Rasterlessvector

Vectorise one logo without a Creative Cloud subscription

Image Trace is not a product you can buy. It is a panel inside Adobe Illustrator, and Illustrator is licensed through a Creative Cloud subscription — we will not quote a figure, because Adobe's plans change, but it is a recurring cost, not a one-off purchase. So the real question behind this search is rarely about tracing: do I have to subscribe to turn one logo into a vector file? For that one job, no.

What runs here has a far narrower brief than a design suite. Hand it one PNG, JPEG or WEBP and it segments the colours, places each boundary against an explicit anti-aliasing model rather than snapping it to the pixel grid, fits cubic curves, and writes SVG, PDF, EPS, DXF or PNG. It is free and adds no watermark; the preview is open to everyone, and a free Google sign-in releases the files.

The difference to understand before you upload is not which one traces — both produce paths — but what happens next. In Illustrator a trace is a starting point: expand it and the shapes become anchor points you can drag. Here the conversion is the whole transaction.

Who this is for

Three situations make this the better answer, and all three are narrow. The first is the one-off: a printer wants the logo as vector, you have a PNG, and the job is one file this week. The second is not having Illustrator and not wanting it — a shop owner, a sign maker's customer, anyone sent artwork in the wrong format. The third is machine output, where a DXF for a laser, router or plasma table is a direct export here.

Now the other side. If Illustrator is already on your machine, Image Trace is the shorter path, and it reaches a ceiling this page does not. The reason is everything around the tracer: once a trace is expanded, every anchor point is yours. You can pull a node, redraw a letter the tracer smeared, prepare the file in CMYK. A trace that lands at ninety per cent is a finished job there and an unfinished one here, because we cannot hand you a pen tool.

So the gaps, plainly: no node editing and no drawing tools, so what comes back is what you get; one image per conversion, so no folders; no API, so nothing here can be driven from a script; and a download button that asks for a free Google sign-in.

Drop an image here

or click to choose one

PNG · JPG · WEBP

How it works

  1. Upload the logo or artwork as a PNG, JPEG or WEBP — one image per conversion.
  2. Set the colour count: 2 for a plain silhouette, 8 to 16 for a flat logo with solid areas.
  3. Pick the formats you need, and type a size in millimetres if the finished dimensions matter.
  4. Run it and open the preview at full size before you commit to the result.
  5. Sign in with Google (free) to download, then take the SVG into a vector editor if a curve needs redrawing.
A flat colour logo and the vector paths traced from it — source image A flat colour logo and the vector paths traced from it — vector result
A flat colour logo and the vector paths traced from it

Settings we suggest

Coming from the Image Trace panel, the map is short: there are fewer dials.

Colours matters most. Two gives a single clean silhouette contour, which is what a cut file or a one-colour stamp wants; eight to sixteen suits a flat logo with solid areas. The slider reaches 64, but the high end mostly adds shapes a human would have merged.

Shape stacking decides what happens where colours meet. Cut-outs writes holes as closed loops inside the parent shape, so no edge is cut twice; Stacked lets shapes overlap, which is easier to recolour and worse to machine.

Draw style picks between filled regions, outlined regions and edge strokes. Grouping by colour puts each colour into its own SVG group — the closest thing here to the layers you get after expanding a trace.

The millimetre fields set a physical size, and every vector format honours it: SVG width and height, DXF coordinates written in millimetres and labelled as such in the file's header, PDF and EPS pages sized in points to match. Uploads go up to 25 MB and 40 megapixels, and anything above 1.5 megapixels is downscaled before tracing. Nothing else is exposed: edge tolerance and corner handling are fixed inside the tracer.

Questions

Do I need a Creative Cloud subscription just to vectorise one logo?

Not for this job. Image Trace is a feature inside Illustrator rather than a product of its own, so reaching it means taking on the subscription Illustrator is sold under. Converting a logo here costs nothing and carries no watermark; anyone can run one and study the preview, and a free Google sign-in releases the files.

Is this the same engine as Image Trace?

No. We will not claim our output matches anyone else's either — we measure against the source image, not against another tool's result. Our side is a geometric tracer: colours are segmented, each boundary placed with an explicit anti-aliasing model, the chains fitted with cubic Bézier curves. No learned model is involved, so the same image and settings return the same geometry every time.

Can I edit the shapes afterwards, the way you would after expanding a trace?

Not on this site — there are no anchor-point tools here. The output is ordinary SVG built from plain path elements with no bitmap embedded, so any vector editor will open it and let you move nodes; Inkscape is free and does this well.

Can I get a DXF out of this without Illustrator?

Yes. It is written as DXF R2010 (AC1024), which AutoCAD 2010 and later, Fusion 360, LightBurn, FreeCAD and Inkscape all read. The geometry is contour only — LWPOLYLINE for straight runs, degree-3 SPLINE for curves, one layer per colour named FILL_RRGGBB, no HATCH, so nothing is a solid. Coordinates sit at millimetre scale and the header declares millimetres, so the drawing lands at size without anyone setting the unit by hand. In fairness, Illustrator has an AutoCAD export of its own; this counts only if you do not have it.

What can I upload, and how long does it take?

PNG, JPEG and WEBP, one image per conversion, up to 25 MB and 40 megapixels. Logos and stickers typically convert in 3–12 seconds in our local measurements; fine-line or noisy images take longer, and a conversion that misses the 60-second budget stops and suggests fewer colours or a smaller image. Before signing in you get 10 conversions per hour; signed in it is 60 per hour and 300 per day. Download links expire after 1 hour, and files are removed by an automatic 1-day deletion rule.

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