Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

• Live Color is really a feature set as opposed to a specifi c tool

(in fact, Adobe quietly abandoned the phrase “Live Color” in

CS4, but I still use it as do many others). With it you can auto-

matically yet systematically replace given colors in your image

with completely different ones. For instance, let’s say I wanted

to change the color motif in the pirate fl ag in Figure 11-4 to

something more tasteful. With a quick trip through a dialog

box, I can reassign the colors to go from “1979” to “Cafe Au

Lait” color schemes and quickly create a more understated fl ag,

(for your more discerning pirate decorating needs).

The live features explained in this lesson are not only effi cient, but

fun to use as well. Let’s get started with a simple automatic trace.

Creating a Black-and-White Trace

The Live Trace feature in Illustrator allows you to turn pixels into

vectors by tracing over a raster-based image in order to create scal-

able, editable artwork. Illustrator analyzes the bitmapped image,

creates a usable reference, and then traces around that reference

fi le to draw its outlines.

In this exercise, all the vector-based content for this illustration will

be created by the Live Trace feature’s interaction with an existing

Photoshop fi le. In other words, we’ll start with a blank document

without a single bit of vector information, and let Illustrator create

all the path content on i ...