Convert JPG to SVG

JPG is lossy: to save space, the format scrambles the pixels around every high-contrast edge. That is blocking artifact, nearly invisible to the eye — but the tracer sees it, and tends to follow the smear instead of the shape.

In practice it shows up as a slightly wavy edge where a straight line should be. If the same artwork exists as PNG, use the PNG: the result is cleaner for the same effort.

Most JPGs in the world are photographs, and a photograph is the worst case for vectorizing. Photos are continuous gradient; vectors are flat-color shapes. Converting turns the gradient into patches, the file gets heavy, and the result looks like a screen print — occasionally striking, almost never what the person wanted.

It is worth it when the JPG is really a drawing that was saved as JPG: a logo, an icon, line art, a label, a scanned signature. That is the common case for someone who received a client's mark by email and does not have the original file.

Lower the color count. Fewer colors force the tracer to ignore the variation the compression invented and to see the regions that matter. On a two-color logo, ask for two colors.

Then check the measured fidelity the page reports before downloading: the percentage of pixels where the drawing matches the input. It drops when you simplify too far, and it is how you find the point where the file got clean without ceasing to be the same mark.