Learn how to create striking poster artwork using blur / sharpen process and vector tracing techniques in Affinity and Canva. This tutorial demonstrates how to convert photographs and illustrations into editable vector graphics that can be resized, recolored, and customized for professional poster designs.
Vector tracing transforms ordinary images into scalable artwork. Unlike raster graphics, vector designs remain sharp at any size, making them perfect for posters, banners, print projects, merchandise, social media graphics, and marketing materials.
Using Affinity provides a powerful workflow for creating modern poster illustrations with clean lines, editable colors, and professional-quality output.
Choose a high-contrast image for the best tracing results or use the process shown in the video where the blur and sharpen effect combined produce a very high contrast image that is perfect for conversion to a stark effect. Portraits, illustrations, silhouettes, and bold poster photography generally produce cleaner vector paths.
Open the image inside Affinity. Adjust brightness, contrast, or levels if required before beginning the vector tracing process. Even better, use the process shown in the video and follow these steps. Go to pixel filters and blur and gaussian set to 14. Click apply. Then go to pixel filters sharpen and multi band. Set to standard 2 8 5 and 1 and hard blend. Click apply and go to pixel filters and repeat a couple of times. pixel filters repeat. Once you've got that, then go to pixel filters and blur and gaussian (blur) just to get rid of some of that fine detail there. Click apply again with 14. Then go to Affinity pixel filters, sharpen, multi band, and use exactly the same settings you had before. Click apply and then repeat a few times using reapply. Once you've got that, then go to vector image trace. And with that, you can set it to 50 and 40 and click apply. You've now got a quick, very stark poster effect in Affinity and this is a great start for a stark vector effect
Use the vector trace command to convert the raster image into editable vector shapes. Experiment with threshold and detail settings until the artwork captures the desired poster appearance. The result of the blur / sharp process should reduce all images to perfect poster effects
Remove unwanted nodes and simplify paths where possible (sadly there no tools to do this really easy in Affinity but it can be done manually). Cleaner vectors are easier to edit and generally export more efficiently.
Apply bold color palettes, limited tonal ranges, and strong contrasts. Poster artwork often benefits from reduced colors and simplified graphic shapes.
Enhance the design with strong typography. Experiment with alignment, scaling, and color combinations to create a striking poster layout. The stark poster effect works very well with a mix of type.
Once the vector trace is complete, try creating:
Yes. Each vector path can be adjusted using node editing tools, allowing complete control over the artwork. You can also duplicate the vector designs as well as add stles to them such as layer effects (bevel etc)
Vector tracing does not restore missing image detail, but it converts artwork into scalable vector shapes that remain crisp at any size.
Yes. Export the finished design as SVG, PDF, EPS, or other supported vector formats for commercial printing and digital publishing.
Explore additional Affinity Designer and Canva tutorials covering vector artwork, poster creation, typography effects, gradients, image tracing, and creative design workflows.