#What a Waste of $400
15 messages in this thread
Dave,
Let me begin by saying that you have not wasted your money. Coverting a
bitmap to vector, as you have discovered, is not always as easy as it would
seem.
There are a number of determining factors which influence the effectiveness
of Trace, not the least of which is a crisp clean bitmap. The better the
image quality of a bitmap going into Trace the better results you will
obtain. This is stating the obvious I know, but I want to make sure
everything is covered.
Secondly, you have the Tracing options. I will not go into detail on this
but suggest that you read your manual and *play* with the options. Some
experimentation is needed and as you get more familiar with the Trace
utility you will be able to customize the Trace options for a particular
bitmap style.
Finally, there is the post Trace work. I will not kid you into thinking
Trace is Magic. It is not. Occasionally you will get a Trace vector that is
perfect but this is not the norm. Trace can only do what you ask it within
the limitations of tracing technology. Once you have the Trace .EPS file in
Corel you will have to spend some time node editing the graphic to the
point where it is perfect.
You can get there from here, but not without some effort on your part.
Please give it a fair try before condemning it. Refer to your manual and
feel free to call our Tech support line for any technical questions you may
have.
Let me know how it goes.
Paul
Hee hee hee! It warms my heart to see the new doses of diplomacy the ol'
phrase "RTFM" can be given. I'm writing them down for my own use, hope you
don't mind.
Say, how many of you [Corel] people are here, anyway? I'm impressed by the
amount of company people working in the forum! Most other places, I see
only one poor soul elected to take the beatings (grin)…
– K –
There are six Section Leaders for five Sections (Paul and I share duties in
the CD 3.X and CD 2.x sections) and one Sysop and a few unofficial people
around.
Donna
Ken—
They're not blowing smoke at you. There are times when RTFM is in order. In
particular with any tracing program, given that there is not one (and I've
used 'em all, and have reviewed Streamline 3.0) which you can just turn
loose on a bitmap and have it get it all right. It would be nice, but
nobody's got one yet. It really does take fiddling and paging the manual.
FWIW:
1.Clean up yr. tiff as much as possible before tracing. Kill those stray
pixels. Be esp. vigilant on lines.
2.Try the main options and compare. Sometimes yr. particular file may trace
better with a setting that seems contraindicated.
3.Figure that 95% of the time you're still going to have to mess with nodes
in Corel.
If you're still unsatisfied, consider adding Streamline 3.0. Requires just
as much fiddling, but I find for traces that sometimes the one or the other
program can get it right quicker.
^^^robert
Gawd, I love listening to folks who know what they're talking about. My
compliments!
– K –
Can't claim to *know* what I'm talking about, Ken. But I *was* thinking of
when I first started doing tracing, and this in pre-CorelTrace days. Got
furious that I had to do so much work. Even after buying Streamline 1.0 at
$200. So it was the fruits of exactly the frustration you're feeling.
^^^robert
I cannot think of any more difficult baptism into corel and vector image
work than tracing a bitmap. The trace options are complex, and it takes a
lot of fiddling to figure out what they do, how they affect each other, and
how those relationships change depending on the bitmap being traced. There
are NO generalities. Some images trace better when scanned at 400DPI,
others require far less post-trace-diddling if scanned at 100 dpi. Some
trace better if traced "tight" and others if traced very loosely. And
sometimes, it's better to import the bitmap directly into corel with the
"for tracing" option and manually autotrace (how's that for an oxymoron)
the elements of the bitmap one at a time, "tuning" each in turn. having the
bitmap image visible as a stencil can sometimes make it much easier.
Good luck, and give corel a chance — for all it's flaws (yes, there are
flaws) it's still one of the most enjoyble TOOLS I own.
Incidentally, I use Corel to directly generate about 25% of my income, and
it plays a substantial role in another 50%.
Rich
Am I right in thinking that you use Trace regularly in a production
setting? If so, please post a private message to me, if you're looking for
additional work.
All the best–Chris
Paul, I spent over 40 hours cleaning up the bit file and its as good as it
can be(except i cant make a curve with a diagnal line.
Isnt that what Corel is supposed to do? The trace program makes it worse.
I need perfect . is this more for ma & pa ? Please, I dont want to spend
the time if theres a better product in the commercial field.
—-DAve—-
Dave,
I think you can judge by the reponse to your initial comments that Trace is
in fact an effective and productive tool to be used by professionals for
professional work.
Perhaps your expectations of Trace (and tracing technology in general) have
been somewhat inflated by advertising claims. If this is the case I
apologize on behalf of Corel for the role you have percieved us playing.
However, having said that I want to stress that Trace (and all tracing
applications) are not perfect. There are limitations to the way a trace is
performed within the boundries of the technology.
You will find very similar results in all the Tracing packages on the
market today.
I am not trying to make excuses for your troubles nor am I trying to
dismiss your claims. To quote Rich Zaleski message #811
"I cannot think of any more difficult baptism into corel and vector image
work than tracing a bitmap".
I hope you will not be discouraged by the effort involved in obtaining your
results. We have seen some very amazing artwork generated from CorelDRAW,
(ie: This years Design Contest) and I am sure that with a little patience
you too can obtain equally professional results.
Please feel free to call me at 613-728-8200 ext 1644 if you have *ANY*
questions at all. We strive to make *all* of our customers feel that
CorelDRAW is an investment worth making and maintaining.
Paul [Corel]
(feeling excessively verbose today)
If it helps any, I'd like to say that Corel Trace is used frequently and
quite successfully by the DTP Specialist in Sharp Electronics Corp.'s
Copier and Imaging Systems Division (yours truly). I must have traced the
logo of every office automation company in the world with the program, and
several of my traces are now permanent clip-art in our Corporate
Communications dept.
– K –
I just had to throw this in … once in a while you DO get a reward from
heaven. A while back, a customer handed us the most complicatedly insane
(or maybe it was insanely complicated) drawing … and wanted it traced
into some slides we were doing for him. I figured it might take weeks to
get the settings right for this one, with another week just for the vector
edits, so I could colorize the thing. Figured it would just be simpler in
the long run to do the thing in Photoshop.
But then I figured "What the heck. I'll just throw it through Corel Trace,
if only for the fun of watching it choke."
Took my best first guess at the settings, and got a perfect trace the first
time. I picked my tongue off the floor and stuck it back in my mouth then
hopped into Corel to see what a mess the edits would be (lots of neg/pos
space problems implicit in this particular drawing.)
The saliva marks on the floor got to be a more serious problem when it
turned out that, apart from picking all the little objects and getting the
colors right, I had to do absolutely no editing at all. Zilch.
Some days you get the elevator.
Steve
I can not add to your comments except to offer a hint I use often with
traces:
When there is text, I trace the whole bitmap and import the EPS into Corel.
Then I place the bitmap behind it, and remove the text part of the trace
from the vector drawing, leaving the bitmap as a pattern. I select the
nearest font to the type, convert it to curves, and then adjust the nodes
to exactly match the bitmap. Once done, I adjust any non text based
portions to matche the bitmap, then nuke the bitmap. Done.
Naturally, the vector import has to be resized to match the bitmap before
all this is done. I think this will be easier with the layers feature of
3.0, but I still do not have my direct order upgrade (hint, hint).
I have never met a traced bitmap that did not need node mapping. Some are
easier, but none have taken less than an hour to be "right" and last week
it took about 3 to do one that had lots of hairline details and frills.
Anyone who thinks this should be easy ought to look at a bitmap printout at
high magnification.
Dave:
I'll chime in here too … Corel Trace is definitely not Ma & Pa. But with
the number of options it gives you, you just have to spend the time to
learn how to do it. You probably would have to do the same with ANY
tracing program you bought, and once you get a feel for it, your next scan
will take lots less time.
Getting logos traced "just so" may well be the toughest test you can put
this kind of program to … simply because there really is no margin for
error. The logo has to be just right or it's worthless.
Have faith, though. Your time and patience will be rewarded.
BTW, you are using the Corel Trace *program*, not the trace tool from
within Corel itself, aren't you?
Steve
I have often found that Trace is a waste of time. I can bet the results I
want quicker by manually constructing a logo on top of a bitmap. That way I
get circles when I want circles and straight lines when I want straight. I
also get to control line thickness as needed.
You do have one other choice, albeit distasteful — pay one of us with CD
experience to do the conversion for you on this first round.
–Bob