Make sure that this layer is at the back of all the other layers. Fill out the entire artboard, and pick the lighter color from our palette.
Now, add a rectangle as background using the “Rectangle Tool” (M). In this case, let’s start with a warm color palette, using 5 tones and one gradient – darker to the lighter colors. Now we can choose the color we want to use for our final illustrated vector. (You can hide the image of the background just clicking on the “eye” icon from the layer panel – or select the image and press “CMD+3”.) In this stage of our tracing process, complete all the shapes that we want to have in our composition. Remember that we will simplify the details, so don’t spend too much time on them, just follow the main shapes. After finishing all the arches (the second most distinctive shapes of the image), we can move to the horizontal lines, and then jump to the pillars of the building. In the “outline” preview (shortcut “CMD+Y”), it should look like this: At this point, your image should look like the following in the “normal view”:. With the outline of the Coliseum complete, we can start creating the inside arches – again using the same “Pen tool” (P). Close the path in the same place that we started.įor more information about how to use the anchor points, check out our Helpx page: Hold your mouse / pen after adding the second point, and move it to the sides to arrange the curve of your path, placing it in the same position as the vertex in the top.įollow the entire silhouette of the building, adding more points and curves with the “Pen Tool” (P). 
Move the cursor until the first crack on the top. In this case, on the top left of the Coliseum.Īfter the first point, move to the right to set the second anchor point of your path. Now, with the “Pen Tool”, we need to add a single point where we want to start the path. Also, for this exercise, we will “keep it simple” in terms of shapes and details, which will generate a particular “illustration” style of the Coliseum.
We will start the tracing process (vectorize) from the most distinctive shapes in the image, and end with the smaller details. The color doesn’t matter at this point, we will change it later on. This will help ensure you can see the lines during the next few steps. Pick a bright color that’s different from the photo color scheme. Now, we need to clear the fill color, leaving only the line color. To start the trace process, go to the tool panel and select the “Pen tool” (shortcut: “P”). This will help you to keep from moving the image during the trace process. Or select the image and press “CMD+2” (shortcut to block elements). Place your image in the middle/bottom of the document, and block it on the layer panel, clicking on the “lock” icon. When you have your image ready to go, open Adobe Illustrator CC and create a new document.įor this tutorial, we will create a 5000 x 4000 px art board with an RGB color profile. In this case, I will use a photograph of the Coliseum in Rome that I took a few years ago ( available through Adobe Stock). First off, we need to select our base image or photo. In this tutorial we will use Adobe Illustrator, and specifically the “Pen Tool” (P), which is the most common method. Many logos don't even go beyond that.There are a few ways to vectorize an image. 
Half the battle is just typing the name of the company in the appropriate font, which is fast once you get the font ID'd. These steps add time but make things easier for your automatic vectorization software.įor logos, you really should just trace. If it's a single color, use image -> adjust -> threshold on it. Then, if it's color, posterize it until you're satisfied you're keeping the essential lines and shapes and removing any 'fluff' like colored gradients or blurred lines. One thing you can do (either as an alternative to automatic tracing, or as a preliminary step) is to blow up your image's resolution with a special resizing filter for photoshop -> though if you keep preview on and tweak the options you can eventually get something workable. I've also used sign software called flexi-sign that has a surprisingly good vectorizing option, works great on single color logos because it has an adjustable setting for preserving sharp corners. The corners of text get rounded, edges either get jaggy or doubled up with random vector 'slivers', small details get lost. There are automatic vectorizing methods, but to be honest the results in most of them are pretty crappy.
0 kommentar(er)
