All articles · 2026-09-01
How to vectorize a logo (and get a file a printer will accept)
A practical, step-by-step guide to turning a small PNG or JPG logo into a clean SVG, PDF or EPS with sharp corners, exact brand colours and editable curves.
The situation is familiar: the sign maker, embroiderer or printer asks for "the vector file" and all you have is a 300-pixel PNG someone saved from the website years ago. Vectorizing means rebuilding that picture as mathematical shapes — paths, curves and fills — so it scales to a billboard without a single blurry pixel.
1. Start from the best copy you can find
Look for the largest, least-compressed version: a PNG beats a JPG, a screenshot at 200 % zoom beats a thumbnail. Even so, Curvora is built for the bad copy — JPEG noise is measured and cleaned, and anti-aliased edges are used to recover where the true edge runs inside each pixel.
2. Let the analysis pick the mode, then check the palette
AI Smart Vectorize classifies the image (logo, icon, text, line art, illustration or photo) and picks the colour count. For a logo the detected palette should contain exactly your brand colours. If a stray anti-aliasing tone appears, merge it into its neighbour from the palette panel; if the count is wrong, use the colour shortcuts strip to set it directly.
3. Inspect at 4000 %
Switch to Wireframe and zoom in. Corners of letters should be true corner points, curves should be single smooth Béziers, and straight edges should be ruler-straight. Curvora enforces continuous tangents at every joint that is not a corner, so what you see is what Illustrator will show.
4. Choose the right export
- SVG — web, Figma, Inkscape, Illustrator
- PDF — printers and documents; the paths are embedded as real geometry
- EPS — older print workflows and some cutting software
- DXF — laser cutters, CNC and vinyl plotters (outlines as polylines)
Use the "Layered" output style if the designer on the other end wants one element per shape, and "Outlines" for stroke-only output.