Vector question

[morrisoncorp@adobeforums.com]

Depending on the nature of your "sketch"

Select color range Window>Show Paths Make work path from selection: bottom
right icon on the paths window Save path: double click "work path" Name
it, OK Fill path, triangle pull down menu, top right corner of the path
window




Free transform will scale.

There are several programs which do this type of work, ie Streamline.
I haven't found one that doesn't need cleaning up afterwards.
I'll allways go in and delete and manipulate points to simplify.

Illustrator forum may have suggestions as well.

[morrisoncorp@adobeforums.com]

OOPS! Sorry for that post. I'm new at this game.
This may be easier to read:

1. Select color range
2. Window>Show Paths
3. Make work path from selection: bottom right icon on the paths window
4. Save path: double click "work path"
5. Name it, OK
6. Fill path, triangle pull down menu, top right corner of the path window

[Philo_Calhoun@adobeforums.com]

I would place the image in Illustrator, lock the layer, and trace out the image on a different layer. If your image has continuous tones, you will need to use blends, gradients, or gradient mesh objects in Illustrator. If it doesn't (in other words, looks like a paint by number illustration), you can more easily trace it in Illustrator or try one of the bitmap to vector conversion programs: streamline, Corel-OCR trace, silhouette, Flash, etc. Just remember that all these automatic programs convert to a max of 256 colours, so they will not resemble a continous toned image. Manual tracing does not have those restrictions.

[Pierre_Courtejoie@adobeforums.com]

If the drawing is mostly in black and whie,
1)create a luminosity-based selection (command+click the rgb channel)

2)invert that selection(command+shift+I)

3)in the path palette, click on the "make work path from selection" button

4)click on the "new adjustment layer" button, and choose a fill layer

5)Delete unwanted control points.

you can also simplify the drawing by feathering the selection before step 3) or running a blur before step one...

[Tim_Lookingbill@adobeforums.com]

And if you want to suck the soul out of an organic looking sketch turn it into a vector.

Sorry, I'm having a flashback to work done in the past where a local printer was mysteriously insistant on my handing him clean pencil lineart only-no color-of a cartoon illustration for a poster that was to be seen by a large part of my community. It was to be representative of my work for future business.

When it was finally printed, it looked like some cheesy craft project nightmare drawn with hanger wire with gaudish spot colors dropped in the closed-that weren't closed before-spaces.

I now stipulate on my invoice contracts none of my work can be converted to vector. If they want vector, I'll draw it in vector whenever I WANT to learn how to do that.

Thanks for allowing me to share.

[Philo_Calhoun@adobeforums.com]

Vectors have souls too, but you need to use blends and lots of gradient meshes. But they have a different religion.

[Tim_Lookingbill@adobeforums.com]

Nothing wrong with vector art, if started out in vector.

It's just in my experience vectorizing a loose sketch look or even some nicely drawn in pencil cell animation style renderings, something just doesn't translate right when converted to vector.