabilities

And now I would like to return to the question of why I do not trace large-scale detailed works. Here is my print (readers probably remember it), which I will now try to turn into a sample of vector graphics. This is a large drawing, A3 paper format, with many tiny details made with 0.03 and 0.05 mm liners. I put this picture in Illustrator.

I choose Sketched Art preset...

And the result is something completely disappointing, devoid of details and any intelligibility. The bad news is that no matter how hard I try to straighten this image, it won't look like the original. Only small, almost imperceptible changes for the better can be achieved.

That's why I don't vectorize my prints and complex illustrations. I also don’t draw in vector programs from scratch, I don’t outline sketches. So, I think it's clear why I say "no" to everyone who is interested in "a print like this, but vector" :)
As a rule, in my graphic sets on Creative Market, I include raster versions made from the original drawings, rather than raster versions of the vector image. The whole point is how much the digitized version retains connection with its source; it is important that it is “alive”. I want even small previews of my drawings to feel like these works remember my touch.

Sometimes raster formats cause concern that the files will not be scalable. But a raster image can also be enlarged, the main thing is that it was initially drawn on a sufficiently large paper size and scanned in high resolution.

That, in fact, is all I wanted to tell you today. Thank you for your attention!