To convert Procreate artwork to Illustrator, export it as a high-resolution PNG (or a layered PSD), open it in Illustrator, run Image Trace, and click Expand to turn the result into editable vector paths. Image Trace works well on clean line art and flat, high-contrast color. Textured brushes, gradients, and grain won't convert cleanly, so those areas need manual redrawing with the Pen tool or should stay raster.

Procreate is a raster app, so nothing in it is vector. "Converting" means either tracing pixels into paths or rebuilding the shapes by hand. Which one you choose depends on how the artwork is drawn and where it's going next, whether that's a logo, a print, or a composition in After Effects.

Decide Whether You Need Vectors at All

Vectors are resolution-independent, easy to recolor, and clean to animate as shape layers. They are the right call for logos, icons, flat character rigs, and anything that must scale to arbitrary sizes.

They are the wrong call for painterly or textured work. Pencil grain, watercolor edges, soft airbrush shading, and noisy brushes become hundreds of tiny shapes when traced, and the result usually looks worse and is heavier to work with than the original. If your Procreate piece depends on texture, you're usually better off keeping it raster and exporting at a higher resolution.

A quick rule: if you could describe the art as "shapes with solid fills and clean outlines," trace it. If you'd describe it as "brushwork," don't.

Step 1: Prep the Artwork in Procreate

Trace quality depends heavily on the source. A few minutes of prep saves a lot of cleanup in Illustrator.

• Work large. Trace algorithms need pixels to find edges. If the canvas is small, line edges are soft and the trace gets wobbly. Start big, or redraw key elements on a larger canvas.
• Clean the linework. Remove stray marks, stabilize shaky strokes, and close gaps where shapes should meet.
• Separate elements onto layers. Keep line art, flat color, and any white highlights on their own layers. This lets you trace each one with different settings.
• Hide the background. Turn off the paper layer so the export has transparency instead of a white fill that you'd have to remove later.
• Simplify color. Fewer, flatter colors trace into fewer, cleaner shapes. Convert gradients to flat tones if you can.

Step 2: Export from Procreate

Open Actions (the wrench icon), choose Share, and pick a format:

• PNG is the default choice. It keeps transparency and doesn't add compression artifacts.
• PSD preserves layers, which is useful if you want to trace line art and color separately without exporting multiple files.
• JPEG works but introduces compression noise around edges, which makes tracing messier. Avoid it for line art.
• PDF can be handy for sharing, but remember the content inside is still pixels.

Move the file to your computer via AirDrop, iCloud, or a shared drive.

Step 3: Open the File and Run Image Trace

In Illustrator, open the PNG (or place it into an existing document with File > Place). Select the image, then open Window > Image Trace. Alternatively, use the Image Trace button in the Properties or Control panel.

Choose a preset based on the artwork:

Turn on Preview, then adjust the main controls in the panel:

• Threshold (in black-and-white modes) sets the cutoff between ink and paper. Raise it to capture lighter strokes, lower it to drop noise.
• Paths, Corners, and Noise control how tightly the trace follows the original. Lower Noise values keep small details but also pick up grain.
• Colors (in color modes) sets how many swatches the trace may use.
• Ignore White is essential when you want a transparent background rather than a white shape behind everything.

Zoom in to Outline view while previewing. If the paths look jagged at 400%, your source is probably too low-resolution and no setting will fully fix it.

Step 4: Expand and Clean Up

A traced image is still a "tracing object" until you convert it. Click Expand in the control bar (or Object > Image Trace > Expand). Now you have real, editable paths, usually in a group.

From there:

1. Ungroup (Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+G) so you can select individual shapes. Use Object > Ungroup repeatedly if shapes are nested.
2. Delete leftovers. Remove tiny specks and stray shapes, using Select > Same > Fill Color to grab similar fragments.
3. Simplify paths. Object > Path > Simplify reduces anchor points. Be careful with the slider; too much and you'll round off sharp corners.
4. Fix color. Use Recolor Artwork or the Global swatches workflow to consolidate near-duplicate colors into a clean palette.
5. Organize layers. Name them in a way that will make sense once you're in After Effects.

Step 5: Redraw by Hand Where Tracing Falls Short

Automated tracing is a starting point, not a finish. For key shapes like logos, character outlines, and lettering, many illustrators use the traced result as a template and redraw over it with the Pen tool or Curvature tool. This gives you the fewest possible anchor points, smooth curves, and predictable behavior when you animate or scale.

A practical workflow:

1. Place the Procreate export on a locked template layer at reduced opacity.
2. Draw new shapes on a layer above it.
3. Apply fills and strokes (or use variable-width profiles to mimic brush pressure).
4. Delete the template layer when you're done.

It's slower, but for anything that ships as a brand asset or gets rigged for animation, it's worth the time.

A Free Mobile Alternative

If you want vectors without opening Illustrator, Adobe Capture on iPad or iPhone can turn a high-contrast PNG into a shape and export it as SVG. It works best on black-and-white artwork, and you'll need to simplify color pieces first. Afterwards you can open the SVG in Illustrator and refine it. Other vector tools, such as Affinity Designer, can also open SVG files if you'd rather avoid Adobe.

Take the Vectors into After Effects and Other Tools

For motion work, the point of converting is usually what happens next. Some practical notes:

• After Effects: Import the .ai file as Composition – Retain Layer Sizes to keep Illustrator layers separate. For animatable geometry, right-click an imported vector layer and choose Create Shapes from Vector Layer. This gives you native shape layers with fills, strokes, and paths you can trim, wiggle, or parent to rigs. Enable Continuously Rasterize on imported vector layers if you plan to scale them aggressively.
• Premiere Pro: Illustrator files import as flat graphics. Use After Effects or Essential Graphics when you need animation.
• Cinema 4D and Blender: Both can bring in vector paths as splines or curves for extrusion. Check which Illustrator or SVG versions your release supports, and keep paths simple. Heavy traced files with thousands of anchor points will extrude slowly and often produce messy geometry.
• Nuke: Vector artwork is typically rasterized at your delivery resolution before it comes into a comp, so export clean, high-resolution passes from After Effects or Illustrator.

Before importing, check that shapes are closed, strokes are outlined if you need to preserve their look, and any compound paths are set up correctly. That prevents holes from filling in or disappearing.

When Not to Vectorize: Keep the Procreate Look

Many motion projects use Procreate artwork precisely because of its hand-made feel. Tracing flattens that character. If your goal is to animate or extend painted illustrations, a raster-first workflow is often a better fit.

This is where an AI video and motion tool like Styleframe can complement Illustrator rather than replace it. It's built for artists who want control over the result: generations are driven by your own reference images, video clips, and keyframes instead of a one-click black box. For Procreate artwork, a few features are relevant:

• Frames-to-Video animates between keyframes you define, so you decide the start and end poses of a piece rather than leaving motion to chance.
• Restyle and Ink-and-Paint apply a reference-driven style transfer, which can carry a Procreate illustration's look onto footage or other frames without manually tracing every frame.
• Remove Background isolates a character or object from a raster export when you need a clean cutout for compositing.
• 2D-to-3D and Turntable help you explore a drawn character or object from other angles.
• 4K Upscale raises resolution on raster artwork when you need more pixels but don't want to rebuild it as vector shapes.

A sensible split is to use Illustrator for the assets that must be true vectors, such as logos, UI shapes, and rigged characters, and keep textured, painterly pieces raster and animate or restyle them in Styleframe.

Common Problems and Fixes

• Jagged or lumpy edges: The source resolution is too low. Re-export from a larger canvas or redraw at a higher size.
• White boxes behind shapes: Turn on Ignore White before expanding, or delete the white shape afterward.
• Thousands of tiny shapes: Raise Noise, lower Colors, or flatten the artwork in Procreate before exporting.
• Lost line weight character: Trace line art as filled shapes (the default), then retouch with variable-width strokes or redraw key strokes manually.
• Colors shift: Check your document color mode. Procreate files are usually RGB, so use an RGB document in Illustrator unless the output is print-specific.

Quick Checklist

1. Simplify and clean the artwork in Procreate, and work at high resolution.
2. Export as PNG (or PSD for layers) with a transparent background.
3. Open in Illustrator and use Image Trace with a preset that matches the art.
4. Tune Threshold, Colors, and Noise, and enable Ignore White.
5. Expand, ungroup, and clean up stray shapes and swatches.
6. Redraw critical shapes with the Pen tool if precision matters.
7. Save as .ai or SVG, then bring into After Effects, Cinema 4D, or Blender as needed.

Treat tracing as a way to get a solid starting point rather than a one-click fix. Clean source art, sensible presets, and a bit of manual cleanup get you vectors that hold up in production.

To convert Procreate artwork to Illustrator, export it as a high-resolution PNG (or a layered PSD), open it in Illustrator, run Image Trace, and click Expand to turn the result into editable vector paths. Image Trace works well on clean line art and flat, high-contrast color. Textured brushes, gradients, and grain won't convert cleanly, so those areas need manual redrawing with the Pen tool or should stay raster.

Procreate is a raster app, so nothing in it is vector. "Converting" means either tracing pixels into paths or rebuilding the shapes by hand. Which one you choose depends on how the artwork is drawn and where it's going next, whether that's a logo, a print, or a composition in After Effects.

Decide Whether You Need Vectors at All

Vectors are resolution-independent, easy to recolor, and clean to animate as shape layers. They are the right call for logos, icons, flat character rigs, and anything that must scale to arbitrary sizes.

They are the wrong call for painterly or textured work. Pencil grain, watercolor edges, soft airbrush shading, and noisy brushes become hundreds of tiny shapes when traced, and the result usually looks worse and is heavier to work with than the original. If your Procreate piece depends on texture, you're usually better off keeping it raster and exporting at a higher resolution.

A quick rule: if you could describe the art as "shapes with solid fills and clean outlines," trace it. If you'd describe it as "brushwork," don't.

Step 1: Prep the Artwork in Procreate

Trace quality depends heavily on the source. A few minutes of prep saves a lot of cleanup in Illustrator.

• Work large. Trace algorithms need pixels to find edges. If the canvas is small, line edges are soft and the trace gets wobbly. Start big, or redraw key elements on a larger canvas.
• Clean the linework. Remove stray marks, stabilize shaky strokes, and close gaps where shapes should meet.
• Separate elements onto layers. Keep line art, flat color, and any white highlights on their own layers. This lets you trace each one with different settings.
• Hide the background. Turn off the paper layer so the export has transparency instead of a white fill that you'd have to remove later.
• Simplify color. Fewer, flatter colors trace into fewer, cleaner shapes. Convert gradients to flat tones if you can.

Step 2: Export from Procreate

Open Actions (the wrench icon), choose Share, and pick a format:

• PNG is the default choice. It keeps transparency and doesn't add compression artifacts.
• PSD preserves layers, which is useful if you want to trace line art and color separately without exporting multiple files.
• JPEG works but introduces compression noise around edges, which makes tracing messier. Avoid it for line art.
• PDF can be handy for sharing, but remember the content inside is still pixels.

Move the file to your computer via AirDrop, iCloud, or a shared drive.

Step 3: Open the File and Run Image Trace

In Illustrator, open the PNG (or place it into an existing document with File > Place). Select the image, then open Window > Image Trace. Alternatively, use the Image Trace button in the Properties or Control panel.

Choose a preset based on the artwork:

Turn on Preview, then adjust the main controls in the panel:

• Threshold (in black-and-white modes) sets the cutoff between ink and paper. Raise it to capture lighter strokes, lower it to drop noise.
• Paths, Corners, and Noise control how tightly the trace follows the original. Lower Noise values keep small details but also pick up grain.
• Colors (in color modes) sets how many swatches the trace may use.
• Ignore White is essential when you want a transparent background rather than a white shape behind everything.

Zoom in to Outline view while previewing. If the paths look jagged at 400%, your source is probably too low-resolution and no setting will fully fix it.

Step 4: Expand and Clean Up

A traced image is still a "tracing object" until you convert it. Click Expand in the control bar (or Object > Image Trace > Expand). Now you have real, editable paths, usually in a group.

From there:

1. Ungroup (Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+G) so you can select individual shapes. Use Object > Ungroup repeatedly if shapes are nested.
2. Delete leftovers. Remove tiny specks and stray shapes, using Select > Same > Fill Color to grab similar fragments.
3. Simplify paths. Object > Path > Simplify reduces anchor points. Be careful with the slider; too much and you'll round off sharp corners.
4. Fix color. Use Recolor Artwork or the Global swatches workflow to consolidate near-duplicate colors into a clean palette.
5. Organize layers. Name them in a way that will make sense once you're in After Effects.

Step 5: Redraw by Hand Where Tracing Falls Short

Automated tracing is a starting point, not a finish. For key shapes like logos, character outlines, and lettering, many illustrators use the traced result as a template and redraw over it with the Pen tool or Curvature tool. This gives you the fewest possible anchor points, smooth curves, and predictable behavior when you animate or scale.

A practical workflow:

1. Place the Procreate export on a locked template layer at reduced opacity.
2. Draw new shapes on a layer above it.
3. Apply fills and strokes (or use variable-width profiles to mimic brush pressure).
4. Delete the template layer when you're done.

It's slower, but for anything that ships as a brand asset or gets rigged for animation, it's worth the time.

A Free Mobile Alternative

If you want vectors without opening Illustrator, Adobe Capture on iPad or iPhone can turn a high-contrast PNG into a shape and export it as SVG. It works best on black-and-white artwork, and you'll need to simplify color pieces first. Afterwards you can open the SVG in Illustrator and refine it. Other vector tools, such as Affinity Designer, can also open SVG files if you'd rather avoid Adobe.

Take the Vectors into After Effects and Other Tools

For motion work, the point of converting is usually what happens next. Some practical notes:

• After Effects: Import the .ai file as Composition – Retain Layer Sizes to keep Illustrator layers separate. For animatable geometry, right-click an imported vector layer and choose Create Shapes from Vector Layer. This gives you native shape layers with fills, strokes, and paths you can trim, wiggle, or parent to rigs. Enable Continuously Rasterize on imported vector layers if you plan to scale them aggressively.
• Premiere Pro: Illustrator files import as flat graphics. Use After Effects or Essential Graphics when you need animation.
• Cinema 4D and Blender: Both can bring in vector paths as splines or curves for extrusion. Check which Illustrator or SVG versions your release supports, and keep paths simple. Heavy traced files with thousands of anchor points will extrude slowly and often produce messy geometry.
• Nuke: Vector artwork is typically rasterized at your delivery resolution before it comes into a comp, so export clean, high-resolution passes from After Effects or Illustrator.

Before importing, check that shapes are closed, strokes are outlined if you need to preserve their look, and any compound paths are set up correctly. That prevents holes from filling in or disappearing.

When Not to Vectorize: Keep the Procreate Look

Many motion projects use Procreate artwork precisely because of its hand-made feel. Tracing flattens that character. If your goal is to animate or extend painted illustrations, a raster-first workflow is often a better fit.

This is where an AI video and motion tool like Styleframe can complement Illustrator rather than replace it. It's built for artists who want control over the result: generations are driven by your own reference images, video clips, and keyframes instead of a one-click black box. For Procreate artwork, a few features are relevant:

• Frames-to-Video animates between keyframes you define, so you decide the start and end poses of a piece rather than leaving motion to chance.
• Restyle and Ink-and-Paint apply a reference-driven style transfer, which can carry a Procreate illustration's look onto footage or other frames without manually tracing every frame.
• Remove Background isolates a character or object from a raster export when you need a clean cutout for compositing.
• 2D-to-3D and Turntable help you explore a drawn character or object from other angles.
• 4K Upscale raises resolution on raster artwork when you need more pixels but don't want to rebuild it as vector shapes.

A sensible split is to use Illustrator for the assets that must be true vectors, such as logos, UI shapes, and rigged characters, and keep textured, painterly pieces raster and animate or restyle them in Styleframe.

Common Problems and Fixes

• Jagged or lumpy edges: The source resolution is too low. Re-export from a larger canvas or redraw at a higher size.
• White boxes behind shapes: Turn on Ignore White before expanding, or delete the white shape afterward.
• Thousands of tiny shapes: Raise Noise, lower Colors, or flatten the artwork in Procreate before exporting.
• Lost line weight character: Trace line art as filled shapes (the default), then retouch with variable-width strokes or redraw key strokes manually.
• Colors shift: Check your document color mode. Procreate files are usually RGB, so use an RGB document in Illustrator unless the output is print-specific.

Quick Checklist

1. Simplify and clean the artwork in Procreate, and work at high resolution.
2. Export as PNG (or PSD for layers) with a transparent background.
3. Open in Illustrator and use Image Trace with a preset that matches the art.
4. Tune Threshold, Colors, and Noise, and enable Ignore White.
5. Expand, ungroup, and clean up stray shapes and swatches.
6. Redraw critical shapes with the Pen tool if precision matters.
7. Save as .ai or SVG, then bring into After Effects, Cinema 4D, or Blender as needed.

Treat tracing as a way to get a solid starting point rather than a one-click fix. Clean source art, sensible presets, and a bit of manual cleanup get you vectors that hold up in production.