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I have never scanned directly into vector using greyscale before. This I tried because I wasn't satified with the black and white rendition. This was first effort and right from the scanner to Corel Draw with no tracing. With some planning, I think a very cutable multi color vinyl job could be rendered without a lot of work.
-------------------- "Don't change horses in midstream, unless you spot one with longer legs" bronzeo oti Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com jack@imagemakerart.com Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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Another trick for you out there... Try the posterize filter in Photoshop, here you can adjust how many 'colors' you want the file to have. Try starting out with 4 and take that file and duplicate it 4 times (4 seperate files). Now take the curves tool with the pencil (not smooth arcs) and Zero out the 'unwanted' colors. This leaves you with an image with the 25%, 50% or 75% color only. Now you can autotrace that and save out individual colors for cutting. Works great on faces for cut vinyl.
-------------------- Eric Patzer A.S.A.P. Design Lafayette, CO epatzer@earthlink.net Posts: 208 | From: Lafayette, CO USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Eric, That's kind of what this is doing, but automatically by choosing scan in greyscale and directing it to Corel Draw for opening. The scanner knows that it wants to be vector. This was first try..... It is not refined at all, but get up out of your seat and walk 10 feet back from your computor and view.... The likeness of the two come together a lot.... I was standing 5 feet from a billboard poster that looked like a photo of a Rolex watch. Up close it looks like this photo of Uncle Mark. This scan was set on approx. 50% accuracy. On black and white, you couldn't even ID the scan. If this is "old beans", it would suprise me, but is could be. Jack
-------------------- "Don't change horses in midstream, unless you spot one with longer legs" bronzeo oti Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com jack@imagemakerart.com Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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-------------------- "Don't change horses in midstream, unless you spot one with longer legs" bronzeo oti Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com jack@imagemakerart.com Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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Thanks for sharing. I havent spent much time on the BB lately ( 2 boys in YMCA basketball and coaching the younger 11 year old) but your post caught my attention as I was quickly scanning the topics.
BUT I havent been able to get the results you got.When you say you scanned to vector, was that an option on your scanner? Did you send the scan to Corel Draw or Corel paint? I think you said you scanned in grayscale. That is not an option on my scanner....I can choose black/white or color drawing, black/white or color photograph and a few other choices but no grayscale.
Also I have a HP Scanjet 4C. What kind of scanner do you have? Any suggestions?
Ps....thanks a lot for your willingness to share.
-------------------- Ricky Simpson Simpson Signs South Central VA, USA "railroader aspiring to be fulltime SignArtist." Posts: 246 | From: VA | Registered: Jan 2000
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Ricky, The scanner I have now is a hp 2200c. It only costs maybe 120.00. Some of the newer scanners let you direct the scan into the program that you are wanting to use it in. Because of that, it scans in as vector and no tracing is needed. This thing does much better for me than the trace programs. Greyscale is one of the options, and the higher you set the sensitivity the more realism you will achieve, but....the more node editing you will have to do. This is not a high res scanner for fine color reproductions, but for the purpose of scan to vector it is a champ. It will also scan into about 30 other programs as well. You might want to try Erics method, as it will probably work also, but the time savings on this scanner is awesome. Jack
-------------------- "Don't change horses in midstream, unless you spot one with longer legs" bronzeo oti Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com jack@imagemakerart.com Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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The scanning features you talk about are not associated with the scanner as it is the software that comes with it. All low end scanners have pretty much the same features, but it is the software that drives it that will influence how much control you have in the scanning process.
-------------------- Wright Signs Wyandotte, Michigan Posts: 2786 | From: Wyandotte, MI USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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I saw Einstein at first, too! Too dang funny... At least I am not the only one losing their mind!
Have a great one!
-------------------- Bruce Bowers
DrCAS Custom Lettering and Design Saint Cloud, Minnesota
"Things work out best for the people who make the best of the way things work out." - Art Linkletter Posts: 6464 | From: Saint Cloud, Minnesota | Registered: Jun 1999
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I've had great results vectorizing color scans in coreltrace. The trick is to use the 'advanced outline' tool, then limit the complexity, limit the max colors, be liberal with node reduction (essentially it determines the distance between nodes), set node type to 'smooth'. Limiting the minimum object size will clean up the trace a lot ... The idea is to reduce the number of nodes and objects as much as possible, while retaining enough detail to reproduce the photo/image.
It's a good toy .... play with it!
-------------------- Mike O'Neill
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. - Arthur C. Clarke
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