Illustrator Tutorial: 3 Ways to Vectorize an Image
Learn the key steps to vectorize an image in Adobe Illustrator with Juan Villamil
In the world of graphic design, and, more specifically, illustration, lettering, branding and corporate and institutional design, mastering the creation of vector images is key. Vectors are highly manipulable, offer different advantages over pixels, and learning to create with them in Adobe Illustrator is not particularly difficult.
In this tutorial, illustrator and graphic designer Juan Villamil, better known as Juan Sin Miedo (@juansinmiedo), explains three different ways to vectorize an image in Adobe Illustrator, and reviews the fundamental difference between images created with vectors and images created with pixels
What is a vector?
First of all, we must explain the difference between an image created with vectors and another created with pixels. Vectors are graphic elements based on mathematical formulas, their main advantage is that they can be scaled without losing quality (we can expand them all we want and they will not be pixelated) and the ease with which all their features can be edited.
Although the majority of digital images that we see in our day to day are composed of pixels, the truth is that images created with vectors, as we have mentioned, are very useful for graphic design. The pixels, although they allow us to faithfully reproduce photographs, for example, do not maintain the same quality when enlarged.
