don't get image trace

[aTomician]

I really don't know if it's just me but I've never had a satisfactory result using image trace  in Illy.  This has just become more of a problem.  I've watched some tutorials which show it working such as: 

• https://www.stickermule.com/uk/blog/how-to-use-image-trace-in-adobe-illustrator
• https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/convert-image-vector-illustrator/

I've got this source image of a barcode, which I would have imagine would be really simple and easy to convert to a vector - just some black boxes right?  (I'm not worried about the numbers)

High fidelity photo results in: 

Black and white logo results in:

Silhouettes results in:

This is the best I can do with some custom tweaks:

...but even that's not perfect, the barcode lines are a bit wobbly especially at the bottom.  Please help, what's at fault here - am I doing this wrong?  is the image at fault?  or is image trace broken?

[Doug A Roberts]

There's no intelligence in image trace to recognise a black box as a box. There is a tolerance setting looking at areas of contrasting pixels and drawing lines around them. Since it's trying to draw an average line, it may have problems with sharp corners or precise shapes. It's just not a good enough tool to replicate a barcode from pixels.

[aTomician]

Thanks for the input Doug - good to know.  Luckily I've found a way to export the barcode as vector SVG now (it's via a web based tool) so this isn't a problem, but I've always wanted to ask about Image Trace as I've never got anywhere with it...

Thing is, I imagine that if Apple or Google made a tool to trace a raster image into vector paths that it would be super accurate, so I think it's a bit nuts that Adobe with all their experience and fancy tools can't trace a few black boxes!

[John Mensinger]

It's always baffled me when I encountered people using Image Trace as part of their routine workflow. Personally, I have very little use for it. (The only thing I ever traced and then used was my signature).

You may be able to tweak some settings and get a slightly better result on that barcode, but you've already put forth a lot more effort than it would take to just generate a new barcode. Image Trace simply isn't accurate enough when precision is needed.

[aTomician]

good to get feedback John - this is where I'm baffled, I've never been able to produce worthwhile results from Image Trace to include it in any workflow...  the results seem such a joke that I wondered if I was using it completely wrong or if it's as crap as it seems.

[Test Screen Name]

I'm assuming you actually want to work with a barcode, not just use it to test. Image trace is specifically designed to be inaccurate (which is why it can trace something with countless pixels into rather less lines), and to produce something similar according to human perception, not a barcode scanner's perception, so it is hugely unsuitable for this task.

Barcodes are simple to look at but hard to make. There are very specific rules about line widths and spacing. If you go outside these rules you will find that some barcode readers work and others reject or misread. So vectorising or otherwise editing a pattern that is meant to be a barcode is asking for a disaster. (Note also that there are very specific print size rules for most barcodes, so they have to be used with the greatest care).