Working with Color Images
Color artwork can begin in a drawing or painting application and become part of a FontLab glyph. The important distinction is what you bring in: vector shapes that can become editable contours, or pixels that remain an image. Both can be positioned and combined with other elements, but they offer different kinds of editing and scale differently in the finished design.
Editable SVG Color
An SVG element stores an SVG graphic as element content. You can move, scale, rotate, and reference it without first converting its shapes into FontLab contours. Its internal colors belong to the imported graphic; the Color panel does not independently recolor each internal SVG path while it remains one SVG element.
Use the artwork import, paste, or drag-and-drop workflow to place the graphic in a Glyph window or on the Sketchboard. When the vector-artwork options offer Keep stroke and colors, place color elements, choose that mode to retain the appearance. The monochrome option discards the color distinctions you need for this workflow.
The result depends on the source format and import route. Some vector artwork arrives as editable colored elements already. Inspect the Elements panel before converting: if you can select and edit the separate contours, you have already reached the editable form.
Convert an SVG element to editable content
- Keep the original artwork file for comparison.
- In the Glyph window or Sketchboard, make the SVG element current.
- Choose Element > Image > Make SVG Editable.
- Inspect the resulting element or group in the Elements panel. Select a constituent contour element to edit its nodes, fill, or stroke.
- Compare the converted result with the original, particularly at clipped areas, gradients, and detailed effects.
FontLab interprets supported SVG content into its own elements. A graphic with several colored parts can become a group containing separate elements, which preserves their ability to carry different appearances. This is the point where imported vector artwork joins the ordinary contour-editing workflow.
Conversion is not a promise that every effect available in an external SVG authoring application has an equivalent editable FontLab construction. Keep the source and compare the result before relying on it. An SVG file can also contain embedded bitmap content; the filename alone does not establish that every part is vector.
Vector contours remain scalable without a source pixel grid. The Image panel's bitmap filters do not operate on an SVG element as though it were a pixel image. To change its internal geometry or individual part colors, convert supported content to editable elements or revise the original artwork in its source application.
Bitmap Color Content
An image element contains a bitmap: a rectangular grid of pixels. Import or paste a color image into the glyph, then use element transformations to place it at the intended size. Element references can reuse the image content elsewhere while allowing each occurrence its own placement.
Scaling changes how large those pixels appear in the glyph; it does not create the detail of a higher-resolution source. Choose image dimensions appropriate to the sizes at which the design must be viewed, and check fine details at those sizes.
Bitmap content remains raster content in color output. It does not become scalable vector artwork merely because it is stored in a font. Depending on the export route, the image may be embedded or the glyph may be rasterized at specified sizes. Plan for that pixel-based result while designing.
Process the image
These filters change the image data. Each application uses the current result as its input, so repeated clicks can accumulate the effect. Keep the original image file and use a separate working copy when comparing treatments you may need to recreate later. If the image content is shared by element references, unlink the occurrence before filtering when only that copy should change.
Open Window > Panels > Image with the intended bitmap element selected. Choose a filter, adjust its settings, and use Preview to inspect the effect before clicking Apply.
| Filter | Use |
|---|---|
| Sharpen | Increase local contrast to emphasize detail. |
| Soften | Reduce local contrast and soften detail. |
| Gaussian Blur | Blur the image over an adjustable radius. |
| Reduce Noise | Reduce small variations that interfere with the intended image. |
| Find Edges | Produce a bitmap emphasizing changes at edges. |
| Despeckle | Reduce isolated pixel defects. |
| Threshold | Classify pixels using luminance, opacity, or a reference color. |
| Remove Background | Make background regions transparent using the selected removal method. |
The same image-processing operations are available in Element > Image. Choose the panel when you want to adjust and preview their settings before committing.
A blur does not undo sharpening, and softening does not reconstruct detail removed by an earlier operation. Compare the actual pixels after each application. Find Edges also remains a bitmap operation; its visible edges are not editable font contours.
Threshold and background removal
Threshold offers luminance, opacity, and color modes. Luminance uses brightness, opacity uses the image's alpha values, and color compares pixels with a selected reference color. The color picker is available in color mode. Use Colorize when the classified foreground should use a chosen color.
Threshold processes bitmap pixels using the selected mode and cutoff; Preview shows the change before Apply.
The result need not be a black drawing on an opaque white rectangle: opacity-based processing and colorization can change alpha and foreground color. Inspect transparent regions as well as the visible image before applying the filter.
Remove Background offers smart, color, and luminance modes. Try smart processing for an automatically determined result. Choose color when you can identify the background color, or luminance when brightness separates the background from the subject. The range controls appear for color and luminance processing; luminance also offers Inverse. Use the preview to judge the retained edge, especially around translucent or softly shaded details.
Remove Background offers mode, quality, range, and color controls. The selected color is part of this example’s setup.
Compare quality settings on a representative image, checking the subject’s boundaries and small interior regions. A higher setting does not establish that the background has been correctly identified.
Keep pixels and contours distinct
A bitmap cannot use Make SVG Editable to recover its original drawn shapes. FontLab's autotrace workflow can derive monochrome contours from an image, but it does not reconstruct a multi-color illustration as an automatically separated set of editable color regions.
Keep the bitmap for a painted or photographic appearance. Use drawn or imported vector elements when independent contour and part-color editing is the goal.
Batch-Processing Images
Use the Sketchboard to stage a sheet of symbols or pictorial artwork. Separate it into one element or group per intended glyph, establish scale and alignment, then place those items in a font. If each glyph already has its own file, importing the collection or dropping files onto the Font window can avoid sheet separation.
Separate and inspect
- Open the destination font and Sketchboard, then import or paste the sheet.
- Make the sheet current and choose Element > Optically Separate.
- Inspect detached dots, accents, neighboring symbols, and parts that should remain together.
- If the split is unsuitable, undo, adjust Optical separation under Preferences > Operations, and repeat. Detailed separation controls belong to Volume Two.
Automatic grouping and naming are not guaranteed for every script or symbol. Test a representative sample and correct its identities manually. SVG and vector content can participate; Make SVG Editable is useful when you need to inspect or reorganize constituent paths first. Separating bitmap pieces does not turn them into vector contours.
Scale and alignment
Choose a consistent relationship between artwork size and font dimensions. UPM controls coordinate scale, not image resolution. A 256-pixel image displayed at 768 units uses three font units per pixel but still contains only 256 pixels vertically. Changing the font's UPM does not itself place or scale the artwork.
On the Sketchboard, a horizontal guide band can define the baseline and target height. Put its lower edge at the baseline, set its height to the artwork row, and name it c1 when the upper edge should map to Caps Height. Separate rows can use corresponding bands. Convert a representative item first to check the alignment.
Create glyphs
Select the sample elements or groups and choose Element > Convert to Glyphs > Selected Elements. Inspect names, Unicode assignments, baseline, height, and advances in the destination font. Correct provisional identities and add a suitably spaced space glyph if needed. Compare several glyphs before converting the rest.
Named elements can supply useful names; generated names do not establish the intended character assignment. Reordering cells is not a substitute for checking identity. Use Element > Convert to Glyphs > Current Element… when individual placement gives better control over inconsistent artwork.
Vector and Bitmap Output
The source method determines the kind of detail you have to export. Drawn contours and vector SVG content retain geometry that can be rendered at different sizes. Bitmap images retain a finite pixel grid. Enlarging that grid cannot reveal additional source detail.
A mixed glyph can contain both. A vector border around a photograph does not make the photograph vector, and an SVG container does not guarantee that its embedded content is entirely vector. Inspect what the elements contain as well as their file types.
Export settings still matter. A vector construction can be rasterized by an output route that requires bitmaps or by unsupported visual effects. Bitmap content requires an output route that preserves or renders those pixels. Decide whether your design must remain vector, or whether fixed-resolution imagery is appropriate, before building the entire glyph set.
Recall saving versus exporting from Understanding Font Formats: native VFC/VFJ saving retains the editable color elements, image data, and project structure. Producing a color font for use in other applications is a separate export task. The choice of color-font technology, export options, and application support belongs to that task; a correct native preview alone does not establish that the exported font will reproduce every effect everywhere.