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Sorry ahead of time for any "term" abuse, I am new to graphic arts. Anyway, whenever I live trace something, any stand alone lines end up with a nice taper at the ends of them> Whenever I draw something myself, I can only figure out how to give the stroke a flat, blunt end, or a rounded end. How can I make stroke lines that are "pointy?" at both ends?
I don't know what version of Illustrator you are using but I can tell you how using AI 8.0. Due to the variety of methods (I don't know what you are trying to duplicate) the 2 simplest ways are to draw each line as an outline and shape the tips or ends manually (not fun), The other is to use the taper brushes in Illustrator which will give you tapered ends automaticlly.
But, you will find they are general shapes and highly artistic shapes that may or may not suit you're need and need to be modified. There is no go here do this and you're done answer like Photoshop Filters AI is highly adustable and at time for me annoying, but a powerful tool never the less.
Hope this was helpful.
I think I must have done it the hard way. The only way I could get it the way I wanted was to pull up the live trace version, and switch to .25 stroke width, enlarge each section so it was huge, and trace EVERY line and fill them in! It was crazy. I am sure someone else could have done what I did, a different way, in ten minutes. It took me 3 hours.
Next time I will post pics for you guys to see what I am talking about. I guess its like some kind of calligraphy type stroke? Anyhow, its just individual lines that look fancy.
BTW< I am using AI CS3. I have photoshop CS3 as well, but I havent figured it out as I need to have all my work in vector, so I just use AI.
I have had the same problem before. I found if you just adjust the nodes a bit , it will point the ends. For some reason certain angles of the nodes do not product a tapered end.
there's a much easier way to make a tapered stroke. make an thin oval then go to your brush panel and create a new art brush. it will open up your oval with selections for direction, etc. i usually just save it as is. then you have a new tapered art brush in your brush panel. you can experiment with widths & lengths to get different types of lines. you'll also need to create a new one when you want to change colors. hope this helps.
I like to make my stroke with a flat edge on the end. Then go to object/path/outline stoke in the tool bar this will make the stroke to art edit the end nod.
Tapered stroke 
