CHANGING A BITMAP IMAGE TO A VECTOR GRAPHIC

PLACE
First place your image in your AI document by clicking:

File/Place, locate the image, highlight it * and click Place.

*Make sure the link option in the place window is unclicked. (if the link is clicked, your image will NOT be imbedded into the file and when you move the file the image will not move with you.)







SCALE

If necessary, scale the image to fit within the parameters of the art board.

Object/Transform/Scale






LIVE TRACE

Now Open up your control panel (it may already be open) Window/Control
In the middle of the control panel there is a button named, Live Trace. (remember the image must be selected to see the control panel option for it.) To the right of the Live Trace button, click the down arrow key and choose Low or High Fidelity Photo. (depending on how much detail you want will determine whether you choose low or high.)




ENLARGE

With your navigator tool, enlarge the image. You will notice that it is no longer pixelated, rather the colors are separated into shapes. This is your indicator that the image is now a vector graphic.

EXPAND/Ungroup

Now you are ready to expand and ungroup your image. With the image still selected, click the EXPAND button- at the right of the control panel. Once you have done this all the paths and anchor points for your shapes will appear.

Now go to Object/Ungroup to ungroup the paths.

Once you have ungrouped the paths you can now manipulate them in anyway you want.