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convert a black and white drawing to vector art, how to

  • reaper
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Post October 25th, 2005, 5:35 am

I want to make a black and white design, something that i sketched on paper and that i cleaned up so to speak as good as possible (removing sketch lines,etc) into a vector art design.

The drawing is going to be part of a logo and i want it to be as such that that lines and colors are just like any other vector art logo design.
I really haven't a clue where to begin if i want to make this happen, my drawing skills are sufficient to make a nice design but to make it ''webpage ready'' i really have no idea.

Could someone give some pointers how i need to convert my drawing into a vectorized image for a website to display?
Or could someone turn my drawing into a vector art image? i know this is a big question but if someone can spare the time then i would greatly appreciate it 8)

Thanks in advance for your replies guys.
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Post October 25th, 2005, 5:35 am

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Post October 25th, 2005, 12:48 pm

You need to use the Pen tool in either Photoshop or Illustrator (personally I use Illustrator for all my vector work).
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Post October 25th, 2005, 3:25 pm

It would help a lot if you could post your sketch. Then we could see if it's something that might be tracable by a vector program to save you redrawing it.

Otherwise, I'd use the pen tool in Illustrator as Axe says. (Experiment with the Alt button when clicking and dragging on nodes to get sharp corners.)
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Post October 26th, 2005, 2:40 am

This is a design that i made for a member on this board some time ago, he is not active on the board anymore but maybe you recognize it since he made it his avatar.

If i can alter this design of mine i can alter any design that i produce, hopefully :)

Image

And at the moment i have a trial version of freehand from macromedia.
When i use the pen tool i only get strange shapes but that is because of my shortcomings towards these programs.
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Post October 26th, 2005, 3:47 am

Have had a quick go in Freehand using the following help article:

Quote:
Tracing an image

You can trace an image by selecting an area or by selecting an area of similar color. With either method, FreeHand creates the traced paths directly above the object that you traced.

When you select by color, FreeHand selects only those colors that are adjacent to the initial selection and within the tolerance set in the Trace tool options. You can add additional areas of any color to the selection. For example, you can select all of the red roses in a picture, or you can select a red rose and its green stem.


To trace a selected area:

1 Click the Trace tool in the Tools panel. The pointer becomes a wand.

2 Drag a selection area around the object to trace. Hold down Shift to constrain the Trace tool’s selection area to a square.


To trace a contiguous area of color:

1 Click the Trace tool in the Tools panel.

2 In the document, click to select an area of color.

To add to the current selection, Shift-click additional areas.

To subtract from the current selection, Shift-click a selected area.

To deselect all areas, press Tab.

3 (Optional) Click a selected area to open the Wand Options dialog box, and select one of the following options:

Trace Selection traces the selection using the settings in the Trace Tool dialog box.

Convert Selection Edge traces only the edges of the selected areas.

4 Click OK to close the Wand Options dialog box if it is open.


It's difficult to achieve accurate tracing, so if you really need it vector as opposed to bitmap now may be a good time to get to grips with drawing your own vectors.

The help menu is your friend.
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Post October 26th, 2005, 3:52 am

Thanks i will have a go with it 8)
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Post October 26th, 2005, 6:13 am

:evil: i put a curse on these programs, all of them...or did they put a curse on me :shock: because nothing ever works for me.
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Post October 26th, 2005, 6:34 am

Hehe; deep breathes. Take a short break and have another go later.

If there's anything specific we can help you with just post, of course.
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Post October 26th, 2005, 8:06 am

Illustrator :)

I've used Freehand on-and-off for about the past decade, ever since it was an Aldus program (before Macromedia, then Adobe, bought it), and I've never liked it, heh.

I've since switched over to using Illustrator, tracing is REAL easy, and if you mess it up, it's REAL easy to fix. :)
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Post October 26th, 2005, 8:19 am

Just found what seems to be a very comprehensive page on tracing:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/2004/02/2 ... itmaps.htm
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Post October 27th, 2005, 1:34 am

Found a tutorial site with just the kind of info i need - i think - there are numerous tuts on converting a drawing from paper to digital.

Even comic style coloring 8)
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Post October 18th, 2006, 7:43 pm

If you are going to use an image for a logo, quickest and easiest way to vectorize it if it is one color is to use a font creator and make it a font and Illustrator will create outlines on it perfectly. Its cheating but if it is a clean black and white image it is perfectly converted.
Since they did so well with perfectly converting fonts to outlines why did autotrace suck so bad lmao.
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Post October 30th, 2006, 3:43 pm

Duno about anybody else, but for my vector drawings i think Flash is the best spftware package to use, I find the pen tool very hard to use and can never grasp it! :( the thing with flash is that you can draw a straight line and then bend it, the pen tool is all about anchor points (right?) which can get messy for me anyway!

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