How to convert a JPG to SVG
- Open the JPG by dropping, pasting or browsing. Use the largest, least compressed copy you have.
- Count the colours. This page starts at 4. Set Colours to the solid colours you can see, background included, and watch the palette chips: each chip should be a colour you meant, not a blur between two.
- Scrub the noise. Remove specks is set higher here (6 px) to drop the dots JPEG compression leaves around edges. Raise it if speckles remain; lower it if small details vanish.
- Make it transparent if you need to: JPGs cannot hold transparency, so tick Remove background to drop the white or coloured backdrop from the SVG.
- Download SVG or PDF once the edges look clean at high zoom.
What JPEG compression does to an edge
A JPG saves space by storing the image in 8 by 8 pixel blocks and throwing away fine detail inside each block. Around every sharp edge that leaves faint ripples (ringing), small blocky steps, and colour bleed, because colour is kept at lower resolution than brightness. A red logo on white that looks like two colours is really several hundred slightly different shades. A tracer fed that image directly draws a sliver of path for each shade, and the result looks fuzzy and weighs megabytes.
This page removes the damage before tracing. It groups every pixel into the palette size you choose, so the ripples and fringes snap to the nearest real colour. Tiny islands left over are deleted by Remove specks, and Smoothing lays curves over the block steps instead of following them. The result is a handful of clean shapes: one per colour.
Getting a better result from a poor JPG
- Find a bigger copy. Compression damage is a fixed few pixels wide, so it matters far less in a 2,000 px image than in a 300 px thumbnail.
- Raise Working size for a large, detailed JPG so it is not scaled down before tracing.
- One colour too many beats one too few. If two brand colours merge, add a colour; if a thin halo appears around shapes, take one away.
- Got the PNG? Use it instead. A PNG has no compression noise and may already be transparent.
Questions people ask
Why does my traced JPG have blotchy or fuzzy edges?
Those are JPEG compression artefacts: ripples, blocks and colour fringes around edges. Lower Colours so the fringe shades merge into the real colours, raise Remove specks to drop leftover dots, and raise Smoothing so curves run over the block steps.
Does the JPG quality setting matter?
Yes. A JPG saved at high quality (90 or above) has far less noise than one saved at 60, and traces much more cleanly. If you can re-export the original artwork, choose the highest quality or PNG.
Can I get a transparent SVG from a JPG?
Yes. JPGs have no transparency, but ticking Remove background drops the backdrop colour from the SVG. The colour is detected from the image border; set Key colour or Tolerance if it misses an off-white background.
Can I convert a JPG photo to SVG?
You can, in Detailed mode, but expect a stylised, posterised look rather than a copy of the photo. Every shade becomes a shape, so lower Colour detail for a cleaner, smaller file.
How many colours should I choose?
Count the solid colours you can see, including the background. Add one if two similar colours merge, and remove one if thin outlines of an in-between colour appear around shapes.