The Best Way to Vectorize Your Detailed Photoshop Art

[@TomFroese]

Thank you for watching! Take my full illustration classes on Skillshare - Get 30 Days Free when you Use My Links. www.tomfroese.com/teaching

[@strawbunnyoat]

Actually? My 17 years of photoshop and illustrator knowledge has been blown out of the water, this is nuts. Complete game changer and thank you for not putting it behind a paywall, that's amazing!

[@andrewgunter1947]

Just wow dude. How did you even begin to figure this out? Twenty plus years working with PS and AI and you just blew my mind.

[@Navigator777777]

I agree. Illustrator is my money maker. Photoshop is just a needed tool. I'm always bitching to Adobe to combine Illustrator and Photoshop into one program to do exactly this.

[@7312james]

Illustrator's Image Trace results have never been satisfying to me, even when giving Illustrator an easy logo to trace it stills adds some weird curves where there should be straight lines. This was a much needed tutorial, and I am so glad I finally found something that legitimately keeps the details you want. Thank you very much!!

[@CoffeeScribe]

Wow, the only person on the internet that shows every single step, and doesn't assume that people know where the various windows are or even why things are called certain names too. THANKS!!!

[@TomFroese]

Here for you!

[@michaelmccrory2220]

That took a Sherlock Holmes level of genius to solve a problem and make it simpler to use. Thank you for sharing your excellent solution. 👍🏼

[@TomFroese]

Elementary, my dear Watson! :)

[@eartho]

it's a technique we've been using since the 90s...

[@TomFroese]

@@eartho That actually makes sense. LiveTrace came in the 2010s, and I remember using clipping paths Photoshop 4 or something around that version. I didn't know it was that easy to convert selections to paths in the 90s though. My earliest experience using PS was on a monochrome Mac with maybe the original PS on it.

[@eartho]

@@TomFroese yeah, Selection to Paths has been around since some of the earliest versions of Ps. I remember using it frequently in my prepress days iin the early to mid 90s.

[@michaelmccrory2220]

@@eartho @eartho We never stop learning and it is good that Tom has taken the effort to remind and tell people who have never seen this technique that this is an option.

[@나니-h6i]

It really helped. It shows the same result as the original image rather than image trace. Thank you so much. 감사합니다! :)

[@TomFroese]

You're welcome 😊

[@TheDocPixel]

This technique is about 20 years old. Nice to see someone going through the old magazines and making tutorials about some of those "Oldies but Goodies". FYI: I think Deke McClelland was the first to do this. His Mad Scientist experiments were always great and still are.

[@eartho]

more like 25 years old and Deke definitely wasn't the first.

[@yeknommonkey]

@@earthoit was in the ye olde instruction manual that shipped with p shop

[@TheDocPixel]

@@eartho you‘re right. Time sure does fly. Because I remember it was in the handbook too.. remember the days when we read the handbooks?! It was the only way to learn the software, and maybe an article in How or Macworld magazine.

[@KuttyJoe]

@@yeknommonkey Is that right??? This was actually in a Photoshop instruction manual? It's interesting because it says something about how Adobe thought people were using the software in those days.

[@TomFroese]

Well they did build that "selection to paths" function in there for some reason, right? They must have had this in mind.

[@JohanEnriqueArteagaLopez]

¡¡¡¡This is gold !!!! This technique is a step above the technique you taught in your courses at Skillshare. It's very kind of you to release it for everyone. God bless you Mr. Tom!

[@TomFroese]

Thanks! This is different from my skillshare classes but uses similar techniques. The difference is that the goal is vector output in this video.

[@ironmanTetsuoTV]

I hate image trace with a passion, this tutorial is amazing!

[@artbygarth]

This is a fantastic approach! I’ve been struggling with this for years!!

[@Szczurzyslawa]

You just expanded my brain sir! I knew all these tools but would never think to use them that way it's so genius, thank you so much!

[@TomFroese]

Thank you! Glad it helped!

[@lynmeredith8405]

I love this! It preserves hand drawn looks better than any other method. Thank you!

[@TomFroese]

You are so welcome!

[@TinaSotis]

My jaw is on the floor. omg. this is genius.

[@johntnguyen1976]

This is also going to be a huge time saver (and a quality booster) for my motion design! I spend so much time prepping elements for animation in illustrator. Thanks so much!

[@TomFroese]

Excellent!

[@sirako]

I knew it was possible cause I saw someone getting a vector so clean from an ink drawing they scanned like 20 min before and it wasn't on that awful trace look but I never figured that out. Thank you so so so much

[@ziocalli9479]

Image vectorization sometimes requires an old-fashioned way, like video. Thank you.

[@keithartworker]

Great video! Having worked in Photoshop and Illustrator for 30 years, I have preferred Photoshop's "simple afterthought" path tools to Illustrator's dedicated ones. This tutorial is further evidence.

[@TomFroese]

Glad it was helpful!

[@StudioHoekhuis]

Great tip! I always wondered why Adobe never updated the Trace Image function, it must be ancient by now...

[@TomFroese]

Good question!

[@patrickwright8805]

This is fantastic, both is content and presentation, thanks!

[@TomFroese]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@mommasoto]

Love this! Been wkg both PS and Ai over 17yrs and I never knew this! Ha! I stick to illustrator mainly but am so excited to switch to this method! Thank you!

[@kennethreaume6380]

Wow, an amazing alternative to Potrace! Thank you! 🙏🏻

[@maximoibarra5866]

Lo mejor que pude haber aprendido este año

[@mikeinscho987]

Mr. Tom - You're amazing. Thank you. Sincerely, Mike

[@VisualTimmy]

Instant sub.. bro this is nuts! I never though of using this method. Image trace is unreliable and I end up reworking it all by hand. This is has so many use cases, much appreciated!

[@TomFroese]

Thanks so much for the sub! Any other questions send em my way.

[@envadd.6556]

Amazing how tools we all know can do a lot more then we are aware of

[@hannahroark9484]

THank you so much you just saved me so much time!

[@TomFroese]

Glad I could help!

[@ventiladordesuco]

This is a great technique, I would say that I've seen it before but your explanation is easier to follow. However, as a screen printer myself, I couldn't see why your print shop would ask for a vector even though your Image is 600 dpi and bigger than the final print. As far as I know, that is more than enough to print your shirt, furthermore, the printing process is already lossy, so giving them a lower fidelity artwork sound counterintuitive. Vector artwork is mandatory for stationary print, but the mesh on the screen is also finer than on meshes for garment. In the end, you're saying that the 600dpi (possibly more since you said your artwork is larger than the final print) is not enough for your print shop, that uses a process that is inheritable lossy (we are talking about max 200tpi - threads per inch) and is physically impossible to produce a higher fidelity final print. I think they might prefer a vector, but they're perfectly capable of dealing with 600dpi bitmaps.

[@TomFroese]

Thank you! Two points here: first, I agree, vectors are totally unnecessary. I work with letterpress and silkscreen often and prefer to send colour separations as bitmap files. But I have found there’s no convincing some suppliers about this, and they will refuse to accept anything but vector. Second, the 600dpi in my file is more about having enough resolution for the smallest details in my artwork to come through in the vector, less about retaining fidelity in the final print. But it would be interesting to compare output of 300dpi and 600dpi versions with this process.

[@reevartang564]

@@TomFroese The only reason for the supplier to refuse (that I can think of) - file size on vector files should be lighter in general.

[@MonjurulIslam-h4v]

This guy is just fall from sky to us 🖖

[@Hamiltron_]

I've seen far more complex videos demonstrating how to do this. Well done simplifying this process. Less steps is better :)

[@TomFroese]

That makes me happy! If you ever have the time, I'd love to see some of those more complex videos, just out of curiosity. Thank you!

[@FranklinKirby]

This is simply amazing! Thank you so much for sharing!

[@Alexx9811]

This is incredible, and well explained. Thanks!

[@TomFroese]

You're very welcome!

[@directedbyericsattler]

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. May your future generations be blessed beyond earthly limits.

[@3DJapan]

I don't have illustrator. There are several very good vector AI tools on the web. I also love a program called Vector Magic.

[@TomFroese]

Are they free? Or do you pay a sub? Curious how they might compare.

[@glaucobass]

@@TomFroese thank your for sharing this tip. I have both, Illustrator and Vector Magic. Using this technique I could get better results than both of them.

[@Ebersol_Inc]

Bravo! I would have never guessed that the PSD make maths would retain that level of fidelity. PSD file size (pixels) is critical for sure. But one must ask, "Why can't Illustrator autotrace do this?!"

[@TomFroese]

A very good question!

[@jswanson859]

This is brilliant! Makes total sense on how you did it too. I could have used this 100 times. Now I can. Haha Thanks for sharing.

[@TomFroese]

Happy to help! I wish I knew this years ago myself.

[@gerdompaula]

Stunning. Agree with the rest something I would never have figured out. Thank you & I just stumbled on it looking to find a shortcut metrhod to make multiple arc's which I didn't find ;)

[@TomFroese]

Thanks! What do you mean “multiple arcs”?

[@brianpeterson6481]

This is BRILLIANT!! Thank you!

[@TomFroese]

You’re welcome!

[@itsamegrabbins]

Great video! Really informative and helpful. I’ve had to wrestle with image trace for years now but l I’ll have to try this next time.

[@arlofarts9]

holy wow. this opens up so many possibilities. tysm

[@KaiBuskirk]

Thank You! After 40 years your technique will save me massive amounts of hours linking people to your video… DIY - greatest Tutorial !!! Only i missed was the file start resolution in photoshop?

[@TomFroese]

Thank you, please do share away! Resolution is in there. This file was around 14x16 “ at 600, if I remember correctly. That’s because of how small the lettering and texture details were.

[@passion_proh-jects]

Such a long laborious process for something that CorelDraw does in a few clicks. That said, still very helpful for PS users. Thank you!

[@sidsinnocence]

I was literally looking for a solution like this a few days ago. Trace image was not working. Ended up cleaning the image pixel by pixel. Thank you so much!!

[@TomFroese]

Glad I could help! Wish it could have come sooner for you though!

[@sidsinnocence]

@@TomFroese That it was available at all is a godsend! Google results being as they are, all it provided were alternative ways to toggle trace image options. That wasn't the last time I'll be in that position and now I have an easy solution. Plus- pixel by pixel editing was a great exercise in attention to detail XD

[@jrfarias5044]

Thank you for your help

[@yaqisthebest]

I was not expecting this level of such a well thought out tutorial when I clicked this video, I thought that this was going to be another quick hack with questionable quality, but this goes wayyy past my Expectations!!!

[@TomFroese]

Thank you! Happy to exceed your expectations. No click bait here.

[@capfever]

The video starts at 03.00

[@TomFroese]

The context starts at 0:00

[@TheGoodContent37]

​@@TomFroesethe context is useless

[@timothychinye6008]

Thanks

[@BGdev305]

EXACTLY what I was thinking! Just do the steps already lol

[@zaugitude]

You people act like you hired this guy, have some appreciation for the time he put into it and respect his decisions. When you make your videos you can start them wherever you like; this is his video.

[@nasdriver3583]

Good workflow! Never had to use threshold before, but will deffo use it now

[@MarcoTheHEXican]

INCREDIBLE! MORE PLEASE!

[@TomFroese]

OK!

[@alejamclean]

You are my new god! #Amazing trick! Thank you!!❤

[@SL_UNIQUE_CONTENT]

subscribed 💪💪 good luck

[@IIAspire]

This is super helpful! Thanks for sharing!

[@patriciofreire3375]

Absolutely awesome! I hate the Illustrator tool to vectorize.

[@trollenz]

That's a nice approach 👌🏻 Thanks.

[@veerababu9933]

Thank you for sharing the technique

[@clairemardesich8576]

Omg, thank you so much for sharing this invaluable information!

[@adamfunk7112]

WOW.

[@drawwitheli4697]

Thanks so much! This is really useful to know

[@karlgustafson7850]

That is awesome. Thanks for this tutorial!

[@TomFroese]

Glad it was helpful!

[@jazzlehazzle]

Brilliant technique. Now we just have to figure out how to get this working for multi-color w/o having to get too deep into the weeds of seps...

[@TomFroese]

The holy grail

[@adamrosenthal7574]

Selecting the path and adding a solid color layer creates a masked shape. Do this for each color layer. Save as psd and open in illustrator, retaining layers. You will have all your colors saved in separate layers in illustrator.

[@TomFroese]

This is close to how I show it in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJq3nHSDibSnfZo

[@MoolahZaga]

That's pretty cool bro!, never knew that functionality! Especially the last littlebit "pathfinder - exclude"

[@DustSeeker163]

You are insane and I love you! This is amazing!

[@TomFroese]

Haha, feeling the love!

[@blahokay1]

What a fantastic tutorial. Love it

[@ohyeah7432]

You’re reale hero

[@thewaliiiii]

Many steps, but could be useful one day. Thanks! :)

[@TomFroese]

Feels like just a few steps to me after years of trying to figure this technique out 😂

[@supbra1]

Really cool!

[@Gwennie363]

Awesome tip

[@TomFroese]

Glad you think so!

[@mubbashirmumtaz8585]

Really helpful

[@Taumisch]

Well done !

[@DJDLS]

very helpful thank you!

[@TomFroese]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tortera]

Wow! This is huge! Thank you so much!

[@Mark-ql5ni]

LEGENDARY!!

[@discjunkiesDGT]

saved me so much time and $$, thought i'd have to buy illustrator, this was a great simple explanation. Thank you

[@TomFroese]

Glad it helped!

[@LuisCasstle]

You'll still want it if you'll be working with vector files a lot. That or Inkscape which is free.

[@jeremygordonstudio]

This is so helpful, thank you!

[@dphstudioz]

Thank you

[@andrespalacios1909]

Thank you SO much for this Tom!

[@TomFroese]

Hope it helps!

[@damarisk8252]

OMG!! You're a genius! This is soooo much better than image trace ❤❤❤ Thanks for sharing!!

[@TomFroese]

Thank you! It took me a long time to figure this out!

[@chris-piascik]

Bro u said this was best but like how can it be best if you didn’t even make the art in illustrator bc that is vector and then why did provide context I didn’t want it and this is supposed to be FOR ME. And like how can u say it is vector when I do this and then export my gif and it’s pixelated when I zoom in? So why did you lied? Jk❤ great video! I’ve never tried this technique but I definitely will be using it next time I need to convert something! Back in the day I used to use this software called Cocoapotrace and it was so good at vectorizing hand drawn art. Sadly it’s no longer around.

[@TomFroese]

Dude chill 😂 I’m sure there are paid apps that do better than this (some are mentioned in the comments). Works great when you need to preserve fun details.

[@alicea.8645]

Thank you for sharing!

[@TomFroese]

My pleasure!

[@renata_sene]

W O W. Just W O W

[@TimiDesign]

Thanks

[@hs1865]

Wow what a great tip! Thanks 🙏🏼

[@TomFroese]

You're so welcome!

[@Meko_J]

Amazing

[@painted_in_thick]

Nice. Thank You.

[@TomFroese]

Thank you too!

[@marcromanbravo]

🤯 thank you sooo much!!

[@TomFroese]

You're welcome!

[@mrtahirjavaid]

Great Job!

[@TomFroese]

Thanks!

[@sumuph]

Great tutorial. Thank you!

[@TomFroese]

Thanks for watching!

[@philteders]

great video like the actions. I don't have adobe Illustrator, could you tell me other programs that I could export to?

[@TomFroese]

You can actually do the exclude paths operation directly in PS. If you create a fill layer using the path in PS you should be able to see the result there. I’ve heard good things about Krita if you’re looking for a free vector based graphics app.

[@arcasa-ho9su]

Interesante, tomo nota. 👍

[@mangjose5446]

thanks so much for sharing this.. this method is superb 😎

[@olivier0092]

Always suprised me that there isnt a better intergration between il and ps in terms of filesupport. Id even worde 😢

[@lemurdream]

What if Illustrator had an image trace function that actually worked?

[@PaulMDavidson]

I've never gotten good results with "create path from selection" in Photoshop. Maybe my resolutions were too low.

[@TomFroese]

Could be your resolution, or could be that there are gradients and blurs which can never be translated to single colour vector art. Hint: try using halftones or dithering after doing the threshold part, to simulate a gradient.

[@jeremypolen4469]

I guess I wonder why not just create that graphic in illustrator originally? I feel like it wouldn't take much for you to convert your workflow to just design it vector from the get go? I know plenty of textured designs are easier to do in photoshop, but this really looks like it would be vector first, and the texture brushes are so simple, I've used textured brushes in Illustrator to achieve the same results over the years with no issues. Then no conversion needed at the end.

[@TomFroese]

In a perfect world this video would not be necessary!

[@coryspeldeart]

This is a game changer! Thank you so much for this!

[@TomFroese]

Happy to help!

[@AndersonAdoN]

💚

[@xonx209]

After the blur trick, would illustrator be able to vectorize it better?

[@TomFroese]

I tried it. It still struggles to balance fine detail and clarity in my experience.

[@meratcompany5279]

WOW!

[@Cc75757]

Nice! Will definitely use this! …But why the heck can’t illustrator do this yet?! 😂😂

[@TomFroese]

Good question!

[@MysteryMycology]

ur kidding me wtf! nice vid

[@euchrideucrow1970]

Easy when you know how! Love this. Thank you.

[@bijobaby1262]

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