Hi All   This is my first post.

I drew an uppercase alpha with vines and swirls and imported it to illustrator to live trace and place in TypeTool3 to generate my font.  My drawing is good, but the live trace makes it look bad.  Any suggestions on good settings that will keep the font clean and looking close to the original using Illustrators Live Trace?
Thank you

The auto tracing tools in AI are not very helpful for type.  It would be better to bring the scan of your drawing into FL and construct the outlines by hand.  This may sound like it is harder than what it is but it is easier than cleaning up the big mess that AI created with autotrace.

Howdy! This iz my 1st post.

I purchased Studio 5 back in 2007 along with TransType Pro. I intended on creating a bunch of Nooalf fonts, but then got too bizzy with unrelated projects and then ended up buried under the rubble of the economy in 2008. So, all I managed to do was upgrade 1 font, 2NQ4YQ, with alot of help and advice from Mr. Larabie (cant remember his 1st name). I never really got to any level of proficiency with the software. Now I have some spare time and have gotten the upgraded version.

I started with Data Becker's Your Handwriting way back  around 2000. It was easy to use, but as you know, didnt do any kerning or hinting, so the fonts I made usually didnt work very well. Letters coud actually pile up on top of each other and leave big blank spaces!

About your question, wprebel, even tho I'm a beginner at this, maybe I have something that can help.

I've been using Photoshop to draw my letters. I use the Magic Wand tool to copy the letter, past it into the glyph window in Studio 5 then use the trace outline function in the Tools menu. It wasn't following the outline very closely, but then I found an adjustment somewhere that controls how close and set it for 'tight' and it looks good now. There was also 'very tight', but my drawings were lumpier than I wanted, so not tracing them exactly did a great job of smoothing them out. 

I hope thats helpful for you.

I've just started reading the manual, so it's likely that most of my questions here are going to be pretty lame. If anybody wants to critic my fonts, you can find them at nooalf.com. Theres only 1 there now, but I should have 3 more soon since I can just upgrade the old Data Becker fonts fairly quickly.

I think it may have actually been Graham Jupp, the Font God that helped me out in 2007. Not sure. I've always had a louzy memory. I vaguely recall speaking with someone on the fone for over an hour and getting some assistance in converting the files to the Mac format.