Vectorizing smaller images to larger resolutions

D

dyesan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 2, 2007
Messages
320
[H]i there,

I currently have Adobe Illustrator at the moment, and while I've found quite a few tutorials that involve vectorizing images from .jpegs, I'm actually looking to for a basic tutorial of turning a smaller image (something along the lines of 100x100 pixel "clipart") into a much larger picture (1000x1000, for instance). Would Illustrator be the best software for this?

I would imagine the tutorial to go something like, tracing the lines, filling in color, and adding gradients/shadows as a vector image, and then blowing it up from there. I've yet to find a specific tutorial like this, however. Would anyone know where to find such tutorials?

Thanks in advance.

edit: an example of original clip art
pig1a.jpg
 
Later versions of Illustrator (I think CS2 and higher) have a built in tool called Live Trace which works pretty well for clean line art images. Just open the jpg in Illustrator, choose Live Trace at the top and play with the options.
 
Most of the tutorials I've found are kinda skimpy on details and for the most part just tell you to practice using the pen tool which is probably the only tool you'll use for vector art. Get the hang of the pen tool and you're set for vectorizing clip art which are pretty simple to do.

It really is as simple as you said though; blow up the image so you can make out the lines, trace the lines with the pen tool and then color it. After that you can export it to any size you want and rasterize it so you can edit it with PS.

It all depends on what kind of images you work on; I like to vector anime and they don't look so hot when just using the pen strokes to do the outlines (looks too much like a trace, imagine the irony) so I've been hunting for tutorials to give them a more random and "organic" look. Of course I wouldn't use such techniques for vectoring structural drawings, for example because they'd end up looking cartoony.
 
Any chance to link to tutorials? I tried vectortuts though I'm not ready to pay for tutorials just yet.
 
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