New life for my old bitmap drawings?

[Syl_Mulder@adobeforums.com]

Hi,

How do I make my old bitmap drawings look like they were drawn in Illustrator using the paintbrush tool?

Thanks,
Syl

[Jonathan_McClintic@adobeforums.com]

Syl,

You need to be more specific. Illustrator is a vector based program, so you can trace or recreate a bit map using the tools in Illustrator. You can't how ever actually edit the bit map itself. For that you need Photoshop, which using filters, levels and mask, can freshen up an old bit map if you know what you are doing. If you have a specific question, or can post the image so we can see it, then we can give you more specific advice.

Jonathan

[Christine_Krof_Shock@adobeforums.com]

A cheat on this is to run the cutout filter on a duplicate of your image in Photoshop (you don't have to do this, it just gives you smoother results at times). Then magic wand individual colors and save those selections as paths, naming and saving them in the paths palette. Once you have all of the paths that you want--go to File>Export>Paths to Illustrator. Make sure you have All paths selected. Open the Path file in Illustrator (it will appear blank) and change the view from Preview to Outlines (Artwork) You will see your paths appear! To get them to show in Preview, marquee around all of the paths and change the stroke from none to black! Instant vector of raster artwork!

[Jonathan_McClintic@adobeforums.com]

Christine is right. I have often used that trick to make vector images of bitmaps. You may still have to clean up the paths some what, as the jagged edges of the bitmap will cause some complex paths that will need to be cleaned up using either the minus pen tool or the simplify paths tool (under pencil). A quick trick when opening the file in Illustrator is to just select all (crtl-A) then hit D. This converts everything to the basic black 1 point path with white fill.

Jonathan

[Timothy_Foolery®@adobeforums.com]

simplify paths tool (under pencil).




Under pencil in Flash, under Object/Path in Illy.