New Adobe Photoshop CS2 raster and vector features

[Katana Man]

There is a new Adobe Photoshop CS2 coming out next month. One of the features it has is:

Smart Objects
Perform nondestructive scaling, rotating, and warping of raster and vector graphics with Smart Objects. Even preserve the editability of high-resolution vector data from Adobe Illustrator

[Felsir]

From what I understand, it's the other way around: it helps creating bitmaps from vector images. Since Photoshop is bitmap oriented all vector images that were pasted were instantly converted to bitmaps - losing all the properties a vector has. With the smart-object is is sort of a hybrid solution: in Photoshop you will 'see' it as bitmap but when it is scaled, rotated etc. it 'renders' the layer using the original vector thus retaining the vector properties.

So it will not help vectorising but it will enable marquee/CP/sideart designers to create high-res bitmaps with vector based images in Photoshop.

[Katana Man]

That's a bummer.  I hear that people have to convert images to vector by hand.  What's up with that. Why isn't there some kind of conversion process built into Photoshop?

[RayB]

Bitmaps are a mosaic of squares while vectors are lines and curves. How do you mathematically figure out where to create lines and curves from a mosaic? It's very difficult.

There is an old app called "Streamline" which does it. Works best with high contrast images.

[zorg]

That's a bummer.  I hear that people have to convert images to vector by hand.  What's up with that. Why isn't there some kind of conversion process built into Photoshop?

because automatic tracing tools (there is some available) produce crap ;-(

[Frosty]

It's interesting that Photoshop has taken this long (what is CS2--version 9?) to implement this feature.

[Rahzel]

You can also create vector shapes easily in Photoshop by selecting an area you want to convert (or a different color at a time) and going into 'Paths' and hit the button at the bottom 'Make work path from selection'. Then once you've done this go to File -> Export -> Paths to Illustrator it will create a .ai for you. You usually have to do some touching up/smoothing once you bring it into Illustrator.

Like all vectorizing it works better with a high-res image

[Nocturnaloner]

Photoshop has some great vector tools.  I use shape layers for almost all of my vector work now.  I know that Illustrator has a huge user base, but I'm just more used to the PS interface.  Strangely, it's easier to go between Freehand and Photoshop than PS and Illustrator.  You can actually paste a vector path from freehand into Photshop without rasterizing it.

[dphirschler]

There is an old app called "Streamline" which does it. Works best with high contrast images.

Streamline is now incorporated (and improved) with Illustrator CS2.  It's one of the biggest improvements to the software in my opinion.  I can't wait to get my hands on that.


Darryl