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Design Center Tutorial

Migrating from FreeHand to Illustrator: Live Paint and Live Trace

Mordy Golding

Mordy Golding

 

lynda.com

www.lynda.com

 

Created:
21 March 2007
User Level:
Advanced
Products:
Illustrator

Check out two great new features in Adobe® Illustrator® CS2: Live Trace and Live Paint.  In this series of short video tutorials from the Migrating from FreeHand to Illustrator series, you’ll learn about:

  • Converting bitmaps to vectors
  • Creating Live Trace presets
  • Working with Live Paint groups
  • Working with Live Paint selections

To follow along with this tutorial, download livetracelivepaint.zip

livetracelivepaint.zip (ZIP, 1.9M)

Converting bitmaps to vectors

Learn about Live Trace, a great new feature in Illustrator CS2. Live Trace lets you convert bitmap images to vector images. Watch this short video tutorial to learn more.

Watch the video (8:00 minutes)

Creating Live Trace presets

After you’ve used Live Trace to convert a bitmap image to vector data, you can manipulate the image as you would any other object in your Illustrator file. Mordy Golding shows you how to set up Tracing Options presets that you can apply to Live Trace objects.

Watch the video (5:44 minutes)

Working with Live Paint groups

Much like Live Trace, the Live Paint feature in Illustrator CS2 offers another way to create vector graphics that have the look of hand-drawn. Watch this short video tutorial to learn all about this great new feature.

Watch the video (6:19 minutes)

Working with Live Paint selections

Learn all about the Live Paint Selection tool in Illustrator CS2. This great tool allows you to select parts of an object based on their appearance. Learn more by watching this last segment.

Watch the video (2:57 minutes)

Where to go from here

For more information about Migrating from FreeHand to Illustrator, check out the following resources:

About the authors

Mordy Golding has been a production artist for print and the web for many years, and is an Adobe Certified Expert and Adobe Certified Print Specialist. At Adobe, he was the product manager for Illustrator 10 and Illustrator CS. A popular presenter at Macworld, Photoshop World and other worldwide events, Mordy is also the author of several books, including SAMS Teach Yourself Adobe Creative Suite All in One, The Web Designer's Guide to Color, and SAMS Teach Yourself Adobe Illustrator in 24 Hours. In 2003, Mordy was named a Champion of Graphic Design by Graphics IQ. Currently he serves as the founder of DesignResponsibly.com, teaching designers and printers how to successfully adopt today's new technology. Mordy is also the author of the Illustrator CS2 and Flash 8 Integration video training title published by lynda.com.

Excerpted from “Migrating from FreeHand to Illustrator with: Mordy Golding” © 2006. Used with the permission of lynda.com. To view the full-length video-based tutorial series, please visit www.lynda.com.