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I have the following icon as a raster image, and I need to extract the "i" to do something with it. I'm not able to identify the font (it isn't Times), so how might I go about "removing" the i from this so that I can manipulate it further? I tried Quick Select but it gets messy....

Is tracing it with the pen tool going to be my best bet?

enter image description here

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  • Recreating might be the faster way. Plus you end up with a lossless file.
    – KMSTR
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 20:06
  • Since it is just one letter, I doubt that the world would come crashing down if you use another font that's somewhere around the ballpark... -- I bet bold Georgia would almost nail it. If you really want it to be identical, you could always convert that georgia i to a shape layer and make small corrections here and there and everywhere a moo, moo! That should be quite painless.
    – Joonas
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 20:21

3 Answers 3

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The image is the standard "information icon" from Windows XP designed by The Iconfactory (iirc). The "i" is Georgia Bold, probably with 110% width and most likely tweaked on a per-pixel basis.

enter image description here

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  • I don't think Mathew Carter came up with the 'i' for Georgia. That's the universal symbol for "information" used on maps, wayfinding systems, etc. It's been around a long time.
    – plainclothes
    Commented Apr 26, 2013 at 22:09
  • I meant to say that the image posted int he original questions was a greyscale close up of the windows xp stock icon. I may be wrong, but I never meant to suggest that iconfactory invented the "i" nor the typeface.
    – horatio
    Commented Apr 30, 2013 at 14:53
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I see two options:

  1. Trace it with the pen tool(this is a faster option but it might not be exact{unless you are really good with pen tool} and you don't end up with a lossless file)

  2. Do some research, find the font, and recreate it. ( Takes longer than option 1, but you end up with a completely lossless file that you can do anything you want with.)

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If you don't want to use a similar font, you could do the following in Photoshop:

  1. Grab the magic wand tool W.
  2. Bring the Tolerance down to 15 or lower
  3. Select the body of the "i"
  4. Ctrl + J (Cmd + J for Mac) to duplicate that layer

The dot of the "i" would be easy

  1. Grab the Elliptical Marquee tool
  2. Move your mouse to the center of the dot
  3. Hold Alt + Shift then click and drag to select a perfectly circular marque around the dot.
  4. Ctrl + J (Cmd + J for Mac) to duplicate that layer
  5. Select both your newly created layers
  6. Ctrl + E (Cmd + E for Mac) to Merge the layers

Done.

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