How to change fading colors to solid black?

Is the original image, a BITMAP (BMP, JPG, JPEG, TIF, PNG, etc) or a vectored image (CDR, AI, SVG, EPS, etc...)?

If you choose the WIREFRAME view. Do you see lines drawing this object or a more or less blurry preview with a rectangle contouring it?

If you see a rectangle around the shape it's sad to say but it's a bitmap. You must convert it to a vector or redraw it.

Here's what I WOULD do.

• Control the objects color values (CTRL+B) by increasing the contrats as much as possible while lowering its brightness, Click OK. Repeat as many times as you nedd to achieve the desired look.
• Once the object is still selected, in the interactive tool bar (depending on your version) there's an icon or a text button mentionning TRACE OBJECT. Select the OUTLINE TRACE/DETAILED LOGO option.
• Play around with the options.
This will create your vector object.

NOTE
With this shape, don't be surprised. You will have an enourmous quantity of nodes!!!

Thank you very much for your help!

Turns out the original image was a bitmap. I turned it into a vectored image, that was pretty easy at least with the 2020 version, and then the fading wasn't continuous as in the uploaded image but in "blocks" which I could easily turn black with the "paint bucket" feature. The one where you select a desired color and can then apply that color to other areas.

Thanks again! You helped me figure out that the image was already bitmap and needed to be a vector - I kept trying to turn it into bitmap because I thought that's what I needed. 

Hello
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Follow these steps in the sequence shown in the attachments below
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FINAL

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Download the EPS file

EPS (mediafire.com)

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GOOD LUCK ^_*