Quick Tip: Make Vector Silhouettes with Live Trace and Photoshop
Tutorial Details
- Program: Illustrator CS4
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Length: 4:09 min
Live Trace is a quick and easy way to make vector silhouettes from photos. If your photo is less than perfect, Photoshop can help. In this Video Quick Tip you will learn how master the Live Trace settings and turn a raster image into a clean vector shape.
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By Cheryl Graham
Cheryl Graham trained as a traditional artist in drawing and painting. These days she spends more time in front of the computer than the easel. Her Illustrator work has been featured in the "The Adobe Illustrator WOW! Book" and "Real World Illustrator CS5." She wrote the now-defunct Illustrator blog at freetransform.net.
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Really nice tip! Works well for Photoshop too, since it involves a selection via Channels.
For a 2 in 1 tip i can only say THANKS! :D
To really makje this a killer tip, please explain how this would be transformed to a custom shape in photoshop. I can’t figure that one out =]
Well we’re more Illustrator than Photoshop here – but to make a custom shape in PSD from AI – you paste the vector into a photoshop document – select the Paste As Shape Layer option in the dialogue box that pops up – then with the shape selected, go to Edit> Define Custom Shape :)
Very nice tip!!!! tks a lot!
Very Cool! Thanks for this!
Amazing Tutorial!!! Thanks!!!
Awesome tutorial and really easy to follow. Thanks.
Great quick tip as always from Cheryl. Thanks!
Thanks Cheryl, very gooood !
I’m not able to recolor my items afterwards. Any idea why?
Anthony, did you expand the Live Trace? It won’t become vector — and this able to be recolored — until it is expanded.
This is what I’ve been looking for. Thank you sooooooo much. Good job.
Great information, and very well explained. Thanks for posting!
@cheryl Yes, I am hitting the expand button, this is very odd. When I try to change the color, It can only be changed to any variety of greys and black. This is probably something very simple I’m missing.
Could it be that your document is Grayscale instead of RGB or CMYK?
haha, well it is in rgb mode. I’m placing an image in and then doing what you say in the video. I am able to re-color the outline, but not the fill. No matter what color I try to fill, it always turns it a grey or a black. Very odd. O well, thanks for trying to help though!
Very cool video!
Thanks for the tut!
Like this tut,thanks for posting!!