How to vectorize an image, step by step

What vectorizing actually does

A PNG, JPG, or WEBP is a grid of colored squares. Vectorizing — also called image tracing — replaces that grid with shapes: every area of flat color becomes a path described by a handful of points and curves. The result stays sharp at any size, and every shape can be selected, recolored, or deleted in Illustrator, Inkscape, Figma, Affinity Designer, or any other vector editor.

JustVectorize traces in two stages. First it reduces the image to a small set of flat colors — the palette. Then it draws a boundary around every region of each color and fits smooth curves to it. Almost every choice in this guide is really a choice about one of those two stages: which colors survive, and how their edges are drawn.

Before you upload

The tracer can only follow edges that exist in the file. Two minutes spent on the source image pays back more than any setting.

• Use the biggest, cleanest version you have. A logo lifted from a website header or a thumbnail has too few pixels along each edge for the curves to land accurately. At the other extreme, very large images are scaled down before tracing, so a huge file only costs upload time — 1,000 to 2,000 pixels across is plenty for most artwork.
• Prefer PNG to JPG. JPEG compression leaves faint noise around every edge, and the tracer reads that noise as color. A JPG still works; you’ll just lean harder on the palette. More in PNG to SVG, and JPG to SVG.
• Crop to the subject. Borders, watermarks, and unrelated background all become shapes you’d have to delete later.
• Stay under 4 MB. That’s the upload limit. A PNG that’s over it almost always has far more pixels than the tracer will use.

1. Upload the image

Head to the upload box on the home page and give it one image, whichever way is quickest:

• drag the file onto the drop zone;
• click browse and pick it from your computer;
• paste it straight from the clipboard with Ctrl + V (⌘ + V on a Mac) — handy for a screenshot;
• or click one of the sample images to see how it works first.

PNG, JPG, and WEBP are accepted, one image at a time. There’s no account to create first: tracing starts as soon as the file lands, with the colors chosen automatically, and the result opens when it’s done.

2. Review the trace

The result opens on a canvas as live SVG, not as a preview picture, so you can zoom right in and look at the real curves. Three views each make a different kind of problem obvious:

• Result only shows the vector on its own. Hover over it and a lens shows the original underneath, so you can check an edge against its source without switching views.
• Side by side puts the original and the trace next to each other — the fastest way to notice a missing detail or a color that drifted.
• Outlines over original draws the traced paths as thin lines on top of the source. It’s the view for judging how closely the curves hug the edges.

Zoom runs from 0.05× to 64×. On the keyboard, 0 fits the image to the screen, 1 shows it at 100%, + and − zoom, and Esc backs out.

3. Tune the palette

The automatic palette is a good first guess, but you know the image better than an algorithm does. Open Settings, and in the Palette section click Choose palette (it reads Edit palette once you’ve set one). The palette editor shows every color the image is built from as a swatch.

• Simplify Colors is the main slider: left for fewer, broader colors, right for more detail. The levels are nested — each one is a coarsening of the level above — so moving the slider never scrambles colors you’ve already grouped.
• Drag one swatch onto another to merge them. That’s how you fold the blurry in-between shades along an edge back into the color they belong to.
• Click a swatch to recolor it: type an exact hex value, choose a quick color, or use the eyedropper to pick a color straight from the image.
• Hide a color to drop it from the output. Hidden colors are left transparent, which is how you remove a flat background or the texture of the paper.
• A merged swatch can be split back into the colors it came from if you went too far.

The preview updates instantly as you edit; nothing is traced yet. Click Apply changes and you’re taken back to the result, where the new palette waits alongside any other settings you’ve changed.

How many colors should you keep? For a logo or an icon, the number of colors you can actually see, plus the background. For an illustration, start near the automatic count and merge anything that looks like a smudge. Photos are a topic of their own — see turning a photo into vector art.

4. Drop the background

To keep the subject without whatever it’s sitting on, switch on Remove background in the Palette section of the settings. The background is cut out before tracing, so it never gets a color or a path. Like a palette edit, it takes effect when you apply your changes. Parts of your upload that were already transparent stay transparent either way.

For simple artwork on a flat background, hiding the background color in the palette editor does the same job, with exact control over what counts as background.

5. Pick a format and a preset

The Format row decides the file type:

Not sure? Choose SVG. The vector format guide covers the trade-offs in detail.

Optimize for decides how the shapes are drawn and organised:

• General use — solid filled shapes, each set into a hole cut in the shape beneath it, so nothing overlaps. The right default for almost everything.
• Easy editing — shapes stacked on top of one another and grouped by color, so you can select and recolor every shape of one color at once in your editor.
• Cutting & engraving — one stroke along every edge instead of filled shapes, which is what a laser, vinyl cutter, or pen plotter follows. See making cut files.
• Custom — set the draw style, stacking, and grouping yourself under Advanced.

6. Fine-tune, if you need to

Everything under Advanced is optional, and the defaults are sensible. The settings worth knowing:

• Output size — keep the traced size, scale by a percentage, or type real dimensions in px, pt, in, cm, or mm, with Fit, Fill, or Stretch deciding how the drawing sits in that box.
• Draw style — Filled, Outlines, Edges, or Gradients. Gradients fills a region with a linear or radial gradient wherever that fits better than one flat color, so a soft sky stays soft instead of breaking into stripes.
• Fit to lines & arcs — swaps curves for true straight lines and arcs wherever they fit. Geometric logos, icons, and charts come out cleaner and much smaller.
• Refine curves to color edges — moves each boundary point onto the actual color edge instead of the corner of a pixel. It’s the biggest single lever on how smooth the curves look.
• Minimum area — regions smaller than this many pixels merge into their closest-colored neighbour. Raise it to clear dust and speckle; set it to 0 to keep every region.

7. Apply and download

Settings that change the shapes — the palette, the draw style, the detail options, the minimum area — mark the canvas Preview is out of date until you click Apply changes, which re-traces it so you can check the result before you commit. Settings that only affect the file, such as output size and grouping, are applied when you download and need no re-trace.

Changed your mind? Ctrl + Z (⌘ + Z) undoes a settings change, and Reset goes back to the settings the result was traced with. When the canvas looks right, click Download.

Where to go from here

Different kinds of images reward slightly different handling. Pick the guide closest to what you’re tracing:

• Vectorizing a logo — exact brand colors, true circles and straight lines, a transparent background.
• Turning a photo into vector art — what to expect, and how to choose a look.
• Scans, sketches, and hand-drawn art — paper texture, pencil, and dust.
• 12 tips for a cleaner trace — the short list.
• Illustrator vs. Inkscape vs. the browser — if you already work in a desktop editor.