Setting Tracing Options

Tracing options let you determine the method and degree of detail Designer uses to trace bitmap images. You set tracing options in the image ribbon. Options remain in effect until you change them.

Setting the Trace Quality

Use the Trace Quality button to adjust how accurately and smoothly Designer traces a bitmap.

Choose Fine for the highest quality trace. Fine tracings use the largest number of reshape points. Fine tracings can use a lot of memory and be difficult to edit because they create a large number of anchors.

Average setting is the default. In most situations, average tracing is the best choice.

The Coarse setting produces the least accurate tracing because it uses the fewest points. Coarse tracings use the least memory and are the easiest to edit.

Setting the Line Type

Use the Line Type button to choose whether Designer uses lines or curves to create the tracing.

Choose Lines to create tracings with straight line segments (no curves). Use this setting when the image has few curves.

Choose Curves to create tracings with curves. It is slightly more accurate than using lines.

Setting Noise and Color Controls

You can restrict the number of colors in the result of a trace. Click the Colors box on the image ribbon, and then click the maximum number of colors that you want the trace to have.

The noise control on the image ribbon helps eliminate stray pixels introduced by a poor-quality image. You can enter a value ranging from 1 through 100. Larger numbers exclude larger groups of stray pixels.