Illustrator Image Tracing in High Fidelity Photo returns Low Quality Results

[ScottTG]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and relatively new to Illustrator but I've got a good grip on it I think.

I have been scanning artwork in to Photoshop to fine tune, and then saving as a TIFF file to place in illustrator (my graphics are for fabric printing). Then I've been making an Image Trace using High Fidelity Photo and this has worked well previously. Today however I'm working with smaller elements and I don't think the result is particularly good. The trace is far removed from the original, yet I know it is possible to look almost exactly the same because I have experienced this (and seen people on youtube having very detailed results using High Fidelity Photo to Image Trace watercolours).

Both the PS and AI files are set to 300ppi, both using CMYK colours.

I've attached screenshots of an example of my problem, as well as the Image Trace panel so you can see my issue.

The left images are the original watercolour taken from PS as a TIFF file.

The right images is the Image Trace I get using High Fidelity Photo

I have increased the colours to 100 because I hoped it would give the definition I needed (hence the Preset is 'Custom')

I have enlarged the images here from the original (maybe 150%), but I would have thought the Image Trace would hold up better. The TIFF seems more scaleable without losing clarity, than the Image Trace. Should this be?

Lastly, as I'm going to be using illustrator to create patterns and graphics for print, using hand painted originals scanned in to PS originally, is it best practice to create an Image trace in AI for each graphic? Or is it an option to just work with the imported TIFF elements and create patterns from those? I'm not scaling the prints massively in AI, but I want to keep the clarity if I do.

Any help would be massively appreciated!

[Monika Gause]

What exactly are you going to do with this?

You won't get better quality of a scanned image like this when you trace it just to get "vector".

Most probably you will be better off when scanning at a sufficient resolution that already considers the scaling. And if that means to get a better and more expensive scanner, then go for it. But autotrace won't solve your problem.

[Test Screen Name]

Is it a limitation of your printing technology that everything must be vector? If so I suggest you design in vector.

[Bill Silbert]

Image Trace is always a hit or miss proposition. The fidelity to the original image is largely a matter of luck. Different images will produce vastly different results in terms of quality. I would not recommend counting on it in a professional environment.

[Srishti Bali]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for reaching out. Image trace never gives the same result, however, it can be optimized. For more details, please check out this detailed document shared by Monika: Optimize results using Image Trace.

Let us know if this helps or if you have any further question.

Regards,

Srishti

[Alfonso_Alborta5171]

Found a solution to the Hit and Miss problem. 

If you are using something like an Adobe Express where you can manipulate the image resolution:

-Instead of setting the image to a few hundred meager pixels, make it a hundreds of thousands. 

Example:

-Adobeillustrator tracing tool was not good with a 400 x 100 pxls = 40.000 square pxl --- Resutl: poor tracing.

So-

-Created a new image with a 4000 x 1000 pxls = 4million pxl. ---> Result= Perfect tracing. 

Take that Illustrator! Good luck messing that one up.