What Is vectoring ?

I was told that I had to vector before coloring a piece. But I dobt know what is it. Dies anybody knows what it is ?

What was the precise context: Who told you this and what program were you using?

A vector drawing tool (like Inkscape) keeps track of your drawing in terms of lines, curves, and shapes, as opposed to a program like Paint or Photoshop, which keeps track of it in terms of pixels.

The other big difference is that a raster program (that's the ones that keep track by pixels) will usually automatically do what's called "dithering" where two colors meet, or where a color meets a line. That's making subtle gradations in the colors of the pixels, so that the edge doesn't look jagged. With a vector graphics program you can eliminate the dithering and get a clean, hard edge at the point where two colors meet.

I tried to color a drawing I made on Gimp. The results were awful I admitt. But I was told that I should have "vectored" the pic first.

Thanks that clears it up Thanks now I feel less ignorant

Let me guess, you tried to used the flood fill to color it, and there were all sorts of uncolored spots?

edited 26th Sep '11 5:14:51 PM by Madrugada

You read my mind!

That's exactly what it happened.

You learn something new everyday. This explains why the results were awful lol

Yep.

You have two choices in that sort of case: You can run the artwork through a vectoring program (like Inkscape) and color it in with the vector program, or, you can zoom way in on it (I usually zoom to about 800% magnification) and color each uncolored pixel individually in your raster program.

The problem with the second choice is that it's incredibly time-consuming and tedious work, and the program will dither it again when you save...

edited 26th Sep '11 8:59:03 PM by Madrugada

An easier way to do it is to get your lines on one layer (set on normal or multiply mode) and put all the colors on a layer beneath the lines. You can color right up to the lines and the rough edges won't be visible, provided you don't go outside of the lines. This is usually how I see it done with people who use lined artwork.

Layers are a whole other tangle. I hate doing layers.

Ah, the notorious white jaggies! Tumbril's method is probably the best; it's used by a lot of pros. It's simpler than importing your drawing into a vector program and much quicker than doing it all pixel by pixel.

An even quicker method that doesn't use layers (but isn't quite as nice looking): Use the flood fill just like you did, and then set your brush to Darker Color and zap it over the edges. Lighter (white/light gray) pixels will be colored the fill color, while darker (dark gray/black) pixels will stay gray or black.

Oh, I agree that Tumbril's method is the way pros do it. I just hate working with layers, because I'm just learning how.

Adobe Illustrator is the program you want to be using. It lets you make perfect curves & lines, by adding segments to lines you can drag and extend the amount you want. Here are some of my old works: 1 2 3 *Note: all of my vectors were outputted at a ridiculously high resolution for some reason.

Generally you want to make the lines as actual "objects", i.e. filled spaces. Tracing over a line is boring and does not give the said line any features. Tracing the ''border' however is much more detailed, letting you modify the thickness of the "line".

The other big difference between a raster and a vector is vector art is technically nothing but mathematical caculations, and therefore infinitely scalable.

@5[Madrugada] Point of fact — That's not dithering. While it looks like dithering, that effect arises from the threshold setting on the floodfill. At the crunchy pixels, that is where the color becomes sufficiently different from the seed color — the color at the point you clicked to fill — that it exceeds the threshold. No dithering, automatic or otherwise, is performed.

Your actual advice is sound : "don't use the floodfill tool in such a way"; because the way it works by threshold generally means you get either some weird edges or bleed over/through the lines.

Another way to avoid that problem is to render your lineart with hard edges (if you don't know what I mean, see Pencil tool output) at a much increased resolution. Then, when you go to fill, no problem! there is only white (where no lines are) and black (where lines are)— no intermediate colors to cause crunchiness.

Thank you for the clarification. I'd always heard that fuzziness-at-increased-magnification called "dithering".