Advanced line art tracing with pen/pad tutorial ...

In the past I had used stock vector illustrations and creatively assembled them with some typography to get a result that was acceptable to me.
But recently, i've really taken a liking to the style/look of one of our competitors in the market (see below) ...
The above image is a line drawing colored with marker and airbrush (physical marker and airbrush, not digital) then is scanned, composed and the text is put in via Illustrator (or Corel).
I REALLY like this companies artwork because it's all custom and the visuals fit the title of the item very closely.
However, while my line drawing skill is up to par with the above, I never bothered to hand draw anything due to the time it took to trace out in Illustrator with a mouse using the pen tool.
That said, I've been impressed by a similar (but all vector) style that I recently found on thinkstock.com and it would seem like this guy is using a stylus/pad to actually trace his lines freehand straight into Illustrator?
Oddly enough, in all my years of designing ... I've NEVER used a styles/pad (I think touched one once) because it always seemed like one of those odd peripherals that you either loved or you didn't ... like a track ball! And back in the day it wasn't as effective or useful as I think it may be now.
But I'm starting to think that for the type of illustration seen above, it's an essential tool.
So can anyone recommend a good stylus/pad and direct me to some good tutorials on the basics of using it for tracing and coloring line art?
Thanks!

But I'm starting to think that for the type of illustration seen above, it's an essential tool.
Where in the world do you get this idea? There is nothing in the artwork you depict that suggests it was done using a stylus. And a stylus is certainly not necessary for it.
A stylus is just another pointing device. You can do the artwork you depicted with a mouse just fine. Using a stylus is just a simple matter of personal preference. I, for one, have bought Wacom tablets since they first appeared (DIN8 serial model on the Mac). I have never liked them for anything other than pressure-sensitive "painting" in programs like Painter, and not always there, either. I find them awkward and tedious.
Your curiosity will not be satisfied until you try one. So try one. But they are certainly not required for commercial-quality work.
JET

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I recently bought my new Macbook pro, and I wanted to use my tablet (Aiptek Hyperpen 12000U) which i havent used in a while. I cant find the cd, so I searched on the net to find the right driver for it. I came up with Pen Pad USB Tablet Driver v1.67... this should be right one. Everything seems to be working fine, until I press the Install button. After this, I can see a progress bar installing a few files. But after a few second the installer is going to the first installation window again. Without any errors.. I cant seem to install this driver. I did this over and over again.. I can see items remaining to be installed: 33... and short after this .. I'll get to the first installation window again.
I tried a few other version like, 1.66, 1.63 .. it gets really frustrating. I tried TabletMagic as well (as I read somewhere that that could work as well).
As Aiptek is not providing Mac OSX drivers, I thought it was just an Aiptek issue. But I have installed this same very aiptek to my other mac computer (imac) which is running Max OSX leopard as well.
Is there something I can do in order to install this driver successfully?
Thanks in advance!

"But I have installed this same very aiptek to my other mac computer (imac) which is running Max OSX leopard as well."
Is your iMac a PowerPC or Intel based?
Have you tried connecting the PenPad to see if it works without drivers? I can't even find a gimp driver for this tablet for Mac, only Linux.
Just my 2 cents, but I use a Wacom tablet with a graphire pen. Comes with Mac OS X compatible drivers and works like a charm.
Carolyn

Pen Tool settings question; Line art; Photoshop CC 2014.

Hello, and thanks for your help.
I am following a tutorial about Line Art.
I have to achieve the highlighted (yellow) settings in this image from the tutorial.
http://i.imgur.com/uXxCgWG.png
Here is how my settings look.
http://i.imgur.com/VmDsh1b.png
Path Operations and Auto Add/Delete are the only ones I can find.
The other two I cannot.
Also, what do you think about these settings from making HQ Line art? Would you recommend other settings? Why?
Thanks.

Maybe this helps:
As you can see both of these are from two different versions of photoshop.
The tools can be found in the left toolbar. the two pens are in the same pen group and the remaining are in the shapes group. Press mouse button on the icon in the left tool bar and wait a few seconds then the flyout will appear. Any icon with a triangle in its corner has a flyout selection of tools.
For a beginner, I would recommend using shapes instead of paths (unless they are required) for learning. As you will be less discouraged when trying to change simple settings like its stroke or fill. Both shapes and paths will give you a vector shape, one is a bit easier to use and the other is a true path instead of a mask. But both will give you a clean edge and are scalable.

Line Art Conversions

Does anyone have a PS3 tutorial for converting product images to line art? I'm trying to create close-up views of small products (glass vials, screws etc.) for a few different brochures my client wants to create.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Ken

I am a Freehand user from 1993 until 2003 when I switched from PC to Mac for my own machine. Macromedia never offered a crossgrade price and I never bought FGS for the Mac. I've grudgingly used Illustrator since 1995--most of the places I've worked have been Illustrator shops. I garnered a good deal of experience with Illustrator over that time and hated it the whole time, but pretty much had no choice after the Macromedia buyout. Since then I have little justification for investing money in Freehand MX and none for convincing employers and clients to switch over to a "dead" application. So I've now been using Illustrator and cursing at it for a couple years
So keep that in mind when I say this: CS4 is the first version of Illustrator that I'm actually happy to move to. If there were a future for Freehand, I very well might still be moving to Illustrator now. From my perspective, CS4 is where Illustrator moved from behind Freehand in every way except market position to being ahead of Freehand.
Or I could have said this more concisely as Freehand fan says: Illustrator CS3, Boo. Illustrator CS4 Yay!.

Photo to line art, help needed

Hello - I'm struggling with a rather simple task: turning this image (http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/3641/limb1.jpg) into basic, b+w, vector line art. I'm not sure of the best approach. I've considered making a grid of squares and warping it to fit the shape, or using the pen to more or less trace the image...unfortunately, the image is poorly shot + lit so I can't use any automated trace tools. I'd love some help if someone knows a good approach!
Necessary info: os x 10.5, CS2.

I assume you have a high res version of the photo. Working in Photoshop, I would adjust levels to bring out the squares. Then use dodge and burn tools to further isolate them (you may have to paint in a couple). Then you can probably get a decent auto-trace. Of course, by then you could have traced it.
To trace it you could simply draw lines horizontally and vertically, in line with the squares, then convert them to a live paint object and fill in the intersecting squares.

Text-wrap line art without alpha channel or path

I have seen a tutorial that uses TIFF format images (B&W line art) around which text-wrap is applied.
Do all TIFF images have this property, or just those that have been given the right treatment?
Do any other graphic formats offer this property?
Anyone knows of a tutorial that thoroughly covers graphic formats, the inherent and acquired properties?

It's not an image property, and you can apply text wrap to any object in ID, either to the bounding box or the object shape, or to a custom shape that you modify with the pen tool

Advice on turning photo to line art

other than tracing w/ the pen tool, is there any good way of turning a photo image (from online source so not great resolution, and not all details needed) into line art?

I assume you have a high res version of the photo. Working in Photoshop, I would adjust levels to bring out the squares. Then use dodge and burn tools to further isolate them (you may have to paint in a couple). Then you can probably get a decent auto-trace. Of course, by then you could have traced it.
To trace it you could simply draw lines horizontally and vertically, in line with the squares, then convert them to a live paint object and fill in the intersecting squares.

How do I achieve this line art effect?

I'm trying to replicate the design below but I'm not sure if I'm using the correct approach.
First, I used Photoshop to desaturated an image and adjusted the levels. Next I imported into Illustrator and live traced it after tweaking the options.
However, I can't seem to have a nice clean line art like the one above. Do you think that design use another method (maybe manually tracing multiple images using the pen tool)?

that image you show is drawn or mostly drawn. you can use image trace to get some of the shapes you need and recomposition the pieces back together. for example on the image you want to copy, i would take an image of the skyline and trace that. select the silhouette of the skyline and delete everything else. then i would do the silhouette of the bridge. then i would trace with different settings to get a few of the details in the bridge and put them on top. then draw in a few details by hand. things like straight lines.
anyway. short answer is that no, there is no illustrator effect that can give you that. it's a lot of work

Convert photo to line art?

Dear Forum,
I am trialing Elements and Illustrator but cannot find a solution in help or the forums, or any book at Borders, so I hope someone can help. I am looking for a way to convert photos (JPEGS) of flowers to black line art......like a coloring book, not just black and white or grayscale or sylhouette. I will then print out the line art (1-2 pixel black line art) to clear acetate for use as a positive original for creating a silkscreen via photo emulsion exposure (and then silkscreen printing the line art to fabric for hand painting). I am doing this by hand now.....place a sheet of acetate over the photo and outlining "edges" by eye with a fine Sharpie, then using that as the positive original. See attached file for an example. The line art needs to be relatively detailed ( e.g. petals, stamen, leaves) but not absolutely perfect as I only need to print guide lines on fabric for subsequent hand painting. It seems easy to do by "eye", tracing edges of color or tone change, but I have not figured out how to make that happen in Elements or Illustrator. Of course I have only had the trial for a couple days, and have used live trace, posterization, etc, but have not been lucky. Please point me in the right direction. If I can make this happen with an Adobe product, then I will buy it.....I have hundreds of photos to convert. Thanks.....Bob

If you use Threshold, you can add some gaussian blur to the image to make the edges smoother. You can also add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer between the blurred image and the threshold layer to fine tune the edges.
If you have Windows, you might want to look at Medhi's Fine Threshold filter (freeware) found here:
http://www.mehdiplugins.com/english/finethreshold.htm
Edit: You could also use Find Edges on the image first; desaturate it; then use a threshold adjustment layer. Go back to the Find Edges layer and add gaussian blur to taste. To further fine tune, slip a brightness/contrast layer between the blurred image and the threshold to control line thickness/detail. (FWIW, I would make a copy of the Find Edges layer and blur the duplicate so if you change your mind you don't have to start the project from scratch.)

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

(PDF) Should line art require so much disk space?

Hi,
When I save Photoshop files to PDF for easy transport to the printers, and I make sure all the text remains vector (not rasterized), the document becomes unnecessarily bloated.
(NOTE: When I say vector, I don't mean including the fonts. I mean tracing the text shapes and keeping it all as uneditable line art.)
This is a surprise to me, because we're talking about vector/line, here. Not pixels. Why does a page full of line-art text require so much disk space? Am I doing something wrong?
There's a text document I'd like to save and place online, and I couldn't imagine it requiring more than 500k - 900k... but as long as I keep the text vector, I can't get it under 3-4 megs.
I just need confirmation that this is normal, and something I have to live with if I want to keep the text un-rasterized.

I think you might be right. I ended up formatted the disc then creating a brand new fresh back up which worked. Now it seems to be restoring in the correct manor.
Thanks for your assistance

When I use the arrow keys to decrease/increase the amount of segments in line art it alters too much, it goes to either hundreds or almost deletes shape, how do I fix?

HI,
I'm new to adobe and would really appreciate some help! I'm trying to follow a Lynda tutorial and we are using the line art tool, I was doing fine until he's mentioned you can use the arrows to increase/decrease the number of segments in the spiral, bulls eye etc. He seems to be able to go up and down gradually where as I jump from, say, 8 to zero or down to two or none. Any help is appreciated, Thanks.

lindenblossoms,
You may have a look at Edit>Preferences>General>Keyboard Increment, at least to start with.

Im looking for a good note app with pen for taking notes ( in english and german )during business trips. Can anyone help

I'm looking for a good note app with pen function for taking notes ( in English and German ) during business trips. Can anyone help?

Really sorry to hear about this, particularly when you're putting your life on the line. But Apple cannot track your iPhone in any way unless you had set up Find My iPhone prior to it being lifted.
It's possible that AT&T might be able to do something, but it's probably that they cannot track it, or will not without a request from an authorized law enforcement agency, but rather would only disable the device. You'll have to try and find a way to contact AT&T directly and ask if they can do anything to help you; the chances of any AT&T employee in a position to help you spotting this thread it pretty small.
Good luck, stay safe, and come home soon.
Regards.

Exit / badi for individual service line item detail with internal orders.

Hello guys,
<b>Issue 1.</b>as per our scenario we want to get the individual service line item details with Internal Orders.
Please provide me any exit/badi with each item level with individual service line item Internal Orders.
<b>Issue 2:</b> Remain same for issue 3 for blocking status. We want to delete item level for particular line what about the service rows which assigned in particular item.
point will be rewarded for the suitabel answers.
please give me response ASAP.
With Regards
yogesh

Hey Yogesh,
I have the same scenario... Could you please drop a mail to [email protected] with the details of BADI and other details that you implemted for the same.
Thanks a lot in advance.

Sending line art to Photoshop?

Illustrator CS4 on Snow Leopard.
I have a truly vexing Illustrator problem. It seems like a simple challenge, though.
I have a large black and white vector illustration. There are no grays, only black and white line art.
I'd like to send only the black line art to Photoshop with the white areas treated as transparency.
Photoshop treats the un-filled areas as transparency, while it treats the white Illustrator fills as solid white.
Ordinarily I would simply outline my strokes and do some pathfinder operations to subtract the white fills from the black.
In this instance, though, there are hundreds of paths: blacks above whites in the stack, whites above blacks, etc. so going through pathfinder commands one path at a time seems almost impossible.
I've also tried re-coloring all blacks as Pantone spots and printing a color rip to PDF. Same problem: Photoshop treats white fills as solid white.
So... is there something I'm missing. Is there an easy way to separate my black lines and bring them to Photoshop?

Outline all the strokes and then use pathfinder Merge. Afterwards select and delete the white objects.

Advanced line art tracing with pen/pad tutorial ...

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