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MontyDraws
Known Participant
June 6, 2021
Question

Years Old LiveTrace Issue

  • June 6, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 974 views

It's entirely possible I am missing something but there has been an issue with LiveTrace for years that I hope will be addressed.

 

I have a gigantic Wacom Cintiq that I use as much as I can, but oftentimes for cartoon work I get better results with good old pen and paper. I scan in the black line work, LiveTrace, and add color on layers below with the Wacom. I do apologize to the trees I've brought down but it is how I get stuff done.

 

Back in the CS5 days, I could import multiple scans, select them all, and LiveTrace would apply the same settings to all of them. Makes sense to me. Same pen, paper, scanner, and drawn at the same scale. Simple black line art that LiveTrace can sort out pretty easily.

 

Nowadays I have to LiveTrace each individual scan individually. It isn't possible as far as I can tell to LiveTrace multiple images at once. This can be really tedious when I'm scanning in multiple frames for animation or something similar. Illustrator also still warns me that "Tracing May Proceed Slowly With This Large Image" but it just is not slow. Even back in CS5 it wasn't that slow, now on my full blow work rig the LiveTrace is done long before I could close the warning box.

 

So, am I missing something? Or, couldn't there please be a way to LiveTrace multiple scans again?

 

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Jacob Bugge
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 6, 2021

Monty,

 

You may be happier if you just (return to) use Live Trace in CS5 for that (kind of) work.

MontyDraws
Known Participant
July 16, 2021

I appreciate the joke but that is not very helpful.

Larry G. Schneider
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 16, 2021

Not a joke. What Jacob says is true. If you still have a computer which can run CS5, the Live Trace in CS5 is much superior for black and white tracing work. The Image Trace in CS6 and above is nowhere near as good.

Larry G. Schneider
Community Expert
Community Expert
June 6, 2021

As I recall there is a way using Bridge to do multiple traces but I haven't done it for years. Maybe try there.

MontyDraws
Known Participant
June 6, 2021

Hmmm, you know, I've never opened or even bothered to download bridge. I'd certainly prefer to not get another program involved or add another step to such a simple task. If another way can't be turned up I'll look into it.Thanks!