Expert: Amy - 3/28/2007

Question
Hi Amy - I've been banging my head on this question for the last 2 days and would really appreciate some help. I'm relatively new to Adobe Illustrator and am learning on version 9. My question: my graphic designer is unable to finish a clean-up project he started on a scanned vintage image (a menu featuring line drawn artwork). I'm facing a deadline tomorrow and need to complete the clean-up by simplifying the image in Illustrator before sending to the screenprinter. There are numerous compound paths with numerous anchor points creating jags on the lines. My goal is to smooth out the jags without redrawing the entire image or deleting thousands of anchor points to create a smoother appearance.  I've tried Simplify Path, but I'm not having much luck. I've been searching the web, etc. but haven't come across an easy way to do this. Am I looking at hours of deleting and moving anchor points? I hope this question makes sense to you. Thanks for your help.

Answer
Hi there,

Unfortunately with version 9, you're kind of stuck with the Simplify Path command OR deleting anchor points OR using the pencil tool or smooth tool to edit paths.... I'd try the last two methods.

Designers used to use Adobe Streamline to trace images like that with somewhat better, but still not perfect, results. In version CS or CS2, Adobe introduced Live Trace, a version of Streamline, sort of, that works half way decent. But that doesn't help you now.

I'd use the pencil tool with its edit "selected paths" setting turned on and its smoothness and fidelity settings adjusted to your needs (double click on pencil in tool palette to turn that on). Then you select the path you need to smooth, zoom in, and draw on top of it with a more sweeping motion.

The smooth tool might also work for you. Click and hold the pencil tool to see that tool (it's got little stripes on it like a blending stick). You use that on selected paths with a sweeping motion to smooth.

Let me know if any of this helps!
Amy