Hey,

 

Well im sure many know about Illustrators CS5 Live Trace. Take any image, click a few buttons and you have a fully vectorized image which you can play around with at your disposal.

 

I was messing around with it, and I was told "yeah but thats cheating". Granted, it is as anyone can do it and it take no skill.

 

But the question is, would use an image you have used on Live Trace and class it as your own?

 

In my opinion, taking a random image from a website that you dont own and using LT on it, then classing it as your own IS cheating. But what if I were to drawn an image on paper and then use LT on it?

 

I quickly traced up this robot as an example (just with a pencil) and used LT on it (see attachment).

 

Now is that cheating? Or is it not because its my own design put easily into vector format..

I think like you said if its your image, drawn, photo etc its not cheating as your still doing some of the work. Its there so why not use it

The way I look at it, its not cheating, its more like stealing. Unless the image you're copying is CC or royalty free, etc.

it's the same as playing say a chili peppers song on your guitar and saying it's yours

Live trace is nothing more than a tool to get something done faster. It is no different than if you had traced it yourself. That being said, it does offer those will less experience a chance to do something that they might not have been able to do themselves. If they want to pass it off as their own work they are doing nothing but cheating themselves and ultimately screwing themselves when the client asks for changes.

If your taking an image and just hitting LT then no it's not yours imo.

 

However LT is a quick and easy way of looking at an image in vectors and depending upon the level of editing (and I seem to spend as much time correcting an LT as it takes me to drawn one with the pen tool) and if your changing the composition etc then I'd say it's your own creation as with a lot of thing's when it's used correctly it looks great but you see a lot of rubbish as well.

Well i wouldn't class it as cheating as it is an image you created and just converted it into vectors using a programme.

 

However copying someone else's stuff is a different question.

Its not cheating as long as the original image is yours, its just the same as any other tool you would use in the program. It doesn't always produce good results either so sometimes you have to revert to the good old pen tool.

There seams to be a common theme here!

It's only cheating (stealing) if you use somebody else's image!

 

I agree with this statement.

There seams to be a common theme here!

It's only cheating (stealing) if you use somebody else's image!

 

I agree with this statement.

 

 

I would have to agree with the group concensus on this. It is not cheating, in my opinion, if you are using your

own images.