I need some help here . I am an airbrush painter . I paint flowers . What I want to do at this time is just take a photo of a flower,turn it into a line drawing , print it out , enlarge it to 15x20(20x30) , then paint . Later as I become more comfortable with photo shop or do I need Illustrator ? I would like to create my own art work . I am thinking free hand using my bamboo . How do I proceed ? Where do I go to learn the how to ? There is so much out there that spend my time looking and not doing . Very frustrating . Thank you in advance . As a side thought , why is it so hard to register in Adobe illustrator forum . Is it because i use the same info as I use in this forum ?
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Adobe illustrator
- Thread starter DELINDA
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I don't use a bamboo or similar, I use a mouse, but the basis of tracing and drawing items in Illustrator revolves around the pen tool. That is the one tool that will take the most time to learn but is also the most crucial. And the best way to learn is by tracing things with it!
What version of illustrator are you going to be using? I know in the new CS4 they have what is called live trace which does what you are looking to do. I don't know how accurate it is since I haven't used it (have CS3).
Couldn't agree more with the statement about the pen tool. It will become your friend and one of those things you will use over and over again.
Couldn't agree more with the statement about the pen tool. It will become your friend and one of those things you will use over and over again.
Live Trace is a bit of a pain. It will convert a photo into a vector, but creates too many paths to be useful for an airbrushing. I do a pencil sketch and scan it into PhotoShop, then load it in Illustrator. I lock the image layer and use it as a template, tracing with the Pen Tool.
Photoshop smart blur filter with edge only option, will create a detailed line drawing from a photograph.
That's interesting ... never tried that before.
It's also worth trying the Photocopy filter and having a play with the sliders. Generally, dropping the Detail down and pushing the Darkness up picks up all the major lines (although it does get rid of any dark/black areas).
Cheers!
Jim
It seems like Corel Painter would be a better application for the OP. The sketch command turns any photo into a line drawing and the digital paint tools are arguably the best available in a consumer application.
Remarkably, I would agree with this, with two important caveats.
1) I have found Painter to be a little flaky under 10.5, to the extent that I gave up on it. Updates may have fixed this so, YMMV.
2) The UI on Painter is idiosyncratic and unintuitive for many ... I mean, it's not zBrush bad, but it isn't the most user-friendly.
Most of Painter's natural media effects can be replicated in Photoshop, although with a little more work, and Photoshop gives you a fully-featured photo editor into the bargain.
There are trial versions of the very affordable Painter Essentials, and the less affordable full version of Painter from Corel's website, so you can always give them a spin before you hand over any cash.
Cheers
Jim