Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 7/14/2008

Question
QUESTION: I can't seem to get this to work - it works ok in photoshop but not in illustrator. I wander whether a setting in live trace is preventing it from working

ANSWER: Hi David,

The magic wand in Illustrator is different than the Photoshop wand.

First be sure you have expanded your live trace image. (there will be an "expand" button at the top option bar). If you have expanded it, then it is working fine. No setting in Live Trace will effect this as long as you have exited/expanded out of the function.

When you click with the magic wand on an image, it chooses the same stroke, fill, effects, etc. that other images have in your document depending on how you have it set. Double click the icon in the tool bar to bring up its options.

Thanks

Kevin

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you Kevin
When i expanded I was able to use magic wand. Is it possible to  use the magic wand without live trace i.e. in a similar way to photoshop?

ANSWER: Hi David,

The magic wand tool will not work on placed raster images only IL objects and paths. You would still need PS to do that.

Thanks!

Kevin

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for the help - apologies for not responding earlier - I have been away. It might sound a very simple question but what is a raster image, I am familiar with jpeg, gif etc - is it possible for one of these to be a raster image or does it need to be converted to a raster image?

thanks

Answer
Hi David,

A raster image is also referred to as a bitmap image. jpg, gif, etc. are raster images. You commonly place these images in AI, they are not natively created in AI.

These images are the kind that I was referring to.

Thanks

Kevin