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James Aldrich
03-17-2007, 3:56 PM
Hi All,
For CorelDraw X3 and Adobe Illustrator CS2, I was wondering if the tracing function is better in one program over another. I have CorelDraw 12, Photoshop CS and the old Adobe Streamline. CorelDraw Trace and Adobe Streamline both are great programs and have different outcomes. I am going to upgrade to DorelDraw X3 soon. I was also thinking of purchasing Illustrator CS2 mostly for the live trace function. I would like to know if there is much difference in the two programs. Besides Laser engraving, my wife and I also sandblast. So we need our artwork to be pure B&W. I have tried many differnet photoshop filters for converting photographs into detailed B&W images with limited success.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You
Jim

Dave Jones
03-17-2007, 6:49 PM
Some images work well with both programs, some don't work well at all with either. In general the trace in AI CS2 has a lot more control to tweak the result, so I find it more useful. But it's shines at converting colored images into colored vectors. In some ways it's not much better than X3 at doing pure B&W results. With either program you can improve the results by doing a little work in a paint program before tracing.

If you're getting X3 anyway, I'd suggest getting it and playing with the trace funtion, and then download the 30 day demo of AI CS2. That way you can play with it for free to see if it's worth the money. But it would be best to get to know X3 first, so you're not tring to get used to both at the same time. Their approaches are different and it's better to know one first and then learn the other.

The live paint feature is also great because on some images where a trace can't divide the image correctly, you can still get the result you want by then using the live paint.