rastertrace

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Cleanup

Drop an image here

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.

Preset & Colors
Maximum colors in the output. Fewer colors means simpler, cleaner, smaller SVGs; presets pair a color count with matched cleanup levels.
Speckle filter
Drops traced specks smaller than this many pixels. Raise it to remove noise, dust, and JPEG artifacts.
Layer difference
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; 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).
Corner rounding
Angles smoother than this trace as curves. Lower keeps text and logo corners sharp; higher flows.
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.
Stencil, threshold & ink
Black & white trace: pixels darker than the threshold become shapes, everything else drops out. Ink chooses black shapes on a transparent background, or white shapes on a black backing. Best for laser cutting, stamps, silhouettes.
Grayscale, Denoise, Crisp
Grayscale converts to gray tones before tracing. Denoise smooths photo noise (softens pixel art). Crisp edges sharpens corner tracing for text and logos.
Background removal
Makes the background transparent: connected-from-edges, auto-detected color, or a picked color. Tolerance widens the match; edge trim and defringe clean the cutout boundary.

Vector cleanup

Remove unwanted areas from the traced vector result.

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.
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.
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. Hold Shift for a square or circle, or Alt/Option to draw from the center.
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 or press Enter to close it. While drawing, Esc removes the last point.
Erase or fill a selection
Press Delete or Backspace after closing a marquee to erase it. Press Ctrl/Cmd+Backspace to fill it with the current blob-brush color. 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
Manual cleanup is preserved in SVG and PNG exports. PDF and DXF are unavailable while cleanup masks are present.

SVG export guide

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

Profiles

Export 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.

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, and try Cutout layering for vinyl and CNC. Photos usually engrave better exported as a prepared raster image than as a traced SVG. For general-purpose crisp silhouettes (stickers, decals, icon marks) use Mono stencil (black) or Mono stencil (white) instead.

Preferences

Customize how physical export measurements are displayed.

Changing units preserves the current physical export size.

About rastertrace

Version

Convert raster images to clean SVG vectors locally in your browser. Images remain on your device.

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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