creating silhouette

[ladymare 12]

Hey all, I purchased a highly detailed vector image of a military vehicle. It's so detailed it resembles a blueprint or schematic. I used live paint to go in and black most of it out so that it's a great looking silhouette. However, my paths on the inside of the vehicle are obviously still there. Is there a way to have illustrator only give me the silhouetted version? I've tried everything I can think of - screen shots, converting back to raster and retracing... and nothing gives me that crisp edge I'm looking for on the outside - it tends to jumble up. 

 

Just wondered if there was a tip I was missing somewhere. 

[ladymare 12]

I answered my own question - I found the "exclude" pathfinder option. I'm good to go. Thanks anyway!!

[Wildgoose 4,200]

Be careful with the pathfinder tools. Some create a separate object for the open/white areas. No big deal but your cutter may try to cut them out again making a second pass and a mess of your cut. I usually try to use "Unite" as it doesn't cause these problems. Any time you live trace a B&W you usually have a white layer strewn about and several of the pathfinder options do it. It's a part of the overall function and is actually what you might want in some instances. 

 

Best way to clear out any white or unfilled paths is to look at the objects in the stack within the layers panel (usually on the right hand side) You should see small previews of each object. If any are clear/white then select it by clicking the little square on the right side of that particular object in the layers panel. Take a look at it on the screen at that point and see if in fact it is supposed to be a hole rather than an object then go to the little tab at the top that has a little arrow and two roundish shapes, it will show you a little sentence that says "Select similar objects" if you hover over it with the mouse. If you pull that menu down you can select everything with a similar fill and it will select all the unfilled objects that are in your document assuming you haven't locked anything. Then just push delete and they go away. As long as your design still looks right then you are done and you should see all the unfilled objects have been deleted in the layers panel. 

[ladymare 12]

Thank you Wildgoose! That actually actually is a huge time saver for me on another file I had! I've been going through hand deleting those stupid repeats for forever! 

 

[Wildgoose 4,200]

No problem, glad to be of help. Illustrator is a big program and there are a bunch of cool shortcuts, the trick is figuring out where they are all hiding!  In truth Illustrator is partly huge from being able to do more complicated graphics like web design stuff but for vinyl work life is much simpler. Once you sort through the stuff you don't need then whats left isn't as bad as it seems early on. One of the biggest tricks I have learned over the years is that in most circumstances it is best to convert objects like words into a compound shape. This is particularly needed when using the pathfinder tools. Pathfinder typically acts on things based on their relative position in the stack. Words, even when grouped are in a certain order and often you will have problems trying to offset paths etc like when you create an outline for a background color. Forcing you to do one letter at a time. If you take a second and make the group a compound shape then the program treats it as ONE object and everything goes the way you intended and you don't have to go through and unite a whole second set of background objects etc... Give it a try and you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm not sure what version you're running but [object>compound paths>make] should be the process in the pull down menu. The shortcut is command>8 (or ctrl>8 on a pc). Definitely worth learning the shortcut keys for some of this stuff, then it just takes a quick blip of the keys and your moving on. Keep your eye on the objects because a lot of actions turn things back into groups and you may have to convert them back into compound shapes several times during a build depending on what your doing. You can release the compound shape from the pull down menu also should the need arise.