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ID_Field_Blank

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2008
191
113
London, UK
Hi All

My wife is a graphic designer and freelances on the side, specialising in celligraphy where she does both digital and ink based work. She's been using CS6 for a loooong time now and can't justify the cost of CC at the moment given she doesn't do a lot of freelancing and her work providers CC for her to use whilst she is in the office (their rules are she can't use it for personal work to avoid conflict of interests etc.)

She likes the Affinity suite of products but can't break from Illustrator as it has vector trace that she used to convert her scanned calligraphy into digital (she also does this for a professional calligrapher she works with who does the calligraphy and my wife then puts into designs). It's frankly a surprise that Affinity can't do this as it seems so good otherwise!

She really needs a new machine but can't move to the new models as CS6 won't run on the latest and greatest macOS (she's currently on a 2012 macbook pro that she hasn't updated from Sierra due to compatibility issues)

Does anyone have any advice on vectorising hand drawn work so it can be manipulated? Any programmes that can be recommended? Can't cost the earth as it is single use software but she would be willing to pay something towards it. Ideally would need a UI as she wouldnt be comfortable running scripts and updating them etc.

Please don't suggest she just does everything digitally as the ink / nib choice is a big part of the asthetic that people pay for and looks much better than the digital pens she uses on her ipad Pro with pencil in procreate.
 

weaztek

macrumors 6502
Aug 28, 2009
415
225
Madison
I'd suggest she try the free online raster > vector convertor at https://www.autotracer.org/ to see if that is adequate.

I used it to convert a .tif graphic to a raster file so i could upsample it and use on a one-off Tshirt. It worked great for my use!
 
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ID_Field_Blank

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2008
191
113
London, UK
Apologies for the delayed reply, thank you for your suggestions, I’ll get her to take a look and hopefully something works. Much appreciated.
 

SigEp265

macrumors 6502a
Dec 15, 2011
953
881
Southern California
I heard Affinity might add it to their Design. Also, I personally have been trying to get off Adobe — I started a free trial of Corel Draw which has vector tracing.
 

mlblacy

macrumors 6502a
Sep 23, 2006
524
40
the REAL Jersey Shore
Professional designer here. I have used VectorMagic for years, and with great results.You can get a monthly seat for $9.95 and just cancel it (if the pricing is too high). The desktop version runs $295, which is bonkers for most people. The monthly brings the cost down, and I routinely buy in for a month if I have need of vector conversion. How does it work? It pretty much blows the pants off all other options. I have Illustrator and also tried some other options.
 
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ID_Field_Blank

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2008
191
113
London, UK
Professional designer here. I have used VectorMagic for years, and with great results.You can get a monthly seat for $9.95 and just cancel it (if the pricing is too high). The desktop version runs $295, which is bonkers for most people. The monthly brings the cost down, and I routinely buy in for a month if I have need of vector conversion. How does it work? It pretty much blows the pants off all other options. I have Illustrator and also tried some other options.
Thank you, hadn’t realised there was a monthly option and turning it on and off might work.

We’ll investigate!
 

SigEp265

macrumors 6502a
Dec 15, 2011
953
881
Southern California
I actually just signed up for 1 month for vectormagic .... I had never used it before, until now. I must say it’s far superior than anything I have seen. I even converted very small images and it turned out great! Thank you guys for the suggestion.
 
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Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
5,664
6,633
Seattle
Inkscape also does vectorizing. It is an open source vector designer program. I prefer Affinity Designer but I have used Inkscape specifically for it's tracing function. (not recently but I assume it is still there)
 
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