Image trace not producing clear image

[elizabethb20966009]

Hi Everyone, 

I'm trying to use image trace to vectorize an illustration. The first image above is an illustration done with marker. The second image (the image on the right) is what happens after I apply image trace. I'm not sure why the image looks so jagged/un-even. I've tried to play around with the advanced settings, but updating the noise and some of the other features doesn't seem to make much of a difference. 

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I'm new to Illustrator--so it might be something obvious!

Thanks for the help!

[Omar.Fathy]

Image Trace is not a magician. The good quality image you have, the good image trace result you will get.
The image is blury may be because resolution is not high.
You can edit the Image Trace settings to get better results but the best method for your image is to redraw with Pen Tool to get the best results or even with the brush or pencil tool.

[Monika Gause]

Try View > Preview on CPU. Does it get better?

[elizabethb20966009]

Hi Monika,

It looks MUCH better after doing that. What does that do? 

I've been photographing my drawings using my phone and scanning them using a free iPhone app. I know the image quality isn't great, but image trace was working really well for me on my personal laptop for similar quality images. For this project I was using my work laptop. So I'm wondering if I maybe had different setting on my personal laptop and didn't realize it? 

Also, the reason those images are so blurry is because they're screenshots, not the actual image files!

[Monika Gause]

It makes Illustrator render to pixels using the central processing unit, not the processor on the graphic card. If this looks better then you could try and find an update for your graphic card driver