Tracing Bitmaps

[Brian Dusablon]

Anybody have any good tutorials or advice on the best way to trace images
using Freehand?

--
Brian Dusablon

[James E. Talmage]

Easy way to learn the Pen: Take advantage of "bendomatic."

Get the Pen tool. Click Click Click at what seem to be logical places along
the edges of the art you are tracing (corners, of course; and places of
obvious direction change). As you go, when you have several segments drawn,
temporarily press the Ctrl and Alt keys (Command & Option on Mac). While
holding these two keys, go back and bend a segment that should be curved by
dragging its middle. its handles will automatically extend accordingly, and
if need be, you can adjust them too. Do this for as many segments as you
want before lifting the keys. When you release the keys, the Pen is restored
and the next click will be a continuation of where you left off.

One of the best (and most under-utilized) features of FH since way back
when. They wrecked it during FH9 and 10, but it seems to be working nicely
again in MXa.

JET

[Brian Dusablon]

thanks..

so I take it the "trace" tool is not as effective?



"James E. Talmage" <JETnospam@IllustrationETC.com> wrote in message
news:caqk9i$944$1@forums.macromedia.com...
Easy way to learn the Pen: Take advantage of "bendomatic."

Get the Pen tool. Click Click Click at what seem to be logical places along
the edges of the art you are tracing (corners, of course; and places of
obvious direction change). As you go, when you have several segments drawn,
temporarily press the Ctrl and Alt keys (Command & Option on Mac). While
holding these two keys, go back and bend a segment that should be curved by
dragging its middle. its handles will automatically extend accordingly, and
if need be, you can adjust them too. Do this for as many segments as you
want before lifting the keys. When you release the keys, the Pen is restored
and the next click will be a continuation of where you left off.

One of the best (and most under-utilized) features of FH since way back
when. They wrecked it during FH9 and 10, but it seems to be working nicely
again in MXa.

JET

[Wes Rand]

No.

Brian Dusablon wrote:

> thanks..
>
> so I take it the "trace" tool is not as effective?
>
>
>
> "James E. Talmage" <JETnospam@IllustrationETC.com> wrote in message
> news:caqk9i$944$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Easy way to learn the Pen: Take advantage of "bendomatic."
>
> Get the Pen tool. Click Click Click at what seem to be logical places along
> the edges of the art you are tracing (corners, of course; and places of
> obvious direction change). As you go, when you have several segments drawn,
> temporarily press the Ctrl and Alt keys (Command & Option on Mac). While
> holding these two keys, go back and bend a segment that should be curved by
> dragging its middle. its handles will automatically extend accordingly, and
> if need be, you can adjust them too. Do this for as many segments as you
> want before lifting the keys. When you release the keys, the Pen is restored
> and the next click will be a continuation of where you left off.
>
> One of the best (and most under-utilized) features of FH since way back
> when. They wrecked it during FH9 and 10, but it seems to be working nicely
> again in MXa.
>
> JET
>
>
>

[Judy Arndt]

Brian, I use the trace tool occasionally, but it requires a high resolution
image with sharply defined color edges. Experiment with the trace tool
settings until you get what you need. Read the FH Help files to understand
the various selection methods (marquee vs. click) and conversion methods.

The trace tool cannot not accurately trace a scan with fine details such a a
scanned letterhead or business card. If someone sends you a small web logo,
I can almost guarantee you won't be able to auto-trace it successfully.

The trace tool is useful for tracing scanned line art such as a black ink
drawing, letter size, scanned at 300 ppi or better.

The trace tool useful for converting a photo scan to a limited range of spot
colors for an organic, posterized look. This can be useful for spot ink
output such a garment screen printing. In this case set the trace tool to
the number of ink colors you want to print, plus the substrate color which
would be non-printing.

Judy Arndt


Brian Dusablon wrote:

> thanks..
>
> so I take it the "trace" tool is not as effective?

[Brian Dusablon]

Thanks for the insight Judy, it's much appreciated!

"Judy Arndt" <jarndt@shawbiz.ca> wrote in message
news:BCF7366A.1BECF%jarndt@shawbiz.ca...
Brian, I use the trace tool occasionally, but it requires a high resolution
image with sharply defined color edges. Experiment with the trace tool
settings until you get what you need. Read the FH Help files to understand
the various selection methods (marquee vs. click) and conversion methods.

The trace tool cannot not accurately trace a scan with fine details such a a
scanned letterhead or business card. If someone sends you a small web logo,
I can almost guarantee you won't be able to auto-trace it successfully.

The trace tool is useful for tracing scanned line art such as a black ink
drawing, letter size, scanned at 300 ppi or better.

The trace tool useful for converting a photo scan to a limited range of spot
colors for an organic, posterized look. This can be useful for spot ink
output such a garment screen printing. In this case set the trace tool to
the number of ink colors you want to print, plus the substrate color which
would be non-printing.

Judy Arndt


Brian Dusablon wrote:

> thanks..
>
> so I take it the "trace" tool is not as effective?

[Brian Dusablon]

To re-visit this issue, I'm still having some problems...

I am trying to trace a highly detailed map of the world, taken from a
mediocre image. I'm going to assume this is next to impossible to do with
the trace function. I've also tried the trace bitmap function in Flash, but
come up empty as well.

Any ideas?


"Brian Dusablon" <bdusablon@DONOTSPAMME.com> wrote in message
news:casumi$a2i$1@forums.macromedia.com...
Thanks for the insight Judy, it's much appreciated!

"Judy Arndt" <jarndt@shawbiz.ca> wrote in message
news:BCF7366A.1BECF%jarndt@shawbiz.ca...
Brian, I use the trace tool occasionally, but it requires a high resolution
image with sharply defined color edges. Experiment with the trace tool
settings until you get what you need. Read the FH Help files to understand
the various selection methods (marquee vs. click) and conversion methods.

The trace tool cannot not accurately trace a scan with fine details such a a
scanned letterhead or business card. If someone sends you a small web logo,
I can almost guarantee you won't be able to auto-trace it successfully.

The trace tool is useful for tracing scanned line art such as a black ink
drawing, letter size, scanned at 300 ppi or better.

The trace tool useful for converting a photo scan to a limited range of spot
colors for an organic, posterized look. This can be useful for spot ink
output such a garment screen printing. In this case set the trace tool to
the number of ink colors you want to print, plus the substrate color which
would be non-printing.

Judy Arndt


Brian Dusablon wrote:

> thanks..
>
> so I take it the "trace" tool is not as effective?

[Danny Whitehead]

If you have Photoshop, spending some time in there using Curves, Levels
and Threshold adjustments to increase the contrast of the original image
and maybe using the Unsharp Mask and Noise>Median filters to the point
where it looks ugly on-screen, but Freehand finds it easy to find the
edges, could greatly improve the auto-tracing results.

By the way... it's a minor annoyance, but it would be appreciated if you
trimmed the quoted text in your replies to only the part we need to
follow the discussion. Thanks.

--


Danny