How to vectorize an image

A vectorized image scales to a billboard without blurring, recolours in one click, and is what every print shop, sign maker and cutting machine asks for. Rebuilding one from a PNG or JPG takes about a minute with the right source file and the right settings, and the better part of an hour with the wrong ones. This guide is the minute.

It applies to any artwork built from areas of flat colour: logos, wordmarks, icons, signatures, lettering, line drawings and scanned sketches. Photographs are the exception, and there is a note at the end about why.

1. Find the best source file

The tracer can only follow edges that exist in the pixels. In order of preference:

A PNG with a transparent background, 1000 px or wider.
The logo cropped out of a PDF (export the page at 300 dpi first).
The website header image at 2× (right-click → open image in new tab; look for "@2x" or "srcset" versions).
A JPG. It works, but expect to raise Remove specks. See JPG to SVG.
A screenshot. Last resort; take it on a high-DPI screen and crop tightly.

Below 300 px the result will be rough no matter what; below 500 px expect to touch a slider or two.

2. Drop it into GetSVG

Open the vectorizer and drop the file anywhere on the page, or paste it. GetSVG profiles the pixels and picks a preset. For a logo you should see one of:

Clean logo — flat shapes, crisp edges. Most logos.
Hairline — thin strokes and small text; traces at 3× so strokes stay joined.
Brush — hand-lettered or brush logos; keeps dry-brush gaps and spatter.

If it picked Illustration or Artwork for a logo, the picture probably has a gradient or a photo behind it. Switch the preset by hand.

3. Set the colour mode

Black & white for a one-colour logo. The ink colour is measured from the picture, so a navy logo stays navy.
Ink + one colour when there is one small accent — a red dot, a blue swoosh. The accent becomes its own shape.
Full colour for three colours or more. Start with the number of colours the logo actually has, not the maximum.

Leave Transparent background on unless the background is part of the logo.

4. Check it with the Paths overlay

Turn on Paths in the floating toolbar. You will see every outline in blue and a small square on every anchor point. Three things to look for:

Corners. A square corner should have one anchor, not a tiny curve of three. If corners are rounded, move Detail towards Faithful or lower Smooth edges.
Hairlines. Thin strokes should be continuous. If they break into dashes, raise Stroke thickness (mono and ink + one modes) or switch to the Hairline preset.
Point count. A simple logo should have tens of points per shape, not hundreds. Too many means the tracer is following noise: move Detail towards Simpler or raise Fewer points.

Use Split to drag a divider across the picture and compare original and vector at the same spot.

5. Fix the usual problems

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Hundreds of tiny shapes	JPEG noise or dithering	Raise Remove specks; move Detail to Simpler
Thin letters broken up	Threshold cut through anti-aliasing	Hairline preset; raise Stroke thickness
Everything is one blob	Stroke thickness too high, or picture too small	Lower Stroke thickness; find a larger source
Accent colour missing	Black & white mode flattened it	Switch to Ink + one colour
Background became a shape	Transparent background off, or non-uniform background	Turn it on; crop the picture so the border is plain
Wrong shade of the brand colour	Anti-aliasing averaged into the measured ink	Click the swatch in Colours and type the exact hex

6. Download and open it

Click Download SVG. In Illustrator or Figma, drag the file in; each colour arrives as a group. Ungroup once to reach the individual shapes. If the shop asks for EPS or PDF, open the SVG in Illustrator or Inkscape and save as that format — the geometry is the same.

Does this work for photographs?

Not really, and it is worth knowing why before you waste an afternoon. Vectorizing works by finding regions of flat colour and fitting curves around them. A photograph has no flat regions, only continuous tone, so the tracer has to invent boundaries where none exist. The result is a posterised approximation built from hundreds or thousands of shapes, larger than the original file and harder to edit.

If you genuinely need a photograph as vector artwork, a machine-learning tracer such as Vectorizer.AI is designed for that case and will beat any classical algorithm, including this one.