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As I indicated in the best practices section above, I concluded that it doesn't really make any sense to scan at higher than 300 dpi. In this section, I will describe my findings.
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Then, I scanned this using a consumer-grade Canon scanner at three resolutions: 150, 300, and 600 dpi. This resulted in a very crisp, clean print - out of the image, filling a 6 inch square. Next, I printed that file using a high-quality laser printer. Here is a rasterized bitmap version of that file: You can download the SVG version of this here. I found an interesting public-domain vector image of a Celtic knot design. In order to illustrate some of the characteristics of scans, I've done a little experiment. You may crop it to the correct size, but more advanced operations typically only serve to remove information from the scan.Ī closer look at scan quality at different resolutions I would typically choose 150 dpi for most scanning, especially if you intend to vectorize the resulting bitmap.ĭo not scale, filter, or otherwise alter the raw scan before vectorizing. For typical consumer-grade scanners, it rarely makes sense to scan at higher than 300 dpi, as scanners are mostly hallucinating any details at a higher resolution anyway. Make sure your scan bed is clean and dust free. While such features do enhance certain aspects of the scanned result from an aesthetic perspective, they only make it harder to vectorize. Turn off any unsharp mask or other contrast or edge-enhancing features.
#Shape magic program software#
Scanning hardware and software varies between manufacturers, so I will keep my remarks as general as possible. With those caveats in mind, you can also use the Online Edition to follow this tutorial.īest practices for scanning art that will be vectorized The user interface looks slightly different, and there's no transparency support. The Online Edition is very similar to the Fully Automatic mode in the Desktop Edition.
#Shape magic program trial#
You can download a trial version from the desktop application page. This tutorial uses Vector Magic Desktop Edition.
#Shape magic program how to#
In this tutorial, we explain how to use Vector Magic to perform this conversion quickly and easily. This process is called tracing or vectorization, and can either be done manually or using an automatic tool. This tutorial describes how to convert a scanned image into vector art.
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