It's a trade off really - the more accurate the result, the more anchor points on the vector graphic, and the slower the machine creates it - but it still does a better job than Adobe Streamline ever did.Īnd here's the result. The accuracy of the line art depends on the resolution of the original and the settings you selected in the Tracing Options dialogue box. You'll end up with a vectorized line art facsimile of the original. If you'd like to keep the original in the document, duplicate the layer containing the image before making the conversion. This will delete the original image from the layer and replace it with the new vectorized line art illustration. When you're happy with the look of the line art, select Object/Live Trace/Expand. For this image I used the settings as shown below.

With Preview selected, this can be quite a time-consuming process depending on the speed of the computer you're using, but I've found it's the only way to get good results. Adjust the settings until you're happy with the results. Select Black and White under Mode (or Grayscale if you'd like to include anti-aliasing). This will open the Live Trace dialogue box.Ĭlick the Preview checkbox on the right. Once it's placed, select the image and go to Object/Live Trace/Tracing Options. Place the image to be traced in Illustrator by selecting File/Place. If your image is going to be black and white line art, it's best to make the edges as clearly defined as possible in Photoshop by using the levels tool (and possibly threshold as well). Below is a public domain image which I'll use as an example. Here is how to use it to create accurate, clean line art in Illustrator. Adobe Streamline was a standalone tracing product (to create vector graphic versions of rasterized images) which was improved, integrated into CS2, and renamed Live Trace.

Earlier trace tools weren't worth using if you wanted to create something with any accuracy - but that's all changed. The Live Trace tool which was introduced into Adobe Illustrator CS2 is great for tracing line art, or even photos. Use Live Trace to Create Line Art in Adobe Illustrator

Adobe illustrator what is it used for