Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
2.
Zoom into the shadow area and then choose the Freehand
And Brush Tool. Set the outline width on the Standard
Bar to 1 or 2 points and then
SHIFT
-click a contrasting
color on the Color Line to set the outline color.
Set the Freehand
3.
Smoothing slider on the
Infobar to a very low
value such as 5, and
then trace the shadow,
making sure the outline
is irregular—frequent
coughing and sneezing
helps here. It's not
important that you
match the outline of the
blades of grass; just use
them as a visual guide
and concentrate on the
shadow's shape.
Once you've closed the shape, move it out of the way so
4.
you can see the imported photo.
Prepping the Photo for Tracing
Although the chair photo has been cropped down to its essential
geometry, an awful lot of distinctly shaded blades of grass remain,
and therein lies a possible tracing problem. If you use the Limited
Color setting, you won't get all the nice detail in the chair, but at
the Photographic setting you'll wind up with thousands of small
unwanted shapes. The solution is to create a solid mask around
only the area you want Bitmap Tracer to evaluate, as follows:
1.
Import Chair.jpg to a new page. Look at what the status
line says about its resolution: it's 96 pixels/inch.
With the Pen or the Shape Editor Tool, trace a tight
2.
path around the chair, but leave some blades of grass at
the base of the legs to make the chair easier to visually
integrate into a new photo. Don't bother to trace in-
between the gaps in the slats of wood: these areas contain
muted greens and will integrate into just about any
outdoorsy photograph, especially the lawn.xar document.
Zoom in when necessary and use the Push Tool via the
scroll wheel on your mouse by click-dragging with the
wheel instead of using a scrolling motion.
