If your output is black and white, then you will see “Threshold” slider. If your output is in color, then you will see the “Colors” slider. Document Library: Want your final image to have a different color palette than the source image? This allows you to import a custom color library for more control.Better for photographs and images with many different colors. Full Tone: Uses a wide range of colors sampled from the image being traced.Limited: Traces using a smaller, adjustable, palette of colors sampled from the image.Automatic: Automatically samples colors based on the image being traced, and switches between limited/full tone depending on the number of colors.“Palette” lets you decide how the colors will be chosen for the traced image. “Mode” lets you easily toggle between color, black and white and grayscale settings. This lets you monitor the accuracy of the trace. “View” allows you to toggle between a few different options for how you see the results of your image trace.

The Preset pulldown menu (below the icons) contains more options for popular automated tracing settings: View

It’s best used for simple images, hand drawn type, etc. This setting is a little tricky, and results can be varied with photographs.

Outline: Traces the image using outlines, rather than fills.

Black and White: Traces the image using only black and white.

Grayscale: Traces the image using black, white, and an adjustable number of grays.

Low Color: Traces the image using a high number of colors, creating an image that is more detailed, but not photorealistic.

High Color: Traces the image using a very high number of colors and detail, creating a photorealistic vector image.

Creates a more flat image with fewer colors.

Auto Color: Traces the image using a smaller specified number of colors that can be adjusted.

These icons correspond to the Preset settings that are popular for tracing a pixel-based image. PresetsĪt the top of the Image Trace Panel you will see a series of icons. These are the basic set of tools that you can use to control the output of your trace. Here is a breakdown of the functionality of the different features of the Image Trace Panel, and examples of the settings at work. It’s a quick and useful tool, and Adobe has added some very interesting updates with CS6.

Capturing scans (such as textures) onto a computer.

Tracing photographs – that you have the proper licensing for, of course.

But it can be employed in a variety of other ways, as well: Adobe Illustrator’s Image Trace Panel is a powerful tool, used by designers to convert raster images into vectors.

Illustrator color palette from image