What Happens During Raster to Vector Conversion
"Vectorising" sounds like a conversion you run. For anything beyond the simplest shapes it's actually a redraw — someone rebuilding your artwork from scratch using the original only as reference.
Why auto-trace isn't enough
Illustrator's Image Trace and its equivalents work by following the boundary between colour regions in the pixel grid. Because pixels are square and images have compression artefacts and anti-aliasing, that boundary is never smooth.
The output is technically vector — it contains paths — but:
- Edges are faceted. What should be a clean curve becomes dozens of tiny straight segments.
- Anchor points explode. A simple circle can come out with 200+ points instead of four.
- It's effectively uneditable. Try nudging one curve and you're dragging a cloud of anchors.
- Colours fragment. Anti-aliased edges become thin slivers of intermediate colour between shapes.
- Text isn't text. Letters become outlines of pixel edges rather than clean typography.
At small sizes on screen it can look acceptable. Printed at three feet on a sign, or sent to a vinyl cutter that has to follow every one of those anchors, it falls apart.
What redrawing actually involves
Reading the design. Working out what the shapes are meant to be. A circle that's slightly oval in a compressed JPG should be redrawn as a true circle, not faithfully reproduced as an oval.
Rebuilding geometry. Circles as circles, rectangles as rectangles, curves as proper bezier curves with the minimum anchors needed. This is what makes the file editable and small.
Identifying the typeface. If the logo uses a recognisable font, matching it and setting live text is far better than tracing letterforms. If it's custom lettering, it's drawn as shapes — carefully, because letterforms are where sloppy curves are most visible.
Rationalising colours. Deciding the actual palette rather than accepting the hundreds of near-identical shades a compressed image contains, and mapping to Pantone where specified.
Structuring the file. Sensible layers, grouped elements, outlined text where appropriate, and export to every format you'll be asked for.
What you should send
The largest, sharpest version you have. In order of usefulness: a high-res PNG, a large JPG, a screenshot from a website at maximum zoom, a photo of printed material.
Even a poor source usually works, because we're redrawing rather than tracing — the reference only needs to be clear enough to read the intent. A blurry business card photo is workable; a 40-pixel favicon is not.
If you have brand guidelines, Pantone references or the original font name, send those too. They remove guesswork.
Judging the result
Four checks, none of which need design software beyond a free viewer:
1. Zoom to 1600%. Curves should be smooth. Faceted, polygon-looking edges mean it was traced.
2. Count anchor points. Open it in Inkscape (free) and select a simple shape. A circle should have around four points. Dozens means auto-trace.
3. Check colour count. Your logo's actual colours, not forty near-identical variants.
4. Compare side by side at 100%. Proportions and spacing should match the original. Redrawing is a chance to clean up wobble, not to change the design.
When it's genuinely needed
Screen printing, signage and vehicle wraps, vinyl cutting and laser work, large-format print, promotional products, and any rebrand where the master artwork should be vector. Detail in what vector art is.
Note that embroidery is not on that list. Machines read stitch files, not vector paths. Vector is a helpful reference for a digitizer, but a sharp raster works nearly as well — don't delay a digitizing order hunting for one.
Cost and turnaround
Our vector conversion starts at $3, with most straightforward logos back within 24 hours. Complex illustrations cost more and take longer, and we'll tell you which yours is before starting.
Send the best version you have and we'll tell you honestly whether it needs redrawing at all — sometimes the file you already have is fine.