Dividing a Shape for Live Paint

Hi, I have the following image above where I'm trying to add color to different aspects of the drawing. For instance, I'd like to be able to add color to the hair (ie the eyebrows and hair on top of his head) and I'm using live paint to do this. The problem is, some of the live paint areas spill into each other, ie the hair spills into the outline of the head, etc. So I'm wondering, what is the best way to go about dividing these areas so live paint recognizes them as two different entities? What I've been doing currently is drawing a line segment, and then using divide below, however this gives me unpredictable results sometimes and I have a hunch there is a better way.
Thanks,
KiSS

Like this
will give this when filled

Similar Messages

Any issues with keeping shapes in Live Paint Mode?

1. Are there any drawbacks to keeping a shape in Live Paint Mode and not expanding it?
2. Are there any drawbacks to using Live Paint Mode at all? Does it change the way the artwork works with other shapes in AI?
Thank you.

Depends on how you define drawbacks. What context?
Same as 1. Also, about which interactions are you talking?

Copying live paint segments

After creating the picture outline and filling the objects with color, I want to work on the effects of each piece separately. No matter what I do, for example selecting certain objects with direct selection tool, upon going into the photoshop effect screen the entire picture shows up. I decided the only way to edit parts of the picture would be to copy and paste them, but when I do that I lose the live paint color. Can somebody please make this less frustrating?
Thanks!

You're losing the "Live Paint" color because you're selecting with the normal or direct selection tool. To select one or more segments of a Live Paint object, get the "Live Paint Selection Tool" (shortcut is "Shift-l" on mac). Then paste-in-place and assign your effects. This way the Live Paint object is unaffected.
True effects cannot be assigned to individual shapes in Live Paint, but you CAN assign gradients and edit them individually, using the "Live Paint Selection tool". Gradient-level transparency will be ignored, however, and the Gradient Annotator will be hidden. Too bad.

Why won't Live Paint work for me?

Synopsis: Illustrator won't let me use Live Paint, or rather, Live Paint won't let me use it. I tested it out on a random file by creating shapes with some of the tools and it worked fine. However, with any image I try to use, it won't work. This is what it says anytime I try to select the area and color in.
It also doesn't allow me to use Image Tracing. I don't know if the two are connected or not, but I find it strange.
I'm going to explain all the steps I went through from start to finish to create the image.
First, I took the picture using a digital camera (naturally.) Then I uploaded the pictures to iPhoto. I can't remember if I edited it or not, but if I did, it was mostly cropping. I then placed the picture on my desktop and took it to Photoshop. There I put it to grayscale and messed with the levels to give some contrast. I then saved it as JPEG. After that I put it in Illustrator and I started tracing it. The blue in the picture was traced in Layer 1, while the red was in Layer 2. (I thought that maybe had something to do with it, but I highlighted just the red and had the same problem as before.)
So yeah, I'm at a standstill...can't get anything done at this point. It's CS6 for Mac. It's possible I screwed with something without even realizing it (I am new to this), but if I did...what did I do? And can I fix it?

Click the Selection Tool (The Black Arrow)
Choose Select > Select All from the menu
Hold down the Shift key, and click the photo.
This should leave you with everything elected except the photo
It may help to spend a bit of time playing with random shapes and objects, and reviewing the help files for the tools, in order to learn the basics of selecting objects in Illustrator. Illustrator isn't always as intuative as Photoshop and many have trouble if they simply jump right in.

Live paint vs. just selecting shapes and filling them

I traced an image in cs5 and am not quite sure what the benefit of using live paint to fill shapes with color with the live paint bucket over selecting the shapes and filling them the traditional way. Besides being able to fill shapes with gaps, what is the benefit of live paint?

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
not quite sure what the benefit of using live paint
The benefit of a "flood fill" tool in a vector program is that it can be used to create filled paths corresponding to shapes which only appear to be defined, but are not actually otherwise fillable paths.
For example: Get the Line Tool. Draw four paths in the form of a tic-tac-toe diagram. Now suppose you want to fill that middle "square" with a color.
But there is no actual square to which you can apply a fill. There exists only four open paths. The "square" is just the visual bounds of the intersections of the four open paths. A flood fill tool creates the necessary path and applies a fill to it.
Illustrator's specific flood-fill tool is the so-called Live Paint feature. It's called "live" because it is implemented as a "live effect." That is, the paths it creates automatically are not "nailed down" until the effect is "expanded." That is, the effect gets automatically re-run and re-drawn each time you modify the path(s) to which it is applied. That's why the program has to mark the set of associated paths as a special kind of object that exists just for the benefit of the feature: A "Live Paint Group."
JET

Live paint changes my shapes?

I have a star that I applied the pucker and bloat effect to and I made it into a live paint group via the object > live paint > make and it changed it into an elliptical shape. Why is this? I am using cs5.
Thank you.

Do you mean why an ellipse and not the original star shape? Or just that Livepaint won't work on it after applying the effect? For the latter, I get this warning when trying to make a Live Paint Group:

Taking out a live paint group as a separate shape

i'm making a map showing arid areas, dry areas, plain, mountains. i'm using the live paint bucket function with great difficulty. i'm using this for first tim, i have almost zero experience in illustrator . i'm stuck now. the greean area on the left can't be isolated out, or lets say cut paste as a new individual shape. this is really annoying. kindly help me out. I'm using illustrator cs5
go to the link to get the file.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wk6tyy

Wade_Zimmerman wrote:
I think you might have to expand the live paint group in order to do what you wish to do and in the end you can then simply use the fill proxy in the tool panel to fill other areas with colors.
THAT did it!! expanding is the trick. thanks i gotta expand everything to get it right ..:)

How do you connect lines for a drawing in order to use the live paint bucket tool?

Hello! Im fairly new (okay not really) to using adobe illustrator
I used the Image trace tool to outline this drawing of Captain America but unfortunately the lines arent connected and therefore
messes up my colouring completely when I use the Live Paint Bucket tool.
Is there a way to connect the lines so they are closed when I colour it? Or is there another way to color this drawing?
Help would be greatly appreciated!

Those gaps are very wide. Draw some paths and apply no fill, no stroke to them.
Then make the live paint. In case the live paint already exists, you can go into isolation mode and then draw the paths. Or draw them and use Object > Live paint > Merge

Coordinates of paths that border live paint areas

I have several illustrator files that show drawings of neighborhood lot maps. The lots are drawn from single lines where one long line creates the front of all the lots on the street. Another line creates the back and smaller lines divide the lots on the sides. Each line is on its own layer. Each lot is labeled with a lot number. I can create a live paint group and fill in each lot. But this doesn't divide up the front, back and side lot lines for me and create a new shape with the front, back, and side lot lines drawn for each lot. I am wondering if it's possible for a script to do this by:
For each lot fill
Copy the segments of the lines on the front, back and side layers that overlap the lot fill.
Create a new group from those line segments.
This will create a duplicate lot shape that retains the front, back and side line definitions.
I am not a script writer but would like to hire somebody who could write this for me as it would make my world much easier if it can be done with a script!
Thanks in advance.
Rebecca
602/451-7433
rebecca at cibolacreative dot com

Hi Rebecca, like I said, if the lines are not touching it won't work
I made this
if the lines are not touching you won't be able to use the tool, we might need to think of doing something else.

Thin white line between line art and live paint fill?

I am using live paint to paint cartoon character illustrations. The artwork is brought into Illustrator CS3 and live traced. Then I convert it to a live paint group and use the paint bucket to fill. Everything looks fine no matter how much I zoom in. If I bring the AI file into Photoshop CS6 I can see a thin white line between the black line art and the fill. This is most noticeable where black meets black. I can also see this sometimes in file previews while browsing through files. If the white line cannot be seen in Illustrator is the file ok? I did just upgrade to CS6 if that would make a difference.
Thank you for any help.

If the white line cannot be seen in Illustrator is the file ok?
Without knowing specifics,nobody knows.
"Okay" for what?
If it looks okay to you in Illustrator, then it's okay for viewing in Illustrator.
If the export of it does not look okay in Photoshop at 1:1 or higher zoom, then it's probably not okay for whatever you're going to do with that raster image.
If it's printed to a low-res composite printer, then it may be okay, because the printer may not be able to resolve the whitish pixels.
If it's printed for commercial (color-separated) reproduction, it may not be okay, depending on the scale at which it will be printed, and on other considerations partially described below.
The autotrace routine does not build traps. Typically, when you color-fill cartoon line art manually, you don't make the shapes that define the fills merely "kiss" the black line work, as would the default treatments of a stupid autotrace. The black line work typically overprints the fills, thereby creating printing traps.
Suppose a portion of your cartoon is a hand-drawn closed circle. The black line work is irregular; it varies in width, having been drawn with a marker or a brush. The circle is colored in with a medium green. There are no sloppy gaps in the original between the green and the black.
You scan it and autotrace it. Unless you apply some deliberate care to make it do otherwise, the autotrace is going to create a compound path, filled with black, and with no stroke; and a green simple path which (hopefully) exactly "kisses" (abuts) the black path. Adobe's on-screen antialiasing of the edge where the two colors abut may or may not cause your monitor to display a faint whitish or grayish sliver between the two colors.
Similarly, Photoshop's rasterization of it, or the rasterization of a raster export filter may do the same, and may actually result in some off-color pixels along the edge. (Your description of the scenario kinda raises the question of why you are auto-tracing something that you're then just going to rasterize in Photoshop anyway. Why do that? Why not just work with the scan in Photoshop?.)
So let's leave Photoshop out of the picture and assume you are autotracing it because you want vector artwork. You zoom way in to see if the whitish sliver enlarges. It doesn't, so you assume it's just an aberation of Illustrator's on-screen antialising. And then someone tells you you're in the clear. But are you? Not so fast.
Let's assume the artwork is destined for commercial (color-separated) printing. Further assume the color of the autotraced black is 100% K, and the color of the autotraced green is 100Y 50C. Three inks involved. None of those three inks are shared between the two objects. So even if the paths do, in fact, perfectly abut, there is no "wiggle room" built in for the minor alignment shifts that almost aways do occur on press.
Bottom line: Even if you do determine that the common antialiasing aberations that frequently occur on-screen in Adobe apps is just that—just an onscreen aberation, that does not necessarily mean your file is suitable for commercial color-separated reproduction.
First, you need to understand that autotracing is not the one-click, instant "conversion" of a raster image to vector artwork that far too many think it to be. Just like everything else, you don't just launch a program like Illustrator, start autotracing things willy-nilly without understanding what's really going on. Just like anyting else, you can use an autotrace feature intelligently or...well...not.
You have options. Illustrator provides an auto-trapping feature. Read up on it in the documentation so you understand what it's all about. Alternatively, you can expand the results of your autotrace, select all the black linework and apply a composite color that includes 100% K and reasonable percentages of C, M, and Y (a so-called "rich black"). Or,depending on the artwork and the desired results, you may consider doing the autotrace as centerlines so you have stroked paths, not just filled paths for the linework. That way, using the flood fill (so called LivePaint) will cause the auto-created fill objects to extend to the paths, not just to the edges of their strokes. Then set the linework to overprint.
At any rate, if you are doing this professionally, you need to read up on the principles and practices of trapping and color separation.
JET

Live Paint Bucket tool Question

Hello Illustrators.
Its been a while since I've used this tool. But I'm facing an issue I cannot understand.
I'm seeing some tutorials and as I try to follow along I cannot have the same functions of the tool as demonstrated.
My live paint bucket tool does not have the same options as the tutor. He can swipe his arrow keys and get the colours from the colour pallet, while I only have one colour available.
I have to continuously have to go to my colour pallet and choose a colour in order for my shapes to be filled. But when it comes to colouring a stroke of my shape then no problems I can swipe and get my colour
selection. Id like to be able to use it for my fill colour as well to be swipe my arrow keys and see the colours available if it makes sense.
Top Image is what Id like to achieve.
The bottom image is what I have in my art board document. as seeing only one colour is available, and that I have to click on my colour pallet to get a colour. No swiping with arrow keys is available.
Thank you.

Hello Craig!
yes it is! Its the 1st time I'm coming across this problem, I'm getting frustrated not being able to work this issue out...
As you can see everything is checked.
And also as you can see, like I was stating in my original post, the option to swipe with arrow keys only applies to the stroke of the shape, and not the fill.

When do we use Pentool, live paint bucket or brush?

For example, I want to draw a bush
I know there are many different ways to create: some use pen tool, some use live paint bucket tool, some use brush and eraser.
No matter what methods we use, it all leads us to the same result. I want to draw as smart and convinient as much as possible. So I dont understand in which case what method we should use. I am recommended to use basic shapes as much as possible when drawing. But when drawing complex objects, it takes too much time to use basic shapes to create
For example, In this case I think we should use brush and eraser
I think that using pentool can make my work goes faster. But why do people use live paint bucket tool and when we need to use basic shapes to create objects?
Is that right when I said that it depends on what style of art we are creating? (such as logo, flat UI design, artwork for children, ect...)
*Question from a newbie to illustrator TT_TT*

This is the kind of question I like most to see in drawing software forums and it's increasingly rare. So first, let me commend you for thinking in terms of seeking usual and customary best practice, rather than just assuming every whiz-bang, instant gratification cheap trick feature should be employed willy-nilly without ever a thought toward the elegance of your drawing's structure. It suggests you are serious about maintaining quality in your vector drawing, rather than just assuming anything that "looks good" on your monitor is "quality."
Unfortunately, one could write a whole book on this. So I'll try to keep the following general and reasonably brief. That may make it sound a bit preachy. If you want to talk more specifics, continue the thread conversation.
Vector drawing is, by its nature, an exacting medium. It strains against itself when it pretends to be "painterly."
There is, of course, a balance between a strictly purist mindset and real-world practicality. The way to find your balance is to approach automated effects (especially new ones) with a healthy dose of skepticism. Try them, sure; but closely examine the results, tear them apart, and try to understand what's really going on.
Regarding specific features you mention (Live Paint, Brush, Eraser), try them, examine the results, and consider whether the results are what you would expect if they'd been deliberately and efficently drawn. I find that Live Paint and Shape Builder (much the same thing) usually do a decent job of maintaining true-ness to the original paths, matching abutting edges which should be exactly identical without creation of many unnecessary anchors.
I find much the opposite to be true of features like Offset Path, Outline Stroke, and even moreso of features like Variable Strokes. Basically anything that involves automated enveloping (not just Envelopes, but also things like ArtBrushes) are suspect. I'm certainly not saying never use them, but be as aware as you can of what's going on. I leverage Artbrushes and Pattern Brushes to high advantage for certain things, but I do so knowingly, not willy-nilly. I rarely ever acutally use the Brush or Pencil or Blob Tools. I create the artwork contained in the Brushes as cleanly as possible and apply the Brush to deliberately-drawn paths.
Much has to do with the intended practical uses of the final artwork. For example, overlapping paths is standard fare for artwork destined for print. It's a functional deal-breaker for artwork that wil also be used to drive a cutter/plotter for signage. (Just one reason why proper logo master files should be as cleanly constructed as possible.)
Automated routines--no matter how seemingly "powerful"--do not have human discernment. The poster-child example of this is autotracing. An autotracing feature doesn't know a round iris from a hex bolt. The autotracing features of mainstream drawing programs don't even have any geometric shape recognition. So with infrequent exceptions, autotracing is overused pointless junk. It just trades one kind of raster-based ugliness (pixelation) for another kind of vector-based ugliness (shapeless jaggedness).
I know...you didn't mention autotracing. But I mention it as an extreme case of a principle that you can apply to the features you did mention: Ask yourself what a purely mathematical algorithm with zero aesthetic discernment is going to yield in terms of what you would consider elegant execution.
Again, I'll cite a well-known extreme: Anyone who has ever had to deal with auto-generated 2D DXF exports from CAD/CAE programs is familiar with the ubiquitous problem of dealing with thousands of tiny disjointed straight segments meant to represent a curve. Those tasked with handling such drudgery deal with it routinely. Some of them even devise additonal automated algorithms to make a bad situation marginally better. Yes, it "gets the job done." Yes, today's computer hardware can process the ridiculous amount of geometrically unnecessary data without choking. Yes, at the scale at which it will be printed in the parts catalog, the faceted shape will not be distractingly noticeable. But no self-respecting technical illustrator would ever actually draw the same subject that way from scratch, and his far more elegantly drawn-from-scratch result would be far more versatile and robust for multiple final uses.
Your bush example is not so complex as to make drawing deliberately and directly with the Pen impractical. In fact, doing so is much less work than the second example using a bunch of ellipses and applying boolean operations. But maybe you stylistically desire each edge of each blade to be a portion of a mathematical ellipse or even strictly circular. In that case, using automated boolean operations may be justified. But (especially in Illustrator) I would be sure to carefully examine the results. Illustrator's automated path generation routines (Pathfinders, Offset Path, Outline Stroke) have been notorious at various times (versions) for generating ugly and sometimes functionally problematic artifacts such as needless coincident anchors (for just one example).
Your second example of the "scratchboard" style illustration is a case-in-point of situations where we make value judgements and (hopefully careful) compromise between semi-automation and path-drawing purism. You're trying to emulate an expressly non-geometric aesthetic style. The particular example is a good one, because it's a "borderline" example. That drawing is simple enough that it could be drawn entirely anchor-by-anchor, and I would likely do it that way if, for example, it was going to be cut from sign vinyl enlarged to the scale of a trade show background or a wall hanging in an airport.
But if it were only to serve as a one-time placement as a spot graphic in a magazine, I might, for example, create an ArtBrush for certain portions of it, like the selected sun rays, and "let it go" for practical considerations. (Although I'd not deliver it as such; I'd consider it a matter of due dilligence to expand such semi-automated "live" onstructs and check the paths for reasonable cleanness.)
Bear in mind, Bezier-based drawing has been the mainstream for three decades now. We're not "fooling anyone" anymore. There now exists a new aesthetic discernment. Even our audiences are well aware that digital emulations of the randomness of so-called "natural media" are just that; contrived digital emulations. Our audiences view our artwork with a certain skepticism.
And when you put something in print, there's (hopefully, although I often wonder) still the matter of professional pride which bears in mind that our artwork will be viewed not by just the "unsuspecting public" but also by our peers; our colleagues. So you want to avoid any "dead giveaways" of execution by "cheap tricks" which "hurt the eyes" of other vector illustrators. At the scale viewed on this computer in this forum, there are details in that drawing which look like (whether they are or not) the kind of unintentional artifacts commonly generated by path operations and such. Such artifacts don't read as "natural randomness" of the emulated medium (again, we're no longer fooling anyone). They break the stylistic consistency of detail of the overall drawing and therefore look like unintentional but disregarded results of some automated feature.
So anytime you employ an automated path-generating feature, consider it normal to perform some cleanup on the result. Again, an extreme-case common situation exemplifies the principle. I put 3D Effect to use, but I would never deliver the raw results of it as final deliverable vector artwork. Automated features can be used as a rough-out tool; a means to an end, not the final end itself.
JET

AI5 Live Paint Bucket Tool

I am totally a newbie to Adobe Illustrator. I'm using the trial version of AI5.
I have scanned and created an artboard with my drawing.
I have switched over to Live Paint mode, but cannot find the Live Paint Bucket Tool.
According to their instructions, it is suppose to be with the Eyedropper Tool.
Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong or where the tool could be?
Thanks so much for your help.
Bob

Scott misunderstood the query the Live Paint Bucket is underneath the shape builder tool and above the perspective grid tool in the tool bar and below the Free Transform tool.
Cross posting.

Live Paint Help on CS5!

I have uploaded a sketch and put it through Live trace. Everythings fine until I get to the Live Paint part. I click on the paint bucket and I try to fill in the inner parts of the vector. It doesn't fill in through. It tells me to pick a symbol or symbol instance. I am really confused at what that is. I like to have the black outline I just need to figure out how to color in the drawing. I know this isn't explained well but I hope someone can help.
Thanks!

GreySea13 wrote:
I have been using the paint bucket. When I choose a color swatch and click the vector it makes the whole background and all the sections that color.
No, Monika is correct you have been using the Symbol Stainer tool instead of the Live Paint Bucket, easy enough mistake to make.
Below the red arrow is the symbol Stainer which I attempted to use as well. Same Error message.
The blue arrow points to the Live Paint Bucket notice how similar they are are?
They are both hidden one under the Symbol Sprayer (red arrow) the other under the Shape Builder tool (blue arrow).
So you should thank Monika for being so alert and do a good job.

Live Paint | Learn Illustrator CC | Adobe TV

This video from Adobe Illustrator CS6: Learn by Video, presented by Chad Chelius and Angie Taylor, explores Illustrator's Live Paint feature, which is fantastic for creating colored artwork from open and closed shapes.
http://adobe.ly/ZGj9YV

Where can we get the exercise file for this video?

Dividing a Shape for Live Paint

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