SVGShift · Runs in your browser · The Altar by Misfit Mindset · Shift

About SVGShift

A PNG logo at 512 pixels looks like oatmeal on a 4K hero. SVGShift traces raster images to SVG in the browser so a simple mark can scale. It is a potrace-style vectorizer, not an AI illustrator. High-contrast logos, icons, and stencil-like shapes work. Photographs become a soup of paths that nobody should put in a brand kit. Use it to recover a vector-ish version of a flat logo you only have as PNG. Do not use it to 'vectorize' a selfie and call it a logo system. Open the SVG in a vector app and join, simplify, and name fills before it goes in a brand kit.

Trace likes binary decisions: ink vs paper. A black wordmark on white is the happy path. Drop the PNG, tweak threshold and speckle, download SVG. Open it in a vector app and join, simplify, and set a real fill. The SVG you get is a starting path, not a finished brand file with named layers and optical kerning.

Photographs, gradients, and drop shadows fight the tracer. You will get thousands of blobs. Anti-aliased gray edges around type become ragged outlines unless you threshold aggressively. Color logos may flatten to a single mass unless you pre-separate plates. If you still have the original AI or SVG, use that. Tracing is for the case where the vector is gone.

When not to use SVGShift: photoreal art, tiny 32-pixel favicons that need pixel-hinting, and legal marks that must match a registered drawing. A bad trace in a contract is worse than a PNG. Privacy is local — useful when the mark is unreleased. After trace, run the SVG through a simplifier in your editor; browsers will thank you.

How to use it

  1. Drop a high-contrast PNG or JPEG of a logo or icon (bigger source, cleaner trace).
  2. Adjust threshold so the mark is solid and speckle in the background disappears.
  3. Preview the path overlay; if photographs turn into stipple, stop — this is the wrong source.
  4. Download the SVG and open it in a vector editor to merge, simplify, and set fills.
  5. Optionally extrude the cleaned SVG in STLShift if you needed a 3D print, not a web logo.

Worked example

You only have a 1200-pixel black-on-white PNG of a one-color wordmark. SVGShift at a firm threshold traces the letters with slight stair-steps on the curves. In a vector app you smooth the S and unify the compound paths. The SVG now scales on the site. A photo of the same logo on a textured shirt would have been a disaster; you did not try that. The PNG never uploaded. Slight stair-steps on a curve are expected; smoothing the S is a two-minute editor job.

Limits — when not to use SVGShift

Privacy

Raster-to-SVG tracing runs in the browser. The PNG never uploads. SVGShift does not keep your mark on a server. Download the SVG and close the tab if the logo is unreleased. Unreleased marks never needed to sit on a vectorizer host while you recovered outlines.

Full policy: Shift Privacy Policy. Questions: [email protected].

Questions people actually ask

Can I trace a full-color mascot?

You will get a messy approximation. Flat one- or two-color marks are the job. Full-color illustrations belong in a real vector workflow or as well-compressed WebP. Full-color mascots become messy approximations; flat marks are the job this page will own.

Why does the outline look jagged?

The source was small or heavily anti-aliased. Start from a larger PNG, increase contrast before trace, then simplify curves in an editor. Tracing cannot invent missing resolution. A small anti-aliased PNG cannot invent the missing resolution no matter how you threshold.

Is the SVG 'true vector' of the original font?

No. It is an outline of pixels. If you know the typeface, reset the text in a design tool. Outlines of a trace will not hint like a font. Outlines of pixels will not hint like a font; reset the text if you know the typeface.

Can I 3D print the result?

After you clean the SVG, STLShift can extrude it. Do not extrude a photographic stipple unless you like spaghetti in the slicer. Clean the SVG before STLShift or the slicer will print spaghetti instead of a badge.

Related tools: STLShift · ImageShift · BGShift
Guides · All Shift tools · About · Contact