On the few occasions that I have found it useful, I’ve used Live Trace to create vectors from a 1 or 2 color logo that I only had a raster of. It’s not bad at that, though you rarely get a professional print quality output as it’s still hard to get really clean, straight lines and of course it depends on how high of quality your source file is. I have used software at a former job that was proprietary to them and did not have any kind of vector export feature so I would make a .jpg of a technical line drawing in the software and live trace that in illustrator. Results are hit and miss most times and really depend on how much time you want to spend tweaking the settings and how high of quality you want the final output to be.
Like all programs that I’ve ever tried out that promise easy vector conversion, I’ve usually found that I can actually trace it faster myself and get MUCH better quality without a lot more time invested. In every program I have ever seen you could easily spend as much time cleaning up the vector trace as you could drawing it right the first time.
What are your thoughts on the Live Trace feature in Adobe Illustrator? Do you use it? What do you use it for? Have you used other software that works better for vector conversion? Let us know!
I find it handy when creating silhouettes for architectural renderings, especially figures and trees. Things that are complex but don’t require precision.
Years ago I used to use Adobe Streamline (I think that it’s the same as LiveTrace now) to do logo vector conversions. I agree with Clint… clean up was time consuming… even loosely tracing, seemed to have a better result. With LiveTrace I never know what I’m doing with the “tracing options” dialog box…I kind of just willy nilly changing numbers and hitting buttons with what seems to be the same result. I guess I should learn how to use properly.
I rarely get usable results with Live Trace, definitely not something I would want to use large. Sometimes it’s good for quickly banging out something that will run small and so accuracy is not important.
I HAVE however found an online tool that works as advertised. It used to be free but now it’s not, but it’s still really worth occasional use: http://vectormagic.com/home
If it’s a logo you have to trace, check for it on http://brandsoftheworld.com/
Josh, i’ve heard about Vector Magic before but never tried it. If you have it, could you show us a sample of what it can do?
Brands of the world is great, I’ve downloaded a good deal of logos from them. Some of them have been really good quality and others look like they were just live traced.
James, I wonder if we should have some links on the side of this site for handy resources like this?
Clint-
I’ve tried the online service only. But it was invaluable when I needed to trace a complex pattern.