Low Quality Raster LOGO Reconstruction in Vector Format.

Preperation
to prepare for this assignment we where handed a handout with the instructions to write our name in the bottom right hand corner of the image, then scan the image. We scanned using the greyscale color mode at 600 pixels per inch. We scanned at these parameters because it would yield the 'Best' scan for this image. You can always remove pixels but adding pixels doesn't help.

Clean Up in Photoshop
In photo shop I used the Levels option to adjust the light and dark levels to remove most of the static in the image due to the original image being very poor quality.

Live trace in Illustrator
Live trace can be a very useful tool but when your image is bad you get a bad live traced image. I could have spent a few hours fixing this image with the remove anchor tool and direct select tool, which means the live trace tool was not the tool for this instance.

Logo Reconstruction Using the PEN Tool in Illustrator
So for speed and efficiency I used the Pen tool to redraw the Logo. I used the skills learned in a previous assignment about the Pen tool, which I have made a full tutorial for here {Link} with a new trick I learned today.

In the end I came out with this image as my final product in a fraction of the time it would have take to get the same result with he Live Trace tool.

File Formats
Both images use very small color pallets so I went with the Gif format to make as small a file as possible for delivery. During working on the images I used the working file formats as normal (PSD, AI, Tiff) so that I didn't cause more damage to my images then what was already there.

Advice on Vector Creation
If the image is very complex good quality images use Live trace for poor quality images it might just be easier to recreate it all together. Use your best judgement.

High Quality RGB Converted to Vector

Unmodified Trace

 

Oh boy are these different. So for this assignment I took the Sony Ericson Logo once more and converted to a vector image twice. One of the images I took the Logo and converted it straight to a high fidelity traced image with out modifications then stretched it to fit the page. The other I converted it from indexed color to RGB, increased the width number to 1000 pixels which upped the resolution then traced as a high Fidelity image. and the RGB upped resolution image came out much smoother and much more like the original logo then the unmodified trace.

RGB upped resolution trace

Raster RGB and Indexed increased Resolution Quality Comparison.

So in this I took the Sony Ericson logo and boosted the resolution up to 1000 pixels on the Width line. But one of hem i made a slight tweak, I changed it from Indexed color to RGB before I upped the resolution. And the difference is there, the RGB logo came out smoother and higher quality because the computer had more colors in its palette to play with.

Indexed Color

RGB

Vector File Size Comparison

Anchor points are the mathematical points in which a computer uses to play connect the dots and draw an image. The more anchor points the more complex the image and the greater the file size. I took one of my selfies and made one a High Fidelity image, a 3 color image and an Abstract Reconstruction image.

The High Fidelity image came out to have the most Anchor points and because of this it had the largest file size coming in at 11mb. The next largest image was the three color seeing as it had considerably less Anchor points the the High Fidelity and more then the Abstract image, it weighed in at 2.1mb. And the Abstract image came in with the smallest file size of 1.6mb and only two anchor points.

Raster to Vector to Raster

 There are many options under the Trace Image option to make your Raster Images into Vector Images in Illustrator but I chose the Over Kill method for all of them. I could have traced them in lower levels of color such as 2, 8, 16, 32 color images or indexed color but I chose the High Fidelity color image trace for all three just to make sure.

The Sony Icon at the bottom required an extra step before I traced it. When ever I traced it using Illustrator it came out splotchy and bad looking. So I had to open it in Photoshop and raise the Image resolution to 300 pixels per inch. I then opened it in Illustrator and traced it and it came out much better.

 I then had to make delivery images for my blog. I use the Save For Web option and chose to save the Bat man logo as a gif with 123 colors left in the image to make it as small as possible. But because the other images have much more colors then the batman logo I saved them as Jpgs.

And that's how I went from raster image to vector image to raster image again.

Pen Tool

Shapes

Raster to Vector

Vector images, are images 'drawn' by math. Every color has a mathematical color assigned to it and a mathematical position as well. Because Vectors are math based you have more freedom of movement. By using many of the tools you can tweak a part of the image and it will adjust the rest of the image according to the change in the mathematical data.

Raster Images are drawn with Pixels and nothing else. To change anything in a Raster image you have to do it yourself rather then letting the computer adjust the image based on your tweaks.

It is possible to convert a Raster image into a Vector image but it won't be one hundred percent right, but it will be extremely close. The image on the left was just a normal Raster image and the one on the right was a Vector image.

How I converted it to a Vector, I opened the image on the left in Illustrator. Then used the Image trace option. This identifies the colors and makes a recreation of the image as a mathematical image. I traced the image as a 6 color image which traced the image and brought the number of colors from 16.7 million to 6, but you can make a traced image in the full colors. I then changed the hue of the image to be more blue then brown.

By selecting the Expand option next to the Trace Image option it shows the mathematical anchors for each section of color. And now that it is a Vector image you can adjust the anchors of the image and change it.

Clone Tool

The Clone tool is a neat tool that has some uses other then making goofy images. The clone tool can be used to cover blemishes, and duplicating things you only have one of.

The Clone Tool
The clone tool works by making an initial selection of what you want to copy then brushing over the area you want to place the copy. Be warned that the area you selected first as the clone target will move as you brush the location area.

Liquify Filter

Lets talk filters, the liquify filter to be more precise. The liquify filter can do a lot to an image and make some neat effects.  There are three tools your gonna want to know about within the filter to get these neat effects.

 The Forward Warp Tool
The forward warp tool is used to push colors around and make it look like you smudged the image.

 The Pucker Tool
This tool sucks the color of the image inward to the center of the tool. This makes the area effected look smaller.

The Bloat Tool
This tool is the opposite of the Pucker tool. This tool pulls the color towards the outside of the tools area of effect to make something look larger then normal.