Adobe illustrator cs4- P15: Good designers have many tools at their disposal. Especially in an environment where most designers have other powerful graphics applications, it can be diffi cult to choose which one to use for a particular task. For example, a designer can apply soft drop shadows in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign—is one application any better than the others for this? | 394 CHAP TER 12 WORKING WITH IMAGES Exploring the Live Trace Preview Options Once you ve traced an image Illustrator displays the traced result on your artboard so you can see the results. However Illustrator offers a variety of settings that you can use to control how both the raster image and the traced vector result appear on your artboard. When a traced image is selected on the artboard the Control panel updates to contain two icons that at first glance look like triangles. Upon closer inspection you ll notice that one icon features a jagged edge this icon is used to control how the raster image is previewed. The icon on the right which has a smooth edge is used to control how the traced vector result is previewed Figure . Figure Once you ve traced an image you can use the two icons in the Control panel to control how the artwork appears on the artboard. Raster Image Preview Setting Vector Result Preview Setting Previewing the Original Raster Image In the Control panel the jagged triangle on the left controls how the raster image is viewed. Click the icon once and choose from one of the following four available settings Figure No Image. This setting completely hides the raster image from the screen and is the default setting . Original Image. This setting displays the original raster image in your document which can be useful when you re comparing the original image to the traced result. Adjusted Image. This setting displays the raster image as it appears after Live Trace has applied the raster conditioning adjustments. This preview mode is great for seeing how Live Trace works and it makes it easier to preview any adjustments you make to the raster image settings. CONVERTING R ASTERS TO VECTORS USING LIVE TRACE 395 ORIGINAL IMAGE ADJUSTED IMAGE TRANSPARENT IMAGE Figure You can preview the raster image with the Original Image setting left the Adjusted Image setting center or the Transparent Image setting right . The No Image option is .
