I suppose I should ask the OP's permission to vectorize his artwork before I go offering the vector version to anyone. SO I will retract that until further discussions can occur.

To answer the question, "what is vectorize?"

In the world of digital art there are two schools of thought or two basic formats people work with to create files. No matter what the file format is....EPS, JPG, GIF, TIFF, etc. They all fall under either one of the two basic types. Those types are: bitmaps and vector (some times called raster). Let me explain.

Bitmaps (in laymans terms):
The easiest way to tell if a file is a bitmap, is to zoom severely close into the image. A bitmap is made of tiny squares of color. No matter the size, all information contained within that file is a pixel that is in the geometric form of a square. Each square is assigned a color. The image contained in this thread appears to be a simple black and white image, but in fact it is a color image where the colors are only shades of gray. The range is so small it appears black and white. I wont go into the 1-bit, 8-bit, 24-bit techno gibberish for now. The disadvantage is that all bitmap.pixel based images are constrained by their size. The original size and resolution of the image cannot be improved. It cannot be scaled up in size without a loss to quality. You can have the illusion of improving the images quality by scaling down. Have you ever seen a photo online that was really fuzzy? Some people call this "pixelated." This simply means (in most cases) the image is being displayed at a size or resolution larger than its original. The computer trys to interpolate between squares and fill in or guess the color in order to fill in the gaps. When you hear people talking about PhotoShop, you know they are dealing with a bitmap image.

Vector based images:
Vector is just what you learned in physics class in high school. A series of points along a line (or with newer technology a curve). Think of a vector image (a rectangle for example) as four points, with lines drawn between each point, then the rectangle can be an outline or filled with a single color. Digital images made with vectors can be scaled up or down to ANY size and their quality stays identical. This is because the computer simply and mathematically increases (or decrease) the distance between each point. The disadvantage is that vector based images are color restrained (usually one color). New technology does allow vector based images to be filled with variations of colors or fountain fills, but these images still fall behind the superior quality of bitmap images, where millions of pixels make up million of colors. Bitmaps are more photo realistic. Vector artwork is excellent to make decals, labels, stencils (and a whole lot more). Some examples of vector based programs are: CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator, Quark, Macromedia Freehand (purchased by Adobe).

Finally, if anyone has seen artwork cut from vinyl, such as Kens Cayman GT vinyl decal along his doors, then you will be witness to a piece of digital artwork in vector form.

I prefer working in vector format simply because I like its scalability. The image posted by the OP is a beautiful silhouette of our Cayman, but it is a bitmap image, when viewed closely or at a large scale is fuzzy. I have spent many hours converting bitmap art to vector art. The Cayman S logo is one I have on file. I can use it to any size, large or small. This silhouette was too good to pass up. In fact I am already halfway done vectorizing it. I would love to create a logo, or a number of other things with such a beautiful set of curves.

By the way, this vectorizing is done with a digital tracing program that takes his image, automatically traces it and assigns the image thousands of points along the various lines. This essentially becomes an outline filled with color. My effort is to make the vector art into one single color (white) against solid black, much like the CC logo. The hard part is that after the tracing program is done, it could take HOURS to then minimize all the thousands of points into just a few, and still maintain the beautiful curves. It is quite tough, and will take multiple attempts.

So remember, if you want photo realstic, go bitmap, if you want decals, vinyls, simple logos then go vector. If you are like me, you want both.

I guess I told you more than you wanted to know?

__________________
Kevin

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