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Stanley Waldrup
01-17-2010, 12:21 PM
I have a logo that is giving me fits. I do a lot of Laserbuzz Items and a Lady wants this logo in the middle of one of the Desk Ornaments. Can someone try to vector this one for me. I have tried everything I could in X3 with very disipointing results. Maybe a good reason to upgrade to the new version.The lettering at the bottom is not required. I have it in .Jpg and .PNG format....
Thanks
Stanley

Scott Shepherd
01-17-2010, 12:35 PM
Stanley, for less than $20 (I'm guessing), there's a guy that would crank this out in no time. Google "the vector doctor". Fast replies, fast service and cheap prices. I spent a few minutes looking through the site for something usable but didn't find anything. I was hoping to find it in a pdf somewhere, but the pages with all the pdf's is nothing but broken links.

If it were me, I'd send it out. Not because it's difficult, but because I can't recreate it for less than $20 and I know he can.

I think his name is Eric.

Anthony Welch
01-17-2010, 1:08 PM
Tom (Laserbuzz) might also be able to do it.

Gary Hair
01-17-2010, 1:12 PM
I have used Excalibur Creations to do vector work and can tell you that William does fantast work, amazingly fast and as good a price as you'll find. That graphic should be a cake-walk for him.

Gary

Rick Irwin
01-17-2010, 2:49 PM
Try Brian @ www.artboygrafix.com he is very good at redrawing or creating artwork. Average cost $15-$20. We have used him several times and has done a great job. Fast turnaround if needed.

Couple of others available www.riptaw.com/ or www.artfixers.com

Scott Shepherd
01-17-2010, 6:48 PM
Stanley, I spent all the free time I had on it. Here's the results so far. I'm hoping someone can take it from here and fine tune the details. I basically just roughed it in.

Hope it helps some.

Debbie Coller
01-19-2010, 10:46 AM
I use www.trace4less.com (http://www.trace4less.com) when I can't get good results with corel.
Their results are very good, usually only takes about 2 days and pass the charges on to the customer as an art charge. The charge varies depending on the art, but usually around $12.95.

Stanley Waldrup
01-19-2010, 6:51 PM
Thanks for the help and information... Sure glad to be a part of this group..
Stanley

Roy Nicholson
01-19-2010, 7:13 PM
Regards


Roy N.

donald bugansky
01-19-2010, 7:27 PM
Roy & Scott,

Can you offer just a quick outline of the basic steps you took to convert that bitmap to the eps/vector file?

Thx

Mike Null
01-20-2010, 5:33 AM
Copy the image from SMC and paste it in CorelDraw. Click on it> edit bitmap>convert to black and white using the line art option>adjust the smoothing and detail until you're satisfied, save in the PhotoPaint window which will place it on top of the bitmap in the CD window. Move it> ungroup it>color fill as needed.

If the drawing still needs some tweaking you can use the shape tool.

I find that replacing the text is easier than tracing in most instances.

Mike Null
01-20-2010, 5:38 AM
Here's a two minute trace.

Scott Shepherd
01-20-2010, 8:21 AM
Donald, I drew it from scratch using lines, converting those lines to curves use the node editing tools, then shaped the curves how I wanted them.

Mike's trace looks good at a small size, that's probably a lot closer than I got and a better place to start.

donald bugansky
01-20-2010, 6:25 PM
Guys,

Just wanted to share my experience with power tracing in Corel as I've not had the best success with Corel relative to getting a finished product. I always seem to have to put it in Illustrator to clean things up and spend sometimes hours working out the details.

Hoping I don't violate some advertising restriction (if so please delete my post), I wanted to share some info on a tool that works pretty well and is available in both on-line use as well as a desktop application. It cut my time down to minutes versus hours.

Take a peek and see if it works for you. It has a full function evaluation download (less a save option) to see how well it works for your particular situation. It's called Vector Magic (http://vectormagic.com/home). It can be had for as little as $7 a month for the on-line version. (They also have education discount)

A more elaborate tool can be found at http://www.imagaro.com It's pretty fancy and has a steeper learning curve but has a great feature where it will identify 60,000 fonts from a database to allow near perfect output.

Lastly & most importantly, I have no affiliation with either of these 2 groups, just sharing my experiences as I have spent hours trying to clean up bitmap to vector images. If you do a lot of conversions, $7 a month goes a long way.

Mike Null
01-20-2010, 7:02 PM
Some like VectorMagic. Others, like myself, are not sufficiently impressed to join the plan. They were free for a while and I tested them and felt I could do almost as well with Corel.

I have X3 but I understand X4 has an even better trace function.

I have not tried the other program.

You can identify fonts rather quickly with http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

Darryl Hazen
01-20-2010, 7:07 PM
I have to agree with Mike. I tried it when it was free and was not impressed.

Scott Shepherd
01-20-2010, 7:37 PM
Donald, here's a quick example of the method I used. My clip isn't the best, it has no volume, so you'll have to pay attention. Best viewed in "HD" in youtube.

It should explain the basic principle for what I'm doing. Just to narrate it slightly, it's creating straight lines from point to point to point. Then you select the node tool (not sure if that's the right name, but I'm calling it that until that make it that name), right click while on the line (a little squigley will come up because your mouse pointer), select "curve", and then you can manipulate it.

Dee Gallo did this same type of thing in photos and screen shots once before, so this is the same thing.

It's the single best thing I've ever learned to do in Corel.

Let me know if it helps. Ignore my random mouse movements that go nowhere or do nothing :) I have a little bit of ADD :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpsTfo0NLoY

William Desrochers
02-09-2010, 6:40 PM
Give me a shout folks.......:D

I'm the only Raster to Vector Service provider on the internet that isn't afraid to show a photo of myself, so you can put a face behind the voice / text~! ;)