Skip navigation

Illustrator

Currently Being Moderated

Results in Image Trace don't match Live Trace

Aug 8, 2012 12:20 PM

Tags: #illustrator #cs6 #live_trace #image_trace

I just started using CS6, jumping from CS3. A major tool I use is Live Trace, and I have custom settings for that. I cannot find a way to make Image Trace behave the way Live Trace did for black and white line drawings. The results I get in CS6 are far inferior to those I got in CS3 in terms of retaining the look of the original raster image. Help would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I will have to leave CS3 installed just to do my Live Trace.

Here is a sample of what I mean. You can see the quality degredation in CS6 compared to CS3. (And it's much more obvious when it's full size and full resolution.)

My settings used in Live Trace (CS3) were:

The settings I tried in CS6 that gave the above result were:

Thanks for the help!

3817 Views 21 Replies Latest reply: grafixaddict, Dec 17, 2012 5:20 AM

Replies

Currently Being Moderated

1. Jeffcd19,

Aug 8, 2012 1:50 PM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

My first thought is to reduce your "Threshold" settings. In CS 3 you have it at 128 but in CS6 you have 198. This might be forcing the trace to catch too much detail and thereby tracing all the pixels from the image.
You should also try reducing the Paths and Corners settings a bit see if that helps
And maybe you should try the Create "strokes" option too. I can't help much as I don't have a copy of CS 6 yet but those are my best guesses

Give it a try and good luck

Jeff

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

2. AIMSEdu,

Aug 8, 2012 2:21 PM in reply to Jeffcd19

Report

I tried all those things to no avail. When I lowered the threshold, it was leaving out large parts of the image altogether.

Even with the mouse, I was able to get it smoother by adjusting the corners, but it still lacks most of the detail that CS3 gave.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

3. [scott w],

Aug 8, 2012 3:23 PM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

I was able to get much closer than you're getting after just a few seconds. More time could be spent refining the trace than I spent.

My trace on top... your orignal from here on bottom.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

4. AIMSEdu,

Aug 8, 2012 3:45 PM in reply to [scott w]

Report

Well, there must be something else going on, because when I use the exact same settings as you, I get very different results:
Yours looks great; mine, not so much...

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

5. [scott w],

Aug 8, 2012 3:50 PM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

A couple possibilities....

1) What orginal are you using? How does it differ from the jpgs posted here (since I used the jpgs above as originals)?

2) Perhaps trashing Illustrator prefernces and trying again might help.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

6. AIMSEdu,

Aug 10, 2012 8:14 AM in reply to [scott w]

Report

Well, I think I figured it out... The originals I have always used are the native Photoshop .eps files created by our artists. When I converted the files to .jpg and tried it, the results were exactly like the ones you got. So, not sure why CS6 doesn't like .eps files for Image Trace, but now I know...

Thanks so much for all of your help! Although it's an extra step to convert everything to .jpg, it's better than having to use two versions of Illustrator to get my work done!

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

7. [scott w],

Aug 10, 2012 8:37 AM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

I've never understood why some people use Photoshop EPS files. It made sense in 1988, but it hasn't for over a decade.

Glad you got it sorted!

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

8. grafixaddict,

Oct 17, 2012 12:19 PM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

I am having a similar problem. Part of what I do uses Photoshop at a 1x1 pixel level. I also need to drop this in to Illustrator, Live Trace it, and then add various colors to it. Any thoughts on how I can acheive that level of corners?

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

9. Monika Gause,

Oct 17, 2012 12:46 PM in reply to grafixaddict

Report

SHow us some examples.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

10. grafixaddict,

Oct 17, 2012 1:10 PM in reply to Monika Gause

Report

This was creating in Photoshop. I need to be able to trace it exactly to show its true form in Illustrator. This was posssible with Live Trace.
Now its not possible with Image Trace
This is as close as I can get

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

11. AIMSEdu,

Oct 17, 2012 1:37 PM in reply to grafixaddict

Report

You just have to play with the settings. They are different and don't behave like the ones in Live Trace did, but with some fiddling, it's possible to get results that are close to what we had before. I was able to get this result using your top image:

These are the settings I used:
See if these settings give you the results you are looking for.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

12. Monika Gause,

Oct 17, 2012 1:42 PM in reply to grafixaddict

Report

Image trace is not particularly well at tracing black and white (1 bit) images. It' s way better with anti-aliased grayscale images.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

13. grafixaddict,

Oct 17, 2012 1:45 PM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

Thanks for trying. Here are my settings (matching your exactly) Your preset says "Fill Only 2". I'm guessing that is a user preference?
And my results (far from yours)
I am obviously missing something here

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

14. AIMSEdu,

Oct 17, 2012 1:55 PM in reply to grafixaddict

Report

Yes, the setting name is a user preference. This is exactly what happened to me in terms of my results not matching what the other people were getting (see all original posts). The issue for me turned out to be file type. I got the results shown above by using the downloaded .png image of your file from this site. Is the image you are placing in Illustrator a .png or a .jpg? If you are using a .psd file, that may be the reason. Otherwise, I have no idea.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

15. grafixaddict,

Oct 17, 2012 2:05 PM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

I am perflexed. I have tried jpg, png, bmp (typically used for very specific reasons) and nothing.
Thank you for trying.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

16. AIMSEdu,

Oct 17, 2012 2:12 PM in reply to grafixaddict

Report

Sorry I'm not more help. That is the extent of my knowledge. But I would be curious if you get the same results by downloading your own image from the post and using that with the settings I tried.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

17. grafixaddict,

Oct 18, 2012 5:29 AM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

AIMSEdu, Interestingly enough when I downloaded the file from this post; 1. It was much larger than the original 2. The Image Trace worked PERFECTLY!!!
Now, how I replicate that same scenario 20 times a day will be interesting
Thanks again for your help!!!

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

18. unimpersonated,

Nov 4, 2012 6:24 AM in reply to AIMSEdu

Report

I was very dissapointed to find out that CS6 is much inferior to CS5 or earlier versions when tracing black and white line drawings or comic art. By the way many users are of the same opinion. Here is a review of CS6 vs CS5 tracing results:
http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/quick-tip-how-to-use-t he-new-image-trace-in-adobe-illustrator-cs6/
And here is my own experience. Whatever settings I try in CS6 the result is just terrible. This one is the best I could get. Details are lost. Lines are very thick.

In comparison, here is how wonderfully the same work is done by CS5, not to mention that I didn't even have to tackle with any settings at all. Just clicked the button Live Trace and got saticfactory results with the default preset.

These are original unreduced files:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61392902/Illustrator%20Bugs/Traced_in_CS5.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61392902/Illustrator%20Bugs/Traced_in_CS6.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61392902/Illustrator%20Bugs/Original_Raster_D rawing.jpg

P.S. It is sometimes possible to get good results in CS6, if you take the big drawing apart into small separate drawings. However it means a lot of additional work: tens of extra hours in a year in fact. Which, of coarse, undoubtfully means that CS6 is a step backwards if compared with CS5.
Besides some big complex drawings with many details can not be devided into a smaller ones. And if you don't have an earlier version of the program, in this case there is no way to get a quality trace at all!

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

19. Frank Heller,

Nov 4, 2012 12:16 PM in reply to unimpersonated

Report

This example, provided by unimpersonated, illustrates the deficiencies of CS6's tracing functionality perfectly.

I compared the results between CS6 and CS5 using the original raster jpg posted above. It's night and day. Right out of the box with default settings, CS5 made an incredibly accurate representation. The same results were impossible to acheive with CS6 no matter how much tweaking was involved. Even cutting the original .jpg into smaller segments could not approach the accuracy attained in CS5.

I have to agree, this appears to be quite a step backwards for the tracing function in AI.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

20. MaxCalo,

Dec 16, 2012 1:21 AM in reply to Frank Heller

Report

Just wanted to add my complete agreement. I have been tracing black and white images since the times of Adobe Streamline and with CS6 there are possibly the worst ever results.
Please Adobe please, take notice and do something about it. CS5 was excellent at it - just put that bit of code back.

|
Mark as:
Currently Being Moderated

21. grafixaddict,

Dec 17, 2012 5:20 AM in reply to MaxCalo

Report

To all,
We all seem to be having very similar issues. From this post I have disocvered that if the image that you are choosing to trace is saved as a PNG (larger than normal), PLACED into Illustrator CS6, then traced using CS6, the outcome is much better.
I am only speaking of Black & White traces. I have not tried this in color. It hasn't been a concern of mine yet.

I am in TOTAL & COMPLETE agreement with MaxCalo!!!

Happy Creative!

|
Mark as: