How to turn a logo into a vector (PNG to SVG)
The printer wants a vector file and all you have is a small PNG. What vectorising does, which images it works on, and how to get a clean SVG out of it.
· 4 min read
The print shop asks for the logo "as a vector". The web developer wants an SVG. What you have is a 200-pixel PNG someone once pasted into an email signature. Blown up for a banner, it turns into a soft, jagged mess. Vectorising it gives you a file you can scale to any size and it stays sharp.
Pixels versus shapes
A raster image (JPG, PNG, WebP) is a grid of coloured dots. It has a fixed number of them, so when you enlarge it the software has to invent the missing ones, and edges go soft and stair-stepped.
A vector image (SVG, PDF, EPS, AI) describes shapes instead: a circle here, a curve there, this area is blue. It is redrawn at whatever size you ask for, so it never gets blurry.
Logos, icons and simple illustrations belong in vector form. Photos do not: a photo is made of soft gradients, not flat shapes, and turning it into curves throws most of that away.
What vectorising actually does
The tool splits the image into areas of colour, stacks them from largest to smallest and traces the edge of each one with smooth Bézier curves. The result is an SVG made of real curves, not pixel outlines, so it stays smooth however far you zoom.
That works well for:
- logos with a handful of flat colours,
- icons and pictograms,
- line art, signatures and stamps,
- simple illustrations with clear outlines.
It works poorly for photos, gradients, soft shadows and textures. You can still run a photo through it, but you get a poster-like picture made of flat colour patches. That is a nice effect for some designs and useless for a logo.
Step by step
- Start from the biggest, cleanest copy you can find. A 150-pixel logo leaves the tracer guessing. A larger screenshot of the logo on a website often beats the tiny file you were sent.
- Open Vectorise image and pick the image type: logo and illustration merges colours into flat areas, photo keeps finer gradations, black and white drawing makes a single black layer, which suits signatures and sketches.
- Keep the colour count low. Most logos have two to five colours. More than that and the tracer starts preserving compression noise and anti-aliasing as extra shapes.
- Turn the detail down for logos. Tiny specks are usually JPEG artefacts, not part of the design.
- Switch off the background. Every colour in the result can be turned off with a tap. Turn off the white box around the logo and the SVG gets a transparent background.
- Compare with the original using the toggle above the preview, then download the SVG.
The tracing runs in your browser. Neither the image nor the finished SVG is uploaded.
Things to watch
Text becomes shapes. Letters in the logo are traced as outlines, not editable text. For printing that is exactly what you want. If you need to change the wording, retype it in a design program with the right font.
It is a tracer, not a designer. A simple logo often comes out indistinguishable from the original. A detailed crest with hairline strokes is worth having a designer redraw, and the automatic trace still makes a good starting point for them.
Zoom in before you send it. Stray dots, merged areas and wobbly edges only show up at large sizes, which is exactly where the printer will see them.
Going back to pixels
Sometimes you need a PNG at an exact size, for a website header, a social profile or an email signature. SVG to PNG renders the vector at any width, including double size for sharp display on high-resolution screens, and downloads it as PNG, JPG or WebP.
And if all you need is to make the white background of a PNG logo transparent, without converting it at all, Remove colour does it: click the white and it is gone.
Frequently asked questions
Which images vectorise best?
Flat shapes with clearly separated colours: logos, icons, emblems and drawn illustrations. Photos convert, but end up looking like a poster.
Why is my SVG so large, with so many colours?
The source probably has gradients or JPEG noise. Lower the colour count and the detail; two to five colours is usually right for a logo.
Can I edit the text in the vectorised logo?
No, letters are traced into shapes. Retype the text in a design program if you need to change it.
Is my image uploaded?
No. The whole conversion runs in your browser, and neither the image nor the SVG leaves your computer.
Will a print shop accept an SVG?
Most will. Some ask for PDF or EPS instead. Any mainstream design program opens an SVG and exports it to PDF in one step.