Live Trace & Live Color Adobe Illustrator

Overview What is Live Trace? Live Trace – Working with Line Drawings Live Trace Graphic - Practice What is Live Color? Live Color a Drawing - Practice

What is Live Trace? Process where Illustrator will take a raster graphic and convert it into a vector graphic Can anyone remind me the difference between Raster and Vector? Live trace works with any bitmap graphic: This includes line drawings that are scanned in and you want to color in using the Illustrator program Full color photographs you would like to edit/manipulate in Illustrator Or just turn into a vector graphic Caution: When working with photographs and converting them into a vector graphic via Live Trace: Illustrator will try and turn each portion of the color graphic into a vector shape, this means paths and anchors This can and will increase your file size, and also stress your computer Less is more in this process!!

Live Trace – Working with Line Drawings Some general tips when working with a line drawing (like a logo) that would be scanned in, placed and then live traced to be worked with: Best if there are no open paths and the line drawing is dark (I like to go over mine with a black marker) This process is assuming it’s just too much for the pen tool to handle Overall, this process is nice because Illustrator will try and do the heavy lifting for you When scanning in an image: Do a pre-crop – Do not leave the white space of the 8.5 x 11 scan around the logo/image Do not include color in your sketch! color in illustrator

Practice in Illustrator Live Trace a Graphic Practice in Illustrator

Live Trace a Graphic - Practice Begin by finding DogPractice.GIF in the assets zip This was a hand-drawn picture that was traced with a marker and scanned into the computer as a .GIF document Create a new Illustrator Document – Can name it DogTrace or something like that In Illustrator, begin by doing a File > Place Locate the Dog picture and select that and choose to place it Place a graphic; Input an .AI file

Image Trace a Graphic - Practice Keeping the dog graphic selected, go to the control bar and locate the Image Trace dropdown Select the “6-Color Option” and notice what happens to the dog graphic At this point – it is noa vector graphic: Try zooming in on it and resizing it, notice you lose no quality! Q: Which option would you choose for a photo of a person?

Live Trace a Graphic - Practice Notice with the 6-color option what happens to the hat of the dog Try some of the other presets and see how the lines change For this example, the best preset option is ‘Black and White Logo’ 6-Color Preset Black and White Logo Preset

Image Trace a Graphic - Practice Once you have the graphic how you want it, the final step is to expand it so we can see the paths and anchors, and prep it for Live Color Look at the control bar again, and should see an Expand button Click the button and now you should see the paths/anchors of the dog image.

What is Live Color? Live Color is a process that can be done on a Live Traced Graphic You add colors to a image traced Graphic using tools such as the Live Paint Bucket tool The graphic must have been live traced first in order to use the live color tool So just remember – You need Live Trace to Live Color!

Coloring in our Dog Sketch! Live Color Practice Coloring in our Dog Sketch!

Live Paint - Practice Select your dog picture (Make sure you expanded it from the last example) Keeping the image selected, go to the main menu bar Object > Live Paint > Make – This will convert the graphic so that it can be painted with the Live Paint Bucket Tool This is now considered to be a Live Paint Object

Live Color - Practice Once you have a live color object, navigate and chose Live Paint Selection Tool selected: Click in a shape to select it and then choose a fill color for that specific shape Can choose a swatch from the drop down for the fill, or Go to the Color Panel and select a specific color from there!

Live Color – Practice (Method 2) You can either Ctrl + Z to Undo all you did or do File > Place to place a new copy of the Dog Practice image If you do File > Place, Remember you have to re-trace the image AND expand it! This time, after expanding the image, navigate back to the Live Paint Tools (Under your Shape Builder Tool) in the Tool box and choose the Live Paint Bucket Tool Think of the Live Paint Bucket Tool like the old ‘Flood Fill’ concept – If you click in a Live Paint Area, that entire area will be colored in

Live Color – Practice (Method 2) When you first hover the Live Paint Bucket over the graphic, it will show you all the options for the different areas that it can color in Click on one and it will activate the Live Color Mode The nice thing about the Live Paint Bucket Tool is it allows you to have three colors stored and ready to go Use the arrows keys to navigate back and forth between the colors