Tracing a bitmap in Illustrator 1

[Sam577]

Hi,

Does anyone know if I can somehow trace a scanned image in Illustrator so I end up with editable art?

I've been given a hand-drawn logo, which I have scanned, and I need to get this into Illustrator.

Many thanks
Sam

 

[MovingPictures]

To do it well you need a program like Adobe Streamline or Corel Trace. There will still be some worg getting the graphic professional looking. The best results usually come from doing it the longway.

MP

 

[keen01]

If you have Photoshop, you can select the area you want to trace by masking or using the wand, whatever suits you best. Then in the paths menu select make a work path, you can use .5 - 2.0 for the tolerance, the higher the tolerance the smoother it will be but it loses the path a bit. Then in the paths menu save path. Go to file export, paths to Illustrator. Save it. Open it in Illustrator, it's going to only be the paths so do a select all and you'll see the outline, select a fill or stroke color. It's usually not pretty unless you had a really nice scan or sketch, but it gives you something you can smooth, delete and add points to and work with.

 

[ChokingMyTrap]

For best results, tracing by hand.

For auto tracing, I used to use Streamline back in the legacy days but was f’d in OSX without a port. Did some hunting around and came across a program Silhouette (

http://www.silhouetteonline.com)

which make a plugin for tracing directly in Illustrator or a standalone program for tracing, pc and mac. Tried the trial out and I was blown away at how good it was. Adobe would have to pull miracles to win me back if they were to pull streamline out of the closet and update it ever. Last I heard a rumor that that’s going to be a future update to Illustrator, integrated raster tracing tools…. Will it be better? Will it ever happen?… who knows?


Hope that helps

Cheers ( F Corel )

 

[Sam577]

Thanks for that.

How do you get to the Paths menu to make a work path (I can't seem to find it)?

Many thanks
Sa,

 

[keen01]

In the paths window there should be a small menu button with an arrow or something on the right upper corner. Click that and you get the options window for paths. That window is also there for most of the other tabs such as layers and so on.