Adobe Illustrator Tutorials Live Trace

Perhaps one of the most underutilized features in Illustrator is Live Trace, which can convert any photograph into vector art in just a few clicks. In this tutorial, we’re going to use Live Trace to vectorize a photo for a logo design. Now, of course, all images are different, so depending on the final effect you want to achieve, you’ll need to experiment with the settings that we’ll be using here.

1 PICK YOUR PHOTO
What we’re creating here is a logo for a surf shop, so we’ll start with a photograph. Here we made a composite photo of a couple of palm trees along with a surfer against a white background and saved it as a Photoshop file.
CREDIT FOR PALM TREES: ©FOTOLIA/YONG HIAN LIM
CREDIT FOR SURFER: ©FOTOLIA/TARZOUN

2 CONVERT TO GRAYSCALE AND EXPAND
In Illustrator, create a new RGB document and go to File>Place. Locate the file you prepared above and click the Place button. Once the image is placed, keep it selected. Locate the Live Trace button in the Options Bar, click on the arrow next to it, and choose Grayscale (this may take a moment). When it’s done, click the Expand button in the Options Bar. When the paths are revealed, go to Object>Ungroup, then select the white background with the Selection tool (V) and press Delete (PC: Backspace). the white between the surfer’s legs as well. The grayscale graphic should be all that remains.

3 TRIM GRAPHIC WITH KNIFE TOOL
The ground extends a little farther out than we need for the final logo, so let’s trim it up with the Knife tool (it’s grouped with the Eraser tool in the Toolbox). On the left side, start above the ground and click-and-drag across the art to cut it. Do the same to the other side, and then select these areas. If more than the cut areas are selected then you probably need to ungroup them. Go under the Object menu and choose Ungroup. Reselect only the cut areas and press Delete (PC: Backspace).