What is the best way to vectorize a bitmap image.

Asked by JSpeer (362

) November 26th, 2009

Hi everyone! I had to recreate a youth group logo for my church. it’s just the word “LIFE” but in each letter there is an image. EX: the L has a basketball in it, the I has a highschool locker, the F – a city skyline, and the E is an ipod. I vectorized it using “livetrace” in illustrator but in the gradient areas of the pictures its very choppy and theres some distortion and white spots. i was just wondering if there was a better way to do it and get a clearer image. The logo has to be blown up large for t-shirts and flyers so it has to look nice. any tips, ideas? thanks!

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6 Answers

I am afraid you will have to vectorise it manually, e.g. drawing the splines, etc. That will take some work and time, but you already have illustrator, so go for it.

ragingloli (52231

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Use Inkscape and select an option called “Trace Bitmap”. You’ll need to do a little trial and error before you get it how you want, but it will work.

J0E (13172

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in the newest illustrator there is a trace bitmap tool….they will give you a fairly accurate change…the older versions dont have that function tho and youd have to do it by hand by opening the original as the background and setting the transparity to 50% or less…add new layer and trace over the background on it…delete the background and you have your image

noodle_poodle (1617

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by hand will be most accurate but will take a while

noodle_poodle (1617

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thanks!

JSpeer (362

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Even better—just paint over your original bitmap to make it more black and white (clean up those grayscales). You’ll have a much better time transferring using live trace, then you can fiddle by hand.

andrew (16562

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