Streamline or similar for CS?

[munckee]

I haven't upgraded to CS2 (for both financial reasons, and because I've been pretty satisfied with CS to date). Recently, I've found myself needing something along the lines of Streamline/Live Trace.

Is Streamline still available? Does anyone make a plug-in for Illustrator CS that does something similar (preferably a free one)?

I can get by without it, but it would make life easier for this project I'm working on. Anyone have any recommendations?

 

[Blue Velvet]

Silhouette

http://www.silhouetteonline.com/silhouette/download.php3

 

[GoCubsGo]

Well, as you know Adobe discontinued the application because they put something else in CS2 (nice of them...not). But it seems that you might like Silhouette. The biggest problem is that it is neither free nor cheap. I think this comes down to how badly do you want it and how much can you get back after charging your client (if you are working with one). I know that I had to take a family photo of 20 people and needed a new wide angle lens so I built some of their cost into the cost of the lens rental. That worked for me.

You can also use CorelTrace which is part of Corel Draw. $149 USD.
Finally, there is Magic Tracer. But...it is only $50 and it doesn't work with OSX at all. So that is probably useless to you.

 

[munckee]

Thanks. I noticed silohuette, but the price is a deterrent. I think I'll just have to get by without it until I upgrade creative suite (probably not until CS3 comes out).

 

[Blue Velvet]

Thanks. I noticed silohuette, but the price is a deterrent. I think I'll just have to get by without it until I upgrade creative suite (probably not until CS3 comes out).

Well, to be completely honest... the trial version is still running fine on my work Mac 6 months later.

I don't use it that often though, maybe only a couple of times in those 6 months.

All it seems to do is interject a countdown screen before executing the render. It may be crippled in other ways, but it seems to be still running OK.

 

[siliconjones]

Be a Freehand user

The auto-trace tool works beautifully. Better then streamline ever did IMHO. A highrez bitmap tif placed and traced with Freehand's auto trace is indistinguishable from the original.

 

[rick6502]

Streamline vs. Ill CS2 Autotrace

I was never that satisfied with Streamline. It always seemed to change the files too much or required lots of editing to fix. On the other-hand, I am much more satisfied with Illustrator CS2 auto-trace. It's a little strange with the LiveTrace/LivePaint combo, but it works really well. I was very happy with CS(1) and was unwilling to update. We had just upgraded to CS(1) when they announced CS2. I was very unhappy that Adobe didn't seem to give a flying bundle of sticks that we could have waited a month and got CS2 for the same price. I also was protesting the whole Activation thing. Regardless, some of our customers starting bringing us CS2 files, so we pretty much had to upgrade. Although, I still think it's crap about the upgrade thing, it's a much better set of programs.

 

[Experiment13]

Flash for tracing

I have used Flash tracing, but it was not a critical job. It did work to get a pencil drawing about 4 x 6" scanned first, massaged in PS, imported and traced in Flash, then blown up in Illustrator to a 24 x 36 print with no jaggies. Try it if you have Flash (cheap solution) or download the demo.

Good luck.

 

[munckee]

Well, I tried downloading the silohuette plugin, but it just dumped the file on my desktop. Doesn't allow me to unpack it or anything. Am I doing something wrong