Datis Design Weblog

Illustrator by Farshad

One of the coolest options in Adobe Illustrator is tracing. You can easily convert a raster image to vector ones. But how can you do it ?

I am using Illustrator CS3 in this tutorial.

First create a new document in Illustrator, then place your desired image using place command in file menu. After placing your image you will see Trace Option Bar in Illustrator options bar like this image :

Now you can easily convert your image to vector by pressing Live Trace button :

You can access to more options by clicking the Tracing Option Dialog :

Tracing Options :

• Preset defines the preset you want to trace an image.
• Mode determines the color mode.
• Threshold defines the value for creating black and white image, pixels that are brighter than this value will be white and pixels that are darker than this value will be black. This option is only available for black and white tracing.
• Palette defines the color in tracing image.
• Max Colors defines the maximum color that will be used in trace an image. This option is only available in color and grayscale mode.
• Output to Swatches will create a new swatch for every color in traced image.
• Blur will blur the trace image to specific amount.
• Resample will resample traced image to specific resolution.
• Fills creates filled regions in the tracing result.
• Strokes creates stroked paths in the tracing result.
• Max Stroke Weight determines the maximum width for converting to a stroke path.
• Min Stroke Length determines the minimum length to converting to a stroke path.
• Path Fitting controls the distance between the traced shape and the original pixel shape. Lower values create a tighter path fitting; higher values create a looser path fitting.
• Minimum Area defines the smallest part of an original image that should be traced.
• Corner Angle defines the sharpness of an angles in traced images.
• Raster specifies how to display the bitmap component of the tracing object.
• Vector specifies how to display the tracing result.