Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 09:37:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Larry Moss <moss@balloonhq.com>
To: Balloon Twister List <balloon@balloonhq.com>
Subject: Re: Help - outlining photos

On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, whaley_f wrote:

> Does anyone know of a program that can take a photograph and change it
> into a coloring page? I was thinking this would be a great thing to hand
> out at parties along with the balloon.

Freda, 

Converting a raster image (a photo) to a vector image (editable line art)
is a challenge to do in any automatic fashion.  There are programs that do
it, but generally those programs are best used as aids to creating the line
art you want.  It's very unusual to find a photo that can be processed
entirely automaticaly.

Now, with that said, take a look at Adobe Streamline.  You can download a
trial version for free from http://www.adobe.com.  I know there's also a
Corel outlining program (and I'm sure many others), but I've had better
luck with Streamline.  You can use Streamline to create the outline, and
then tinker with it in any vector based drawing program.  I use Adobe
Illustrator for my drawing.

While on the subject of drawing balloon art, take a look at 
	http://www.balloonhq.com/faq/balloonware/aibrushes
for Adobe Illustrator tools.

Larry Moss
BalloonHQ.com