HELLO FRIENDS... CAN ANY ONE TELL ME WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST RASTOR TO VECTOR SOFTWARE TO USE WITH SIGNLAB 6:5. I AM HAVING PROBLEMS BRINGING IN EMAIL FILES IN BMP, TIF, JPEG ETC. I HEAR THERE ARE A FEW GOOD ONES OUT THERE. WHICH ONE IS THE BEST? THANK-YOU D. KEATS ATTRACTIVE SIGNS EDMONTON, AB.
Posted by Rick Sacks (Member # 379) on :
I thought SignLab did that just fine?
Posted by Ricky Jackson (Member # 5082) on :
Signlab does that very well. Something ain't right.
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
Doug,
Welcome to Letterville. I'm familiar with your neck of the woods, having lived in Calgary for four and a half years.
If you are wanting to take an emailed file and make it vinyl ready, I haven't found any raster to vector software that could be described as "best". Corel has Corel Trace as part of its package. Some use Adobe Streamline, Flexi has raster to vector capabilities. As has been pointed out, SignLab does it well.
I, and many others, generally use the files we scanned or the ones emailed to us as a template to recreate the graphic in vector format using the illustration package we are most familiar with. Sometimes, I will vectorize it via the software, if the cleanup will be less effort than redoing it. I haven't found any software that can "see" what I see and vectorize to my satisfaction.
Edited because the SignLab guys have already checked in.
You may have to spend more time tweaking settings. Also, you might not be getting files of good enough resolution.
I'll quit shoveling before this hole I've dug is too deep to get out of.
[ October 18, 2005, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: David Harding ]
Posted by Bob Nugent (Member # 3743) on :
In my opinion, everything can be done in Photoshop. Learning to create vectors with paths is essential to the business. My son in law has spent 10 years cleaning up sloppy conversions because he didn't know how to set the tolerances and still has know idea how to create a path in Illustrator or Photoshop. I have quit using Illustrator because everything can be done in Photoshop paths. Please understand that I am no longer in the sign business, and haven't been for 40 years, but I will always have a love of the business and have an addiction to the computer and the graphics. Take the time to learn your tools and you will be far ahead of the next guy.
Posted by E. Balch (Member # 3545) on :
You can try the free open source program called Inkscape. It has a very flexible trace program and a nice tutorial built into it.
As others have said, Often it is better to load your file into the background, lock the layer and use your pen tool on another layer to draw what your shapes.
ernie
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
STREAMLINE 4.0
Posted by Barry Branscum (Member # 445) on :
Corel 12
Posted by Steve Eisenreich (Member # 1444) on :
Doug sounds like you have one tool I personally use CorelDraw and suggest you learn it, but the bottom line is their are no real good rastor to vector software programs that can do what I can do. Learn how to draw in a vector program. Once you learn how to use the rastor drawing as a template then you will not be looking for a trace program.
Posted by Don Coplen (Member # 127) on :
If there's a program out there that can create professional results of raster to vector without manually drawing, using the raster as a template, I'd sure like to know what it is, too.
Of course, it's not much of a secret in Letterville that I'm one of those goofballs that actually enjoys drawing vector art.
I've used Streamline and CoreTrace. For my purposes, both are junk for anything but posterizing photos. Not an opinion, fact based on experience. I do know how to get the best out of them, and the best they can do sucks.
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
what the others have said I agree with, including Don!
Each file needs to be considered on its own merits, as the approach varies depending on the source, it's standard & its intended use & final size.
So there are times for some tracing software & there are times for manual tracing, & times for manual 'recreation', & times for hybrids of each. Personally I like drawing & node editing with flexi, now that I'm used to it.
The learning curve & idiosyncracies with whatever method you choose is a big one.
Posted by Steve Purcell (Member # 1140) on :
Generally, I have had good results with CorelTrace. I've found that the prep work I do in p-shop, using layers & filters to tighten the image, is the key to acheiving a satisfactory outcome.
[ October 19, 2005, 08:51 AM: Message edited by: Steve Purcell ]
Posted by Randy Campbell (Member # 2675) on :
Welcome to our town (Letterville)Doug.
Posted by Rick Beisiegel (Member # 3723) on :
Welcome to town, Doug
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
quote:Originally posted by Don Coplen: I've used Streamline and CoreTrace. For my purposes, both are junk for anything but posterizing photos. Not an opinion, fact based on experience. I do know how to get the best out of them, and the best they can do sucks.
Agreed.
The only exception is when someone can provide clean, high resolution artwork with good contrast... and we all know how often than happens (never). I did one recently, someone had a sponsorship from a company and they had a die cut decal but they wanted it in a color that matched the color scheme of their jetski. I took the decal, stuck it to a clean white sheet, photographed it at high res and CorelTrace pulled a perfect trace of it... but that's the exception.
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
well i will disagree with don on this one. to him STREAMLINE & COREL are junk, but if you use both programs and accually know how to set them up so THEY WILL WORK AS INTENDED...you can get some very good traces done ......WITH MINIMAL CLEANUP!!!! i have ZEDCOR 15 cd set of tiff images(same stuff they sell on ART TODAY web)and i can take any of these (600 dpi)images into streamline....and converts to perfect vector every time. ive played with SIGNLAB, GERBER, FLEXI, SIGN WIZARD...trace...all are good and will do the job they are intended for...but i will say this in defense of don....you cant beat having the ability to draw.....is better then anything......hehehehehe
Posted by Tim Whitcher (Member # 685) on :
Casmate Pro works great (oh, I forgot, it's no longer available). Posted by Don Coplen (Member # 127) on :
quote:Originally posted by old paint: well i will disagree with don on this one. to him STREAMLINE & COREL are junk, but if you use both programs and accually know how to set them up so THEY WILL WORK AS INTENDED...you can get some very good traces done ......WITH MINIMAL CLEANUP!!!! i have ZEDCOR 15 cd set of tiff images(same stuff they sell on ART TODAY web)and i can take any of these (600 dpi)images into streamline....and converts to perfect vector every time. ive played with SIGNLAB, GERBER, FLEXI, SIGN WIZARD...trace...all are good and will do the job they are intended for...but i will say this in defense of don....you cant beat having the ability to draw.....is better then anything......hehehehehe
I do know how to use CorelTrace and Streamline. Neither require a rocket science degree to operate. I think we may have different definitions of perfect, though.
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
Anyone that's actually gotten a customer to provide them their digital artwork at 600dpi at 8"x11" like OP's Print Artist clipart has, raise your hands.
Hmm.. didn't think so.
When people bring me a logo to redraw the best reference material I get is the 300 pixel wide logo pulled right off their web page. Try a tracing program on *that* garbage... not gonna work.
Posted by Russ McMullin (Member # 5617) on :
I'm with Don on this one. I haven't seen a tracing program that does well with precision. By the time you do all the tweaking and deleting extra points, you might as well draw the shape from scratch.
I'm not too proud to change opinions. If there are ways to get optimal results from tracing programs, I would love to see some before and afters. Same thing with Photoshop. If it has potential as a tracing program, and if it requires certain settings, I would love to learn the secrets.
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
don..iam not god...so i have a little less expectation....of perfect....hehehehehe
Posted by Steve Purcell (Member # 1140) on :
G.I.G.O.
If you take your average 50k image, bump it up to at least 6" @ 600 on a transparent background, and then, using a combination of filters & adjustments (brightness, gaussian, median, etc.), copy the layer onto itself several times before flattening; you can get rock hard edges that will produce near perfect trace results in just a few minutes.
Posted by Steve Eisenreich (Member # 1444) on :
Ok I will jump on the CorelTrace bandwagon with OP in some occasion I will use it, but I know how to vectorize drawings without a trace program and in most cases doing the vectorization by hand is almost as fast and it gives far superior results. Their is no easy way out sometimes IMHO
Doug you say you have signlab well I have signlab also and I do all my work in CorelDraw it just has way better workflow. The time you save working in Draw will be well worth the cost and time to learn it.
Posted by Dave Grundy (Member # 103) on :
I DO use CorelTrace. About 10% of the times that I need to reproduce a raster image as a vector file. Of those 10% of times, I might get 25% of THEM to trace accurately enough to be usable.
I'm with the "manually draw over top" crowd.
If you want to trace a picture of a tree...trace is perfect since nobody cares about anything other than the general shape of a tree.
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
quote:Originally posted by Russ McMullin: Same thing with Photoshop. If it has potential as a tracing program, and if it requires certain settings, I would love to learn the secrets.
All you need is the Pen tool to draw vector beziers, then Export the Paths as an Illustrator file.
Posted by Paul Luszcz (Member # 4042) on :
I'm surprised no one mentioned vikingarts.com or evectorize.com
Both services take lo res bitmap images and return incredibly clean ai or eps vector files in just a day or two.
Viking Arts is cheaper. It costs as little as $12 to have a logo converted.
I also find that every auto trace program I've used is terrible. In 1995 we bought Casmate because the company name "Scanvec" meant scan to vector. We thought they would be best at converting. They were, but they were still useless.
$12 a file works out to about $6-12 dollars an hour recreating a file. Everyone here, including me, costs more.
Posted by Travis Jones (Member # 5741) on :
I use a program called Rastervect. It seems to do very well for me. You can download a free trial version from the internet at web page Posted by Bill Modzel (Member # 22) on :
Mike, I haven't used Streamline since I upgraded to OS X since Adobe hasn't updated it. I've swithced to using Photoshop althought like Don, I tend to hand trace in Illustrator quite a bit too.
In Photoshop you can make any selection a work path. Doesn't make any difference how you make that. The magic wand tool will work. You can keep adjusting the tolerances until you get the "correct" selection. Once you save that under the paths pallet>make work path. Head to the file menu. Export>paths to illustrator. You now have an illustrator vector path. Note: when you open that file in your vector program you won't see anything as the path has no fill or stroke as of yet. Fill it and edit away.
Posted by Don Coplen (Member # 127) on :
quote:Originally posted by old paint: don..iam not god...so i have a little less expectation....of perfect....hehehehehe
Perfect is right. Not perfect is wrong. This is the way I was trained and I have no interest in doing it any other way. I'm particular that what I do is right. I'm not god, either, but I'm not satisfied with doing less than I'm capable of doing. Tracing programs are a shortcut that don't do that for me. I wish they could. It would free up more time for the actual design work.
Posted by Don Coplen (Member # 127) on :
quote:Originally posted by Bill Modzel: Mike, I haven't used Streamline since I upgraded to OS X since Adobe hasn't updated it. I've swithced to using Photoshop althought like Don, I tend to hand trace in Illustrator quite a bit too.
In Photoshop you can make any selection a work path. Doesn't make any difference how you make that. The magic wand tool will work. You can keep adjusting the tolerances until you get the "correct" selection. Once you save that under the paths pallet>make work path. Head to the file menu. Export>paths to illustrator. You now have an illustrator vector path. Note: when you open that file in your vector program you won't see anything as the path has no fill or stroke as of yet. Fill it and edit away.
I've done this, too. And found it even cruder than Streamline/Coreltrace.
Posted by Ray Rheaume (Member # 3794) on :
Adobe Streamline 4.0 is no longer in production. Adobe has incorporated their trace program into the latest verion of Illustrator. You may still find it out there online for sale.
Rapid
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
Ray, Illustrator has had a Trace command built into it as long as I can remember.. not that I can remember very far back but I know version 8 has it, they call it AutoTrace.. however it still has its limitations.
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I do know how to get the best out of them, and the best they can do sucks.
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