from bit-map to vector?

I am trying to do some things like the Apple iPod advertisements:

http://www.apple.com/ipod/

or something like the guy with the camera in this ad:

http://www.fourdoorcar.com/portfolio_xhtml/print_cdhireframeposter.htm

I guess it is just taking a bit-map and turning into a vector image. Can you use photoshop or do you have to use a vector based program like illustrator. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You can use the pen tool in Photoshop to do it, but a vector program would be a better choice. Illustrator, Freehand, Corel Draw, would all work better than photoshop for that.

So it seems that a vector based program is the best, does anyone know of any good links to an illustrator forum or site with good illustrator tutorials?

All you really need is to learn how to use the pen tool. That's 95% of what you'll ever do in illustrator. There aren't as many tricks for cheezy effects or anything for illustrator. Pretty much it's just you and the pen tool and some creativity.

Good bunch of folks at
http://www.illustratorworld.com/index.shtml

Look at those actions that Mathias Vejerslev and myself co-developped: (allowing to do simple bitmap>vector conversion in Photoshop )

http://www.96ppi.net/ddt_vectorizer.zip

See some examples: http://96ppi.net/vectorizer//ches/

found a video of how this could be done in shake, obviously doing to be a different process in photoshop (and if you haven't used shake this video may not make much sense) but the basic concepts are the same:

http://www.cmistudios.com/ (scroll about halfway down to the pink image)

chris