Hi All, I have been approached by someone asking me to put a crest on a glass for him… I agreed and then he sent me the picture of the crest which is sewn - is there a good way to process an image like this … Here is the image when I try to adjust the image it only gets worse…
Would it be possible for you to get another source for this artwork/crest? Being that it is made with stitching and low contrast, as you have found, not the best candidate for Image Trace. Not producing well as an image either, as there are wrinkles and many details in the cloth that are visually confusing and make it difficult to produce with the main elements popping and the “noisy” bits, not so much. I’ll continue to play to see if I can provide something worthy of production on glass, although my initial pass results yielded less than I’d want. 
Here I set the Image Mode to Grayscale, (one of the more challenging to dial in), after I clipped the undesired parts using Image Mask. Better, in Preview, but I have not tried to run this on any material.
That looks way better than anything I came up with! That might be workable!
I used the color version you initially posted. I suggest testing several different Image Modes to see if you can produce something that works for the desired result. I would test different outputs first, then check / test again on glass, as you mention this is the final material for production. Test, test and more testing, is the best way.
You may have to bite the bullet and hand design a replacement graphic. Working with other sources of the same image may be another path to success. Is there an existing .jpeg of that crest that you could use??
I understand the desire to meet expectations exactly as asked. Solving the puzzles is very rewarding. Please do follow up with what works, so we can learn from you.
Let me qualify my advice with the fact that I have zero experience etching glass.
That’s some beautifully intricate work on that patch. I suspect reproducing the chain and rope will be difficult at the scale a normal drinking glass would allow.
I’m with Jim. I wouldn’t feel OK using a scan or photo directly because of the stretch/skew inherent in the source. I’d feel compelled to settle in for a couple long sessions recreating this entire design. Probably start with some tests to see what kind of detail can actually be produced on glass and adjust the art as required.
Perhaps contact some Canadian naval historians to see if there are any illustrations of this design. The patch was produced from somebody’s artwork.
I would have fun working on the sketch-up for you. I see in the top a shield (center) two guard towers - and the outside thing I am not sure of - it may be a ship’s bow with gun barrels protruding. The multicolor blobs I have no clue about. The chain and rope would be a work out, but fun. Wish we had a decal or artwork to go by. The resolution of the stitching is just too small to get a good image out of.
Jim. I believe you may have the ticket with that last one. The Crown and Flag is half the battle which you seem to have there (some minor edits on the flag of course). The chain and rope is the other half. The text and borders are cake assuming no custom font work. Depending on scale and output resolution, even the rope and chain may boil down to simple lines.
Here is 10 mins of poking at the design while I drink coffee
Work in Progress
Take a photo with 2 or 3 light sources, so there are no shadows in the image, and then use online converters for svg or image enhancement and you’ll save a lot of work and be close.
With your first pic:
After pic optimization you could convert to svg .
Sometimes you could trace it manually (difficult with your pic), the line almost follow the underline contour of the image.
