Why can't I ImageTrace an image in my pattern?
Why can't I ImageTrace an image in my pattern?
Question
I need to image trace some images that are in a custom pattern I made so that I can recolor the pattern. The images were placed there and linked in a previous Illustrator session. When I'm in the pattern editing view and I select the image, ImageTrace itself is not greyed out in the Object menu, but all of the options beneath it are.
How can I get Illustrator to let me turn these images into vectors?
Popular Answer
I find I get myself into this situation when I've cut'n'pasted a bitmap image directly into Illustrator and then the Object / Image Trace image has all greyed out options and the Window / Image Trace has no buttons available.
The solution I've found is to Object / Rasterize... it first, as the moment the item is pasted into Illustrator it is an "object" that can be [somewhat] manipulated still (kind of like smart objects in Photoshop). When the item is Rasterized within Illustrator it then sees it as a bitmap image that can be traced.
Once done, and the object is selected using the black arrow Selection Tool (V), the tracing menus come alive.