vectorizing photos

You'll need something like Photoshop to do this:

You can set Photoshop (or any image editor) as an external editor in iPhoto. (Preferences -> General -> Edit Photo: Choose from the Drop Down Menu.) This way, when you double click a pic to edit in iPhoto it will open automatically in Photoshop or your Image Editor, and when you save it it's sent back to iPhoto automatically. This is the only way that edits made in another application will be displayed in iPhoto.

Note that iPhoto sends a copy+ of the file to Photoshop, so when you save be sure to use the Save command, not Save As... If you use Save As then you're creating a new file and iPhoto has no way of knowing about this new file. iPhoto is preserving your original anyway.

Regards

TD

Using Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements) as Your Editor of Choice in iPhoto.

1 - select Photoshop as your editor of choice in iPhoto's General Preference Section's under the "Edit photo:" menu.

2 - double click on the thumbnail in iPhoto to open it in Photoshop. When you're finished editing click on the Save button. If you immediately get the JPEG Options window make your selection (Baseline standard seems to be the most compatible jpeg format) and click on the OK button. Your done.

3 - however, if you get the navigation window that indicates that PS wants to save it as a PS formatted file. You'll need to either select JPEG from the menu and save (top image) or click on the desktop in the Navigation window (bottom image) and save it to the desktop for importing as a new photo.

This method will let iPhoto know that the photo has been editied and will update the thumbnail file to reflect the edit..

NOTE: With Photoshop Elements 6 the Saving File preferences should be configured: "On First Save: Save Over Current File". Also I suggest the Maximize PSD File Compatabilty be set to Always.

If you want to use both iPhoto's editing mode and PS without having to go back and forth to the Preference pane, once you've selected PS as your editor of choice, reset the Preferences back to "Open in main window". That will let you either edit in iPhoto (double click on the thumbnail) or in PS (Control-click on the thumbnail and seledt "Edit in external editor" in the Contextual menu). This way you get the best of both worlds

2 - double click on the thumbnail in iPhoto to open it in Photoshop. When you're finished editing click on the Save button. If you immediately get the JPEG Options window make your selection (Baseline standard seems to be the most compatible jpeg format) and click on the OK button. Your done.

3 - however, if you get the navigation window that indicates that PS wants to save it as a PS formatted file. You'll need to either select JPEG from the menu and save (top image) or click on the desktop in the Navigation window (bottom image) and save it to the desktop for importing as a new photo.

This method will let iPhoto know that the photo has been editied and will update the thumbnail file to reflect the edit..

You can get about 3/4 of PS's capability at 1/7 of the cost by using Photoshop Elements for Mac. You don't need the full PS IMO.

Sorry, but this time I think you do need PS. The vector abilities of PSE are greatly limited in comparison to what you can do with PS, I'm afraid.

It would be easier if you could state what you need to do. If you need to be able to save the photo as a vector image, PSE can't do that. You can use File>Place to make it behave like a vector in Elements, but there are no abilities to create paths (well, only very limited ones with a third party add-on) or save images as any kind of vector for use elsewhere.

Vectors, vectors. I don't need no stinkin' vectors. 😉

No, it's not very common to need vectors for image files; more likely to be for things like logos or whatever. 🙂

I'm sorry, I guess I'm dense but I totally don't understand how vectorizing fits into this. When you make an image into a vector you just convert it from a bunch of pixels to a set of infinitely scalable geometric directions, so that your bicycle, say, can be sized up or down infinitely. It sounds to me much more like you want something like posterization or poster edges in PS/PSE.

Vectorizing per se has nothing at all to do with the number of colors/degree of edge contrast, although the website in question may also apply some kind of simplification to the image.

FInd out what the maximum size is for vectormagic and select the photo(s) and export them (file menu ==> export) to a desktop folder using the custom size option of the export to set the maximum size to your needs - upload form the desktop folder

LN

Yes, that's a good solution if you want to use that site.