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Question

More accurate Image Trace results?

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
January 7, 2026
4 replies
387 views

Hello, I have been working on a big comic book project. I have been trying to smooth out the drawn outline from the scanned drawings with Adobe Illustrator's Image Trace. However, it does not smooth the outline in a way that is close enough to the original source. I am fairly new to the Illustrator program so I'm unsure whether there is a better method. I've tried many different adjustments in Image Trace but I am still not getting the results I'd like.

I have attached an image that shows the drawing in three parts. Before the Image Trace, after the Image Trace, and then after the Image Trace where I've had to draw and erase the outline to get it closer to the results I'd prefer. Are there any settings or adjustments that can be done within Image Trace to get results that look closer to the final image?

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Brett_GhostAuthor

Participating Frequently

So for anyone here who has used Illustrator and Image Trace, is there no way to get the original scanned drawing outline smooth without some form of distortion? The third image in this picture is an example of what I'm wanting. I have about a hundred comic pages to go through!
Comic Screenshot Jpeg.jpg

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ExUSA

Legend

I almost never suggest using AI but this might be one exception. See if one of the AI image models can clean these up for you.

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Brett_GhostAuthor

Participating Frequently

How would that be done?

Monika Gause

Community Expert

You can find a playlist with videos about the options here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVqhHu3CSohV3AbA0DP6c6kJ5EJIqgFFf

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

You can have a better result than what you are showing.

I traced your image. Result on the left, image on the right.

Screenshot 2026-01-07 at 20.52.05.png

with these settings:

Screenshot 2026-01-07 at 20.53.42.png

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Brett_GhostAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi. It looks somewhat closer to the original. The problem is that it's not smoothing out the line to what I would like. The third image is more of what I'm looking for. Are there any adjustments in Image Trace that you know of that can do that? Or perhaps some alternate way of getting that result other than going in and manually changing it with drawing and erasing?

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

I am afraid that you want a less accurate result. You could try to preprocess the image in Photoshop to get a less jagged contour, scan/image it at a higher resolution and or use the Simplify tool in Illustrator.

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Brett_GhostAuthor

Participating Frequently

There may be an error with the image I attached. Hopefully this new one will display:
Comic Screenshot Jpeg.jpg

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