Tutorials for recreating logos/paths etc

[Tim_Francis@adobeforums.com]

Hi all,

I am fairly inexperienced with Illustrator. I have created logos in the program but have never had to rescan a basic logo before.

The logo I have is in 300dpi bitmap. What is the best way for me to rescan the image and create paths for it? With minimal manual path correction.

Does anyone have good tutorials etc. I have streamline, but it never does a good job what ever setting I throw at it.

Any help / advice would be much appreciated.

[Tim_Francis@adobeforums.com]

Ok I have used Macromedia Freehand and suprisingly it has given me a fairly accurate trace. Does illustrator have anything like this? Im using Illustrator 9.0

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Tim,

Illustrator does have an Autotrace function, but frankly it is quicker and
much more accurate to hand-trace.

[Phosphor@adobeforums.com]

Backing up Len, and pumping it up a little with my inimitable style of laying down the low-down:

There are NO consumer applications—NONE—that will automatically and accurately create smooth, simple and proper paths from raster images. They ALWAYS need to be manually tweaked. Mnaual tracing has always taken less time, but you have to learn the application well to be able to do it that way....and there is no magic secret.

Starting manually is the best way to go, and there are so many little tricks to speeding the process that your best course is to buy some good books, work through tutorials, practice and learn as much as you can from every source you can find.

[Tim_Francis@adobeforums.com]

Thanks guys. Phosphor - Freehand actaully did quite a remarkable job. Small amount of tweaking of the paths, but its as close to perfection as it can be.

So all the big time studios simply follow this same process I take it?

Just as long as Im not missing anything simple!.

[Phosphor@adobeforums.com]

OK..if you say so, Tim.

The paths are either wildly innacurate or are comprised of way too many points, IMNSHO.

Manual is better, but not always easy.