Tracer Tricks

[tad]

Tracer Tricks...
OK, I'll post a couple and, hopefully, others will join in.

AFTER running the bitmap tracer:::

1)CTRL+U (ungroup), CTRL+3 (intersect) ... cheap shot, but sometimes might look good.

2)a)Set nudge to 6+ inches (off the page)
b)CTRL+U (ungroup)
c)Select (marquee) a blob of the shapes. START OUTSIDE THE PAGE. If you are inside the image you will grab something very odd.
d)Nudge right/left/up/down.
e)Repeat throughout image & even in the previously selected blobs (you could go "fractal" here)
f)Select various shapes in various blobs and RIGHT CLICK on a color. Repeat a lot.
g)Reasemble. Since you know the "nudge", this is easy.

Voila - Shapes with outlines.
If the result is less than beautiful, you can always select-all and do no-fill. Then the madness is evident.

Rgds,
tad

[gwpriester]

Tad is back!

Nice tips (I think--I'll have to try them out).

Gary

[RTK]

I play around with the Tracer once in a while, but I'm not sure how useful the "tips" are to other individuals.

But the last couple of things I have been playing around with:
- Creating a black and white trace - and drawing in the detail on the "negative" - with white.

- Creating low-detailed trace with no fills - and stroke shapes on the lines, as a basis to build a sketch (continue sketching) from.

- Massacring imagery in Photoshop before tracing, in an attempt to create imagery I could use for silly comic strip-like imagery. Xara Tracer comes up with pretty neat shapes when tracing, small-sized images, with little detail - such as a the result from the "find outlines" filter in Photoshop etc.

I have been playing around with all kinds of little things... but I don't save it, unless I find a potential use for it. So I end up putting it in the back of my mind, until the next time I play around with it.

Nice to see you again, Tad! And thanks for sharing!