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Hello. I hope this is the right place to ask this basic question. 

 

I'm a photographer, not remotely an illustrator. But need to convert a logo created in Photoshop {sorry, I've bought both your products but haven't learned them yet <g> } to a vector image for silk screening, not something I normally do. 

 

Do you have a description of how to do this somewhere that I haven't found or can you give me some guidance? If I did this with Illustrator, I'd first use "Threshold" in Photoshop to turn everything into blacks and whites, then import into Illustrator, select the image, then use Tracing/ High Quality Photo and export as a PNG. 

 

It's text plus a photo converted to a silhouette, or will be. 

 

What is the process in Affinity design? Should I export the image in JPEG or PSD format? Save out as PNG or other? 

 

Thank you in advance.     best  /   jim 

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Jim,

 

Hello and welcome to the forums. There are several different ways you could do this. This easiest and quickest way (but not necessarily the best in terms of quality) would be to use a vectorizer like VectorMagic (http://vectormagic.com/home) or Silhouette (http://www.silhouetteamerica.com/software/silhouette-studio/) or another similar product (there are quite a few but VectorMagic is the best but it can be expensive if you do many). Of course you would probably want to adjust the image in Affinity Photo first, just like in Photoshop (Affinity Photo also has a "threshold" adjustment but in my experience using "threshold" doesn't always provide the best results, play around with the adjustments and see what works best for you, like first "black & white" and then "levels" for example).

 

What I would recommend (and it will give you the best, in terms of quality) is that you use Affinity Designer to trace the image. All you need to do is pull the image that you have into Affinity Designer and place it on the bottom layer and then lock the layer. Then create a new layer above it and then simply trace the outline of the shape (that you want to be a silhouette) using the pen tool and then fill it with black. For the text, just use the text tool and then simply reset the type using the same font (if you don't know what font it is, you can use the service "what the font", it does a great job of identifying fonts, http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/, or "what font is" at http://www.whatfontis.com). If for some reason it is a special font and you don't have it or you don't want to buy it, you can of course also trace the text as well (if it is a lot of text this will be a bother so setting it is preferred). There is a video tutorial here on this website at https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/tutorials/designer/ and then go to the video " Affinity Designer - Designing from a sketch" and the process that they use would be the same as what you would need to do but instead of using a sketch, you want to use your image.

 

The final step would be to export your vector. If you export it as a JPEG, PNG, or PSD it won't be vector. JPEG, PNG and PSD are raster file formats (PSD can support vector data but it still isn't a good choice). First delete the bottom layer of your Affinity Designer file (or delete the image or simply hide the visibility of the layer that you used to trace). Then go to File/Export and you will have many choices. To keep the file a vector you should save it as a PDF (the best) or possibly EPS (normally EPS files are fine but there is an occasion here and there where things don't work so well and so I would recommend a PDF file). SVG will also work too (and supports vector data) but I still recommend PDF because some print shops don't care for SVG. PDF is more versatile and is more easily opened in other applications. Plus it can easily be converted to something else from a PDF file later. 

 

I hope that this is understandable and helps. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. 

Best of luck,

Hokusai

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