vector

iStockPhoto – Independent Artists for Variety

iStockPhoto can take credit for revolutionizing royalty free images. They permit anyone to upload images (vs. contracted artists/photographers) and the artist receives a royalty whenever the image is purchased (vs. paying upfront fees to the contracted artists). The good is unbelievable variety, often outside the expected and norm (independent artists). The bad is anyone can add images, so not everything is professional and polished…

Raster/Photo images: Yes
Vector images: Yes
Video: Yes
Audio: Yes
Pay Per Image: Yes (average for “Medium” image $9 each)
Subscription Download: Sort Of

Test Search Results:
1. “Fast Car” = 11,605 results
2. “Medical Consultation” = 18,889 reults

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:39:24-07:00September 24th, 2009|Resource/Misc|

Shutterstock Photos – Lots of images, including vector!

Shutterstock Photos is one of the sites I have been using a lot lately. They offer a huge selection of images, all professional quaility, though some a bit dated and a great selection. One option I have made really good use of is the number and diversity of vector art, especially for developing template background images.

Raster/Photo images: Yes
Vector images: Yes
Video: Yes (optional with subscription)
Audio: No
Pay Per Image: Yes average $10 each)
Subscription Download: Yes (25 images per day for 1, 3, 6, 12 month durations)

Test Search Results:
1. “Fast Car” = 17,206 results
2. “Medical Consultation” = 3,696 results

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:39:52-07:00September 23rd, 2009|Resource/Misc|

Vector Cartoon Images

This is a fun resource I discovered recently.

Vector-cartoons.com does require registering and has a weekly download limit. I was able to find exactly what was needed – as a high-quality fully editable vector image!

Note: for PPT download the .wmf version (I downloaded the .eps, modified in Illustrator and then exported as a .wmf).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:45:35-07:00August 8th, 2008|Resource/Misc|

Vector Magic (Update)

A few weeks back I posted a tutorial on the Vector Magic website/application (converts raster artwork to editable vector graphics). There are lots of visitors to ThePowerPointBlog, and I am sure many went and checked it out – but don’t blame me…

Vector Magic has gone from free to a pay system… Still an incredible application which can easily compete with, and in many aspects out perform Illustrator C3’s vectorize feature. Everyone just has to pay now.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:29:38-07:00March 24th, 2008|Resource/Misc|

VectorMagic Vector Points

As a quick followup to the last post (which was getting fairly long), here is the final image, saved as .svg and opened in Adobe Illustrator. You can see the number of vector points created:

And if we look up close we see that there are no extraneous vector points on the text (this is good):

I converted it to a .wmf – in Illustrator go to FILE >> EXPORT >> select .WMF from the drop-down menu. The file works create in PowerPoint and can be resized as large as needed without any loss of quality!

You can download the .wmf to test in PowerPoint by clicking here.

Vector Magic.com is the site.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:24:21-07:00February 25th, 2008|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Vector Magic website


So I recently discovered a truly amazing online tool – Vector Magic! This web 2.0 app will convert virtually any image to a true vector graphic. It is the result of research by a team at Stanford and I have been really impressed with it!

1. Go to www.vectormagic.com

2. If it is your first time, watch the quick tutorial video

3. Click the BROWSE button and find a image on your computer you want to convert to vector format

4. With the image selected click UPLOAD

5. VectorMagic analyzes the image and makes a recommended setting about the type of image selected. You can change the selection now or later (after seeing render results)

6. Next is the quality setting, which defaults to MEDIUM. Here you can change the setting now or later after seeing the render results.

7. The fewer colors the smaller the image and VectorMagic wants to make small images, so the default is to use a color palette of 12 colors.

8. The image is then analyzed for colors (this is part of the incredible programming!)

9. Based on it analysis you have color options from 1 to 12 colors – select the one that looks to work with your original artwork. Because the TLC Creative logo has lots of subtle colors I selected the full 12 color palette.

10. VectorMagic then renders your image and displays a Before and After image.

11. Again, another great feature (especially for a web-based application) are the 3 preview options. When in single image it shows the vector version and when you click it shows the raster version. There is also a Google Earth style zoom tool on the left.

12. Here is the resulting vector image of the TLC Creative logo. I would say this is on par with some very expensive plug-ins I run for Illustrator.

13. On the right side are TROUBLE SHOOTING options which allow you to change any of the earlier selections.

For my image, the results are impressive but not really usable. So I changed the color palette to use MANY COLORS, which means not be limited to 12.

14. VectorMagic rendered my image again and this time the results are really incredible!

15. I went to the Trouble Shooting section one more time and rendered the TLC Creative logo on HIGH QUALITY vs. the medium setting – WOW!

16. When you have the image you want, there are 3 save options: .eps, .svg, .png

.EPS and .SVG can be converted in a vector application such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw to a .wmf (windows meta file), which is a vector format that PowerPoint recognizes. And .png is not a vector format, but is a format that PowerPoint recognizes.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:24:51-07:00February 22nd, 2008|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

What is “Vector”?

There are two types of graphics:
1. Raster, such as .jpg, .bmp, .png
2. Vector, such as .eps, .ai, .emf

Raster images are created in applications such as:
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel Paint Shop Pro and Painter

Vector images are created in applications such as:
Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDRAW, Microsoft Expression, and Flash

The Big Difference: the ability to resize without loss of quality. As example, if an image is going to cover the entire slide it needs to be a fairly large file size (eg. up to 3MB for the 1 image) to have enough resolution if a raster image (.jpg or .png). But a very small vector image (eg. only 20k) can be resized to fill the entire slide and still look perfect.

Here is a raster graphic (.png) resized to be larger

Here is a similiar graphic (.wmf) resized to be larger

There are times when a vector graphic makes sense, can save file size and be of value. But vector graphics are not photos, so they lack shading, semi-transparency and many other visual traits.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:25:53-07:00February 20th, 2008|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Logo Sample

Here is one of the logo concepts developed for a series of presentations.

All design was done in Illustrator to create scalable vector art (logo was used from presentations to print pieces to large banners). From there it was imported into photoshop and saved as a .png with transparency for use in presentations.

Note: we developed many logo concepts and this was my favorite, but not the “winner”.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T14:51:30-07:00November 7th, 2007|Portfolio|

ClickArt online royalty free art

Many years ago for images in our projects we relied on $300-500 per disk photo CDs and for vector art things like the 20 CD ClickArt 1 Million collection. Well, ClickArt is back – and now online.

Although it features lots of photo images, they are relatively small at 800px wide and 72 dpi. The offering is wide, with many having those same 80/90’s fashions I remember from use years ago. But many are ultra new and even the same images I have pulled from sources like Photos.com (of course much smaller file size here).

And if you need vector art (aka: clip art or line art), having a searchable database and unlimited downloads for a year is worth the price!

As for price, they are currently offering a 1 year, unlimited download for only $40.00!!

Click here to check out all the details.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:33:02-07:00October 24th, 2007|Software/Add-Ins|
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