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Illustrator Tutorial: Perfect Silhouette with Live Trace

Illustrator Tutorial: Perfect Silhouette with Live Trace

 

Drawing silhouette figures using the pen tool is a long and painful process. However, with Illustrator’s Live Trace, you can now create silhouettes with ease. In this tutorial, I am going to teach you how to prepare your images in Photoshop for Live Trace. Then, we will experiment with various Live Trace settings to create our silhouette. After reading this, you will be able to create better looking silhouette figures.

1. Tracing With Live Trace

To begin tracing using auto trace, we will need to have a high resolution photo. This gives a better and more detailed trace than a low resolution photo. Also, you will need to choose photos that have a white background or strong contrast with the background for auto trace to work. For this tutorial, I have download this free stock photo from stock.xgn which can be found here.

Go File>Place and place the photo on the artboard. Select the photo and click Live Trace. Simple Trace will be selected as default for the trace. You will notice that there are 2 problems with the trace. First, the darker tones of background sky is being traced and secondly, the hands of the girls are missing. Click the Options icon beside Preset and try adjusting the Threshold settings. You will realise that this can’t be fixed with it.

1. Isolate the Background to White

The way to solve this is to make the background white. This will will give you a better trace. Open up the photo in Photoshop and select the Magic Wand. Set the Tolerance of the Magic Wand to 32 and select the background.

Fill the background with white.

We will need to darken to photo to remove all the details on the t-shirt to get a perfect black silhouette. Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels and drag the midtone color to the far right.

This is our final image after we have adjusted. It looks ugly right now, but trust me that the silhouette is going to be fine. Save the photo as jpg again and replace it in illustrator again.

Now, select Live Trace again for the photo and you can instantly see the difference.

Open up the Tracing Options again to tweak the trace. Increase the Threshold to 200 to remove the white areas on the girl. I have also increased the blur to 0.2px to smooth the edges. Also check Ignore White to remove the white background from the trace. Experiment with other settings to see which settings give the best results. Below is an explanation of each features for Live Trace.

Preset – Preset contains a set of settings for some common traced effect. It is a good place to start to see which settings gives you the best effect before you tweak the others.

Mode – Choose you color settings (black and white, grayscale or color)

Threshold – The value to separate black to white. Lighter pixels are converted to white and darker pixels are converted to black.

Palette – Choose automatic color selection or you can define your own color palette.

Max Colors – Maximum amount of colors used to define the palette.

Output to Swatches – Save your color palette to swatches.

Blur – Amount of gaussian blur applied to your image. Higher value will smooth out edges.

Resample – Changes the resolution of the image. Set it lower to speed up computer performances.

Fills – Check to render Fill.

Strokes – Check to render stroke.

Max Stroke Weight – Specifies that anything larger than this value will be considered a fill.

Min Stroke Length – The minimum size of a stroke allowed.

Path Fitting – Lower values create tighter paths whereas higher values will create looser paths.

Minimum Area – The smallest details to be traced.

Corner Angle – The sharpness of the turn to be considered as an angle.

Ignore White – Leave white fill as transparent.

Preview – Toggle this to turn on live preview. Always turn it on to see your traced effect.

This is our final traced effect. There are some white areas on the first figure that needs to be cleaned up.

If you are using Illustrator CS4, you can select the Blob Brush and paint over it to cover up the white areas. Or else, you can use the Direction Selection Tool to delete the unwanted paths.

To clean up jagged edges, select the Smooth Tool and retrace the path to smooth it.

Here our final silhouette is done. Now you can add in your background effect.

Illustrator Tutorial: Eye-Catching 3d Pie Graph

Illustrator Tutorial: Eye-Catching 3d Pie Graph

In this short tutorial, we will create an eye-catching 3D pie chart from raw data and explore several techniques for making better graph charts. Adobe Illustrator is the best tool for this job at least for me. Sometimes, we have to make eye catching graphs and illustrator is the best for this job.

However, if you want to make specialized graphs and flowcharts then don’t go for illustrator. Instead, go for some other specialized tools or Microsoft excel but if you want to control the presentation of the graph then illustrator is for you.

We will complete the process in 4 easy steps and at the end we will have a 3d stunning graph for your presentation.

1. Key in the data

2. Coloring the chart

3. Making the pie chart 3D

4. Labeling graph data

Project Scenario

I have a site with google analytics installed which show some the users coming on my site everyday and also their browser type. So I had taken this as reference for this tutorial. It includes chrome, Netscape, safari, opera, flock,
firefox and Internet explorer.

Key in the data

1. So let’s get started. Begin with a  new RGB document. Unless you have a specific size in mind, set the size to web default (800 x 600 pixels).

On the Toolbox, click and hold on the Column Graph Tool to reveal the other graph tools behind it. We want the Pie Graph tool (see first figure below). With the pie graph tool, click and drag out a rectangular area to contain the graph and its legend. When you release, the Graph Data window will appear (see second figure below).

2. The Graph Data window looks (pretty much) like any spreadsheet application. This is the brain of your charts, where all data, labels, and categories are entered and modified. The cells may hold values (numbers) or labels and categories (text and numbers). Data may be entered many levels deep to create fiendishly complex graphs, but we’re going to keep it simple with just one row of labels and one row of data.

3. Click in the top-left cell, which will load that cell into the cell entry box above, and type “Internet
Explorer”, our first data label. Press the Tab key after typing to commit the change and advance to the next cell along the top row. Enter the remaining labels the same way: “firefox”, “Flock”, “Opera”, “Safari”, “Nettsacpe”, and “Chrome”. In the end, you should have seven labeled columns along the top row (see figure below).

4. Naturally, if you’re working on your own graph project, replace my labels (and later
data) with your own.

Now that the labels are done, let’s enter the actual data from which our pie
and its pieces will be drawn. Click each cell under each label and enter their numbers.

5. After all data has been entered, click the Apply button. Behind the Graph Data window
you should see something akin to the figure below. Go ahead and close the Graph
Data window and save your document.

Coloring the Chart

6. If you’re content with a graph as boring as the chart above, go ahead and stop working now. In the following steps, we’ll add some colors before giving the graph some depth in the next section (”Making the Pie Graph 3D”).

Grab the Group Selection tool from behind the Direct Selection tool. Click twice on one of the pie sections to select both the slice and its legend. Cool, huh?

Now, using both the Swatches or Color palette, give it a fill—a solid color, gradient, or pattern and/or a stroke. If you plan to make your pie three-dimensional in the next step, don’t give it a stroke. Because of the blessed Group Selection tool, both the slice and the legend can be styled at once without breaking the graph’s link to its data—you can go back and change the dataset at any time.

7. Now, using the Swatches or Color palette, give it a fill—a solid color, gradient, or pattern—and/or a stroke. If you plan to make your pie three-dimensional in the next step, don’t give it a stroke. Because of the Group Selection Tool, both the slice and the legend can be styled at once without breaking the graph’s link to its data—you can go back and change the dataset at any time.

Making the Pie Chart 3D

8. Colors are great but a 3d effect can often (not always!) give a pie chart more impact, making the data easier to stare at going into that third hour of a 20-minute meeting.

The very first thing we need to do is separate the legend. So, grab the Direct Selection tool and drag a selection rectangle around just the legend (labels and colored boxes). Copy them with (Cmd+C/Ctrl+C).

Make a new layer, and paste (in front) the copied legend to it with (Cmd+F/Ctrl+F). Rename the layer to Legend. This legend is now disconnected from the graph. Next, hide the Legend layer.

9. Back to our first layer, select the graph with the Selection tool, and choose Object > Graph > Data, which will get you back to the Graph Data window.

In the Graph Data window, click the first cell in the top row and press Delete on your keyboard to wipe it out. Repeat until you’ve emptied the top row.

Select your second row by clicking in the first cell and dragging to the last. Instead of deleting, however, press (Cmd+X/trl+X) to cut the information. Click once in the leftmost cell of the top row and paste the data in with (Cmd-V/Ctrl+V).

10. Click the Apply button and close the Graph Data window.

11. Select the graph with the Selection tool. If your graph has a stroke, remove it. Now, choose Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel.

In the 3D Extrude & Bevel Options dialog below, turn on Preview and begin by choosing a Position preset from the drop-down menu at the top. For most graphs, I would suggest beginning with Off-Axis Bottom and working from there.

12. Click and drag any face, side, or corner of the track cube to change the graph’s rotation in three-dimensional space, or adjust the values in the X-, Y-, and Z-axis measurement fields. The measurement fields accept angles from negative 180° through positive 180°. Changing either the track cube or the axis fields will update the other. The blue face of the track cube is the front surface of your graph.

Changing the Perspective measurement field will distort your graph to create the impression of distance-use this sparingly as it will introduce distortion of your pie that may render the relative size of the pieces difficult to ascertain.

If you’re happy with the thickness of your graph and its lighting, just click OK (see figure below). Otherwise, play with the Extrude Depth to get the thickness you’d like. Changing the Bevel can give you rounded, beveled, or scalloped edges. After rotating the X-, Y-, and Z-axes to 31°, -19°, and 4°, respectively, and leaving all other options at their defaults, my pie graph looks much more interesting than it did flat.

13. Clicking the More Options button will reveal advanced lighting options where you may choose a shading type and modify the light(s) and shadows created from the extrusion and rotation. When you’ve finished setting the options for 3D Extrude & Bevel, click OK.

Turn on your Legend layer. Look at those color key swatches. Are they too big? They were for mine (see below), so I resized them in one swift motion. Unless you’re making a pie chart for the elderly, you may want to do the same. With the Selection tool, select all the colored rectangles. Then choose Object > Transform > Transform Each.

In the Transform Each dialog, turn on Preview in the bottom right, then change the Horizontal and/or Vertical scale to suit your graph. Unlike scaling via the Transform palette, Transform Each will scale each object within its own space rather than treating the individual paths as a group and transforming them relative to one another-which would force you to manually realign each block to its text label after scaling.

Style the type of your labels (if desired), and save your document. It now looks good. Figure below shows my final pie graph. How did I get the labels on the side? Keep reading… we’re almost there…

Labelling Graph Data

14. For a little extra clarity of data presentation, try applying labels directly to your pie pieces-or columns, rows, or whatever in other chart types-in addition to your legend.

Off on the pasteboard or on a new layer, click with the Type tool to create a point type object. Now type in your first legend label. With the pie graph we built, the first item would be “Font”. Style the type as you like, but make it a color that contrasts with the color of the pie pieces.

Hold the Cmd/Ctrl key and click away from the point type object to deselect it. Now click again with the Type tool and make your second label. Repeat this until you have separate point type objects for each of your pie pieces.

One at a time, drag your type labels into the Symbols palette to create new symbols from each of them. I heartily recommend you rename the new symbols to something meaningful like Label – Fonts, Label – 3D Models, and so on. After creating symbols, delete the original path type objects.

Select the 3D graph with the Selection tool, and, on the Appearance Palette, double-click the 3D Extrude & Bevel attribute to reopen the 3D Extrude & Bevel Options.

Turn Preview back on (annoying, isn’t it, that Preview turns off every time you come back?), then click on the Map Art button. In the Map Art dialog, the Symbol drop-down contains the label symbols we just made. Top right is the surface to which they will be applied. The arrows allow you to navigate between all the faces created by 3D Extrude & Bevel. Dominating the dialog is a preview of the object’s surface. A light surface in the current view indicates a face that is visible with the current rotation of the graph; a dark rectangle denotes a surface that is not currently visible.

If you peer around the Map Art dialog, you will see on the 3D graph a red outline revealing which surface is currently shown in the Map Art dialog. Using the arrows, move through the surfaces of your graph until you reach a visible side (see figure below).

15. From the Symbol drop-down, choose the correct label for that slice. It will instantly appear in the main part of the Map Art dialog. If you remembered to check Preview in the 3D Extrude & Bevel Options prior to entering Map Art, your graph should update as well to show the placement of the label.

Is the label where and how you want it? Note that the symbol instance in the Map Art dialog has a bounding box. Use the bounding box to move, resize, and/or rotate the label until it fits your graph where and how you’d like. To rotate, hover your cursor just beyond a corner control point. When the cursor becomes a curved, double-headed arrow, click and drag to rotate (Shift-drag to constrain to increments of 45°).

16. Again using the arrows, move through the 3D graph’s surfaces, applying the labels where needed. If you may at some point rotate your graph, go ahead and apply the labels to surfaces hidden now that may become exposed during a rotation. Doing it now will save on accidental omissions later. Just before you click OK, turn on Shade Artwork-or don’t, as you prefer.

17. Labels add an extra touch to my pie chart, as you can see in our final 3D pie chart below. Incidentally, the pie chart shadow I created Drop Shadow live effect. Once again, here’s our final 3D pie chart.

Keep On Rollin' Visitor There is something more and more ahead... :-)

Create simple shinny Vector Logo

Shiny glass logos are all the rage right now and it seems everyone these days (including us) is doing it. So here is a dead easy tutorial on how to create a shiny glass logo in Photoshop.

Step 1: Create some Text

First, create a new file (File > New) with dimensions of 300x300 pixels. Select the Text Tool in your tool panel, click on the canvas and type in some text in a nice thick styled font. I'm using a font called Planet Kosmos which I picked up from dafont.com.

Step2: Add Gradient

Next, in the Layers window, right-click on the text layer and select Blending Options. IN the Layer Style window click on Gradient Overlay. Create a gradient with a dark colour at the top and a lighter colour at the bottom. Here are the settings I have used:

Left Gradient Stop: #50A8E0
Right Gradient Stop: #074189

The key is for the top colour to be rather dark and the bottom to look like its almost a fluorescent colour (or lit up).

Step 3: Create Selection

Now, this step is what makes the shiny glass effect work and may take a few tries before you get it right. Create a new layer above your text layer. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (square selection tool). and create a selection over the top half of the text.

Step 4: Fill Selection

Now select the paint bucket tool and fill in your selection. Don't worry about the colour, we are about to get rid of it.

Step 5: Apply Shine Gradient to Fill

Now, in the layers window, right-click on the filled layer and select Blending Options. Now, drag the 'Fill' slider all the way over the 0. This will make your layer appear to have no fill at all. Next, go down to Gradient Overlay and open of the gradient (click on it). Make both stops solid which (#ffffff). Then also change the opacity stoppers so the the left one is nearly 0 and the right one is 100 (see screenshot)

Step 6: Select Text

We are nearly done. If you still have a selection...selected, press (ctrl-D) to deselect. Now, we are going to select the shape of the text. To do this hold down ctrl and click on the text layer. You should then see the selection in the shap of your text.

Step 7: Subtract Text from Shine Gradient

Now we want to inverse the selection. Shft-Ctrl-I will do this for you. Now, make sure your still on the top layer (the one with the white faded gradient) and hit Delete. This will delete all the gradient outside the shape of the text. If you are using a white background, you won't see the different, but if your not, you will because your white gradient will be in the shape of your text. Here is what is happening on a non-white background:

Final Results

That's it. You now have a shiny glass logo. You can go further and add a stroke and drop shadow to the text like I have done to get the finished product below. Experiment with different colours and gradient settings.

"Seven" 7 more things you didn't know about adobe illustrator

1. Polar Grid

In your tool pallet, click and hold the “line segment tool” and then scroll down and select the “Polar Grid Tool”. This is a very handy tool for creating a variety of shapes and getting to grips with it can save you a lot of time in the long run – so have a play!

Click and drag on your artboard and you’ll see a circular shape appear with concentric and radial lines. If you hold down shift whilst dragging you’ll notice the circle will grow in perfect proportions. If you hold down alt , you’ll also see that the circle will grow from the centre of where you initially clicked.

To get extra options simply click once on the artboard – a window will open allowing you to change the size, the number of concentric dividers and radial dividers. You can also skew the dividers which can achieve some very interesting shapes!

2. Flare Tool

To add that extra sparkle to any illustration the flare tool is invaluable! From the tool pallet, click and hold the “Rectangle Tool” and then scroll down and select the “Flare Tool”. Click and drag on your artboard and you’ll see the complex flare shape appear.

To add an angle to the lens flare, while the flare is selected and ensuring that you still have the flare tool on, hold down alt and click and drag the curser – you can then manually control the flare.

Additional options can be found by clicking once whilst having the Flare Tool selected.

3. Roughen

Have you ever needed to create a shape which doesn’t have smooth edges? To draw one with the pen tool takes alot of time and patience which us designers don’t have alot of!

First of all draw a rectangle (Hot key M). While it is selected go up to the top menu, select Filter > Distort > Roughen. A window will open which will allow you to select how much “roughness” you require on your shape – be sure to select “preview” so you can see the effects of your selections.

4. Shear Tool

It may be a simple tool on its own but you can use this tool to create stunning effects. Let’s start by drawing a star – select the star tool by clicking and holding the rectangle tool on the Tools menu. Draw your star holding down shift to ensure it is drawn as an equilateral shape.

Now on the Tools pallet – click and hold the over the “Scale Tool”, this will show a drop down – select the “Shear Tool”.

With the star shape selected click and drag to “shear” it. Only do it subtly as we are now going to use another technique to create a complicated set of shapes. Illustrator will remember the shear equation we have used – if you now copy the star (Hot Keys Command + C), paste it back in place (Hot Keys Command + F) and then duplicate the shear effect (Command + D) you will get the same shear effect on the newly pasted star. If you do this a few times a very complex set of shapes appear.

To get more options from the Shear tool you can also press return whilst it is selected on the Tool Pallet.

When you have multiple shapes crossing over one another, the ability to play with transparency effects can have some rewarding results. Select the shapes you wish to change and then open the Transparency Pallet (Hot Keys Shift + Option + F10). From here you can obviously change the standard level of the opacity of an object – you can also select different blending options. Have a play to discover different effects. It’s worth noting that different colours respond differently to some of these effects.

5. The Gradient Tool

Create a circle (Hot Key O) holding down shift to make it proportional. Whilst the circle is selected open the Gradient Pallet (Hot Keys Command + F9). Drag into the gradient pallet two colours of your choice from your swatches pallet. The two colours will be blended together within the circle shape.

For flexibility you can also select the Gradient Tool from the Tool Pallet. Once selected click and drag across the circle shape – you will see that the gradient will follow the line drawn by the gradient tool – very handy for getting the gradient you need. Alternatively you can enter a gradients angle into the Gradient Pallet manually.

You can also select between a linear gradient (a straight blend from one side to another) to a radial gradient (a gradient which starts from a point and grows like a radio signal).

You can also add other colours to the gradient as well as defining the middle of the gradient with a percentage.

When using these techniques with a few shapes, stunning effects can be achieved!

6. Expanding Gradients

Another very cool thing you can do with illustrator is expand your gradients so that each colour within the gradient becomes a shape. You can use this technique to create some amazing graphics!

Draw a circle (Hot Key O) and apply a radial gradient to it. Then, simply go to the top menu “Object > Expand” – select the “fill” option (or experiment with the others as they are well worth getting to grips with) and hit ok.

Each area of the gradient will now appear as a separate shape – masked within the original circle. To take off the mask, select the shape and hold down “Command + Option + 7″ – this will expand the mask and its contents and show them as a group – ungroup them (Hot Key Command + Shift + G) and you can then delete the mask.

We now have lots of circles getting smaller and smaller – each containing a gradient – to be able to define each “ring” as a shape select them all, then pull up the Pathfinder Pallet (Hot Keys Shift + Command + F9) and select the “Divide” option. Ungroup the shapes again. This will split the shape up allowing you to then go in and delete and change each “ring” as desired.

7. Live Trace

Ever needed an image cut out in a hurry or wanted to produce a photograph as a vector image? Then check out this nifty tool!

First of all go to the top menu “File > Place” and select an image file to place into your illustrator file. With the image selected go to “Object > Live Trace > Tracing Options”.

This will bring up a window allowing you to play with the tracing settings. To see the effect your changes are having on the image select “preview”. Note: this can take up a lot of processor speed so be sure to save any files you have opened before attempting this! Once you have the look you are after click “Trace”.

Your image will have the appearance of being traced but we are not quite through yet! Now go to the top menu “Object > Expand” – this will outline the image as vector shapes.

Un-group the shapes (Hot Keys shift + Command + G) – You can now go in and edit and change the colours of the image or delete areas accordingly…