The Furry Forums
Furry Chat => Rants and Advice => Topic started by: Ventus Fall on May 09, 2017, 05:26:41 PM
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Hey everyone!
To get straight to the point... ish.
I was told that it is possible to save an image as a vector file (e.g. as .eps) when you have drawn something in photoshop.
That's cool, I thought.
Problem is still that it's not truly a vector-file, it seems. It's a rasterised vector-file. And therefor useless for what it's meant for, which is something that needs to be printed out by a specific machine to make as some sort of protective-sticker for sand-blasting purposes.
Ok, so how to solve this?
Already someone tried to help by transferring the file over in illustrator (which is also what the company suggested I'd do, who is going to print out the protective sticker) and made it an actual vector file.
Problem now is, the drawing in the vector file does not resemble in all points to my drawing. Some things are missing or 'merged' together with other lines. In other words: Some of the finer details are gone.
My question is: Does anyone know of a good, free-to-use vector program I can use?
I'm worried that eitherway I can't use my current image and I still have to redraw the entire image. (Please tell me if this isn't the case, and how I can fix it.)
I don't know how to draw either, as I've heard vector programs work differently from the programs I use.
It's making me frustrated.
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Inkscape is a popular free vector graphics program, similar to Illustrator. Unfortunately you're probably going to have to redraw the image, although you can use your existing raster image as a guide to trace over. Illustrator has an automatic tracing feature (I don't know if Inkscape does), but it rarely does a serviceable job.
Drawing with vectors is a lot different than drawing in a raster format like Photoshop. I liken it to making a picture with construction paper. If you have trouble with it, I can probably help, as I have a lot of experience working in vector format.
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Thing is Ventus, vector files work different than actual pictures. Traditional raster/picture files such as jpeg and png are just a bunch of instructions that tell the computer how many pixels there are on an image and what their color might be. However vector files work by defining an image by lines or shapes and their position relative to each other. Although this is why you can't have a very complex vector image.
Now I am not sure what is the image you wanna use but just so you know if you expect to get your drawings into vector format then I can tell you with 99.9% certainty that it wont work.
Vector files are good for more simple designs such as logos, signatures etc.
So just so you can get more info about this I am gonna link a couple of resources:
A page (http://www.fileformat.info/mirror/egff/ch04_09.htm) from FileFormat.info that lists the cons and pros of vector files and..
a YouTube video (https://youtu.be/W2xknX3k6FY) that also explains them in some different way x3
Let me know if this was helpful ^^
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Thanks you two.
Now to reply to each of you briefly :P
@Vortex: Thank you for further information on it, I'll look into it.
I know vector works differently than a raster image. It's why I saved the image I had in photoshop as a vector-type file (.eps), as I needed to use it for a different purpose than I usually do. However, I found out only later I shouldn't have done that in the first place ^^;
So there's that.
@John Red Beard: I suppose I can try Inkscape. Have you had personal experience with that, if I may ask?
As for offering help, I suppose you wouldn't be able to do it for me? :P
I wouldn't know where to start ;_;
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@John Red Beard: I suppose I can try Inkscape. Have you had personal experience with that, if I may ask?
Not really. I use Illustrator. Inkscape basically has all the same tools though, just a different interface.
As for offering help, I suppose you wouldn't be able to do it for me? :P
I wouldn't know where to start ;_;
Depends how complex the image is.
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Yeah inkscape is probably
If it's a somewhat simple enough image, I might be able to help you since I'm quite well acquainted with illustrator. Feel free to send me the image and I could have a look at it if you'd like.
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I know you specified free but let me throw this one at you. This one's called Serif Draw plus. It retains the idea of being a vector program, but all the strokes you make are just like a raster brush. I personally didn't like it. My father loved it. It has limited Brushes unfortunately... Unless you want to build your own or something. x.x . It's 25$ and it might be worth a check. I think it's a vector file when you export is. Don't quite remember.
I'd also recommend Mangastudio as they have vector layers that basically do the same thing as Serif. But that's 50$ ^.^;