Working with Image Trace in Adobe Illustrator CS6

Illustrator CS6 has a completely new tracing engine that makes the conversion of raster
images to editable vector artwork easy and clean. You can get sharper lines, with better
shape fitting and more accurate color selection.
Using Image Tracer

The first step in the tracing process is to get something to trace. Because tracing is the process of converting
raster data to vector data, you need a raster image open in Illustrator.

Open an Illustrator document that already contains raster content, place a raster image into an Illustrator
artboard using the File > Place command,

Choose Window > Image Trace to open the Image Trace panel. In previous versions of Illustrator, you had to
apply the Live Trace command in order to see the tracing options in a separate dialog box.

1. With the Selection tool, select the raster image on the artboard. After selecting raster content, the
Image Trace panel will spring to life, and the options will no longer be dimmed ().

Figure 3 The Image Trace panel in Illustrator CS6

Notice in the Control panel the Image Trace button with an arrow to the right. By clicking the Image
Trace button, you apply the default tracing option to the selected raster content. By clicking the arrow
to the right of the button, you can choose a tracing preset with which trace the selected content. You
can also choose Object > Image Trace > Make to trace selected raster with the default tracing options
or choose Object > Image Trace > Make and Expand to trace and expand the content immediately (I
discuss expanding shortly).

2. At the top of the Image Trace panel, click the High Color button to trace the image using the default High
Color settings. Depending on the speed of your machine and the image content selected, the time required
to trace may vary.
3. At the top of the Illustrator Image Trace panel is a series of preset buttons that offer generic tracing options
which most of us will use at some point or another, depending on the project. There is also a series of
preset options in the Preset menu below the buttons. The buttons at the top of the panel (mostly) coincide
 with an option in the Preset menu. For instance, the High Color button is similar to the High Fidelity Photo
option in the Preset menu, and the Low Color button is similar to the 16 Colors option in the Preset menu.
The Preset menu offers more options.

TIP:If you trace a raster image, you can always remove the tracing, returning it to a raster image, by choosing
Object > Image Trace > Release.

When you trace an image using one of the tracing buttons or a trace preset, the raster image data is converted
to an Image Tracing object. This means that you can adjust the tracing options, even trying different presets,
but it is not editable vector. As a matter of fact, you will see Image Tracing on the left end of the Control panel
with the newly traced content selected.

Figure 5 The Control Panel options with the Image Tracing object selected

Editing the Tracing Options

After choosing a starting preset to trace the image, you can then either accept the tracing results or adjust the
tracing options to better suit your tracing needs.

1. In the Image Trace panel, choose Tracing Result with Outlines from the View menu.

Showing the outlines can be helpful for seeing how many vector shapes will be created when you
trace.

NOTE :You can also change the View option in the Control panel with the Image Tracing object
selected.

2. Choose Tracing Result from the View menu.

3. Press and hold the Eye icon to the right of the View menu in the Image Trace panel to view the original
image on the artboard. Release the mouse button to return to the tracing results (see Figure 7).
4. Drag the Color slider to the left to decrease the number of colors in the Image Tracing object

If you look at the bottom of the Image Trace panel, you see a listing of the total number of paths,
points, and colors. Notice that the number of colors listed there doesn’t match the number of colors
listed in the Colors value (the slider). The Colors value refers to the color accuracy in percent of color.
Less accurate means fewer colors (typically) and not depicting the color of the image as accurately.

NOTE:The fewer the number of colors in an Image Tracing object, the fewer the anchor points
and paths, typically.

5. From the Palette menu in the Image Trace panel, choose Limited. Change the Colors value to 4 by
dragging the slider.After viewing the result, change the number colors to 16 or so.

The Limited option limits the number of colors in the Image Tracing object to 30 by default. You can adjust the
Colors value (the slider) or type a number into the field to the right directly to edit the number of colors. This
value allows you to choose the actual number of colors in the object, rather than a percentage.
TIP:For every change that you make in the Image Trace panel, Illustrator needs to apply the new options to the
Tracing Image object on the artboard. If you want to set a series of options at once, without waiting for the
update, you can deselect Preview at the bottom of the panel and then select it again when you are finished
setting options. Also, if you drag the Colors slider, for instance, and want a specific value, the Image Tracing
object won’t update (with Preview selected) until you release the mouse button on the slider.

Advanced Tracing Options

If you find that the tracing results still aren’t what you want or expect, you do have the option to edit the
advanced settings in the Image Trace panel. Unlike CS5 and earlier, treading into the advanced tracing option
territory isn’t quite as mysterious.

Click the Advanced arrow in the Image Trace panel to toggle open the Advanced options.

The top three options (Paths, Corners, and Noise—see Figure 10) are where you can fine-tune the tracing.
Here’s what each of these options mean:

Three of the advanced options in the Image Trace panel

 Paths: Dragging the Paths slider to the right makes the paths fit tighter to the original “shape” (more
anchor points), whereas dragging to the left makes the paths fit looser (less anchor points).
 Corners: Dragging the slider to the right makes more corner points, and dragging the slider to the less
makes more smooth points.
 Noise: Suppose that the background of an image you were tracing contained some unwanted content
such as artifacting or dust/spots. By increasing the Noise value (dragging the slider to the right), you
can exclude some of that content from the tracing result. The pixel value of Noise refers to the smallest
pixel area (not just width or height) that will be traced, and not ignored
 Reducing the noise removed the spot in the background of our image, but also removed the highlight
shape on the apple

And yes, even understanding what each of these is intended to do, some of us (me) will sometimes just drag
the sliders back and forth to see what happens.

The Method option has two options: Abutting and Overlapping. These options can be very important,
depending on the result you are looking for. This is a new option in CS6 and works sort of like print trapping
turned on or off. Here’s what I mean:

 Abutting: The vector shapes that are created when an image is traced butt up against each other with
no gaps between (typically).
 Overlapping: The vector shapes that are created overlap each other just a bit. This can sometimes
result in small “gaps” between the vector shapes.

1. With the Image Tracing object still selected, choose Black And White from the Mode menu. The Create
option will become available when you choose Black And White from the Mode menu.
 Apply Black And White to the tracing image

2. Deselect Fills in the Create options area, and Strokes will become selected (at least one needs to be
selected). For black and white tracing, you can choose to create shapes with strokes, fills, or both).

Selecting just Fills creates filled shapes when the image is traced. Selecting just Strokes will create
stroked paths from content that falls with the range in the Stroke option beneath the Create options.
Selecting Fills and Strokes together will create stroked paths for content up to the size of the Stroke
value and filled paths for everything over that size.

TIP:The Stroke selection in the Create options can be very useful for hand-drawn sketches,
architectural drawings, line art, and more.

3. Click the Auto Color button at the top of the Image Trace panel to return the image to color.

Lastly, the Ignore White selection towards the bottom of the Image Trace panel can save you some time. Any
pixel data that is white in the resulting vector data will not be included. In other words, for the apple image
you’ve seen in this article, the white background will not be a shape and will be transparent. That also means
that the highlight on the apple that is pure white will wind up being a hole, or area with no shape.

After you finish tracing, you can either choose to leave the vector content as an Image Tracing object, which
means you can’t directly edit the vector shapes, or you can expand the tracing results and turn the Image
Tracing object into a group of vector objects (shapes and/or paths—depending on the options set). You can
click the Expand button in the Control panel or choose Object > Image Trace > Expand to expand to shapes.

Here are a few things to consider:

 If you place an image and link to it (when placing), trace it, then expand it, the raster image that is
traced is no longer linked to the original and cannot be updated directly.
 Expanding an Image Tracing object commits you to the tracing settings. In other words, you can’t edit
the option in the Image Trace panel for that content after expanding.
 An Image Tracing object that has been expanded will, more often than not, be smaller in file size than
the non-expanded Image Tracing object.
 You can “clean up” an image in a program such as Photoshop before tracing. Sometimes I will
increase the contrast in an image to be traced, almost to the point of not looking right (too much
contrast). In some cases, this can make it easier for Illustrator to determine what is what (where edges
 are, etc.). Also, you can use the touch-up tools in Photoshop to remove unwanted content before
tracing.
 In CS5, when tracing a web-optimized image, such as a JPEG that is 72ppi, it traced the “stairstepped”
edge. In CS6, that’s usually not the case.
 Tracing an image that is a higher resolution will usually result in a more detailed trace
 After expanding the Image Tracing object, you can clean up the resulting vector content a bit by
choosing Object > Path > Simplify, or attacking the resulting paths and shapes with the drawing tools.
 You can save your tracing options in the Image Trace panel by clicking the Manage Presets button to
the right of the Preset menu and choosing Save As New Preset. Saved presets appear in the Preset
menu.