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Live Trace is a feature inside of Illustrator that allows you to trace
pixel-based content and convert it automatically into vector paths.
Before we get started tracing images, it's important to set the right expectations
upfront. Making the transition from a pixel-based image to vector-based
artwork is not absolute. It's a translation and as such that translation is
open to interpretation. Every image that you work on is going to be somewhat
different and therefore the settings for that trace will also be different.
Likewise, you'll find that Live Trace excels at certain types of task, but
maybe not at others. For the most part though, it's important to
realize that Live Trace was created by Adobe as more of a creative type of tool.
We'll go through many of the settings, but as you'll soon see, you can't always expect
to get the perfect results from every type of image. For example, let's
take this Lynda.com logo that's right over here. This is actually an
image that I have taken right off the lynda.com website. You can even see here
that it's a GIF file that's 72 pixels per inch. I can't tell you how many
times I've received logos or artwork from clients that are simply taken
right off from their websites. These clients of course expect that this artwork
should print perfectly on their high quality print brochure. The reality
is as a designer you may be faced with having to recreate such artwork.
Let me zoom in here on the artwork over here and I'll apply the Live Trace and
you'll see that I don't really get the best results. We can talk about how
to make the trace better, but I'll also tell you that if you are trying
to replicate something exactly or perfectly, Live Trace may not be the best
way to go. But don't worry. Throughout this chapter we'll learn all types
of techniques to get just the kind of results that you want. Let me move
over here to this next image. This is actually a 2D bar code used in mobile
applications and again, by just clicking on the Live Trace button here, I see that
I really don't get the results that I may be looking for.
Because it's a simple and straightforward image though, I can use some of the
settings inside of Live Trace to get better results. Finally, I move over here
to this image as well and I'll click on it. Here I'll kind of open up more
some of the interpretation of what this artwork actually is. It was sketched or
drawn either on paper and then scanned into Photoshop, or maybe was drawn
directly inside of Photoshop. But here by clicking Live Trace, I do seem to get
the results that seem to be more along the lines that I'm looking for. Finally,
let me zoom out over here and I'll actually click on the photograph.
This is really where I believe that Live Trace excels.
Again, more as a creative tool. I can work with so many photographic in nature
like this and with one click of button get more of a stylized results. Now that
we have a better understanding of what to expect out of Live Trace,
we can begin to explore all of its settings to get just the results that we want.