Illustrator Question

[jestoker723]

I'm new to the Adobe Suite. I'm currently using Illustrator for my designs. My question is regarding bringing files into Illustrator and tracing them. I often have problems where the file gets distorted or really messed up when I trace it.

What type of file is the best for a client to send me so I can expand it? Again, I'm a newbie when it comes to doing this.

My school purchased a large format printer and left me in charge of it.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[J Hill Designs]

autotrace should only be used for the most basic of designs, and 99% of the time will still need tweaking. best to learn the pen tool

 

[jestoker723]

Is there a better program to use to do this that you know of?

 

[J Hill Designs]

as stated, any autotrace is less than effective, through whatever means you use. its best to hand trace.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

Save all the headaches and send it to the Vector Doctor a merchant member here

 

[TammieH]

If you have to use Illustrator's Live Trace, black and white jpegs work best, they absolutely HAVE to be high resolution...sometimes if I am lazy and the jpeg is not to bad or simple, you can enlarge it, trace it, then reduce down to the size you need, but there are memory issues if you try to trace to large of an image.

But I find tracing more intricate art is done easier manually...

Photoshop has a nice vector converting feature as well.