Step 4
Now I open the pict in Adobe Streamline, a simple little program that just converts grayscale images into eps outline format. I only use two functions here. Under the options menu there's "Conversion Setup" which gives you a window like this (click to see)
These are the settings I used for this font artwork. I like to have more curves than straight lines so I changed that from the factory defaults. Also I changed the details per inch ("Tolerance"). I don't know what the other stuff does. I selected a portion of the artwork and converted it (File: Convert). I didn't like the way the "R" was being broken up, so I hit undo (command-z) and went in to adjust the threshold level. This is under "Options: Color/Grayscale Setup". It gives you a window like this (click to see)
I moved the threshold slider from 50% to 39% so
anything that's 39% black or darker in grayscale
mode goes to black when outlined. This way more
of the image goes to black. Here's the before and
after --I>
You can zoom in real close on your image, convert
a part of it, undo, adjust your settings, and convert
again until you've got something that looks cool.
Many a font has come out of accidental settings in
Streamline. This is a good place to play around with
your scan to see what comes up.
On the left is an example of two different typefaces that came from
the same grayscale file when I was first learning how Streamline
works. I was trying to make something that looked like the top font
(CrustiEr) and ended up with the bottom font (Moonshine) because
I didn't have the details per inch high enough.
When you are happy with your conversion, save it as an Illustrator file and quit Streamline. Open it up in Illustrator.
