How to enlarge a drawing without fattening the lines

cbinfl · Nov 8, 2014

I'm looking for a way to enlarge a small line drawing, ( 4" x 2" ), without the lines become extra heavy ? I'd like to enlarge the drawing 600% to be about 24" +/- to build a model of it

.

I have PS Elements, Pixelmator and idraw for software, but not much experience with any but PSE. In the past I have selected the drawing and added a stroke in the white background color to slim the lines down, but I'd like a better way. Please ignore the scale on the drawing. It would result in a 6 ft. model !

Thanks for any help, Charlie

jtoolman · Nov 8, 2014

cbinfl said:
I'm looking for a way to enlarge a small line drawing, ( 4" x 2" ), without the lines become extra heavy ? I'd like to enlarge the drawing 600% to be about 24" +/- to build a model of it

.

I have PS Elements, Pixelmator and idraw for software, but not much experience with any but PSE. In the past I have selected the drawing and added a stroke in the white background color to slim the lines down, but I'd like a better way. Please ignore the scale on the drawing. It would result in a 6 ft. model !

Thanks for any help, Charlie

If it is a Pixel based instead of Vector based drawing you can not avoid the thickening of the lines.

You have to recreate the drawing in something like Adobe Illustrator or any other good Vector based drawing program! There is no other way!

Joe

--
MY VIDEO CHANNEL. PRINTING and personal videos.

https://www.youtube.com/user/cheo1949

Chris Malcolm · Nov 9, 2014

My guess is you could enlarge the drawing, thickening the lines, then blur the image, which would have the effect of rounding off the black edges into grey, then dropping the white level to remove those gray edges, which would thin the lines. The thinned lines could then be darkened if necessary by raising the black level. If necessary the process could be repeated.

Hugowolf · Nov 9, 2014

As Joe points out, you have a raster (bitmapped) image and you would need a vector file to do what you want to do. The only way you could do it in Photoshop (and I presume Elements) would be to manually trace using the pen tool.

There are auto tracers availalble as plugins and standalone versions. There are also a few online ones too. But your diagram is not that precisely done, and I wouldn't imagine getting great output.

Try Googling 'raster to vector conversion' or 'raster auto tracing'.

Brian A

cbinfl · Nov 9, 2014

Thanks for the suggestions. My ability to trace freehand is pretty low. I will try Chris Malcolm's suggestion and, will try some googling of trace software now.

Charlie

lcubed11 · Nov 9, 2014

if you have access to a mac, the shareware program 'graphicconverter' does raster to vector and reverse conversions.

PicOne · Nov 9, 2014

cbinfl said:
I'm looking for a way to enlarge a small line drawing, ( 4" x 2" ), without the lines become extra heavy ? I'd like to enlarge the drawing 600% to be about 24" +/- to build a model of it

.

I have PS Elements, Pixelmator and idraw for software, but not much experience with any but PSE. In the past I have selected the drawing and added a stroke in the white background color to slim the lines down, but I'd like a better way. Please ignore the scale on the drawing. It would result in a 6 ft. model !

Thanks for any help, Charlie

Way outside my post-processing skills... but a quick google search leads me to think you might get to where you want with something called AutoTrace.. possible applied to a layer where you've used "find edges" or some such..

I'd maybe try the retouching forum here.

--
'You can't be optimistic with misty optics'

cbinfl · Nov 10, 2014

Thanks for all the help.My weekend got busy, but will work on this today. I found a program, Super Vectorizer, at the Apple store that looks promising. Any experiences with it would be appreciated.

charlie

Hugowolf · Nov 10, 2014

cbinfl said:
Thanks for all the help.My weekend got busy, but will work on this today. I found a program, Super Vectorizer, at the Apple store that looks promising. Any experiences with it would be appreciated.

In my experience, auto tracing apps do not work well with the type of image you have. They are really intended for creating vector files from high resolution, well delineated raster images. They are there for when you want to modify a diagram by adding, moving, or changing the shape of lines and curves.

Brian A

Dash29 · Nov 10, 2014

I thinned the lines by reducing the threshold

Steve Bingham · Nov 10, 2014

In PS CS6:

1- Using the magic wand, select a black line

2- Select/Similar

3- Select/modify/smooth . . . maybe 2 pixels

4- Select/modify/contract . . . select the number of pixels - I used one.

5- Select/Invert

6- Fill with white

7- Deselect

Done. With practice you can get the lines thinner and perfect.

If I needed even thinner lines, I would start with a very large image. Then smooth the edges (select/modify/smooth. Then proceed as above and thin maybe 2-3 pixels (remember, both sides will double this amount . . . 2 pixels are really 4)

--
Steve Bingham
www.dustylens.com
www.ghost-town-photography.com

jtoolman · Nov 10, 2014

Hugowolf said:
cbinfl said:

Thanks for all the help.My weekend got busy, but will work on this today. I found a program, Super Vectorizer, at the Apple store that looks promising. Any experiences with it would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

In my experience, auto tracing apps do not work well with the type of image you have. They are really intended for creating vector files from high resolution, well delineated raster images. They are there for when you want to modify a diagram by adding, moving, or changing the shape of lines and curves.

Brian A

I used ADOBE Illustrator CC 2014, vector tracing and it basically consolidated the already thick lines into a pretty nice vector drawing but it did combined some of the closer lines into single thicker ones. But you could enlarge it as much as you wanted without any degradation.

Joe

cbinfl · Nov 10, 2014

Thanks again to everyone. After playing with all the suggestions, Steve your method seems to give the smoothest results so extra thanks. Reducing the threshold also helped. I have a few different plans and patterns to practice on, but think this is what I need. All the steps from Steve's method were in the PSE 'select" drop down menu so no need for new software.

Charlie

Steve Bingham · Nov 10, 2014

Really glad I could help.

Search

How to enlarge a drawing without fattening the lines

cbinfl

Active member

jtoolman

Veteran Member

Chris Malcolm

Senior Member

Hugowolf

Forum Pro

cbinfl

Active member

lcubed11

Leading Member

PicOne

Veteran Member

cbinfl

Active member

Hugowolf

Forum Pro

Dash29

Senior Member

Steve Bingham

Forum Pro

jtoolman

Veteran Member

cbinfl

Active member

Steve Bingham

Forum Pro

Similar threads

Keyboard shortcuts