How to use Image to Vector
- 1Drop in a logo, icon or piece of line art
- 2Pick a trace style to start from
- 3Set the number of colours — fewer means cleaner paths
- 4Raise despeckling to remove stray specks, and smoothing to soften edges
- 5Download the SVG
What Image to Vector does
A bitmap stores a grid of pixels; a vector stores shapes described mathematically. That difference is why a logo saved as PNG turns to mush when enlarged while the same logo as SVG stays perfectly crisp at any size — the shapes are redrawn at whatever resolution is needed rather than being stretched.
Tracing converts one into the other by finding regions of similar colour and drawing outlines around them. It works well when the source genuinely is made of flat shapes, which is why logos and icons trace beautifully. A photograph has no flat regions to find, so tracing one produces thousands of tiny paths that approximate a picture rather than describing it.
When to use it
- Rescuing a logo that only exists as a PNG
- A brand mark with no original vector file can be traced back into something that scales — the usual reason anyone reaches for this tool.
- Preparing artwork for cutting or engraving
- Vinyl cutters, laser engravers and CNC machines need paths rather than pixels. Tracing is the step that makes a bitmap usable by them.
- Icons that stay sharp at any size
- An SVG icon is crisp on every screen density without needing multiple bitmap versions at different resolutions.
- A stylised poster effect
- Tracing a photograph at a low colour count produces a deliberately posterised, screen-printed look — a legitimate use of what is otherwise a failure mode.
Image to Vector settings explained
- Trace style
- A starting preset for the other values. Begin here rather than adjusting individually — the presets cover the common cases and are a better base than the defaults.
- Colours
- How many distinct fills the output may use. Fewer produces cleaner, smaller SVGs with simpler paths; more preserves subtlety at the cost of file size and editability. A two-colour logo should be traced at two or three.
- Despeckle
- Removes traced regions smaller than the given pixel size. Essential on anything scanned or compressed, where JPEG artefacts and paper texture would otherwise become hundreds of tiny meaningless paths.
- Smoothing
- Softens the traced outlines. Low values follow the pixel edges faithfully, including their stair-stepping; higher values produce flowing curves at the cost of fine detail. Logos usually want more than you would expect.
What traces well
| Source | Result | Suggested colours |
|---|---|---|
| Flat logo or icon | Excellent — clean paths | 2–8 |
| Line art or a signature | Very good | 2 |
| Scanned drawing | Good with despeckling | 2–4 |
| Photograph | Posterised, large file | 8–16 for effect |
Limits and what to expect
- Tracing approximates — the SVG is a reconstruction, not a recovery of an original vector file.
- Photographs produce very large files with a posterised appearance rather than a faithful result.
- Gradients become bands of flat colour, since a trace can only produce solid fills.
- Text is traced as shapes, not as text, so it is no longer editable or selectable.
- Fine detail below the despeckle threshold is discarded entirely.
Troubleshooting
- The SVG is enormous and slow to open
- Too many colours, or too little despeckling, has produced thousands of tiny paths. Reduce the colour count and raise the despeckle threshold — for a logo, two to eight colours should be plenty.
- The edges look jagged
- Smoothing is too low, so the trace is following the pixel boundaries including their stair-stepping. Raise it. If the source itself is low-resolution, there is a limit to what smoothing can hide.
- Small details disappeared
- The despeckle threshold is removing them along with the noise. Lower it, but expect more artefacts to survive — the setting cannot distinguish a small intentional detail from a small piece of compression noise.
- My photograph traced badly
- That is the expected outcome. Tracing looks for regions of flat colour, and a photograph has none. Reduce the colour count deliberately for a stylised poster effect, or accept that photographs are not what vector tracing is for.
Your files and your privacy
The trace runs in your browser on your own device, and the SVG is generated locally. No image is uploaded. That is worth noting because the images people most often want vectorised are brand logos and client artwork — material that generally should not be passing through a third party.
What to use next
FAQ
Will a photo vectorise well?
Flat graphics, logos and line art trace cleanly. Photographs can be traced but produce large files with a posterised look — reduce the colour count for a stylised result.
Can I edit the SVG afterwards?
Yes. The output is a standard SVG of filled paths that opens in Illustrator, Inkscape, Figma or any browser.
How many colours should I use?
As few as the image genuinely contains. A two-colour logo should be traced at two or three; going higher only adds paths that describe compression noise. For a photograph traced as a stylised effect, 8 to 16 gives a recognisable poster look.
Why is my SVG file so large?
Every distinct region becomes a path, so a high colour count with low despeckling on a noisy source can produce thousands. Reduce the colours and raise the despeckle threshold — a clean logo trace should be a few kilobytes.
Does this recover the original vector file?
No. It reconstructs shapes by outlining regions of similar colour in the bitmap. The result may look identical but the paths are the tracer's approximation, not the ones a designer originally drew, and text becomes shapes rather than editable type.
Is my image uploaded?
No. The trace runs in your browser on your own device, with no request to any server.