rastertrace

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PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF or BMP. Converted to SVG on your machine; no upload.

Tracing settings

Controls for turning raster artwork into clean vector paths.

Result, Source & Compare
Result shows the trace and Source the original image; a label on the preview names the one showing, and changing a setting switches back to Result. Compare puts both side by side with a divider: drag it, or focus it and use the arrow keys (Shift for bigger steps).
Color presets & Max colors
Maximum colors in the output. Fewer colors means simpler, cleaner, smaller SVGs. A preset is a quick way to pick a color count and changes nothing else. On flat artwork, soft or blurred edges between two colors split between them instead of becoming a third color.
Color source
This image picks the colors automatically. My colors snaps every shape to a palette you supply: paste hex codes or import an .ase, .gpl, or hex list. Max colors is disabled while My colors has swatches.
Smallest shape
Drops traced specks smaller than this many pixels. Raise it to remove noise, dust, and JPEG artifacts.
Merge similar shades
Minimum color difference between stacked layers. Raise it to merge similar shades into one shape.
Upscale before tracing
Enlarges the image before tracing for smoother curves. Auto fits 2048 px, and traces flat art larger than that at its own size, up to 4096 px; Ultra fits 4096 px for fabrication (slower).
Path mode
Spline traces smooth curves (most artwork), Polygon straight segments (hard-edged geometry), Pixel exact outlines (pixel art).
Simplify
How closely paths follow the image. Lower keeps detail; higher gives fewer, smoother points. Shows Custom when the Advanced tracing curve settings were set by hand. Spline mode only.
Corner rounding
Angles smoother than this trace as curves. Lower keeps text and logo corners sharp; higher flows. Spline mode only.
Straighten lines
Snaps edges that wander up to this many source pixels from a straight line onto one. Low values clean up slight wobble; high values flatten the stair steps of an enlarged, blurred image. Detail smaller than the setting is flattened too.
Smooth outlines
Smooths pixel-level steps and noise along every edge before tracing, the same way the smooth brush does, across the whole image. 1 cleans up most art; higher values smooth more but round small corners and can thin fine lines. It does not apply in Pixel mode or when Max colors is All.
Layering
Stacked layers shapes on top of each other (smallest files). Cutout makes non-overlapping shapes that tile edge to edge, for cutting machines.
Advanced tracing
Path precision: decimal places in coordinates (1-2 small web files, 3-4 fabrication). Segment length and spline splitting trade curve fidelity for simplicity; they apply to Spline mode only.
Stencil, threshold & ink
Black & white trace: pixels darker than the threshold become shapes, everything else drops out. Ink chooses black or white shapes, both on a transparent background (white is for white ink on dark material). Best for laser cutting, stamps, silhouettes. Max colors, Merge similar shades and Grayscale do not apply while it is on.
Grayscale & Denoise
Grayscale converts to gray tones before tracing. Denoise smooths photo noise (softens pixel art).
Background removal
Makes the background transparent: connected-from-edges, auto-detected color, or a picked color. A picked color can be limited to areas connected to the edges, and edge removal can also clear enclosed background or follow a gradient background. Tolerance widens the match; clean specks removes stray dots and pinholes; edge smooth rounds off jagged cutout edges (corners round and details thinner than the setting disappear); edge trim and defringe clean the cutout boundary.
Palette
Changes a traced color to a new HEX or RGB value without retracing; shapes stay the same. Use Pick from result and click a color in the result, or click a swatch when the trace has 32 colors or fewer. To merge similar colors, Shift- or Ctrl-click swatches (or press Select and tap them), then Merge: they all take the color of the largest one and show as one swatch with a count. Colors you set to the same value merge too. Split colors on a merged swatch restores each one. Edits apply to the preview and every export, are kept when a retrace still has that color, and clear when you open a new image. With Colors set to All, edits match exact traced colors only. Hide color makes a color transparent, exact in Cutout layering. In Stacked layering, hiding a color reveals the shape beneath it; hiding the background color makes it transparent. Click Use cutout layering in the palette panel to switch with one click.

Vector cleanup

Erase unwanted areas, paint fills or smooth rough edges, then the image is traced again with your edits, so the profile and settings apply to them too. The tools sit on the left edge of the preview, and the chosen tool's options show in the strip above it. On phones the rail shows the chosen tool; the grid button opens every tool, and its options open in a panel at the bottom of the screen.

Move
The hand at the top of the rail. Select it, or press H or Esc, to put away the current tool; dragging then pans the preview, and scrolling or pinching zooms.
Eraser
Press E or select the eraser icon, then drag over unwanted vector areas, including from outside an image edge. Use [ and ] to decrease or increase its diameter. The circular cursor shows the affected size. On a touchscreen, put a second finger down to pinch-zoom instead; the stroke in progress is undone.
Blob fill
Press B or select the brush icon, choose or enter a fill color, then paint over the vector result. Use the eyedropper to sample from the active traced palette after color reduction and preprocessing. The eraser and blob brush share the Size control.
Smooth brush
Press S or select the smooth icon, then brush over rough, notched or stair-stepped edges. Inside the stroke each pixel takes the color most of its surroundings have, so bumps and steps up to about a quarter of the brush size flatten while longer edges stay put; a bigger brush smooths more. No new colors appear. It shares the Size control and shows as a tinted stroke until the retrace applies it.
Box & circle marquee
Press M for a rectangular selection or Shift+M for an elliptical selection. Drag anywhere in the preview, including outside the image. Press Shift during the drag for a square or circle, or Alt/Option to draw from the center.
Add to or subtract from a selection
Hold Shift when you start a marquee, lasso or wand click to add it to the current selection, or Alt/Option to subtract it; the cursor shows a + or −. On touch screens, use the New, Add and Subtract buttons in the tool options. Switching selection tools keeps the selection, so a wand area can be combined with a marquee.
Polygonal lasso
Press L, then click point-to-point around an irregular area. Hold Shift to lock a segment to 45-degree increments. Double-click, press Enter, or select Close shape to close it. While drawing, Backspace or Esc removes the last point.
Magic wand
Press W or select the wand icon, then click a color in the result to select that connected area only; the same color elsewhere stays unselected. Shift+click adds more areas. Tolerance also takes similar shades, Expand grows the selection to cover leftover edges, and Smooth rounds off jagged pixel steps; each updates the current selection. Erase makes the area transparent, or Fill paints it with the brush color.
Erase or fill a selection
After closing a selection, select Erase or Fill below the preview, or press Delete or Backspace to erase it and Ctrl/Cmd+Backspace to fill it with the current blob-brush color. Cancel drops the selection. Areas outside the image are ignored, so cleanup affects only the vector result.
Undo, redo & restore
Use Ctrl/Cmd+Z to undo and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Z or Ctrl/Cmd+Y to redo. Restore Original removes every manual cleanup action.
Exporting cleanup
Fills and erases show at once over the result, and smooth strokes as a tinted outline, while the image retraces in the background. Every edit is part of the trace, so every export keeps it: a fill takes the profile's colors (black in Mono stencil), an erase is a hole, and smoothing follows the traced colors. PDF and DXF wait for that retrace to finish.

SVG export guide

Choose an output profile, size, and format for your destination.

Profiles

Profiles are purpose-based starting points: they set colors, cleanup, path detail, and output options together. Every control stays editable afterwards; changing one switches the profile back to Custom.

Size & units

SVG is vector geometry, so there is no DPI: it scales cleanly at any size. Use Match source pixels for websites and apps. Use Custom size to set a width in px, mm, cm, or in; the height follows the image automatically. Physical units let print and cutting software open the file at its real-world size.

Smallest files

The Web profile combines fewer colors, path precision 1, and minified output. Same-fill shapes are always grouped to save bytes. Fewer colors and higher speckle filtering shrink files far more than any other setting.

Shape fidelity

Max detail traces smooth curves that hug the source edges closely, with minimal despeckle. Pixel exact skips curve fitting entirely: the boundary of every quantized color region is traced literally, pixel for pixel, and lone pixels are kept. It is made for pixel art: photos traced this way give very large files.

Laser & cutting

For laser work use the Laser stencil profile: black & white trace, aggressive despeckle, physical size. Set upscale to Ultra (fit 4096) for the cleanest edges. For multi-color vinyl, use Vinyl & cutting: Cutout layering makes each color separate pieces that do not overlap. Photos usually engrave better exported as a prepared raster image than as a traced SVG. For general-purpose crisp silhouettes (stickers, decals) use Mono stencil (black) or Mono stencil (white), which exports white shapes only, for white ink on dark material. Scanned sketches and ink drawings trace best with Line art, which clears paper grain and keeps lighter pencil strokes.

Preferences

Customize how physical export measurements are displayed.

Changing units preserves the current physical export size.

Save profile

Saves every trace and export setting. Palette edits and cleanup stay with the image.

Manage profiles

Profiles are stored in this browser. Export them to use on another device or share them.

No saved profiles yet.

About rastertrace

Version

rastertrace is a private image vectorizer that runs in your browser. Trace logos, artwork and photos into clean SVG, choose the colors or edit the palette, remove the background, tidy up with the eraser, fill, smooth and selection tools, then export SVG, PNG, PDF or DXF. Your images are processed on this device and never uploaded.

Free to use, and it works offline after your first visit.

Created by Mark Bradley (BRADSEC).

Vector tracing is powered by the open-source vtracer 1.0 alpha and visioncortex libraries. View third-party licenses.

View rastertrace on GitHub

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