if you posterize it you wont be able to see the detail? Illustrator is too advanced a program to jumps straight into, playing around with the layers and the pen tool in photoshop can be picked up much faster.
a little but not much, grpahics pads come in handy when your doing free hand drawing... vector graphics tend to use anchor points.
Theres absolutely no easy, one click way your going to replicate that effect. Its all hand traced and mixed with computer generated stuff - and at the end of the day your going to need an artist or someone who is good with adobe illustrator or photoshop to do it.
By posterizing the image it splits the colour sections up. This makes it easier to higlight the correct colour sections As long as you open the original photo then you can use the correct colours
the whole point of vector graphics is tracing round the little details, a poster effect removes the little details...
Not if you use enough levels.. I found it easier to identify the little colour differences using this method
Didn't realise. Luxembourg's the european capital of culture this year, and that blue stag's the logo. http://www.luxembourg2007.com/