Is using Live Paint unprofessional?

Ever since this feature was introduced into Illustrator, I've told my students that Live Paint is a cheat for beginners, and that real Illustrator professionals create closed paths with fills. Do other people feel this way as well, or is this just my own prejudice? (I don't want to be one of those "When I was your age, we used a rock for a mouse, and we liked it" kind of people. But I do have this nagging feeling that Live Paint groups are less robust than filled paths.)

JETalmage wrote:
I gave just one example of a situation wherein the Customer would not know the difference. It's also an example of a designer who blissfully thinks he's doing commercial quality work.
JET
Yes, there are such designer and it happens quite often, but I think the original question was about competent designers making a choice. For me my choice is based on the requirements of my clients. I always try to educate my clients but this is not always a simple thing - some clients react to this as a sale strategy to charge more and often ask "does this take more time and adds to the cost?" and if I say no, in the case of avoiding Live Paint coloring, I would be lying.
By the way, I can't think of any other service industry where free customer education is included in the service - usually any information given is to make a profitable sale. And if later, after everything promised is delivered, the customers realize that this is not exactly what they wanted, they usually blame themselves for not making an intelligent choice. However in my observations, in the design industry we tend to blame the designer.
Just my 2 cents

Similar Messages

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.

Can't use Live Paint

I just downloaded the trial version of Illustrator CS4 for a Mac. For a class project. I am following my teachers steps to the letter, but i can't. I am suppose to choose a letter change it's size and angle then duplicaate it and resize and change the angle of the second one. Then select live paint and paint in the over lapped sections of letters. The problem is that when i select the two letters and go to live paint it won't let me choose "make" so i can't paint it. And i can't use the fill bucket it says "the selections contains objects that cannot be converted." Anyone know why it's doing this and just so you know i am a COMPLETE newbie at this it's my first time using this program.

Sounds like you're trying to make a LivePaint Group out of live text objects. You can't do that. As the alert says, you have to use paths.
You can convert the text objects to paths by selecting Type>Create Outlines.
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

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.

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

Can't rotate a gradient when it's a live paint object?

Hello,
OK-so I have a bunch of paths currently activated as a Live Paint object.
I place linear gradients in them, and when I go the gradient panel and try to rotate them, it looks like it will let me, by changing the rotation amount in the panel, but nothing happens in the gradient.
Is it possible to rotate a single gradient within a single, path while its still a Live Paint object?
thanks!
babs

Hi Monika and Gradientmush!
So sorry for the delay....My client came in and we just finished up, so I just got your responses!
I feel like an idiot!!! That was it Monika...I completely forgot about the paint paint selections tool!!!! As soon as I selected it with that tool and rotated the gradient in the gradient panel, it worked beautifully!!!
Thanks so much to the both of you.....one of those duh..moments ;-)
Haven't used live paint in awhile, and I completely forgot about the separate selection tool!!!
thanks!
babs

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

Live paint to image without covering lines in image?

I am using Live Paint in CS5 after tracing a line drawing, and I am finding that I am able to apply paint to the image, though it is covering up some of the lines. How canI apply the paint while making sure that the lines are not painted over?
Thanks.

Define "lines."
You can set options for whether the LivePaint tool applies fills or strokes separately. But the usual beginner's results of autotracing (LiveTrace) doesn't contain strokes. What the user thinks of as strokes in the original image are rendered as fills by most of the default autotracing presets.
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?

Clipping Paths + live paint?

Hi all
I have a group of shapes that I am trying to use live paint on. However all attempts to apply the tool have given me the following error -
"the selection contains objects that cannot be converted. Live paint groups can only contain paths and compound paths. Clipping paths are not allowed."
i used the release clipping path command. Didn't work; it created a visual abomination that I screenshotted for your amusement. The second image below is the shape with the mask applied. So the second image is what I want it to look like, but is the one that I cannot edit with live paint.
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d188/OphidianShenzi/shape-clippingmaskreleased.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d188/OphidianShenzi/shape-clippingmaskstillapplied.jpg
Hope I made that clear?
How do I get over this problem and convert these to a live paint group that looks like it's supposed to?
Many thanks in advance for your help, it is such a wonderful supportive community we have here.
-S

That does not look quite right, perhaps you have more than one clipping path and or an opacity mask.
Can you do a screen shot of the layers panel perhaps there is an order in which mask can be properly release by.

Is There any other way to paint/fill in Illustrator CS6 besides live paint

I cant paint my pictures until i have completed them in illstrator but if i try use live paint it messes up the paint strokes i have made so is there any other wat to paint or fill strokes in illustrator?

Live paint won't work with brush strokes or other effects.
Show your artwork if you want detailed information.

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.

Is using Live Paint unprofessional?

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