How to trace an image in Illustrator and Linearity Curve, for vector designs

Turning images into an editable vector format is one of the most-needed skills for graphic designers and illustrators. With image tracing in your design toolkit, you can manipulate photo-realistic images in your vector designs.

Adobe Illustrator is a popular graphic design software known for its powerful vector drawing tools. However, Illustrator can be quite difficult and time-consuming to use, while Linearity Curve can achieve the same results as Illustrator in just 5 simple and quick steps.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll provide step-by-step instructions on tracing an image in Adobe Illustrator, and how easy it is to create traced images using Linearity Curve's AI-powered Auto Trace feature.

Converting original images into cutout paths is especially useful for making scalable designs from digital photos.

How to trace an image in Linearity Curve (formerly Vectornator)

Did you know you can use Linearity Curve's (formerly Vectornator) Auto Trace feature to achieve the same result? Linearity Curve (formerly Vectornator) is a competitive alternative graphic design software that offers all the tools you need.

What's Auto Trace, and how to use it?

The Auto Trace tool on Linearity Curve (formerly Vectornator), just like Adobe Illustrator's Image Trace feature, automatically converts raster images into vector shapes.

If you want to create a vectorized version of an image, you can use Auto Trace to do that quickly and efficiently.

There are three Linearity Curve Auto Trace modes:

1. Photography Mode for turning photos into painting-like portraits
2. Sketch Mode to convert your sketches into black-and-white vectors in seconds
3. Illustration Mode to vectorize your color illustrations

Let's go through a quick step-by-step tutorial on how to do accurate tracing using Linearity Curve (formerly Vectornator).

Import the image into your document

Open a photo using the Document Picker, or import a photo into your document using the Import Tab inside the Inspector.

To select the image, remember to unlock it in the Layers panel.

Open the Auto Trace Menu

To access the Auto Trace Menu, go to the Style Tab.

As soon as you select your image, you'll see the Auto Trace Panel in the Style Tab.

Adjust the Complexity and Min Path Size

If you've chosen Photography mode, you'll find two settings sliders in this panel:

• Complexity slider: Determines the number of paths your traced vector image will have. More paths mean more detail.
• Min Path Size slider: Determines the distance between points in your paths. A larger Path Size means smoother curves.

Before performing the Auto Trace, you can adjust the Complexity and the Min Path Size settings.

Auto Trace your image

Now, you're ready to tap the Auto Trace button. Give it a few seconds to process the image according to your settings and you'll have a vectorized version of your image.

Edit the traced image

After your image is converted into vector shapes, you can go ahead and edit the paths using the Advanced Options.

The tools you need for accurate vector tracing in Illustrator

If you've been following our previous Illustrator guides and how-to’s, you probably know that we'll follow the same process in this guide. We'll show you how to:

• Use Illustrator’s Image Trace feature
• Trace a logo step-by-step
• Trace high-resolution image files

We'll also give you tips on choosing types of images and experimenting with the logos and pictures you've traced.

There are three key ingredients for you to be able to follow the steps in this tutorial:

1. Adobe Illustrator (obviously)

If you don't have an Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) subscription, you can get a seven-day free trial before purchasing Adobe Illustrator. It allows you to test the Image Trace and other features and see if it's what you're looking for.

A free trial will also give you time to navigate Adobe Illustrator's various options and advanced settings.

You may find its interface a tad tricky to get used to at first. Keep this guide handy to return to the steps until you get acquainted with the main and tracing options menus.

2. A simple logo image file

Feel free to use any simple icon or logo you like to follow these steps. You can pick a modern logo with simple forms and straight lines or one with smooth, curved lines to achieve great results.

Selecting a simple logo will be especially helpful if this is your first time trying Illustrator's Image Trace tool.

3. A digital photo

Pick any raster image you like. It can be one of your own photographs or a color image found online.

But again, if this is your first time using the Image Trace tool, look for a picture with few colors and simple shapes.

Another tip is to choose photo images in the .jpg or .png formats to trace. If you use an uncompressed photo file (.raw, .tiff, and other formats) and convert it to vector format, you'll have a large file that can become challenging to manage in Illustrator.

How to trace a logo in Adobe Illustrator

Let’s begin with the steps you need to trace a logo in Illustrator.

We're going to turn a simple logo into a black-and-white vector design using Image Trace.

Open the Adobe Illustrator software and go to File > Open in the top main menu to select your logo file and open it in Illustrator.

We've chosen an air balloon icon for this exercise.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

With the logo open in your Illustrator document, go to Window > Image Trace to start the process of tracing the original source image.

This will open the Image Trace Panel.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Once the Image Trace Panel appears, click the logo image to select it. To know whether your image is selected or not, check if the tracing options are grayed out.

If they are, it means you haven't selected your image. Ensure you've activated the Selection tool (V) and clicked on the image before proceeding with the next steps.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

The next step is to go to the Adobe Illustrator Image Trace panel, and select Mode > Black and White from the dropdown menu.

If you're using a color logo, you must decide how many colors you need for your vector image. Why is this important? Because the fewer colors you use, the less vector shapes you'll have and the smaller your file size will be.

Selecting only a few colors also helps you simplify colorful designs and makes it easier to edit them in vector format.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

The built-in preset options for Black and White Mode should be adequate, but you can also set the Threshold lower or higher.

A higher Threshold will create larger black areas, while a low Threshold will create smaller black areas. This is because Threshold controls how Image Trace selects the darker pixels to be traced into the Black and White design.

Click the Trace button in the bottom right corner of the Image Trace window once you're happy with the Threshold.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Your logo will now be traced and turned into an editable vector image.

You can scale it up and down as you wish, and its image quality will remain unchanged. So, you won't have to worry about quality loss whether you scale down your logo for business cards or scale it up for posters or billboards.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

This step is optional and depends on whether you'd like to be able to edit the vector logo.

If you'd like to use the Pen (P) or Direct Selection (A) tools to make some changes to the vector paths, choose to Expand your traced image. This option will be at the top Dock section underneath the main menu bar.

This will create editable paths so you can manipulate the shapes and change the colors of particular parts of your logo design.

How to trace a photo in Illustrator

The process of tracing photos in Illustrator is similar to the steps above. However, you'll notice that you'll need to follow more steps to trace a complex image file than to trace a simple logo or icon.

This change in the tracing process starts from Step 4 below. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Before starting with the first step, remember to choose one of the raster image formats that'll work best for image tracing.

Go to File > Open and open your chosen image file in Illustrator.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

When your image appears in your Illustrator document, open the Image Trace window by going to Window > Image Trace.

All the tools you'll need are in the Image Trace panel menu.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Ensure your image is selected with the Image Trace window open. Like the process of tracing a logo, the tracing options menu will be grayed out if your image isn't selected.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Now we can begin the tracing process. First, let's convert the image into a Black and White vector to see what it'll look like as a monotone design.

Go to the Image Trace panel and select Mode > Black and White from the drop-down menu, then click Trace.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Done—you should now see a black-and-white vector image of your photo. But our tutorial doesn't end here.

Let's make a limited-color version of the picture. You'll need to Undo the black-and-white Image Trace by going to Edit > Undo Image Tracing or pressing ⌘+Z on your keyboard.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Now, go to the Image Trace panel again and select Mode > Color from the drop-down menu. This setting lets you trace your image in color.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

With the Limited Palette selected, test the Colors slider with your image to see how many colors you'd like to include. To simplify the image, we recommend selecting 20 colors out of the default preset of 30.

With the logo tracing process you followed earlier, we increased or reduced the Threshold depending on the amount of detail you want to include in the black-and-white Image Trace.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Click the Trace button in the Image Trace panel.

Keep in mind that an Image Trace may take some time, especially with more complex and colorful images. So, before panicking and clicking on other settings, give Illustrator some time to process and trace the image.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Once the trace has been done, you should see an accurate vector version of your color photo. You may still need to adjust the vector result and refine it, but the important thing is that you can use the scalable nature of vector graphics to your advantage.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

If you want to tweak some of the shapes, curves, and colors, click on Expand to start editing the paths.

Don't forget to save your Adobe Illustrator file so you can keep your traced images for other projects and Export them later. Go to File > Save or press ⌘+S on your keyboard.

Image source: Adobe Illustrator Software

Get this template

Get this template

Wrap up

We hope this comprehensive guide inspired you to experiment with image tracing in Illustrator and create stunning vector images and logos.

Bear in mind that Illustrator offers a limited free trial and is relatively costly. You'll need to purchase the software to keep using Image Trace. It will also take a while to get used to Illustrator's complex user interface and navigation. It takes patience and practice to master Adobe CC software.

You can use its Auto Trace feature to achieve the same result as Illustrator's Image Trace in fewer steps. With its CoreML Machine Learning model, Linearity Curve's Auto Trace feature analyzes your images and automatically selects the appropriate mode for you.

But you also have control over your tracing result. It enables you to change the image-handling mode (Sketch, Photography, or Illustration) and offers unique options for each one.

To learn more about Linearity Curve and keep expanding your design skills, check out our Academy tutorials and courses.