illustrator transparent background - Not Transparent in SOME Areas

[Bkewl]

Hello Everyone! 

I'm pretty new to AI(like so many)! I'm working on a logo and used High Fidelity to pretty everything up and turn it into a vector. This put a white background on the image as known. No biggy at all. Just need to remove the background again in AI. Well, alls going smooth and well and image is traced and expanded. But when I go to cut the color out of the center of some letters in the logo, the image does NOT go transparent, instead it goes black. 

Can anyone fill me in on whats going on here and how to fix this? Below I'm include some screenshots of the issue. I've googled my butt off and am probably wording it wrong, but I'm really appreciate the help! 

Before CutAfter Cut

[Bkewl]

Oh and this is from a PNG file and not font. I no longer have this font and can't remember for the life of me what it was called.

[Myra Ferguson]

By default, the High Fidelity Photo preset in Image Trace has Overlapping as the Method. You can find that setting if you go to Window > Image Trace, select the High Fidelity Photo preset, and twirl open Advanced. You can run Image Trace again with Abutting selected.

If you've already been cleaning up the Image Trace and just want to remove the red part in the D, then you can select the parts that are layered (the gray background, the black outline of the letter, the white letter, and the red negative space), select the Shape Builder Tool (Shift + M), hold down Alt (Option if you're on a Mac), and click on the red negative space shape to cut it out from all the parts that are selected.

[Ton Frederiks]

You could Select All.

Object > Live Paint > Make

Use the Live Paint Bucket (K) to click on the red areas and fill them with the None swatch.

After that, Object > Live Paint > Expand.

[Bkewl]

I just tried that again and no luck, still comes out black. I've also tried new layers and masks. Kinda dumb founded on this one.

[Jacob Bugge]

Bkewl,

In order to obtain a higher quality, by using the (vector) font instead of a raster image, you may consider the sites below,

http://www.whatfontis.com/
http://www.identifont.com/
http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/
https://www.fontsquirrel.com/matcherator
http://www.bowfinprintworks.com/ScriptIDGuide.html (Script fonts)

or post a more revealing sample and ask whether someone here recognizes it.

[Bkewl]

wow, luckily I just found the origional photoshop file on my ext drive! The font is "Art Brush". Now I just have to find out how to transfer the effects over to AI... Hey it's a learning experiance! I bet I can get it figured out from here! Thanks guys!

[Jacob Bugge]

For my part you are welcome, Bkewl.