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and inkscape should be fine, i just don't know if inkscape has a feature similar to the live trace feature (I'm lazy, so I preferred the route that had the machine doing as much work as possible) although learning how to do vector linework is a good practice in itself - when I tutored in illustrator one of the first exercises we had them do before starting their own projects were learning how to manipulate the bezier curves, and then value differentiation/mapping of grayscale images, to better their ability to distinguish and identify lighting/shading differences. We would actually use an old grey-scale image of bezier himself.
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