How do i delete pen lines?

Question

ALright i live traced a photo and did expand and that created alot of pen lines. I then erased one half of the photo with the eraser tool but the pen lines stayed.
So my question is how do i erase those pen lines? I know about the delete anchor point tool but seeing there are about 500 anchor point that would take forever.
thanks

Answer 1

Bowe,
Assuming that:
1. You used the autotrace feature to trace the photo.
2. You DID NOT use a centerline option during the trace. That is, the tracing result is only filled paths; it has no unfilled open paths.
3. You expanded and ungrouped the results.
Then, you should be able to:
1. Knife Tool: Press and hold Alt. Mousedown and drag across the artwork. Mouseup. That will cause the Knife to work in a "straight line mode," cutting all fills it crosses if nothing is selected, or cutting only selected fills if something is selected.
2. WhitePointer or BlackPointer: Drag a selection marquee that touches, but does not fully enclose, the unwanted portions of the cutting result. Delete once if using the black pointer. Delete twice if using the white pointer.
The utterly lame Knife tool cannot cut open unfilled paths. The utterly lame Scissor tool cannot cut multiple paths at once. There IS NO "saw tool". (That's probably a reference to the TableSaw tool included in the CuttingTools plug-in.)
The CS3 Eraser tool
should be useful for this, but it unpredictably distorts the remaining
unerrased portions of the artwork. I therefore find it to also be utterly unsatisfactory.
One properly-designed cutting tool (see FreeHand) and one properly-designed Crop To Path operation (see Corel Draw) would eliminate the need for Illustrator's three inadequate cutting tools and replace several inadequate Pathfinder commands. That would be the sensible conventional-wisdom approach.
A better approach would be the ability to use ANY vector path as either a cutting path or a selection marquee. When used as a cutting path, it should of course be able to properly cut paths regardless of their fill/stroke/open/closed attributes.
But after over 2 decades, Illustrator has not yet even caught up with conventional wisdom, let alone shown any real innovation in this basic and critical functionality. This is one of those areas in which Illustrator is extraordinarily sub-standard.
JET