VectorDesigner 1.3

I got TweakerSoft's VectorDesigner 1.3 as part of the recent MacHeist bundle (VectorDesigner normally sells for US$69.95). Its unlocking timing was perfect since I was just thinking about creating a new graphic or two with my meager design skills (if you can call it that) for a new personal "fun" web site I'm launching next month called TechOnABudget.com. I wanted something that could take a photograph or hand drawing and turn it into a reasonably clean vector line drawing of some kind. VectorDesigner 1.3 seemed like the right tool for the job.

I scanned in an old photo probably printed about 8 years ago on an inkjet printer. You can see the colors have faded quite a bit and probably was not that accurate to begin with. I should probably hunt down the original digital photo and use that as a source. If memory serves me correctly, this photo might have been taken using an old Canon Elph APS film camera and converted to digital using the old Kodak Picture CD service. My HP Officejet 5610xi multifunction printer/scanner is not natively supported by Mac OS X. So, VectorDesigner could not directly import it. I used HP's scanning software to save the image to my desktop and imported it into VectorDesinger from the JPEG file.

After adjusting the contrast, color saturation, and other settings quite a bit, I used VectorDesigner's bitmap to vector conversion feature to create what I think might be a good starting point for a graphic image I might be able to use in my little project. But. this photo is obviously way too complex to really use as a vector drawing.

So, the next thing I did was grab a quick sketch my daughter made a while back (last year I think) to see what I could do with a simpler line drawing. I had to play with the Gamma Function and Contrast settings quite a bit to get the scanned image of this pencil sketch to the point where I could get a usable vector drawing.

The converted vector drawing consists of, well, a really lot of points. So, this image isn't exactly simple either. I need to play with VectorDesigner a bit more to see if there is something analogous to an audio quantize feature to simplify hand drawn images or photos. The answer may be that I need to process the photos using a bitmap graphics editor like Pixelmator (which is what I use all the time these days) to created a simpler bitmap image for VectorDesigner to convert.

Still, the resulting vector line drawing again seems like a decent starting point image for further work. I used a gradient function to produce the color change you see in this image.

I haven't tried using a vector drawing program in many years. So, I tend to have bitmapped ideas and need to switch gears when working with VectorDesigner. This adjustment is probably going to take a long time. Fortunately, TweakerSoft has a great series of bite sized (everything much less than 10 minutes) video tutorials that really helped me understand the basics of its operation.

VectorDesigner Video Tutorials

I still have a hard time clicking on a line (vector) to add a point though. And, I think there is a missing step in the tutorial explaining how to convert a bitmap image like a scanned drawing. The video seems to just use the Convert Raster to Vector and Edit Path functions. However, I had to apply theUngroup function after the conversion in order to use (un-gray) the Edit Path option.

VectorDesigner looks like a good affordable tool for people like me who aren't graphics professionals but need decent tools for personal projects. I'm planning to use it to create an image or two for my new web project. Don't judge VectorDesigner by the quality of my output though :-)