Topic: Help converting a .png or .jpg into a vector .eps or .ai

Conceeding newbie here and offer my extended apologies in advance.

Quick synopsis - I need a program that will convert a .jpg/ .png file into a vector .eps/ .ai file.


I am a webmaster/dev and have a client who wants a graphic (picture) etched onto a wineglass for an upcoming wine walk event. The company that is to "etch" this image, along with her text, will only accept vectored .eps or .ai images. They do not offer the services of converting non-vectored graphics into vectored format as I assume they should, being they call themselves professionals. I have found no requirements yet for me to learn vector graphics and/ or conversions as a web dev. I would like to help my client even though it is the wine-glass-etching professionals job to do this. I am on a Windows OS and need a vector conversion software that saves in the .eps or .ai format...Open Source software is my preference but any suggestion will do! Again, Thanks in advance!

John

As far as I'm aware this isn't possible automatically.

But what you can do is open your image in a program that can do vector art, such as Illustrator, and then trace around your image creating paths.

If you can't get your hands on Illustrator, you can get a trial or try using the very good Inkscape.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,



(Edited by Blaise on 04-21-2009 21:26)

It's possible, but if you spend a little more time to do it manually as Blaise has described, it will be a million times better.

You can use Inkscape if you'd like free software to do this. If you can post the raster image, I might give it a whack ? for some reason I enjoy converting things from horrible raster to glorious vector.

Vector Magic always did a pretty good job for me, depending on the image. I stopped using it when it stopped being free, though.

Much obliged!

Here are the originals and I gave it a debut attempt with MagicTracer 2.0 using an Ipen mouse pen with horrific results.

jpg

gif ewpsie- that is a transparency disaster

png

This Ipen mouse did not do what I had anticipated, and suspect I need a tablet/ stylus to do these drawings. Any noteworthy suggestions on a reasonably priced tablet for this style of manual design work would be, well, why I'd be most grateful on some insight there too!

I think I've found the most helpful forum yet- glad I stumbled upon the asylum!

(Edited by johnbouy on 04-22-2009 02:48)

Wes,

By God I think I can reduce my Prozac, thanks to you- that url you provided actually seemed to do the trick (what do I know about etching a wine glass?) so I think you all have officially done your daily good deed. The resulting .eps file produced via Vector Magic is linked below. Reckon it is wine-glass-etching material?

Thanks all so very much!

http://www.abbevillewinewalk.com/winewalk.eps

Looks pretty good, and considering how many gradients there are in that image, you wouldn't want to remake it by hand.

Oh Sweet Jebus- this was the wine-glass-etching professional's response to the above winewalk.eps:

quote:

---

Yea~ this is vector art! Good job. The only problem that I have in using
it is that she only wants a one color imprint on the wine glasses, so you
will have to change the art to only 100% black and white ( no grays or
halftones).

---

"No grays or halftones"

Now y'all help this poor, feeble-minded, Clovis Point-toting lunatic figure this out. In a non-vectored, black and white image, are the shades not constructed by the pixel dots per inch- less or more depending on the shadow or 3-d amount?

In short- all pixels are black, but less per inch the lighter the area of tone or shadow? Which I recall this picture began as a black and white pixellated jpeg.

I did finally get Illustrator and inkscape fow what it's worth..

Clovis Point John

hmm btw if you're etching glass then afaik you should etch the light areas not the dark ones ... so that the highlights will appear light when you pour some darker liquid in the glass ... such as wine ... otherwise you will get some kind of inverted colors effect but that may be ok too ... and if you're going to do dithering for the gradients then you'll need to find out what kind of precision the etcher is capable of and adjust the resolution of the dots accordingly
example

(Edited by Arthurio on 04-24-2009 10:59)

sounds like you'll have to simplify your image then.

Thanks all for the help!

I think we've decided that the graphic is not the incompatible component, but the choice in vendor. Thus, my client has decided to shop around and if I understand correctly, one has been found that kindly thinks the above winewalk.eps will do just wine- I mean fine. Tee hee...sorry

Again, thanks for helping as you all have made two folks very happy!


Cheers


John

How come no one has mentioned Illustrator's Livetrace options or did I just miss it. I know I haven't been around here much lately but I have done a bit of this at work. Your image is a bit detailed but it is still possible.

I don't suppose you have high resolution version of this image at will help with the details.

live trace will convert raster to vector but it is not a perfect process and may need some cleaning up after the conversion. For that it help to really know how to use the pen tool including the shortcut keys.

I've had some go really well and some not so well and some takea lot of work.

FYI. Most will want/need a vector image and one that is all one color either 100% CMYK process black or a spot color. Most likely the one you found that took your image either has expensive proprietary software that cleaned it all up or they cleaned it up manually and either billed that time into the job or was willing to do it to get the job in a time were every job you get counts.

Most etching or vinyl cutting need to have a good vector image. There are many out there who will take a jpg but the software they put it through comes with their hardware converts it to vector but it still sometimes takes some fixing and is usually pretty pricey.