Raven

Hi, thought I might post this over here as I used a few different apps...first I started with a digicam photo I took of an African Daisy in my yard, then I worked it over into a vector image and SVG format, finally to post here I used PS and converted the SVG converted to png image to a jpg. I like the scalability of vector images and the look this gave the orignal photo too. A fun experiment! 8D

gare

Verrry nice, Raven! Application convergence, indeed [righton]

You used Xara?

My Best,

Gare

Raven

Thanks Gare! What I was playing with was Sodipodi (a freeware SVG vector app) and I got Gimp also because of needing the most current GTK+ files for Sodipodi which I found in an easy package made for using with Gimp on Gimp's site -- so in a round about way I ended up also getting the freeware Gimp to play with, which is kinda neat too -- and was playing with the photo I took with just a simple Fuji A303 digicam in Vector Eye....which gave me a nice vectorized output to further refine in choices of SVG, ps, and eps formats. Xara could be used with the eps format. But wanting to further play in SVG format for a change, I discovered Sodipodi using this as it's native vector format, and it's freeware 8D , it can also output the vector SVG files into a png format, which I did to make this to post, then into PS CS2 for some more conversion to a jpg small file size to post with.

The Sodipodi version I found worked best was the older .33 version. Finding out about the GTK+ files in a package that installed on its own took some looking around...then I found Gimp used this (I didn't want to have to compile them and build Sodipodi from scratch on my computer, I'm not into programing [confused] )...anyway with these apps a nice vector version of the image I took was done.

I thought the flower image had a "happy" feel. 8D

lasa

Raven do you mind posting the original photo...I'd like to try and duplicate what you did but in Photoshop...It's a great look and I like to see if I can learn how...
Lasa

Raven

Thanks for giving this a look Lasa. But my purpose with the photo I took was to convert it to a vector drawing, not a raster version which I could have done. I wanted a vector drawing of the image. But I do not have Illustrator, only Xara X1 for vector work. I had heard there were some other tools out there being used for much quicker vectorization of images...so I had a gander at a few and found Sodipodi and Vector Eye (one a freeware, the other has a free trial for about 20 images worth, and the cost of Vector Eye is quite reasonable as well and well below Xara or the other most commonly known vector apps)... each using the XML SVG vector file format...something that may become more commonly used in time. This was of interest to me as Xara X1 does not currently use SVG format, (nor ps files, it can use eps) ...and I didn't want to pay gobs of $$ for Illustrator that does mainly what Xara does except can use SVG.

My experimenting was to see if a "quick" vector drawing could be accomplished from an image like this photo I took. Yes, it can!

I used PS just to convert the output png format from Sodipodi work in SVG.

All of this converting of the photo into vectorized format for other vector uses took just a few minutes! What a time saver these tools are!!! 8D

You might get somewhat of a similar "look" of the image after some doing in PS ---- but the main point of my post is that this became a vector drawing work, not raster ----- AND in just a few minutes, which others who have used vector apps know isn't gonna happen * in a few minutes* with either Xara or Illustrator in getting an image of this quality no matter what you do in them.

Try out Vector Eye and see what I mean...

lasa

Sounds good to me.
A long time ago I was testing all the bit maps to vector programs I could get my hands on. The one I bought a thousand years ago and never looked back was Streamline 4 by Adobe. Expensive if I remember right $125.00 (something like that) but...at the time it was the one to have...over the years I've tried many dif. demos but I haven't been convinced to drop Streamline. It seems that Adobe gave up on it since they've never updated it.. Now I understand that Illustrator CS2 has it incorporated which it should have been years ago.

If you get a change give it a try I think you'll be suprised.

I use it to give my hand drawn line drawing a cleaner crisp look. I should probably learn illustrator for what I do, but for some reason it drives me to drink! So I work it in PS...very simple point and fill painting nothing like some of the art you see here.

Lasa

lasa

Left side is bit map, right side is rasterized adobe streamline vector file,
(Set on ultra detail)

Lasa

Raven

Hi Lasa -- The Adobe Streamline works pretty well, I'd never run across it, but that's good that they've decided to put it in with Illustrator CS. I still like the results of Vector Eye and Sodipodi better....and you can't beat the price considering Vector Eye right now is around half what Adobe Streamline used to be waaaay back then, and Sodipodi is free.....Illustrator is big $$$ though...

sPECtre

with all the nifty apps posted in here, Gary, don't you think that it would be nice to have a sticky post, or a linked page listing all the different apps that we talk about in this section of the forum, organized by their specificities (raster apps, vector, 3d, filters, browsers, font editors, ... their freeware or shareware status, etc.)

Welles

I think it would be interesting to take a single image and try a number of different vectorization processes of bitmap images. Flash has a good one. The new Illustrator's Live Trace is a significant enhancement over Streamline, it seems to me, having used Streamline on occasion over the last eight years or so. Raven's technique looks excellent.

Here's an Adobe stock photo vectorized with Illustrator CS2's Live Trace using one of the presets, 'Photo High Fidelity', which specifies a maximum of 64 colors among other settings.