Image Trace: the Adobe Illustrator feature that converts any sketch into a fully functional vector

Design is becoming, more and more, an easily automatable process. Where designers used to spend hours and even days optimizing each of the elements they used, now they simply need to know which tools to use at any given moment to bring their talent to the screen. In just a few minutes.

One of the programs that is helping the most in this regard is Adobe Illustrator, Adobe’s flagship software, which has been the king of the sector for decades. Now, beyond leaving each of its functions in the hands of designers, Illustrator allows you to do everything. As explained on its official page, the program enables you to have effects up to 5 times faster, new features based on artificial intelligence, and a new ecosystem of tools designed for creators of any level.

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Image Trace: the tool that allows you to take the pencil to the vector

Among all the new features of Adobe Illustrator, several of them presented at the last Adobe MAX, is Image Trace. This groundbreaking technology allows you to convert raster images, such as photographs or hand-drawn scanned drawings, into fully editable vector graphics.

But, how do you use Image Trace? Easy. The first thing you need to do is scan or photograph your drawing. Then, import it into Illustrator, select the Image Trace tool from the menu, and choose a preset from the defaults. Depending on which one you select, your image can be vectorized in one way or another.

At that moment, the AI will detect the contours of the image, its shadows, and its details. It will then transform everything into lines, nodes, and shapes that you can edit freely. In this way, you will achieve an image that will never lose quality. That is to say, you will be able to modify it like any other vector: from covering a building to adding it in very, tiny environments.

Image Trace is one of the many new tools in the new Illustrator. But the truth is that Adobe keeps updating this and its many other programs with innovations that allow designers, video editors, and artists in general to focus on their talent. Instead of wasting time on lengthy processes. This was the case until very recently.

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