I never understood how vector works in PS. I'm trying to help out a co worker with a shirt design and the company wants a vector format graphic as their final output. My coworker picked out a jpg pic he wanted to incorporate in the design. I'm guessing that we can't use that because it's a raster image or can I? If I'm not mistaken the only thing vector in PS is type? Would I be able to do the design in PS and open/save it in Illustrator to make it vector format? Hope I'm making sense. It would be my first time.

I'd like to learn this too..
I'm going to look at this for pointers:

http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-vector.html

You should place the jpg in Illustrator and do your vector work there. Depending on the original, you can use the Illustrator CS2 built-in tracing (converting bitmaps to outlines). If you want to stick with PS you can make paths and export the paths to Illustrator (.ai)

If there needs to be a jpg included in the design, with the final output as vector, then you have to vectorise the image.

I'd recommend illustrator but if you only have photoshop then work with shape layers on the pen tool, and save as a .eps i think

you can always download inkscape which is a kick ass free vector program, a bit like gimp is for photoshop

give me a pm if you need help with vectors or illustrator or something

If there needs to be a jpg included in the design, with the final output as vector, then you have to vectorise the image.

I'd recommend illustrator but if you only have photoshop then work with shape layers on the pen tool, and save as a .eps i think

you can always download inkscape which is a kick ass free vector program, a bit like gimp is for photoshop

give me a pm if you need help with vectors or illustrator or something

If there needs to be a jpg included in the design, with the final output as vector, then you have to vectorise the image.

I'd recommend illustrator but if you only have photoshop then work with shape layers on the pen tool, and save as a .eps i think

you can always download inkscape which is a kick ass free vector program, a bit like gimp is for photoshop

give me a pm if you need help with vectors or illustrator or something

sorry, major lag hit me, can a mod remove two of the three replies above?

that is exactly my issue. I have a .jpg and I need to convert it to vector. When you say using illustrator do you mean I have to rebuild it in illustrator or will opening it and saving it out in illustrator make it vector? Here is a link to the image. It is the gear that is jpg.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a61/MindGraph/TDlogo.jpg

yeah, you are gonna have to recreate that in Illustrator/PS vectors.
you could always auto trace, but that doesn't look too good.

vectorising.

Theres the hand drawn way or the photoshop tools way.

(selectng a colour range and working paths..)

I hate auto trace. Always does what it wants. As far as what you mentioned (Marx) about color space this has to be done in panatone colors too. That adds to the excitement of things.
I appreciate everyones help as I have always been curious of how the vector works in the programs but always found ways to scoot around it. Finally decided to sit down and learn something

I have to convert crappy logos given to me all the time to vector to really make them nice looking. Here's how I do it.

scan or open file in photoshop (color or grayscale), should be at least 200lpi - the nicest size and res you can do. You don't have to do huge, you can size it up later.

use brighten and contrast to get it to black and white, change res to 600 and then change it to bitmap

save as tif

Now open .tif file in Adobe Streamline - yeah I know they don't make it anymore, but it is way better than that live trace they have in illustrator... that new feature is dismal.

under file, choose "convert". Under Edit, near the bottom, there are a couple smoothing choices if you have any jagged edges or extra points you'd like to remove, go to the lowest to medium choices. Watch the screen to see if it's any better - you can toggle the undo key back and forth to see the differences. It always looks better after you get it into Illustrator, so you don't have to get it perfect here.

after you've smoothed the edges to where you want, save as .eps

open eps in illustrator and there you have a vector format - you can size it up without losing quality, colorize it, whatever you like.

...that is if you have Streamline. Adobe stopped sellling it, but there are plenty of people out there that still have it and prefer it. If you don't have Streamline, there are 3rd party softwares that claim to do the same thing. Google "convert to vector" to see.

very good info! Unfortunately I had streamline some time ago but not anymore. I am going to do a search on vector conversion programs because I definitely like the look. I have never been a huge fan of Illustrator but only because I've always seen PS as a program that I can get everything I want in a look out of it with less effort than if I make something in Illustrator. I'm not great in the shading area and giving dimension because my drawing techniques on paper just suck so I rely on the tools PS has. I am headed in the direction of learning digital airbrushing. I would love to see some work of anyone who works in Illustrator alot in an "art" way. I do logo work and things like that but love when people have done artwork in Illustrator. " border="0" />

ok....everyones replies are actually helping me to enjoy illustrator. I have tried some suggestions just playing around and using just the programs I have and it's not looking horrible although I will go back and do it better now that I'm starting to see what everyone is saying. Below is what I was playing around with and a new question is how can you make the areas I marked so that you can see through them so if I placed something behind the sawtooth design it would show through just the areas I marked. I was playing with compound path and mask and god knows what else in there to see if I could do it but no success. Damn you ppl for making things less painless!
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a61/MindGraph/EXAMPLE.jpg