Raster to vector conversion - who do you use?

[ebscreen]

Feel free to move this if it's not the right place.

Just felt I had to sing some praises for this guy. He really
is the bee's knees. Super fast, very fairly priced, and excellent
excellent work, always.

www.vectordoctor.com

[mk162]

Heck, with the artist I have on staff, I am thinking about offering vector services to the board members.  He's freaking so fast my head spins.  And he's AMAZINGLY good as well.

[sportsshoppe]

good  I need a bobcat on a surfboard riding a wave with a grin on his face.... Really that is what a customer wants and I am not a artist and they don't want to pay an artist so what to do??

[Frog]

So, eb, is this work actually done in Ohio? The place that I have used, http://www.artworksource.com/ has many off shore artists working as well, I understand.
I was quite happy with their work, and on one that didn't work as expected (or described by me) they re-did it immediately.

btw, you can see that I am making this thread a little more general, but hopefully in the same spirit.

Not a place to advertise, per se, but a place for happy customers to give kudos.

[ebscreen]

Actually done in Ohio. Eric's a cool dude.

Case in point. I got a piece of art from a customer that had bullet points
of the things he wanted changed. The type of client that makes me grumble grumble.
Sent it to Eric, he quoted and I approved. 1 day later I sent it to the client
and there wasn't a single revision. Can't argue with that.


I consider myself fairly proficient in Illy, and I used to do a lot of this stuff myself,
but have learned over the years that just because I can, doesn't mean I should.
Concentrate on what I do best and pay someone else to do what they do best.

[sportsshoppe]

Frog I am with you most I have had them to do cost $25 most are $15 and they worked until it was print ready. Artworksource is the place I use and usually have it within 24 hrs. I have often wondered how or what kind of program they use because some of the ones I send I am amazed on what comes back

[Frog]

Frog I am with you most I have had them to do cost $25 most are $15 and they worked until it was print ready. Artworksource is the place I use and usually have it within 24 hrs. I have often wondered how or what kind of program they use because some of the ones I send I am amazed on what comes back

The problem that I had last time (outlined objects that I wished to fill on my own) didn't work out correctly as separate closed path objects, or groups that I could ungroup.
Turned out that they didn't understand what I wanted and it wasn't just a good autotrace program. They were hand drawn or hand traced (I believe like Eric does this as well)

[sportsshoppe]

In Corel I have to turn some of there art to curves and break it apart to get color in some spots but have not had a problem that was'nt easy to fix..

[Prosperi-Tees]

I use artwork source as well. I have not had any problems and the nice thing is that you can get stuff done on Saturdays and Sundays and they dont charge for rush jobs, they just ask that you dont abuse the rush job thing. Most stuff is done within 24 hours and rush jobs in a few hours.

[Frog]

Yes, generally they work for me with little fuss as well.

[Dottonedan]

good  I need a bobcat on a surfboard riding a wave with a grin on his face.... Really that is what a customer wants and I am not a artist and they don't want to pay an artist so what to do??

Copy the following items from google.

A smile.

A bob cat.

A surf board.

A wave.

Paste them all together in photoshop.

Wala.  (Thats french).

[Dottonedan]

I've offered the service and was trying to determine if I could do enough $10-25.00 jobs in a day to make it feasible to continue offering.  I get about 1 order for jpg conversions about every 30-45 days.

I've never stopped offering it but people don't use me for that type of work.  Maybe the marketing needs work. Maybe in the end, after I look at a job and quote it, I might be twice what others charge that focus on that business but IO really did try to quote competitively to get a good read. Just not enough work came my way with it to get a read. With as few that i got, I could turn them next day even with my regular work load. So, it's an odd market. At the same time, not as creatively rewarding either. Very production oriented but the faster you get at it, the more $.

Really tho, I've done some of those jobs at $10-$25.00 and those people can end up making maybe $6.00 per hour on some and $60.00 an hour on very few.  At one point, That type of work is what I did for a living. I could do 15-25 jobs a day.  15 jobs at $15.00 each is $225.00 per day. Not bad. I need a good deal more than that but it would balance out with my other work.

[Prosperi-Tees]

My reliance on them has gone down because if I get a good enough jpeg I can pretty much trace it in Corel, do a couple tweaks and I am done. 10-15 minutes usually. If I think the auto trace did not work well enough I send it out.

[sportsshoppe]

Bahahahaha..... Dan I Googled everything you wrote and nothing!! Dan your work speaks for its self but like these folks I am dealing with will not pay what a good artist would charge but on the other side they expect a great job. I am sure you have delt with them before. Maybe they will change there mind on the theme....

[jason-23]

On the short bus....