Tracing, etc.

[Econ Dev webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

I have run into another problem. I have an image that is boxed in by a white box and want to just get the image, not the surrounding box, if that makes any sense. I placed the image on the server so you could see what I mean:

[url]http://www.onslowedc.com/aardvark.html[/url]


I tried using the lasso tool in FW, but it doesn't get all of the little edges, etc..there is always a little bit of white left somewhere. I'm not too familiar with Freehand..can it be done?

[Wes Rand]

"Econ Dev" [email]webforumsuser@macromedia.com[/email] wrote:

> I have run into another problem. I have an image that is boxed in by
> a white box and want to just get the image, not the surrounding box,
> if that makes any sense. I placed the image on the server so you
> could see what I mean:
>
> [url]http://www.onslowedc.com/aardvark.html[/url]
>
>
> I tried using the lasso tool in FW, but it doesn't get all of the
> little edges, etc..there is always a little bit of white left
> somewhere. I'm not too familiar with Freehand..can it be done?
>
>

Do you mean you want just the black to show or you want the black with
white fill to show? If the former you can click the "transparent" button
in the object panel. If you are just looking to crop off the white
around the black line there are many ways to do that. If you don't have
Photoshop then you could just draw a shape to crop the bitmap down to
the black line. Then cut the bitmap and then paste it inside the
cropping shape you drew.

[Jamumu webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Having looked at it, the easiest way (since it is such a simple image really) would be to redraw it with the pen tool. You might want to convert it to a TIFF file first, as that then allows you to select a colour for it in Freehand, 40% black for example, making it easier to draw over and see where your new lines are going. Then you just fill it with white and draw the last few lines, the rivers, over the top of that.

You'll do better using the Pen tool than the lasso, which is dreadfully inaccurate. When you're done you can throw away the scan. If you export it as an EPS you can open it in PhotoShop or Imageready or whatever and the background will stay transparent, allowing you to make it a gif again if that's what you need.