Hi, I only use illustrator occasionally and am not up on all of it's functions so hopefully this is something super simple to achieve.

I've used live trace to trace a detailed raster image - got a nice effect that I want to use but need to clean up the expanded paths so it can be used on any color background. The original image was on a white background and I did select ignore white on the trace -however there are several pale grey filled paths around the edges where the image had blended to the white background. I need a smooth clean circle shape that can be used on dark and light backgrounds. I've done some reading on "take away" from, trim and crop but am not getting the result I want and to be honest am a bit confused about using these correctly. Basically want to make a circle shape and trim or take away everything outside the circle.

Can this be done and is there an easy way to apply it to all of the paths in a layer at the same time?

I appreciate any help you can give.

Connie

could you post a screenshot of what you have so far?
it might be that you could simply replace one part of the trace with a circle or ellipse, or then punch paths using a circle

Originally Posted by davemies

could you post a screenshot of what you have so far?
it might be that you could simply replace one part of the trace with a circle or ellipse, or then punch paths using a circle

Thanks for the response davemies. "punch paths using a circle" sounds like it may be what I need but I'm not sure how to go about that. Here is the trace on a white background. I used photoshop to paint in some of the textures and shadows to get the result I wanted then traced it in illustrator. Looks great on the white background


but on a black background (and the site this is going on will be dark) you see the artifact

er, did you mean to show us a screenshot? could you post a picture so we can see? or you can even me me the illi file to gekkoweb[at]gmail.com or post a link to the illustrator file

weird - the images show up when I put a direct link in the browser - and they did show when I previewed the post. I've sent you an email davemies - thanks for taking a look.

Connie

Well i had a look but i think with my limited illustrator skills it would take too long to figure out
placing a black rectangle behind the ball bearing shows the white outline but it's made up from a lot of tiny individual paths.
i tried it in fireworks, where i'm rather more adept but there are too many paths for it too handle - it belongs firmly in illustrator territory.

i would try one of two things (if no-one here can suggest anything)
1) recreate it with gradients without having 100's of paths
2) ask on the adobe illustrator forum (at adobe.com) where you'll at least get a better solution than i can provide

when you find out the solution post back here as i'm dying to know!

Thanks for looking - I'll let you know if I can find a solution

OK I figured this out - a bit tedious but a fraction of the work I would have needed to do each path separately.

1. I made a compound path of a rectangle (background) with a circle taken away from it in the middle (the area I wanted to trim to). I'll call this the "trim layer" Put this in it's own layer and forget about it for now - we will use it later.

Next I had to create merged groups of similar color items - this was relatively easy to do as the image is greyscale - will be more complex with traced color images. Do this as follows.

1. select a path
2. In the "Select" menu choose "same" and then "fill color"
3. With all of those paths selected - in the "pathfinder" palate click on "merge". You will need at least one shape overlapping another in the group of paths in order to do this - create one if needed. - Merging is key to getting this to work. A new merged group will be created.

Repeat the select same color and merge process with each color of the image. The fewer colors you have the faster this will go.

Now go back to the trim layer - make sure this layer is always on top in the layers palatte. Also - in the trim process you may get stray points on your Trim layer so I found it best to keep a duplicate of this layer for use with each trim. Always use a clean trim layer with each merged group.

1. Select the copy of the "trim layer"
2. Holding the control key (windows) select one of the "merged" groups.
3. In the pathfinder Palatte click on trim
4. Open the new group created and delete the "trim layer"
5. Close group

Repeat the trim process with a clean copy of the trim layer and each "merged" group

New trimmed groups are always brought to the top so if necessary - reorder them.

When all the groups are trimmed you can delete the master trim layer. The result is as follows - on the dark background there is no longer the grey/white artifact

Before

http://www.inpedigree.com/steelball2.jpg

After

http://www.inpedigree.com/steelball3.jpg - copy and paste the links into your browser - I (at least) am having problems with links and images in this forum.

Hopefully this will help someone else in the future
Connie