Do you want to avoid pixelation or distortion in the quality of your printed work? Vector format presents the most important format to create scalable works for print. Raster images cannot be resized without obvious loss of quality. There are several methods used to
convert raster image to vector. Some of them are:- Redrawing the Image in vector based software like CorelDRAW or Illustrator.
- Use of image trace functionality in Illustrator or CorelTRACE
- A scanner can convert scanned image to a vector file
In this tutorial, we will use PowerTRACE to achieve this. CorelDRAW PowerTRACE helps us to convert bitmap to a vector with good precision. It has some good features to achieve this.
Get Started
Open your CorelDRAW. Use the File > Open option to load the bitmap image from your computer.
Select the Bitmap, Go to Bitmaps > Quick Trace. This option will quickly convert your image to vector art. This option is not detailed.
The second option is to use Bitmaps > Outline Trace. It will display a drop-down menu of several options. The option you chose depends on the type of image you are working with and the desired outcome.
- Line Art: It is used to trace black and white sketches and illustration
- Clipart: This is used for ready for use graphics with many colors
- Low-quality image: For images without fine details
- High-quality image: This is used for images that have enough details
- Logo: This setting is used when we are tracing simple logo with few colors and details. I used this setting to trace the MTN logo. PowerTRACE will automatically detect the background from my logo and eliminate it.
To check the accuracy of your result, select Wireframe Overlay from the Preview. Use the Transparency sliders to change the visibility of the trace result. As you increase the Transparency, the logo will appear more like a traced work.
Go to the Colors tab, choose CMYK. You will see the CMYK values of your colors. My values show four as the number of colors.
We will edit each color and chose the Pantone values (except the first white color with values 0, 0, 0, 0). To achieve this, select the first color (in my instance, yellow is the first color I selected). Choose Edit. In the panel, go to Palette > Palette Libraries > Spot > Pantone > Pantone + > Solid Coated. The Pantone ink equivalent of the CMYK is displayed. Click OK.
You will notice that the value changes from CMYK to Pantone. Repeat this step for the other colors.
After doing this for all the colors, click OK in the PowerTRACE dialog box. The logo will be traced with the Pantone color profile. You will notice that CorelDRAW places the traced logo above the original bitmap image. You can use the pick tool to drag it beside the original image.
- Detailed Logo: This option is used when the logo contains many colors and details. This is also very good for scanned image or logo. To achieve this, I chose a scanned logo I downloaded from logopedia.com.
You can refine the image before tracing to improve the quality of the traced vector image. It will eliminate blur and other rough aspects from the bitmap. To do this, select the image using the pick tool. Go to Bitmaps > Blur > Smart Blur. Set the value at 60. Click OK
Go to Bitmaps > Noise > Remove Noise. Make sure you check the Auto. This will eliminate most of the noise from the picture. Then select the OK. Now you can go to the PowerTRACE.
Go to Bitmaps > Outline trace > Detailed Logo. You will see the trace result details in the dialog box. Adjust the Smoothing and Details. Smoothing determines how smooth the curved lines will be and the number of nodes in the traced result. Detail will determine how many object or color we will preserve from the original image to the traced result. Click the Colors panel. Now hold CTRL key and select the four gray color by clicking on them. Select Merge to combine these colors into one. Go to Edit as we did earlier and change the color to the Pantone value. (Use the same steps we used above). Repeat this step for the Red color.
Return to the Settings and check Remove color from the entire image. This will remove the background from the picture. Click OK. The image will be traced.
I hope you have learned how to trace an image using PowerTRACE. You can adjust some of the methods I have used to achieve this.
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