Photo Trace

Through the “Photo Trace”, we can convert a photograph of a bitmap type, into a vector type.

To do this, we first place the photo in Illustrator. Seems quite logical.

With the photo selected, you have two options to change the type to a vector file.

The first is the “Live Trace” button in the options bar.

This will draw on the picture with the default values, which are black / white.

If you click the downward pointing arrow next to this button, it opens a drop-down menu with different values of trace.

All these seem clear to me, so lets take a look at what happens if we draw a picture.

As an example I choose “Live Trace”.
This makes my picture into a black / white vector file.
Through the “Threshold” (1), determine what should be black and what should be white in the picture.
Through the “Tracing Options” (2), you can still modify the tracing values.

When we click on the “Tracing Options” button, it opens the “Tracing Options” dialog.
Change the “Preset” box to another color value, for example, 16 colors.
This is useful when you trace on the photo in color, the colors used in the tracing are automatically added to the “Swatches” palette.
Select this check box for the text “Output to Swatches”.
For the rest of the options in this dialog, you should try and select the box “Preview”. Then you can immediately see the result.

If you later wish to have the same settings, click the “Save Preset” button, enter a name for the settings and click the OK button.
This setting will add to the list with different settings.

If you have checked the “Output to Swatches” option in the dialog box, you will see that all the colors in the image have been added to the “Swatches” panel (1).

To color parts of the vector image, you use the “Live Paint Bucket” tool (1).
When your cursor over the image, you see that it is modified in a bucket with three colors above (2). Illustrator gets these colors from “Swatches” panel. To navigate between the different colors from the “Swatches” window, click the right and left pointing arrows on your keyboard.
Illustrator will apply the middle color when you click the mouse button.

If there are any gaps that are not colored, then you can request help from Illustrator.

Just click the “Gap Options” button (1) in the options bar.

This opens the “Gap Options” dialog.

Select the “Gap Detection” box.

Choose a size that Illustrator should use as an intermediate space.

You may select the “Gap Preview color” so you can easily see what Illustrator sees as an open space and click the OK button.

Illustrator will automatically fill the spaces with the applied color.

Tip!
If you want a transparent color, select the transparent color as the selected color in the “Live Paint Bucket” tool.

You always find this in the “Swatches” panel and hence in the color picker tool in “Live Paint Bucket” too.

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