Pop Art Photograph With Automatic Color In The Live Trace Palette Illustrator and Photoshop - How To

Wegraphics has a interesting way to color a live trace image. I haven't found a way to easily choose where the color goes but it is enormously faster than filling the colors in with the Paint Bucket. I used a public domain photo of Mr Poe.

My Notes:

The photo had a busy background so I placed the image in Photoshop and masked out the background. Save the masked photo as a png.

Open a new Illustrator file.

Place the photo.

Before you start the Live Trace, make a color swatch collection and save it.
I opened the Swatch Library and selected 3 colors from Art History > Russian Poster Art. Drag the colors into an empty swatch panel. Save to The Swatch Library and give it an easily recognizable name.

To Use: Open the Swatch Library and select your newly created swatch. The Tracing Options Color Palette won't work if the swatch isn't open first.

Do a Live Trace, selecting your named swatch. Expand.

Since this is supposed to resemble a screen print I put a white grunge image on top of Poe in Photoshop, Blending Mode > Screen.