Photo to . . . . shapes?

I hope this isn’t a really stupid question . . .

I’ve seen in others flas what looks like a photo but when you drill into it it turns out to be a bunch of grouped shapes. So it still looks like a photo but is much smaller and easier to manage.

How is this done? Is there some place in Flash where you can convert it? Or is it done in some other software?

Thanks for any insight . . .

:hr: