I need help editing a jpg!

[NickG013]

Can anybody help me get rid of the pixels in this picture please? I have photoshop and Illustrator, but I'm not very good with it yet. I need to cut these out as decals on my cutter ASAP. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/...bel13/z0ny.jpg

Here is the original that I updated a little bit so there would be less waste.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/x0ny/6277280626/

[John Wheeler]

Hi Nick and welcome to the forums.

Your information about help with editing a JPEG to get rid of pixels has me guessing to what you really want. JPEGs are made of pixels so I am guessing that you want to have the image turned into smooth Vectors instead of jagged Pixels.

It would help forum members help you with suggestions if you provided a slightly better description of the problem and specifically what you want as the end result e.g. a specific vector file format. It is just not perfectly clear to me what you want so instead of spending time going down the wrong path with suggestions, I thought I would just ask you for more details/specifics.

[NickG013]

Thank you for the response! Sorry for the vague information but yes. I am trying to turn it into smooth vector objects. Any help would be great!

[Tony W]

I do not use illustrator but thought that it already had the ability to convert bitmap graphic to vector, http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/il...ttlvtrace.html
Failing that there are some online programs that are supposed to do this conversion e.g. try www.http://vectormagic.com/home

[NickG013]

It does let you vectorize but when I do it, it makes everything all curvy and doesn't pick up the small stuff very well. Ill have to try those links though. If anybody else has any other ideas, feel free to let me know. Ill let you know how those links work when I get a chance to do it later!

[Tony W]

Just a quick update. As the vectormagic looked interesting gave it a try. You have to sign up and you are only offered 2 tokens (trys ?) so it may be of limited interest.

When you try to convert to vector in Illustrator are you seperating your images up enough into individual components - just a thought that small images with intricate details or large images with too many components may be a problem

[John Wheeler]

Hi Nick
I don't know why you have to work from such a poor JPG image for the work you need to do. Some of the text in your image have some fine wording that is not even readable. Here is what I would consider if I were in your shoes

- Get the source vector file
- Barring that, recreate the vector file from scratch. The vast majority of of the lines involved are Text. There are search web sites where you can plug in a sample of the Text and find the exact font you need. Get the Fonts you need, load the text as Text Layers. The remaining shapes just use the Pen tool. The text can be converted to Work Paths and exported to Illustrator along with the other Text paths. This may take a little bit of time yet I bet it will be a lot less time that starting with the automated tools and then the time consuming steps of manually modifying all of the misplaced vector points to make it anything near acceptable.

There is a phrase I like. When you have a really bad problem, the first step to making good progress is "acknowledging reality." The reality is that you have bad images to work from yet there is a clear cut path to getting clear clean vectors.

All IMHO of course and I hope this is helpful.

[NickG013]

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I was hoping I wouldn't have to go in and recreate everything. The problem is that this image is from a customer that needs some decals made for his motorcycle, and these decals are from a little toy car. They won't get any bigger than that. :/

What would a site be where I can take the text part from the image and enter it in? And will it be able to read the text and tell which font it is even if it is an image rather than text itself? Thanks a lot for the help!

[4personnen]

I found out the former "autotrace" in Illustrator a labour of love to set up but once you got the right seetings for the particular image, it does wonder.

Try it first:
open illustrator with a new document the size of the final work, then file> place> choose the toy decal file. When you select the image, you got a bar at the top of the windows with "live trace" (it's the new name, never get used to it). press the drop down menu just at the right of the button, go to > tracing options, turn on preview.
Play with the settings, expect to spent at least two hours for this as a beginner unless your are lucky. Maybe you should try any monochrome rendering and consider adding the colors later.

then when your artwork is finished go to object>release and then consider to ungroup the multiples pieces to start to work on them.


Good luck!

[chet webley]

Hi Nick,

You're vectorising graphics for cutter on a plotter? self adhesive vinyl graphics? That's what I do all day every day...

Most of those shapes are fairly straightforward - The bit that will probably take the longest is finding the typefaces.

Essentially, what you need to do is place the image into Illustrator and then draw over the top of the shapes, and type over the top of the text.

Before you go too far, check out http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/ to see if any of the logos are on there.

To find out what the typefaces are, you can try http://www.identifont.com/ and http://www.whatfontis.com/

You say that you don't have much experience with Illustrator - What software are you using to control your cutter? something like FlexiSign is equally as good for the job at hand, so if you;re more comfortable with what you use every day, then it would be easier for you to stick with that.

[John Wheeler]

I will toss in one more font size to consider as well:
http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

[nazca13]

I would agree with John, using the pen tool and tracing out the "neo zeon" graphic would allow you to size it anyway you want and use for future use. The curvy "S" graphics done the same way. It would take you 2 mins tops for each. Use the eyedropper sample the color and bam done. THe text part would take some more time and finding the font would is the way to go - you may need it again??

[NickG013]

Thanks for all the help! Im going to keep trying. Any more info is awesome! It'll only help in the future!

[Siciliana]

As a graphic designer I often get asked to include a logo in printed material and all they have is a low-res jpeg, so I've done this same thing many times. This is not retouch related so I'm not sure why you posted in this forum. Looking at your example, it can be easily done. You are not going to get any good result by tracing fonts--you need to replace them with actual fonts. You may not get the fonts to match exactly but you can get close enough that nobody will know the difference. This is a job for Illustrator! If you are not good at working in Illustrator, your best bet is to hand it to someone who can do it for you, unless you have the time and inclination to learn. The most time consuming part of all of this will be matching the fonts, unless you already know what they are. I believe I recognize 3 fonts. Really, you will save yourself A LOT of time if you can trace down the original EPS or AI file. Can you make some phone calls to find out where this came from and who might have the other version?

Anyhow, to answer your question, to do in Illustrator this first create a new file. Then choose file>place to put the jpeg in place to trace over. You'll have to trace out the shapes with the pen tool. Symmetrical shapes--trace one half and flip to make sure it is identical. As for the fonts, you have to find the right font and then type it in there. As long as the kerning is alright you can just go ahead and type the font in there in the correct weight and then convert it to outlines. From there you can transform the fonts into the right shape (ie. slanting backwards, extremely flattened, etc) Good luck.

[TopiToo]

Would it be possible to get the orignal saved as a pdf file?

[NickG013]

I've tried looking for a better picture or the original file and have had no luck. I've emailed people and everything. I'm going to try my hand at finding out what the font is and use the pen tool. What's the easiest way to find out which font it is?

[Nezbitten]

Fonts were covered above in this thread http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/