PNG to SVG Converter (Image Vectorizer)

About the PNG to SVG Converter (Image Vectorizer)

Turn a PNG, JPG or WebP — a logo, icon, clip art, sketch or stencil — into an SVG of filled vector shapes that stay sharp at any size. Choose Black & white for one-colour cut files (Cricut, Silhouette, vinyl, laser engraving, stencils), or Colour with 2 to 64 colours. Presets set sensible detail, smoothing and noise removal for each job, and every setting can be fine-tuned.

The original and the SVG sit side by side, zoom together up to 8× and scroll together, so you can check edges closely. The list of colours shows each one’s share of the image and number of shapes: untick the background before cutting, or recolour a layer without tracing again. Download the SVG — optimised with SVGO if you like — with its size in pixels, millimetres or inches. Tracing runs in a Web Worker on your device; the image is never uploaded.

Common uses

• Recreating a logo as SVG for a website, signage or print when only a PNG or JPG is left.
• Making one-colour cut files for Cricut, Silhouette and vinyl plotters, or engraving files for laser cutters.
• Turning hand-drawn sketches, signatures and stamps into scalable outlines.
• Converting clip art and simple illustrations into editable vector layers for Inkscape, Illustrator, Affinity or Figma.

How the tracing works

1. Colours. In colour mode the image is reduced to at most the chosen number of colours: seeds are picked so that common, clearly different colours come first, then refined with k-means clustering in the perceptual OKLab colour space, and near-identical shades are merged. In black-and-white mode each pixel is compared with a brightness threshold — found automatically with Otsu’s method, or set by you.
2. Soft edges and noise. The pixels along an anti-aliased edge are a blend of the colours on either side; each goes to whichever of the two covers more of it, so edges do not turn into thin extra colours, or into a pale halo when the background is removed. A thin colour of its own, such as a grey tagline on white, keeps its colour. Regions smaller than a few pixels are then merged into the colour around them, and Medium and High first blur away JPEG noise (only between similar colours, so edges stay sharp). With Noise removal Off, and for photos, every colour is kept as found.
3. Outlines. For each colour, the edges between pixels are followed into closed outlines with imagetracerjs (András Jankovics, public domain), then fitted with straight lines and curves. Detail sets how far a line or curve may stray from the pixel edges; Sharp prefers straight lines and keeps corners, Smooth prefers curves.
4. SVG. Each colour becomes a group of paths (holes included), drawn largest area first. A hairline outline in the same colour hides the thin seams anti-aliasing would leave between colours.

Tips for cutting machines and lasers

• Use Black & white: every shape is one solid colour with real holes, which is what cutting software expects.
• Write a physical size: with a width in mm or inches, the file opens at that size in software that reads SVG units, instead of being guessed from pixels.
• Smooth curves cut more cleanly on vinyl; Sharp keeps crisp corners for engraving text and geometric logos.
• A clean, high-contrast source works best: a scan or a well-lit photo of black ink on white paper. Very thin lines (1–2 px) may break up; enlarge the source or use a larger Trace at size.

Why photos do not trace well

A vector file stores areas of flat colour. A photograph has smooth changes everywhere, so tracing it creates thousands of small blotches and a large file that still looks posterised. The Photo (poster effect) preset embraces that look on purpose. To keep a photo looking like a photo, keep it as JPG or WebP — the image converter can change its format.

Another engine to try

Every tracer handles edges differently. If a file comes out better with stacked shapes, or you need a DXF file for CAD, CNC or laser software, try the Image to SVG converter, which uses the vtracer engine.

Limitations

• Works best on logos, icons, line art and flat illustrations; photos become posterised and produce large files.
• Text becomes outlines (shapes), not editable text, and text smaller than about 12 px in the source usually loses detail.
• Images are traced at up to 2,000 px on the longest side (larger images are scaled down; small ones are enlarged up to 4× for smoother curves). Big images with many colours take longer, especially on phones.
• Colours are merged into flat areas, so gradients, soft shadows and textures are simplified.
• HEIC photos open natively in Safari; other browsers first download a free HEIC decoder (about 1.4 MB, once).

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