![]() VM is the clear winner as the only app that supports this stage fully. Inkscape doesn't display this stage at all.If you have close colors (see previous section), this is when you start noticing that they're ignored. Graphic Tracer displays segments as a preview while working with the palette, however editing segments isn't supported.After automatic stage is finished, you can "zap" unneeded segments and edit pixels using pencil and paint bucket tools. Vector Magic allows configuring complexity, min segment size, can take anti-aliasing into account and cluster similar colors.You can affect segmentation with the noise slider. Adobe Illustrator doesn't display this stage to a user at all, so there's little way to affect it.GT is in a weird spot of being user-friendly, but doing a terrible job. VM is the clear winner here, AI is very close (points deducted only for the interface designed for aliens). Its support for colors is very limited in general, because it relies on an external app for tracing which supports only grayscale images. Inkscape doesn't support palettes at all.If your image has black and dark gray in it, you better increase contrast before vectorization and fix colors later, because GT supports only very distinct colors. Second, it doesn't support close colors at all. First, alpha channel is ignored and white is always considered fully transparent. However, all usability issues are minor compared to two massive problems. It supports adding colors with a single click, supports gradients, but automatic palette generation isn't customizable. Graphic Tracer has by far the most user-friendly palette creation and by far the worst palette utilization.VM specifically supports taking anti-aliasing into account when generating a palette. Not only transparency is fully supported, but you can have colors with different alpha values in your palette. If you want a custom palette, you can let the app create a palette automatically and apply little fixes. Creating a palette manually requires many extra clicks unfortunately, but it's possible. Vector Magic supports somewhat similar palette generation options.If you want transparency, you'll have to manually delete background parts later. This feature was designed for a very different purpose, so prepare to be asked for a name of every color you pick. Adobe Illustrator supports various modes of automatic palette generation, however giving it a specific palette is pure pain and requires creating a color library.IS is the best, VM and AI are close (points deducted for minor issues), GT is mediocre. When asked to open a file, it just opens the file. ![]() Inkscape is surprisingly the most user friendly.Frequently randomly closes on crash testing. Graphic Tracer is the worst of all, it doesn't support dropping a file on the application window.Vector Magic can randomly crash when trying to resize an image to the "recommended size".Adobe Illustrator ignores image size and always creates canvas of the last used size.Comparison Importing image filesĪll applications support popular formats, so you'll always be able to load your image, however usability varies. I may add Corel Draw later, but based on what I've seen, it isn't better than the other options in any aspect. ![]() I will go step by step and compare Adobe Illustrator, Vector Magic, Graphic Tracer and Inkscape. Depending on what you're working with you may want to choose a specific program better suited for your task. However, as with any tool and stated earlier, even that may not yield the result you want if you are unfamiliar with it.ĭifferent programs have different strengths. There is no "magic" button anywhere which will make any tracing tool work for everyone in every circumstance. You may need to adjust settings in the tracing tool to get the exact trace you are looking for. You may need to draw with pen rather than pencil if you are scanning artwork. It may help to tweak values or sharpness of an image in a raster editing app, such as Photoshop, before trying to trace it. If you are using any automated tracing tool, you need to familiarize yourself with how it works. If you want more refined artwork with better control over anything, you really have to create the paths yourself. In many cases, and for many user, "adequate" is just that for them and they are happy. In most cases, tracing provides adequate results at best. It's simply not something any automated tracing tool can do with a click of a button. People spend years learning how to create vector art properly. It does take practice, but that is the best method by far. The best method for any vector art is to draw it yourself. Thousands of users never touch a tablet, but still use Illustrator. You don't have to have a tablet to create paths with the pen tool.
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