Illustrator Tracing the Photo

Tracing the Photo

Adobe stopped upgrading its vector conversion application Streamline some time ago, and the Trace Tool included in Illustrator has always been sadly lacking. That is, until now! With the new CS2 version, Illustrator users finally have a great trace tool.

Raster images—use a grid of small squares known as pixels to represent images. Each pixel is assigned a specific location and color value. Raster Images or Bitmap Images are the most common electronic medium for continuous-tone images, such as photographs or digital paintings, because they can represent subtle gradations of shades and color.

What are Vector Images?

Vector graphics are made up of lines and curves defined by mathematical objects called vectors. Vectors describe an image according to its geometric characteristics. Vector graphics are resolution-independent—that is, they can be scaled to any size and printed at any resolution without losing detail or clarity. As a result, vector graphics are the best choice for representing graphics that must retain crisp lines when scaled to various sizes—for example, logos.

1) Create a new document and to place a image in Illustrator, use the File > Place command.

2) After Placing a image in the Illustrator, Live Trace button appears in the top control pallette or you can also use the Object > Live Trace Menu. Choose a preset from the dropdown Preset menu, which is accessed from the small arrow to the right of the Live Trace button.

3) After clicking the Live Trace button, you will have many more options on the control palette. Next to the Presets is a button that opens many more options. From this dialog, you can control the number of colors, the preset, the minimum size that will be traced, and even choose to output to a swatches file.

This is one of the best new features in Illustrator CS2. With this tool you will be able to trace logos, sketches, scans, and many other bitmap images that were time-consuming and difficult to reproduce.