Best method to live trace in Illustrator

In this quick tutorial I am going to show you how to convert detailed Raster images to Vector in illustrator without losing much if any quality.
If you ever had a detailed image that you wanted to live trace but keep getting sub part results; in this tutorial you will learn how to avoid losing those details!

Prints:

[knxslyr]

If you get illustrator and are wondering why your screens look different than his go to window > workspace > classic essentials it’ll give you a toolbar at the top and more icons on the right

[jonathankoon]

Didn't even know this was possible. Thanks for sharing

[captaincompensation]

I'm going to create 5 other accounts just to give it a thumbs up. I had such a difficult time getting an accurate trace of my drawing so I could edit the color of it. You're a legend sir.

[samhebel]

THANK YOU!!! 🏆🤩Using this method I was able to beautifully vectorize a full color illustration I did in Procreate (with stipple brushes!). Luckily I had worked in layers, so I was able to export & process each color/screen individually. Tedious but SO worth it -- image trace could never!

[adamrylander]

I can't thank you enough. Was about to trace an entire map by hand since image trace kept messing up the lines.

[alphanumericskeptic]

Short, sweet, concise, and simple... Gotta like that!! Thank you

[pumpkinpatch]

Thank you so much for this! I've been using Illustrator's live trace for years, but I needed to convert some really detailed linework drawings I'd created for a mural and it just wasn't capturing the original essence of my work. This sorted it straight away.

You learn something new every day! Thank you! Life saver! 🙂

[victoriaacosta]

I have no words to thank you! thank you so much! I have been looking for this solution for a long time!

[shripadsonawane]

thanks you so much for video...its really helpfull...

[jose]

Thanks for this video! I feel like I just discovered gold!!

[andretheguitarman]

works with this example but not with images with lots of colors then you have to select the pixels with the magic wand tool and experiment with the settings

[chardupre]

Thank you for this video! This is exactly what I needed.

[seb]

Nice one! Quick feedback: While this is a great method I think there's 2 major points to note:

1. DPI/PPI is completely irrelevant for this as it is a number stored in the metadata of an image to tell applications like InDesign etc. what 100% size means for an image. If you print at 300dpi you set your image dpi to 300 so you can see in InDesign if an image is scaled over 100%, which would result in too little data in one line for example to allow full 300 dots per inch to be printed in said line, which results in a lower perceived image quality. PPI is pixels per inch, also applying to printing. Both numbers change nothing about the image resolution or quality on screen.

2. Technically this is live tracing in Photoshop ;) Yes, cleanup is done is Illustrator, it just makes the title of the video misleading.

Anyways, great tip to share!

[klebersilva]

Thanks! Helped me a lot. Greetings from Brazil

[strawberryzozo]

Does this work if my drawing is more than 1 colour and the details aren't differentiated by white space?

[julietsierra]

Hello, thanks for the relevant and practical video... it's hard to find anything on autotrace these days which is so weird to me. Anyway, how could we do this for a photograph? Right now I just do a high fidelity photo autotrace, but wondered if there was a better way that doesn't look so "autotracey" 😅

[suryasudharsan]

is it possible to get the same result with images ?

[JerryN]

At my workplace, people send us low res, pixelated logos and I often live trace them as best as possible in Illustrator and then use the pen tool to clean up the paths. Does this method work in a situation like that?