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media kat
Known Participant
August 6, 2026
Answered

Is Live Tracing still relevant?

  • August 6, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 74 views

Does anyone here still use the Live Tracing feature? If so, can you please share some examples of how, and why you use it?

Thanks

    Correct answer Monika Gause

    Live Trace was the name of the feature until version CS6. Is that what you are referring to? In CS6 they overhauled i and it got a new name: Image Trace.

    Why shouldn’t it be relevant anymore? You can get better results for some kinds of images (but not all) with Vector Magic. Some (parts of) images might be better services with concepts to vector. And for Black and white highly detailed woodcut and the like, Inkscape can give you better results than Illustrator. But for a lot of things, Illustrator will give you the best autotracing.

    Of course doing it manually will still serve you best for logos and other kinds of precision artwork.

    So it really depends on precisely what the job is.

    4 replies

    creative explorer
    Community Expert
    creative explorerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 8, 2026

    ​@media kat My kid did a drawing and wanted to create stickers to sell at her school’s store. We used one of the new features ‘Concept to Vector’ on her image, and it literally trace it BUT Illustrator even interprets the artwork and rebuilds it as clean vector shapes. My kid was happy with the output! 

    m
    Bill Silbert
    Community Expert
    Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 7, 2026

    In my opinion it has never been reliable enough to use as a professional tool. It can give some rather cool—possibly unintended—looking versions of a converted continuous tone photo. However said versions usually are far more complex as vector files than they need to be and can be monstrous to edit. So I don’t usually recommend its use.

    CarlosCanto
    Community Expert
    CarlosCantoCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 7, 2026

    one use case, you have a raster image of your cat that you want to turn into a sticker. You could auto trace it then add a cut path around it.

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    August 7, 2026

    Live Trace was the name of the feature until version CS6. Is that what you are referring to? In CS6 they overhauled i and it got a new name: Image Trace.

    Why shouldn’t it be relevant anymore? You can get better results for some kinds of images (but not all) with Vector Magic. Some (parts of) images might be better services with concepts to vector. And for Black and white highly detailed woodcut and the like, Inkscape can give you better results than Illustrator. But for a lot of things, Illustrator will give you the best autotracing.

    Of course doing it manually will still serve you best for logos and other kinds of precision artwork.

    So it really depends on precisely what the job is.

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