Up until now, we've been working primarily with photographs when it came to the Image Trace panel. But undoubtedly, the most common use for the Image Trace panel is taking something like a hand drawn sketch or illustration, or a logo that's been scanned in, and converting that line art drawing into scalable vector art. And that's what we're going to be talking about in this movie. How to take raster versions of line art and recreate them into a vector form. So, I'm going to go to the File menu > New. And this time I'm just going to choose something like a Print preset and letter, and we're going to make sure we're in a Landscape Orientation, hit OK. Then, we're going to hit File > Place.
This time do car_sketch and place it into the document. It doesn't matter where you place it, just put it somewhere in there. And once I get that out on screen, I'll move it so you can see it. I basically want to take this sketch and I want to convert it into vector art. The key is going to be picking the right preset. If I were to choose something like Technical Drawing or Sketched Art or Black and White logo, for instance, it might not be exactly what I'm looking for. Like for instance, this is Line Art because its drawn with a series of lines. But if I pick Line Art from that preset and watch what it does, you're going to be amazed at how bad it is. Absolutely terrible.
It looks like a bunch of ants running around my screen. Let's say I chose something like Technical Drawing. This is going to go through, it looks even worse. So, finding the right starting point is the key. I'm going to turn Preview off. And we're going to go in and I'm going to choose something like Sketched Art. When I do, that's going to turn it on. That looks okay, but it doesn't have any colors. Easy way around that is to change this, from Black and White, to Color. And then, the limited palette here, what we're going to do, is we're going to scale that back to something like 30 colors. And, when it finishes, it actually looks really smooth. And if I zoom in, you can see it's not very chunky. It looks like a pretty good representation. And I did that just with a few clicks.
All I did was take the Sketched Art preset and change the palette from Black and White to a limited color palette with 30 colors. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you have to spend hours in here. I would still make some tweaks to this though. For instance, I really want this to have pretty good path fitting. So, I'm going to increase the amount of paths in here. And I didn't turn my Preview off, but this renders pretty quickly with this preset here. So, I don't really have to worry about it all that much. The corners here, I'm going to leave those right about the middle. There's probably as many straight lines as there are curved lines in this. So, I really don't have to worry about that. The noise value.
This depends on how much I want to pick up. I'm going to reduce this to something like five pixels. Let's see what this does. When I do that, it should pick up more detail in some of the areas of the car. Alright, now that that's finished you can see it's picked up a little more detail here on the side right around the gas cap. Also picked up some more detail here in the grill area. And so, that just helps bring back some of those sketch lines. Makes it more of a hand drawn look. Aside from that, I'm pretty much good to go. Let's take a look here at the Source Image versus the Tracing Result. Again, a pretty good conversion.
You can also see outlines over the Source Image to see just how close the paths are fitting. You can say just the outlines. You can tracing result with outlines or you can switch just between the regular Tracing Result and Source Image. It's going to be different for each project that you bring in here. And if you really want to dive deep and learn all there is to know about the tracing artwork in Illustrator, I really suggest you go check out that course. Otherwise, just take some time, play around with the presets. Like I said, it's going to be different for each project, but hopefully by now you've got a better understanding of what everything does in this panel. So that when you bring in objects, you can get the most out of this panel your on artwork as well.
Author
Updated
10/13/2014Released
6/17/2013First, author Justin Seeley explains the basic elements that make up vector graphics—paths, strokes, and fills—and shows how to use each of the program's powerful drawing tools. Then he shows how to create documents and liven up a project with color, plus build complex shapes from simple paths and trace bitmap images and line art. The course also explores the benefits of using layers and symbols, and shows how to edit text, draw in perspective, and much more. The final chapter explains how to output your work in several formats and use Illustrator files in Photoshop and InDesign.
- Understanding vector graphics
- Creating documents for different contexts
- Organizing artwork with rulers, guides, and grids
- Making detailed selections
- Resizing, rotating, and transforming objects
- Creating swatches and color libraries
- Working with fills and strokes
- Using the Shape Builder and Image Trace features
- Drawing and editing paths
- Understanding the difference between point and area type
- Adjusting the appearance of artwork with live effects
- Printing, saving, and exporting artwork
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
Q: This course was updated on 6/18/2014. What changed?
A: We revised chapters covering paths, working with type, and the Pen tool. These updates reflect changes to the Pen and Pencil tool behavior in the June 2014 update to Illustrator CC. These tools now offer greater fidelity and previews. We also added one new video, "Packaging your artwork for commercial print," which covers the enhanced packaging workflow.
Q: This course was updated on 10/13/2014. What changed?
A: We added tutorials to cover the most exciting changes to Illustrator CC 2014: the Join and Curvature tools and the all-new Design Libraries. These new movies are marked with the "(CC 2014.1)" tag.
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InDesign CC 2013 Essential Training
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Photoshop CC 2015 Essential Training
with Julieanne Kost12h 27m Beginner
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Adobe Illustrator
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What is Illustrator?1m 14s
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Introduction
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Welcome59s
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1. Getting Started
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Setting preferences8m 12s
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Touring the interface6m 37s
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Exploring the panels3m 18s
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2. Working with Documents
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Creating files for print3m 24s
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Creating files for the web3m 29s
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Navigating within a document5m 21s
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Using preview modes3m 10s
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Locking and hiding artwork3m 43s
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Creating and using artboards7m 44s
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3. Selecting and Transforming Objects
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Using the Magic Wand tool5m 45s
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Using the Lasso tool4m 9s
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Grouping objects3m 7s
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Using isolation mode4m 48s
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Resizing your artwork3m 55s
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Rotating objects2m 10s
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4. Working with Color
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RGB vs. CMYK1m 46s
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Creating spot colors3m 40s
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Using the swatch groups2m 33s
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Working with color libraries3m 17s
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Importing swatches4m 4s
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Using the Color Guide panel3m 51s
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5. Working with Fills and Strokes
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Working with fills4m 58s
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Working with strokes8m 46s
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Using width profiles3m 31s
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Outlining strokes2m 5s
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6. Working with Paths
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Understanding paths2m 34s
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Understanding anchor points3m 43s
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Open and closed paths4m 21s
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Joining and averaging paths3m 57s
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7. Creating Shapes
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Understanding drawing modes4m 23s
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Creating compound paths5m 15s
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Creating compound shapes4m 11s
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8. Don't Be Afraid of the Pen Tool
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Exploring the Pen tool2m 53s
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Drawing straight lines4m 33s
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Drawing simple curves3m 26s
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9. Using Type in Illustrator
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Adjusting your type settings6m 22s
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Creating point and area text2m 54s
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Basic text editing2m 30s
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Creating threaded text3m 44s
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Creating text on a path4m 22s
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Converting text into paths2m 20s
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Using Typekit desktop fonts2m 54s
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10. Adjusting Appearance
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Applying multiple fills3m 1s
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Applying multiple strokes4m 20s
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11. Working with Layers
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Exploring the Layers panel4m 18s
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Creating and editing layers3m 27s
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Using the Layers panel menu2m 42s
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12. Working with Images
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Working with the Links panel3m 37s
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Cropping images with a mask2m 56s
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Tracing photographs7m 29s
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Tracing line art3m 48s
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Converting pixels to paths2m 39s
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13. Creating and Using Symbols
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What are symbols?2m 45s
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Using prebuilt symbols3m 3s
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Using the Symbol Sprayer4m 19s
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Creating new symbols3m 50s
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Breaking the symbol link3m 19s
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Redefining symbols2m 5s
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14. Drawing in Perspective
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Defining a perspective grid4m 29s
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Applying artwork to the grid3m 51s
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15. Printing, Saving, and Exporting
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Printing your artwork3m 58s
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Saving your artwork1m 31s
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Saving templates4m 19s
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Creating PDF files5m 23s
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Saving for the web4m 46s
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Conclusion
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Goodbye1m 12s
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Video: Tracing line art