Expand or Live Paint?

When converting a bitmap to vector with live tracing, when should I chose Expand to Path and when Live Paint? As far as I can see it, I can do pretty much the same with the resulting vector. Hope someone can give me some enlightening examples for each one, so I can see, not the theoretical distinction, but the difference of utility. I'm working in CS4.

I'm not sure if it is documented or not, but it's been posted here before that it is possible with CS6.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4396402#4396402
Not possible with earlier versions...although I have been able to cheat using VisualBasic to call menu commands.

Similar Messages

  • How can I reduce the number of lines in live paint?

    I'm trying to use adobe illustrator to color the background of a photograph green while keeping the person in the picture the same color.
    I used live trace to get a vector image and then attemped to use live pain to finish the job, but I end up with thousands of blue lines and gaps that are too small to color in. Is there anyway i can reduce the number of gaps so that i can actually paint the background?
    I've already tried the gap options and adjusting the settings to small medium or large did nothing.
    If this isn't possible, is there any other feature in adobe illustrator that would allow me to achieve my goal?
    I have a photograph with a person in the middle; i want the person to remain the same and the background to be changed to green.
    Thanks for your time.

    Would be easiest to fix this when tracing.
    You could try the magic wand tool to select them (but you'll have to expand the live paint object)

  • Live paint bucket and eyedropper

    Right; I've got my fill color set up in the toolbar using the eye dropper.
    Now I activate the 'live paint bucket' tool, and the fill color vanishes.
    So I hit 'i' for the eyedropper again and lose the bucket tool.
    The color picker the doesn't have eye dropper ability like big brother PS so how the f*** am I supposed to get my bucket's color? (other than fill up my swatches)
    At the moment I am sampling in Photoshop and copying the hexidecimal code.
    12 years in Photoshop, 3 days in illustrator and can't believe this is industry standard.

    DelBoy78 wrote:
    I've found what the alt+eyedropper is all about; shortcut for applying a fill colour to a line. Thanks for that but as the image lower down shows, the areas I want to fill with colour are not built from a single fillable line.
    Eyedropper applies the attributes of the clicked object to the selected object/s as set in its options accessible by double clicking the Eyedropper tool
    Holding Alt while clicking with the Eyedropper (In my version CS5) does the opposite - it applies the attributes from the selected object to the object being clicked.
    Holding Shift while clicking with the Eyedropper applies the color being clicked to the fill or stroke of the selected object/s depending on which (the fill or the stroke) is in front in the color selector found in the Tool box and the Color panel. Pressing the X key on your keyboard, swaps which color, fill or stroke, is in front (focus of your input).
    While using the Live Paint Bucket tool, holding Alt switches temporarily to the Eyedropper tool. However using the Eyedropper to pick colors from a Live Paint group may feel as if it is working differently because it may not be picking the stroke color. This is because internally behind the scene, the Live Paint group is separating the fills as different objects without strokes. Expanding the Live Paint group reveals this.

  • 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 ..:)

  • Live Paint

    I converted my image to live paint so I can quickly fill in all the areas of my image with color. But now I want to go back and do highlights and shadows and have them go behind the lines. What do I need to do?

    I guess what I'm trying to do is separate my lines from the filled in areas, that should allow me to draw my shadows and highlights in the colored areas without covering my lines. What would expanding the live paint group do?

  • Stroking and filling doesn't work in paths expanded from Live Trace

    I’m using Adobe Illustrator CS4. I’m a complete beginner, though I’ve done a bit of reading about the basics. 
    After tracing a bitmap image (of black letters on a transparent background, in pdf format) using Live Trace, expanding it, and editing the paths with the pen tool to my satisfaction, I find neither fills nor strokes appear -- I can change the fill settings or stroke settings, but the paths just stay the colour of all unfilled paths on that layer. (I’m viewing the document in preview mode.) Also, when selecting paths with either the Selection tool or the Direct Selection tool and then trying to use Live Paint, I get a notification that "the selection contains objects that cannot be converted. Live Paint groups can only contain paths and compound paths. Clipping paths are not allowed." When I go to the Object Menu, under Clipping Mask the only available option is "Make Mask", and "Release" and "Edit Mask" are greyed out, which suggests to me there are no clipping masks present. 
    I’ve created a separate, nearly identical document where strokes, fills and Live Paint work fine. The only difference is that when I used Live Trace on the bitmap image, for the non-working document I selected "Outlines" for the Vector section of the View options (in the Tracing Options dialogue box), and in the working one I selected "Tracing Result" instead. For both, I used the same original document settings, placed the same bitmap image, used the Live Trace preset "Black and White Logo" with all the default settings except that I checked the "Ignore White" box, and then clicked Expand.
    Obviously, I know what I did wrong, though I don’t know why it made a difference. But since I spent many hours editing the paths in the screwed-up document before I realized stroking and filling wouldn’t show up, is there a way to fix it? How can I make the paths "valid" for stroking, filling, and Live Paint -- or, failing that, is there a way to somehow copy or automatically trace the shape of the paths, so I don’t have to do all that editing again? 
    This is kind of urgent, since I’m creating a logo for a project that needs to be finished soon. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I could send someone the document by e-mail if you wanted to look at it properly -- since I’m a beginner, I don’t know what I need to describe.

    Never mind! I fixed it. For anyone else who has this same problem -- apparently, I’d made it so the paths were actually guides, which can look like and possess the properties of paths but which don’t show when you print. After going to View, Guides, Release Guides, the fills and strokes manifested, and the paths became "valid".

  • 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

  • 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

  • X on bottom of Live Paint Bucket tool

    Thanks guys for helping me find the Paint bucket tool.
    All I have is a simple cartoon face that I have drawn, scanned and brought over and using Live Paint.
    I can get the paint to fill the face area, but it won't let me do one of the ears. It gives me an X on the bottom of the paint bucket.
    What can I do to get that X to go away and let me fill that ear with a colour?
    Thanks
    Bob

    Select the repsective object, convert it to a Live Paint group first from the Object menu. If that option is not available, you may need to expand the object first and release any clipping masks or nested compound paths.
    Mylenium

  • Big problem, Live Paint Bucket changing strokes

    Hi all, so in the first picture you can see the finished line work. When I fill the face with a color in Live Paint, it changes the strokes and makes them appear jagged in varying widths, it's especially obvious on the eyes, ears, and hair - it looks like it is applying Pathfinder>Divide. I have the stroke set to nothing when I apply the fill, please help!

    how about this?
    1. duplicate the lineart and put it underneath the layer and lock the original
    2. convert the lineart into an outline stroke by going to Effect>Outline Stroke then Object>Expand Appearance
    3. Open Pathfinder Pallete and then select all and Unite/Add it.
    4. change everything to no stroke and no fill
    5. select all then convert it to live paint
    6. deselect the converted path and start using live paint bucket.
    7. after that expand it and ungroup so you can move the fill path. also you'll notice that it will remove all path you have been converted.
    reply if it works,

  • 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

  • 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?

  • Why can't I use Live Paint?

    Hi,
    I'm fairly new to Illustrator, but for a project I'm working on I've drawn a dragon using the pen tool. Now I want to use the live paint tool, however, after I select my dragon it won't let me "make" the live paint. I also can't expand, not sure if that's related.
    I tested another simple drawing and was able to both expand and use live paint, so it must be something weird that I've done to my dragon.
    I have a trial version of CS6.
    Also attaching a screen cap.
    Thanks for any help/advice!!!

    While all this stuff
    Stray points/ segments, self intersecting paths and all the ingredients that make for a "bad" vector artwork
    certainly should be corrected, it shouldn't keep you from making a live paint object. So there must be something else in this drawing. Please show the complete layer panel (expand the layer so it's visible. And please don't scale down your screenshots.

  • How do I remove leftover paint from a live paint object?

    I am trying to create my own typeface. I used live paint to paint over a grid and create letters. I'm trying to create words and the Professor wants me to eliminate any white color I may have used from white paint. I am able to show it by selecting the letter, ungrouping the object, selecting object and expand. Can you explain to me how to delete the leftover blue that don't match up with the black?

    Thank you so much! I really appreciate your help! Would it be okay if I ask you more questions?
    I was wondering could you explain to me how to make multiple rulers? I have one in light blue and I want to make another one.

  • Live paint seems to make lines thicker

    I'm new to illustrator, and I'm having some issues with the live trace and live paint tools.
    When I use live trace, my image looks exactly as it should. However, when I change the image to a live paint group and then begin to change some of the colors, the lines seems to get thicker.
    Why does the image look okay after being traced, but changes once made into a live paint group?

    5) Click on one of the black lines in the image and change color to Pantone Black C
    You haven't described at all what settings you used for the autotrace, or what kind of objects you have after expanding it. Are the black objects filled, stroked, or both?
    Also, the LivePaint tool can apply Fills and/or Strokes, depending on how you set its options. Based on your description, you may be applying black strokes to the autotraced black-filled paths. That would, of course, result in "thickening" what you are calling the black lines.
    JET

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