Actions and Image Trace?

[rcraighead]

CC 2015.3/Mac OS X 10.11.6

What am I missing?

When I record an Action using a specific "Image Trace" preset the Action does not retain the setting and, instead, runs with the "Default" Image Trace settings. Surely an Action is able to record custom Image Trace settings, right?

[rcraighead]

I found a thread addressing this limitation with Actions:

Changing live trace default setting

[rcraighead]

I am back to this questions. I now need to create an Action that runs two different custom Image Trace Presets. Just recording the Action does NOT recognize the custom Preset. Is there no way to run a custom Image Trace using an Action??

[Ton Frederiks]

I do not see a way to choose a custom setting with an action.

But if the purpose is to batch convert a lot of images with Image Trace, you should have a look at Adobe Bridge which has an Image Trace script in the Tools menu (and lets you choose a custom preset).

[rcraighead]

Thanks, Ton, I'll take a look. The Action includes more steps than just Image Trace, so moving to Bridge for a portion of the process seems inefficient, but I need to see what Bridge can do.

[jsendak]

Hi Tom

This 2022 and people are still having problems with Batch processing for Image Tracing. I tried everything until I came across your answer. Who would have thought that the function was not in Illustrator but in Bridge - not me, for sure. Is this a feature or an Adobe error? There seems to be little conformity in batch processing between Photoshop and Illustator. Anyway, what I really mean to say is thank you very much for providing such a useful answer to my problem.

[jsendak]

Hi Tom

I forgot to add that the actual image tracing doesn't seem to processed until the .ai file is opened in Illustrator. 

Is that correct - or am I Image Trace script correctly.

[queezy]

+1

[rcraighead]

queezy,

I have experimented with using a Javascript to automate tracing. Any preset can be called in the script. This example still uses "Default" but another preset could be used:

var doc = app.activeDocument;

var pItems = doc.pathItems;

var sel = doc.selection; 

//~ var Selected = doc.selection[0]

var Tracing_Preset = '[Default]';

var f =15; //percent of current size

app.executeMenuCommand('selectall');

for(var i = 0; i<sel.length; i++){

    if(sel.typename == 'RasterItem'){

        var pic = sel.trace(); 

        pic.tracing.tracingOptions.loadFromPreset(Tracing_Preset);

        pic.tracing.expandTracing().selected = true;

        } 

} 

But the full script has been unreliable, causing AI to crash intermittently.

I've found the most reliable solution is to manually edit the "Vectorizing Presets" preference file found in "~/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator 20 Settings/en_US/Vectorizing Presets" and convert the "Default" preset to the one I want to use in the AI Action. I realize this is not very flexible, but in our environment we use the same preset for all tracing tasks.

[Vonster]

rcraighead,

Thi is exactly what I need to do. I have to create about 200 brushes and want to make it a one button push for each. Like you I use the same preset on all image traces. Would you mind sharing your pref file for Vectorizing Presets? I don't understand how to integrate Javascript? If you could email me that info (at) vonster (dot) com I'll ship you some stickers and once I have the vector brush set done I'll give it to you as well.

This would help a ton.

Thanks.

Von

[bobm67]

Do you know where this file goes on a mac?

[bobm67]

disregard my question above.. thanks