Vector Tracing.
An explainer.
Most digital graphics are raster images.
With a raster image, if you zoom in far enough, you’ll see that it’s made up of pixels, individual building blocks of colour. This is great on digital screens, because digital screens are also built up out of little blocks of colour.
Filetypes like .jpeg, .png, and .gif are all examples of raster images.
Vector graphics work differently.
Instead of little building blocks, vector images are built out of lines, curves, and points. That means if you zoom in, you’ll never see any building blocks, because there aren’t any.
Vector images are particularly useful for print purposes, though there are also ways to use them as a part of your web presence online.
Filetypes that can support vectors include .eps, .svg, and .pdf.
Vectors are versatile.
Raster images have a fixed amount of pixels: no matter how big or small you print it, you’ll always have the same number of building blocks. Just like you can zoom in too far to a photograph and turn it into nonsense, raster images are very sensitive to being printed at specific sizes!
A well-made vector image will always look crisp, clean, and sharp, at any size.
Salvage your graphics.
Whether your needs are digital or physical, good vector files are an asset.
Not only are they essential for high-resolution printing, brand merch, and storefront decals, if you’ve lost your original logo and graphics files or need higher resolution versions, vector files are an excellent backup.
A brief overview of pricing and process:
Vector-tracing isn’t one-size-fits-all.
If it was, you could rely on some free online service. But if you want high-quality results, you can’t just run it through a program! If the original raster file is small, coloured, or full of fine details, an automated process might produce inadequate results.
Logo Salvage’s tailored vector-trace process relies on digital drawing, licensed vectorization tools, and experience. Whether it’s a one-colour logo for t-shirt printing or a complex wordmark you need reproduced for full-colour printing, we’ll get you the result you need at an affordable rate.
How much of the process is careful re-drawing and how much can be done through automatic software, though, depends on the graphics themselves. Artwork that is very small, detailed, or otherwise complicated may require more “manual” work.
That’s why our quote is so important: we evaluate the graphics to determine how best to meet your own needs.
To start to understand how your graphics influence our quotes, consider the following examples.
This wordmark is straightforward, clear, and not low-resolution. It will respond well to automated vectorization, with minor tracing to ensure accuracy. Graphics like this get priced at $17/each.
This one is much lower resolution, and has more details. It will require manual tracing in order to capture the proper details.
This wordmark has several colours, including a gradient effect and a drop-shadow, both of which will need recreation “by hand.” However, the file is high resolution enough that it will be easy to generate an accurate base to build on.
This wordmark has a lot of detail and thin linework, meaning it will react very poorly to automated vector-tracing. It requires time and effort to rebuild, but it can be done!
Additional matters can also impact the pricing!
Make sure you include those details - rush orders, tracing from a photograph, minor graphic design adjustments - in your quote request.