Colorburned » Tips

A Comprehensive Guide to Illustrator’s Live Trace Tool and More

Kevin Kirsche — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:00:47 +0000

With designers relying more and more on vectors over the past few years designers have been looking for ways fast and effective methods of converting bitmap graphics into the scalable vector format. Originally Adobe utilized a program known as Streamlined but with the release of Adobe Creative Suite 2 this product was discontinued as users were introduced to the new, powerful Live Trace.

What Are Vector Graphics and Why Use Them?

Adobe Illustrator is a program created by Adobe that utilizes vector graphics as its primary method of creation. Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based on mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics (Definition). Due to the mathematical nature of vector graphics, it is possible for these forms of graphics to be resized both larger and smaller without any loss in quality. This makes vector graphics one of the most effective methods of creating drawings and illustrations.

What is Adobe Live Trace?

Adobe’s Live Trace function found within illustrator is a method of converting a bitmap graphic into a similar vector graphic consisting of primarily paths and shapes. To use Live Trace there are two primary ways to begin. The first is from the “Object” menu at the top of the screen. From here in the sixth group you will find “Live Trace” and all of the options that come with it. Similarly, you may simply click the “Live Trace” button found along the top menu bar. From each you will receive different options as to you would like to use Live Trace.

The most basic way is to simple choose one of the presets found from the “Live Trace” button found along the top menu bar or to choose “Make”. The results from this would range from simple a simplistic black and white image to a more detailed color image.

For most projects though these options simply won’t suffice and I highly recommend that professional or amateur designers DO NOT use the presets or default settings found within Live Trace.

Live Trace Options Panel

Preset – Presets are the fastest way to toggle between settings within Adobe Illustrator. Though these are a good place to start, most projects will require tweaking to other settings to receive results as the designer wishes [or will require time after the trace to clean up it up]
Mode – The Mode option allows the designer to choose whether the final vector will be in Black and White [1-bit], Grayscale [8-bit], or Color [8-bit].
Threshold – The Threshold option will allow the designer to toggle what Adobe Illustrator views as blacks and white when working in Black and White mode. An example would be with a grayscale image, a high threshold level will result in more black objects while a lower threshold level will result in more white objects. Setting the threshold too low or too high can result in a loss of image quality.
Palette – The Palette option allows for the designer to choose between Adobe Illustrator choosing the appropriate colors or the user to decide the colors to be used in within the piece. To change this from Automatic you must first load a custom swatch library the palette drop down will include these as available palettes. This forces live trace to use only colors found within that palette.
Max Colors – The Maximum Colors option allows the designer to choose the maximum number of color variations found within the final image. The more colors, the larger the file size will be and the more memory the computer will need to complete the trace.
Output to Swatches – The Output to Swatches checkbox will send the colors used in the image to your swatch box for easy access at a later point.
Blur – The Blur Option allows for the adjustment of the Gaussian blur which is used before finding the edges of the image. For most situations, the higher the blur the vaguer the shapes will become. Blur is especially useful when trying to remove noise from a traced image.
Resample – The Resample option allows for the user to change the resolution of the source file. This can speed up how long the trace will take as it lowers the scanning resolution of the image.
Fill / Stroke – These two checkboxes will change how adobe illustrator works with the pieces. By checking “Fill” Adobe Illustrator will create a vector that uses fills to create color and a solid object. On the other hand, checking the “Stroke” checkbox will allow you to only stroke the paths which Live Trace creates. This can be helpful if you would like to place the trace above a background that you wish to be able to see. Generally, a fill will create a more complex result that will match the original image best while strokes will create less anchor points but a less exact trace.
Max Stroke Weight – The Maximum Stroke Weight option allows the designer to choose what areas will be considered a “Fill” and what will be considered a “Stroke”. Anything larger than the Maximum Stroke Weight will be considered a “Fill”. This is only available when stroke is turned on.
Min Stroke Length – The Minimum Stroke Length option allows the user to choose the minimum length of required for a stroke to be included in the final image. Any value lower than this number will not be included in the final image. This is only available when stroke is turned on.
Path Fitting – The Path Fitting option allows designers to decide how closely Adobe Illustrator will follow the lines within the source image. Setting this value lower will force Illustrator to more closely follow the lines within the source image while setting this higher will allow for smoother and more relaxed lines overall.
Minimum Area – The Minimum area option allows users to choose what the smallest area that will be traced is.
Corner Angle – The Corner Angle option allows for users to set how sharp the corners can be. This option is measured in degrees. Think of zero as a flat line while 180 would be a very hard corner. The default for this setting is 20.
Ignore White – The Ignore White checkbox allows for users to decide whether Illustrator will leave the areas that include white transparent [checked] or if they shall be filled in with white [unchecked].
Preview – The Preview checkbox allows you to toggle live preview. Live preview is helpful when tweaking the settings as it allows you to see what the final result will be. If your computer is on the older side this may be to taxing in terms of resources yet it is one of the most beneficial options within the “Tracing Options” panel of Live Trace.

Expanding:

Once you have your image you can either leave it as a single layer trace or you can expand it into vector paths which you may then edit with the Direct Selection Tool [A]. To expand a newly traced item, you may either go to Object > Live Trace > “Expand”, Object > Live Trace > “Expand as Viewed”, or click “Expand” within the control palette along the top.

For those wondering, the difference between “Expand” and “Expand as Viewed” are rather simple. “Expand” will convert the entire tracing to vectors paths. “Expand as Viewed” will look at the settings you have under the View menu of Live Trace [as shown below] and expand the image based on those settings. An example of this would be if your view options are set to viewing “Outlines with Tracing”, Adobe Illustrator would then create vector paths that have a fill and stroke of “None”.

Results:

Here are the results that I was able to achieve. Please note that as with most designer programs, you will become better with Live Trace the more that you use it.

Live Trace

With the following settings:

The result was:

With vectormagic the result was:

Note the smoother background gradients found within the vectormagic version.

When should I use Live Trace?

For many, Live Trace is a good option to begin a design when working from a picture. It allows you to save time by getting a basic vector created so that you can expand it and tweak the final results with other Illustrator tools. Even if it doesn’t give the best results each and every time, it can save you time and allow you to get more comfortable with vectors. Have fun and keep designing!

Tips:

When working with a black and white image, choose grayscale to have Adobe Illustrator include anti-aliasing.

Although Live Trace is a good starting point, oftentimes it does not include the configurability needed to create high quality vectors of complex images. For those cases a good alternative is to go to http://www.vectormagic.com.

Start in black and white mode – this allows you the see the most contrast that adobe illustrator is finding and allows the output of better quality images. When ready to tweak your settings, change to grayscale or color.

Live Trace is integrated greatly with Live Paint for adding color to your results, experiment with this to get some unique and fun results!

View author’s website at razerdesign.com.

Follow author on Twitter.

SOURCES

Stock Photo Used:

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1178371

Sources consulted while compiling tutorial:

10 Tips for Effective Political Designs

Grant Friedman — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:04:22 +0000

For those of you who have been following my blog for some time, you may have noticed that I have quite a bit of experience in political design; that is graphic and web design for politicians, political organizations and government agencies. For a time, political design was my niche and I was able to work for quite a few politicians, organizations and government agencies including governors, congressmen, state representatives and city council members. I was also fortunate enough to do work for national and local organizations.

I will be the first person to tell you that political design isn’t the most glamorous sector of the design field. In fact, it can be downright boring sometimes. The upside to it is that it’s fairly consistent work. In the U.S. there can be elections every year with new candidates, new themes, new issues, etc. It’s also a great way to participate in the political process that does not involve stuffing envelopes, getting chased by dogs walking door-to-door and making phone calls.

With so much experience in political design I’ve decided to write a short article describing what works, what doesn’t and what’s just plain ugly so you don’t have to learn these things the hard way, like I did.

Don’t be afraid to be creative
I’ve seen a lot of political designs in my time. I’ll be honest; most of it looks exactly the same; like crap. The best political designs are unique. Don’t bore your audience with the same red, white and blue design. Add some different colors or come up with a new and catchy slogan. These types of things will make your message stand out from the rest.

Bigger isn’t always better
Politicians love to see their name in big print and the bigger, the better. A long time ago they built monuments in their name, today, they have TV, internet, billboards and yard signs.

In all my time designing for politicians there has been one constant. Everyone I have ever worked for has said at one time or another “Can you make my name a little bigger?”

I’m not knocking big print. There are certainly uses for it. Obviously, there are some instances where the print needs to be bigger so it can be seen from far away; for instance, a billboard or yard sign that needs to be seen from the road. The size of the print however, should never come at the expense of the overall design of the composition. For instance, you should always maintain a pleasing margin. Don’t extend the text to the edges of the paper. I know this sounds silly but I’ve had a lot of clients ask for this. If your text is too big, it can make the composition cluttered and hard to read.

There are more than three colors in the spectrum
Be open-minded. Red, white and blue aren’t the only colors in the spectrum. Think about using a color like yellow, green or orange to set your designs apart from the others. This might be one of the more controversial tips that I give. Conventional wisdom says that red, white and blue works. So why change it? To be honest, red, white and blue is boring. Try something different, it might just work out!

Don’t put red text on a blue background
I see this mistake all the time. Never place red text on a blue background. Red text on a blue background is hard to read. If you’re sticking with the red, white and blue color scheme, use white text instead. It looks much better.

Use symbolism sparingly
Symbolism is an important part of political design. It’s very common to see waving flags, stars, stripes or maybe an eagle or two in a political design but try not to go overboard. If you’re design starts to look like heavy metal album, take a step back and try to tone it down a bit. Remember, your design should be clean and refined. Don’t clutter it up with symbols. Stay focused on the candidate and the message.

State outlines are ugly
There’s a tendency for a lot of designers to use the shape of their particular state in their designs. This is one of my pet peeves. You should never use the outline of a particular state in your design. This is a crutch that lazy designers use to link the candidate with the state that they are running in. There are better ways to do this. Try thinking differently. What do most people think about when they think about California? Maybe the beach? Warm weather? Palm trees? Think along those lines and maybe something will pop out at you.

Don’t over-use bold text
Designers bold something when we want some words to stand out. This is one of those Design 101 things. The problem is that a lot of clients will want to bold everything and if everything is bolded, then nothing will stand out. Try to think of other ways to make something stand out. Change the color, make the text bigger, use a different font but do your best to not over use bold text.

Don’t say too much
Big surprise, politicians are long-winded and when it comes to ad copy, they want to say as much about themselves as possible. The problem is that most people won’t read the majority of your text. Try to keep your ad copy down to a couple short slogans and a paragraph or two. The less text you include, the higher the odds your text will be read.

Enlist the help of a professional designer
The scariest thing to come out of a candidate’s mouth is when they tell you that they are going to design their own campaign graphics or if they tell you that their grandson knows Photoshop. Doing this type of thing in-house is a big mistake. Professional designers spend their entire lives thinking about design. They understand what looks good and what doesn’t. They’ve learned through trial and error and won’t make the same mistakes that your grandson will. Hire a professional, you won’t regret it.

Hire a good photographer
There was a time when photography was an art form; when a photographer was a person who spent most of their time in a dark room developing film. Now that we’ve switched from film to digital, everyone thinks they are a photographer. This is a problem. Anyone can take a picture, but not everyone is a photographer. If you want your designs to be great, you need great photos. The only way that you will have great photos is if you hire a great photographer.

Once you have your photographer, you’ll want to keep a few things in mind.

Make sure that the photographer knows what these photos are going to be used for. If they’re going to be used in print, it is sometimes good for him to leave some room on the top, bottom, left or right for the designer to add some text.
Make sure that the photos that the photographer takes reinforce the mood of the design you are hoping to create. For instance, if you’re sending out a piece of mail advertising a fundraiser with the candidate, use a nice photo of the candidate (maybe with his family), and maybe some photos of the candidate meeting people, shaking hands, etc..
Make sure that the setting is appropriate. Don’t take photos of the candidate and their family for an ad in which the candidate is attacking their opponent.

Lens Flares That Don’t Suck in Photoshop

Grant Friedman — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:47:19 +0000

Everybody knows that Photoshop’s lens flare effect sucks! Unfortunately, it seems to be the first effect that people try after installing the software. It doesn’t take long, however, to realize how terrible it actually is. It gives you very little control over the look of the flare, it creates all sorts of little lines and circles that you really don’t want and takes a lot of trial and error to produce an effect that isn’t all that good in the end anyways. The question then becomes, how do you produce flare effects without it?

Well, there are a number of ways. You can download a Photoshop brush and use that. I have found that some brushes work fairly well although if you’re working with a high resolution image, forget about it. You could also create the flare on your own using soft, round brushes and a little bit of ingenuity. Abduzeedo has a lot of great lighting effect tutorials on his site. You can use a combination of his effects to create a similar effect. This however takes time to do. So how can you create cool, nice-looking lens flare effects quickly?

A couple months back I came across a program called Knoll Light Factory. It comes packed with options and effects for creating lens flare effects. Check out this tutorial from YouTube.

The software costs $149 to buy and $89 to upgrade. You can download the demo and try it out for yourself!