How do you erase lines on a sketch on lined paper

[DEl...@adobeforums.com]

I am using CS2 Illustrator and I have done a sketch on some lined paper. I would like to be able to just work with the drawing and not the lines in the background(from the paper). Is this possible on Illustrator???When I open the document on Illustrator the only option that I seem to have is to do a live trace and make adjustments. But, I still get the lines from the lined paper??? Thank you for your help in advance.

[Bert Philippus]

Yeah, I've had that same problem with a drawing on some textured toilet paper. That, and the scent lingered on the scanner for quite a while.

Take it into Photoshop, and clean it up in there, or play with the live trace settings in Illustrator, or remove the lines after live-tracing.

[Philip_...@adobeforums.com]

Shouldn't Bert be building snowmen, or shoveling snow or something?

[Bert Philippus]

Hey Hey Hey, I dug out last night... I've got work to do.

[DEl...@adobeforums.com]

And how would you remove them after the live trace??? Because after the live trace they come up as broken lines...actually a bunch of little dots...do I have to erase each one individually???

[DEl...@adobeforums.com]

What if I don't have Photoshop anymore. Can I do anything to change it in Illustrator???

[Bert Philippus]

DEllis:

Probably your best bet is going to be re-tracing the sketch with the pen tool, if it can't be done with live trace and some manual cleanup. You can, by the way, use the magic wand tool to select most of the dots in a couple of tries...

Bert

[R_S...@adobeforums.com]

from here I assume youve scanned it and placed in AI. Would it be easier to physically remove the lines on original - make photocopy and cut around the perimeter and tippex (white-out) as much as possible inside perimeter and rescan?

[Bert Philippus]

D:

Here's a quick recap of what you can do:

The first image is a scan of a fake sketch, the second image is a default B&W live trace with Threshold upped until the lines were gone. This may work for you.

For a better result, the Grayscale has "colors" upped to 64, then expanded, the lines deleted a little at a time using the Magic Wand tool. The last image is the resulting vector artwork.

Seems pretty easy to me. Check back if you need more help.

One thing you MUST remember, when using any professional drawing application, is that rarely will you be able to get exactly what you want with the default setting. If there's any advice I could give you, it's FIDDLE.

Bert

[Jacob...@adobeforums.com]

<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c3/Muintiraltan.gif>

[Sean_Or...@adobeforums.com]

Worse case scenario, if I can't get other things to work, I take the remove anchor point tool and start clicking. I've found that once I click one anchorpoint, it selects the group its attached to and I can then just press delete as long as its not touching my main image. Its time consuming, but it works if all else fails.