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Best tracing program?

I'm looking to purchase a software program that will auto-trace raster images (mainly scanned images) and turn them into vectors. I'm willing to do a little image tweeking, but would like the bulk of the trace process done for me. As far as the price point, no more than $200.

I've looked at about.com and there are about 20 titles listed. The one that stood out is Adobe Streamline, since I'm an Adobe user anyway. Is this the best one? Or is there another one that you would recommend? Thanks in advance.

P.S - here's the list I mentioned. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/bitmaptovector/index.htm?terms=autotrace

Last edited by Shelly, October 14th, 2004 03:18 AM (Edited 1 times)

Silhouette.

It will work as a plug in for Illustrator or as a stand alone application.

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Thanks for your input.

Silhouette is listed at $299 for the plugin version
Adobe Streamline is listed at $129

For comparison, is Silhouette really worth that much more? Just curious. I don't want to spend money I don't have to.

As background, I run a small business doing graphics design/web design. Tracing is not something I do everyday, but occasionally, customers send me a scanned logo or something, and it would make my life easier to be able to automate the tracing process.

One other question, I own Flash, Freehand, Photoshop and Illustrator. I don't know how to use Flash yet, it's on my to-do list. Does Flash do tracing well?

Flash will do a half decent job of tracing using the "Trace Bitmap" feature. Though with any tracing program or plug-in, youre still going to have to do some touch up work in a vector program. Then again it all depends on how complex the source image is.

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The images I need to trace are generally not very complex, mostly Text, one color. I can never fully determine what font was used, nor can they tell me, so I trace it by hand.

Shelly,

Silhouette is absolutely worth the extra $100. Now, Flash is said to have decent tracing capabilities. I'm not a Flash user so I can't say whether Flash vectors will export to a usable print vector forum.

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I may try Flash before I go out and spend a bunch of money. Thanks.