There are two types of digital images: raster and vector.
Raster images are made up of individual pixels and contain a tremendous amount of detail. However, you cannot enlarge them without losing quality.
A vector image is created from lines and shapes. They’re usually less detailed, but you can make them as large as you want without losing anything.
When you have a raster graphic that is too small for your needs, the solution is to convert the image to vector, and you can do this in Adobe Illustrator. It is a quick and simple process and gives excellent results. Here’s how to convert an image to a vector using Adobe Illustrator.
What is vector image?
A vector image is a scalable image made up of values rather than pixels.
Most images found online are raster images. Raster images use square pixels (bits of color) to convey an image. Vector graphics express color using scalable color polygons. Because vector images use dynamic color sections rather than static sections, they provide precise lines and vivid colors.
Geometry that includes vector images is formulaic, making them resolution-independent. This means that when images are scaled up or down their quality is not lost, as the colored polygons in a vector image will always retain their size. The same is not true for raster images, as the color information of these images is spread when scaled.
You can easily tell the difference between the two types of image through their file formats. Raster images are common image types such as JPG and GIF, while vector images typically have SVG, EPS, or AI formats.
Once you learn how to convert a JPG file to vector in Adobe Illustrator, you can scale anything to any size you want without losing image quality. So let’s start converting an image to a vector.
Choose an Image to Convert to Vector
The image you use will not matter when using the following procedure, except for the fact that larger images will take longer to edit. There are some images, however, that work better as vector images than others.
It’s better to edit in a single subject than in landscape or similar. Preferably, the image should have a white or transparent background and be relatively low resolution. It should be in a format like JPG, GIF, or PNG.
We’ll be using an image of Ryu from the Street Fighter series. This serves as a perfect example for several reasons. For one, it’s the same subject. It lends itself well to vector image format, as it is a recognizable character. Vector image formats are commonly used for things like logos and icons.
Choose an Image Trace Preset
Illustrator has a special tool that lets you vectorize images. It’s called Image Trace and it comes with a variety of presets that do most of the work automatically.
Broadly speaking, you should use the Image Trace preset that most closely resembles the type of image you’re converting, as each produces different results.
To get started, open your image in Illustrator and select it to activate the image options. These options should be at the top of your Illustrator window.
Click the dropdown arrow next to Image Trace to choose your preset. We will be using low fidelity photos. Click it to start tracing.
Vectorize the image with image trace
Once you click on the button, your image will automatically go through the tracing process. You’ll notice several changes to your image, but overall it should remain roughly the same. For example, the following is a close-up of our image before the tracing process.
While most of the detail has been stripped from the original image, the traced version appears much clearer. You’ll notice that no matter how much the image is zoomed in, the color gradients don’t get pixelated.
Despite the differences, the image should look roughly the same when zoomed out. Here is our composite image before editing.
Fine-tune your traced image
Once you’ve traced the image, open the Image Trace panel from the Window menu to fine-tune the conversion.
Select Mode to switch between color, grayscale, and black and white. Additionally, drag the color slider left to simplify your vector image, or right to add more detail.
If you’re happy with your settings and want to reuse them, click the Manage Presets button next to the Preset option. You can now save your settings as a new preset.
Ungrouped colors
Your image is now arranged into colored shapes that fit the original raster image. To finish vectorizing your image, you need to separate these color groups in order to edit them. To do this, select your traced image and click on the Expand button at the top of the window.