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Live Trace and Live Paint — A powerful duo
Adobe® Illustrator® CS2 gives users the ability to quickly convert bitmap files to vector drawings with its new Live Trace command and then you can easily color them with its companion command Live Paint. If you like to create digital work from hand-drawn sketches or use photographs for inspiration, you can scan your initial concept and use Live Trace and Live Paint together to create finished digital illustrations in a fraction of the time required in previous version of Adobe Illustrator. Here's an introduction to putting these tools to use.
Tracing from a source image
Create a new Illustrator document and make sure that the Control palette is displayed (Window>Control Palette). Open or place a file to use as the source image for tracing. Select the source image and then click the Live Trace button in the Control palette. You can also choose Live Trace > Make from the Object menu. This applies default tracing settings. Before you trace, you can set tracing values yourself, either using a preset, or specifying your own choices by clicking the Tracing Presets and Options button in the Control palette just to the right of the Live Trace button. You can control maximum stroke weight, maximum pixel length of features to be stroked, path fitting and more. If you choose Tracing Options at the bottom of the Tracing Preset and Options menu, you can click the Preview checkbox on the right and experiment to find the optimal settings for your image.
Make the tracing ready for enhancement
After you have clicked the Live Trace button, convert your tracing to a Live Paint object by clicking the Live Paint button in the Control palette, (you can also choose Live Trace > Convert To Live Paint from the Object menu.) The tracing is now a group of objects, all on the same layer, that works with the Live Paint Bucket tool to help you select, paint, and stroke fills and edges.
Handling gaps
Automatic tracing can leave small spaces between paths that may allow paint to leak through them if objects are not entirely enclosed. You could manually edit paths to close them, but Illustrator CS2 provides a quick way find and fix gaps. After you have used the Live Paint tool, test for gaps by choosing Live Paint>Gap Options from the Object menu.
On the Gap Options dialog box, click the Gap Detection and the Preview checkboxes. This lets you see any gaps and summarizes how many there are under the Preview button. You can force Illustrator to retain paint within objects that have gaps in one of two ways: by stopping paint at either small, medium, or large gaps, or by clicking the Close Gaps With Paths button at the bottom of the dialog box to revise the traced drawing close the gaps with paths.
Coloring the vector art
Now you are ready to color your artwork. Open the Swatches palette, and create or load a swatch library that contains the colors you want to use in the tracing. Set the fill and stroke attributes, then click the Live Paint Bucket on the toolbar and move it over the tracing until a section is highlighted, then click to apply the fill and stroke attributes you previously set. If you want to use different colors on other parts of the drawing, be sure to first set the color and fill options before you use the Live Paint Bucket.
Going beyond a brief introduction
This brief introduction to Live Trace and Live Paint will help you get started using this powerful combination of tools. These features allow you to easily combine traditional artistic methods, such as sketching with vector graphics, and provide an intuitive painter-like approach to coloring the elements. Once you start using these new features, you can try tracing photographic images as well. You'll find lots of ways these tools save you time. You'll learn how they can be customized to your work style or can be adjusted to respond to tricky challenges.
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