Opening Adobe Illustrator Files

[cosmarchy]

Hi,

I have an Adobe Illustrator file which I can open in PSP but I'm not sure whether it is opening as a vector or not.

After opening, the I can see the background icon https://postimg.cc/w7fbPZ6T and as far as I can tell, the backgrounds are raster.

Is there any way to either open this as a vector file or is there any way to convert to a vector layer? I wouldn't mind if I could select the parts I wanted and promote the selection, but how do you promote to a vector? All promoted layers, as far as I can tell, are raster.

Basically I need to either open the .ai as a vector or convert to vector layers once open.

Can someone detail how to achieve this please or point me in the direction of a tutorial.

Many thanks

[LeviFiction]

It's opening as a raster, PSP is doing a conversion since it can't directly support most of the features of Illustrator.

PSP's vectors are limited, and its ability to import vector formats even more so. I think EMF and WMF (maybe UFO) are the only supported vector formats that actually import as vectors. How complex of a vector is it? You can try exporting as a Custom Shape for Photoshop and then you can use my Import Custom Shapes script to bring it into PSP - https://levifiction.wordpress.com/2018/ ... om-shapes/

But if it's a highly complex shape it may be too cumbersome to do that. I don't know how to export to custom shapes so I found this video, no idea if it's helpful - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYt5euWXTOQ

The only other option I have ready to go right now is vector tracing. I do have a script that uses the Potrace Raster to Vector tracing program to take a selection and convert that selection to a vector path. The path will then need to be cleaned up as it can sometimes be quite dense. It's not a perfect tracer. The idea here being you make a selection of each part of the vector that needs to be a separate shape, run the script, and it'll create a vector layer from that selection.

https://forum.corel.com/viewtopic.php?p ... to#p395298

[cosmarchy]

Thanks LeviFiction,

I wasn't aware that PSP was as limited on vector formats as you described. I don't use this very much so I only needed something simple and quick as the artwork can sometimes be quite complex.

Do you think CorelDraw would be a better option? Does this handle vectors better and in a way that I could do what I was looking for in my OP?

[LeviFiction]

Potentially, yes. CorelDraw is a more sophsticated software meant for professional designers. If you don't already have CorelDraw you might also look at the free program Inkscape, or the paid but cheaper Affinity Designer can also import AI files.

[Cassel]

If you have EPS files, you can import them into CrelDraw, and then Export them as wmf file which will then open in PSP without issues. I have done that dozens of times since so many vector resources online are EPS.

I never tried other formats.