How to trim the white off of scans

[GoGoSultanGo]

Hi, I'm completely new to Illustrator (not PS) and I've looked everywhere for a tutorial for this, but can't find anything. I scanned a black and white drawing on my computer with thick black ink. See, I'd like to take EVERYTHING but the black out of the picture, as in... well, all that white space, i want it to be transparent so I can put layers below it to make it black, but with a light brown background I made. Can someone help me plaese?

 

[jmgalvin]

The scan is a raster image and more easily manipulted in Photoshop. I have to scan newspaper clippngs all the time for client reports.

I bring them into photoshop as tiffs and fix them there.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[GoGoSultanGo]

So uh... can you please tell me how to do that on either PS or IR?

 

[jmgalvin]

I try to keep it as simple as possible. I usually scan at a very high resolution to keep object edges as clean as possible.

If I just want a certain objec that's one color I'll try the magic wand and then select menu/similar. then copy. Then I start a new PSD doc and paste into it. If you want transparent use transparent in the new doc setup

The reason I do that is because paper usually does not scan to an even color. Since I'm mostly scanning newspaper the variations are really bad.

If you had a nice clean solid background you can play with layers and image menu - like curves to get rid of the white but, again, I've found too much variation in teh white backgroaudn generated by scanning paper.

On last trick if you want to create vectors is to select in PS, create a path and export path to illustrator. This takes some work once in AI, but you end up with a true vector.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[Crassinnola]

Skip taking it into PS and goofing around with the magic wand. Just do it in Illustrator.

Use Live Trace. To eliminate the white background, open Live Trace's Tracing Options dialog box and click "Ignore White" (under the Trace Settings.) Once you have the Adjustments and Trace Settings tweaked properly, Expand the paths. Now you have exactly what you want: a vector image with no background.

 

[itchybug]

Live Trace is perfect for this. The nice thing about live trace is that it's pretty flexible in its settings, AND there's an option to look for strokes, and thus to come up with an editable line drawing other than just outlines.

In the dialog, simply go to "Inked Drawing", and in the menu check off the "Fills" option so you only have "Strokes" checked. Set for a sufficient maximum thickness of a stroke, and you will often be able to achieve good results.

This only works if you have ai CS2 or newer.

HTH

Bert

 

[aherrod]

Not sure if I am off track with your question but if you want to remove the white background from an image/scan by making it transparent you could try this:

1) Select image
2) Open transparency
3) Select 'multiply' from drop down menu

You should now be able to place the image over others and create a collage / layered image. It's an excellent tool when you know where it is tucked away!

Hope this helps