Full Version: Corel vs Illustrator
From: Carl (CSEWELL) [#7]
11 Apr 2007
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#4] 12 Apr 2007
Chuck,
Do you do any pre-processing, in a graphic editor (PhotoPaint, et al), of the images before sending them to the vectorizing programs?
From: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#8]
12 Apr 2007
To: Carl (CSEWELL) [#7] 12 Apr 2007
Do you do any pre-processing, in a graphic editor (PhotoPaint, et al), of the images before sending them to the vectorizing programs?
Carl,
I do not. In an email I just received from a friend of mine he suggested the same thing. I had never heard of, or thought of pre-processing before.
Just exactly HOW do you preprocess an image?
Thanks
From: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#9]
12 Apr 2007
To: JHayes55 [#6] 12 Apr 2007
Joe,
The reason I am not liking ImagaroZ as much as I initially did, is that it was touted to be able to take a scan of a business card (sometimes all a customer has) and make a quality vector graphic from it.
I does not appear to do color images, and unless the original is of high quality, I have not been able to make it do a decent vector, let alone recognize fonts.
It has worked successfully with a high resolution graphic, but then again so does PowerTrace...in X3.....
I have a call into Graphical Systems USA. Steve Boek, ( the trade show guy, is at, well, a trade show) but I did get an email from him and he will be calling me next week...to go over it again.
The program isn't very difficult, and I am hoping it is me missing something more so than the program not working properly.
From: Carl (CSEWELL) [#10]
12 Apr 2007
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#8] 12 Apr 2007
There's probably hundreds of things that you can do, but what I find is a must-do on ALL images is to paint fill the individual colors using PhotoPaint.
Set the tolerance at about 15 for the paint bucket fill and then individually select all the area to fill them with a solid color, including the background and the insides of all letters. You may also have to draw in certain areas to get better results. Zoom in and examine the borders for pixelation and try to minimize without doing too much damage.
All JPGs will benefit from this simple, but sometimes time consuming, step.
I convert artwork for a local t-shirt shop and I see the worst of the worst, but I find that I can get far superior results if I take a few minutes to do the above. This and other steps are a learning process developed over hundreds of conversions.
While I am NOT a fan of X3, the X3 PowerTrace feature has a few more beneficial features than version 12. HOWEVER, node manipulation in X3 is IMPOSSIBLE on slower computers. Okay, not impossible, but very slow. And all of my computers are from the last century, literally.
From: JHayes55 [#11]
12 Apr 2007
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#9] 12 Apr 2007
From: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#12]
12 Apr 2007
To: JHayes55 [#11] 12 Apr 2007
From: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#13]
12 Apr 2007
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#12] 12 Apr 2007
I agree with Carl about filling in the large areas of solid colors, but I usually don't use the paint bucket tool because it can spill out to the edges of a shape and change that edge. Sometimes making the edge rougher.
I work in photoshop, so my techniques might be influenced by what is fast to do there. Usually I'll start by increasing the size of the image and boosting the contrast. I then save a copy of that image to use as a reference after the auto vector conversion.
Then I click on the new layer icon and grab the pencil tool and draw a real fast outline, within the edges of the shape I want to fill. Then I fill that outline and merge the layer down into the drawing. That keeps me away from the actual edges of the shapes, but fills the big areas with single colors so they don't end up with lots of tiny vectors when auto converted.
Next I look at the edges between shapes. You get used to spotting ones that will convert well, and ones that won't. If the edges are blurry or irregular when they should be straight, I'll grab a small paintbrush and paint along the edge to make a sharper edge. You don't have to make the image look perfect. You're just trying to cut down on the number of false nodes that the auto vector conversion will make.
Remember that when doing the pre-processing and conversion that you don't need to maintain the original colors or shades of gray. You can always make the final vectors be the right colors/shades. The main thing you're trying to do is to get clean conversions of the shapes involved. So adjusting contrast, converting to grays, adjusting curves, using the sharpness brush, etc... all are valid things that can be done to enhance the edges and shapes before vectoring.
From: Carl (CSEWELL) [#14]
12 Apr 2007
To: Dave Jones (DAVERJ) [#13] 12 Apr 2007
PhotoPaint allows you to employ an anti-aliasing filter (the default?) on fills to eliminate or reduce those effects. Changing the threshold value will also allow you to fine-tune the fill. That's why I mentioned the 15 value. That tends to be a real good starting point. Sometimes higher works better, and sometimes really low values work better. Experience..... okay, lots of playing and observing is required. You can also sneak up on the edge by using multiple fills (clicks)
Along the same lines as what you mentioned, I will sometimes convert the image to binary (black-and-white), in PhotoPaint, with the Line Art filter and play with the threshold to get a good image. This works fairly well if your image doesn't contain or need to have a lot of absolutely straight lines. Although, it will work on straight lines if your image is fairly decent. With v12 of CorelTrace, this will speed your conversions (vectorizations) dramatically and give you more time to run multiple iterations, if needed.
EDITED: 12 Apr 2007 by CSEWELL
From: Sei (SEIMA) [#15]
12 Apr 2007
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#4] 12 Apr 2007
I used to work with the guy who did the tech support and training for Imagaro Z. He also wrote the manuals and made the tutorial videos. I'd watch him take graphics sent in to him that people were having problems with and he'd pull together a good trace pretty quickly. Sometimes he'd switch on his screen capture program and send the people a movie of how he did it.
Unfortunately after he left both the tradeshow presentation and the tech support went downhill. Steve is, by all accounts, a decent guy, but sometimes he fall behind trying to keep up with everything involved in
running the US branch of the company.
I'd wanted to become their new tech support guy, but unfortunately since Steve doesn't know me that didn't happen. If I had a copy of the program handy I'd offer to give you a hand with any files giving you problems, but no such luck.
Two things to remember are that it won't necessary work miracles, even if they're currently advertising that it does. Also it works better with lower res graphics by making the average shape. With too many dpi it starts to become more jagged.
Ultimately when I did have access to the software the most use came to me from the font recognition. It would hit pretty accurately a good 85% of the time, which is must faster than clicking one by one through installed fonts (especially given that you might not even have the right font installed).
I'm sorry that it's given you problems, and I hope that Steve addresses your dissatisfaction.
Sei
From: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#16]
12 Apr 2007
To: Sei (SEIMA) [#15] 13 Apr 2007
I'm sorry that it's given you problems, and I hope that Steve addresses your dissatisfaction.
Sei,
Thank you for you kind offer of support, and your thoughtful post.
Steve will help me. Of that I am sure.
I realize that NO vectorization program will work wonders or miracles, but since the graphic I was using was pretty decent to start with, I expected more.
You ARE correct about it's strongest point being the font recognition, which does work quite well, IF one is able to get a decent vectorization to begin with. THAT is my challenge.
I am sure that this "burp" is more *ME* than the program. At least I hope so.
Thanks again for your help.
From: Hermes (HERMESSANDOVAL) [#17]
12 Apr 2007
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#1] 12 Apr 2007
Well Chuck I have always used corel since version 2, but my best experiences as an ad designer were using illustrator and mostly photoshop. I am fondest to adobe software but i have to admit, for an engraving business there's nothing better than corel.
For tracing purposes I have found no significant differences. Illustrator is a far more powerful tool for posters, billboards, plotting, printing press and forms. Corel draw, well, I generally adress it as being another illustrator wannabe like the late freehand and others.
The main thing here is being corel able to manage any size and type of page fitting to the output (plotter, laser, router) it stands above Illustrator for engraving puposes.
I have Illustrator CS2 and it does open Corel draw CDR files, up until version 11 though, but it seems to me as a seamless conversion, haven't tried with multiple pages and layers.
From: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#18]
12 Apr 2007
To: Hermes (HERMESSANDOVAL) [#17] 13 Apr 2007
Hermes,
Thank you for your fine post. I think that I will probably end up using Photoshop and CorelX3.
Even though I took a couple of photopaint classes in Vegas in Ferbruary, it is obvious that Photoshop is hands down the best for part of my needs, and since "most" of my output is engraving, Corel, will serve the other part.
Thank you for your input.
From: Pedaler (ROYBREWER) [#19]
12 Apr 2007
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#18] 12 Apr 2007
I don't know Illustrator, so key that into the equation. However, I've installed numerous systems ran with AI where the operator was considered very knowledgeable but when I would ask them to do something that would be very basic in Draw, they'd often say "I don't think AI can do that." I know that's not fair, but having experienced it scores of times over the last few years, it has kept me from investing the time to climb the learning curve.
We probably all got the same eMail offer for $199 on Imagegro Z w/$ back guarantee. I'm probably going to try it so I can use it on my standard 16 test graphics that I use to compare r->v programs. If I understand it right, this version has the same r->v engine as Pro, but doesn't come with the 20,000(?) TT fonts.
Honestly, in watching Steve and his predecessor work their canned scans at the shows, I've never been overly impressed with the actual vectorization. Especially since X3 has given us the all the preview/modify/options to reduce the # of nodes, I'm skeptical that I'll see anything significant.
As much as all of us have come to regard both Carl's & Dave's technical contributions to our forum(s), I'm going to play the devil's advocate. I have *never* found pre processing in a bitmap editor to save any time. Of course your initial scan might be somewhat better if you 'paint" it first, but I personally find the cleanup capabilities of Draw to be so much more efficient for the type output I require than time spent in paint. Lastly for this exercise, if a graphic is so bad that the bitmap program would help, then it is an excellent candidate for manual tracing.
On other forums, I've heard that AI's vectorization is not noticeably better than the last version of Streamline which I used as my main vectorization tool before PrecisionScan and CorelTRACE 10; since TRACE 10, comparisons were a "wash."
I do still find, however, that PrecisionScan (software used by the HP vectorizing scanners) to still be superior to *anything* available on very small graphics (e.g., the business card logos you mentioned). Several programs, including X3, compete nicely on larger, higher quality graphics.
From: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#20]
12 Apr 2007
To: Pedaler (ROYBREWER) [#19] 13 Apr 2007
Honestly, in watching Steve and his predecessor work their canned scans at the shows, I've never been overly impressed with the actual vectorization. Especially since X3 has given us the all the preview/modify/options to reduce the # of nodes, I'm skeptical that I'll see anything significant.
Roy,
As always, thank you for your help. I am glad you weighed in on this. Your understanding of the $199.00 version of ImagaroZ is correct.
As for the "canned" scans, I must admit I was skeptical of that as well, especially at the $699.00 price. I always felt they should have a scanner in their booth and take graphics from the attendees to prove their point. The last three shows have all been the same regarding ImagaroZ and the content used.
With THAT said, Steve has helped me with a couple of graphics and I "was" duly impressed. However as mentioned before I have lost some of my initial entusiasm for the program. If Steve is able to help me with this one particular graphic and PROVE to me that it works...great. Otherwise I will want a refund.
As for the Precision Scan, it works as advertised, but I think I need a little more education. The image I have tried to recreate did not seem to work very well. ( maybe I will email it to you).
Finally as for AI vs Corel. I will stay with Corel. However I think Photoshop CS3 is in my near future.
Thank you Roy, for your help and continued support of the industry. You NEVER cease to amaze me as to your willingness to help everyone, whether they are a customer or not.
From: sprinter [#21]
12 Apr 2007
To: ALL
I still find CASmate Pro (which is Flexisign now) to be the best I have found followed by AI cs2, HP Precision Scan, and Corel X3. I was not impressed with ImagaroZ and returned it.
Grant you CASmate and Flexisign are $3500 + sign making software, I use it for all my vectorization and complex layouts and import it into Corel for the laser output.
From: Mike (MIKEN) [#22]
12 Apr 2007
To: ALL
When I talked with the artist about making the changes to permit engraving the answer I got was "I can't do that in Illustrator."
Long story short--I made all the changes in CD X3 and for a change charged a fair price for doing it. (usually I under charge for my art work)
Anyway CD was flawless on this job.
BTW, I used stencil board for the first time and it was great to work with.
From: Carl (CSEWELL) [#23]
12 Apr 2007
To: Pedaler (ROYBREWER) [#19] 13 Apr 2007
And you've probably been editing nodes far longer than me! ;^)
Pre-processing a file will not change an impossible to convert image to a perfect conversion. However, for me, it dramatically reduces clean-up time. Maybe that's only because I've been using graphic editors far longer than node editors? No, that's probably not true since I've been using CAD programs for +25 years.
Everybody has their tools of choice and people don't work the same. Node editing, for me, in X3, is painfully slow, but that's due to my slow computer. I've started going back to v12 of CorelDraw to perform node editing because I can accomplish it much faster. And, being fairly new to X3, I have not learned all the finer points.
Yes, there are far more settings in X3's trace, compared to v12, that can do the same or similar things that pre-processing a file can do. So far, the pre-processing, for me, yields far better results in a lot less time. And that may be solely due to the lack of processing power of my computer! As I get more familiar with X3, and maybe buy a faster computer, I may change that opinion. Your opinions will definitely influence that decision.
I have manually traced my fair share of images! And I've also used both automated and manual methods to achieve the results that I expect.
From: Pedaler (ROYBREWER) [#24]
13 Apr 2007
To: Mike (MIKEN) [#22] 13 Apr 2007
We want to see pictures!
From: Mike (MIKEN) [#25]
13 Apr 2007
To: Pedaler (ROYBREWER) [#24] 14 Apr 2007
Roy:
I'll see if the client will send me copies. The drawings and models were for gates for the St. Louis Zoo. The gates are going to be constructed of a particular kind of steel which rusts quickly and evenly and the rust provides a durable finish. Each drawing repesented a layer of steel depicting an element of the overall design.
This steel will be welded in layers with one image on top of the other creating a jungle scene. One gate is a cheetah scene the other a rhino.
The challenging part of the job was making the spots of the cheetahs. I decided to raster them (all the way through the board) rather than vector them. So many tiny spots would have been a nightmare to vector.
After completing the cutting I took the material to the model builder for gluing and painting and framing. The frame represents a 4" steel box that surrounds the entire gate and provides the support for the hinges.
I collaborated with the model builder because the job was originally his but his lasers will only vector and he couldn't make the drawings work.
EDITED: 13 Apr 2007 by DGL
From: Larry B (PALMETTO) [#26]
14 Apr 2007
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#18] 14 Apr 2007
Chuck:
I agree with you on Photoshop. I use both Corel Photopaint and Photoshop. I think Photoshop wins hands down when it comes to photo editing and manipulating graphics. PP has it's good points but PS has more.
Corel X3 is good, a lot better than some prior editions. The Powertrace thing is OK, but as someone else said, the one that comes with Flexisign and Enroute (same company) is really good, but those are super expensive softwares. I have the one in my Enroute CNC toolpath program.
I agree with enhancing your bitmaps before attempting to trace them. Just get in there and work on the things that don't look right. I usually change the contrast and such. Just my 2 cents worth. Good luck!