amendmentpro

I'm new at designing and I'm working with Corel 11 (I know it's ancient), but I'm having trouble scanning in black and white art and cleaning it up in Corel. This is my process: I scan the art in and import it, once it's on my page I convert it to bitmap (black and white 1 bit), after that I notice converting gives the edges sawtooth. I then trace bitmap and save the results ( is this the only way to vectorize the art so I can manipulate it?) , I then import the saved image and I work with that but the edges are still rough and I loose detail. I'm sure I'm doing this all bass ackwards and doing about a million steps too many but I'm self taught and could use some expert advice.

 

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Fluid

You should be able to scan directly into Corel Trace if my memory serves me correctly. Scan in Black and white mode at a super high resolution. During this stage you should be able to adjust a slider to apply or reduce the amount of detail in the B&W image/scan.

Play with the trace settings as far as smoothness, etc. (detail) cant totally remember as its been many years since I say the inside of V11.

Once the trace is completed and your back in DRAW, ungroup and select each object with the shape (node) tool. Start removing nodes and changing the node modes to render a smooth line.

No matter what vector conversion software you use you will need to clean up the lines depending on the quality of the image, scan and trace settings.

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rabbitdog

Here's my process -

1. Scan into a bitmap application (photoshop or corel paint) in GREYSCALE mode. I usually scan in at 200dpi
2. Adjust contrast/brightness so that the background is pure white and most of the details in the image are black.

(This gives you nice blacks and whites without the jaggy edges you get from scanning directly into BW 1 bit mode)

3. Save as jpg and import or cut/paste into Corel Draw.

4. If necessary for your version of Corel, convert to bitmap.

Now when you run it through the trace application you can play with the settings to adjust number of colors (if it's just black and white I suggest just cutting it down to 2 color) and the smoothness settings as needed.

I find that a successful trace starts with a little preprocessing of the bitmap image.

Also, Corel X3 has a badass Trace. Definitely worth the $100 or so to pick the newest version up off ebay.

Oh - and definitely go in to node edit mode after tracing. I find the options to reduce nodes to be hugely helpful for final edits.

 

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amendmentpro

Thanks for the tips, they're just what I needed.

 

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