Adobe Illustrator Tutorials - lesson 5

Lesson 5 - Advanced topics

Exercise 1 - Creating Color seps

1. Save a file as EPS.
2. (5.5 only) Launch Separator.
3. Print. In Illustrator 6.0 or newer, color-separation controls are available in the Print dialog.

Remember that you should pre-separate photographs by saving them as CMYK in a program such as Photoshop before placing them in Illustrator.

Exercise 2 - creating a chart

1. Draw one side of a tree with the  freehand drawing tool. Make sure it is selected. Hold the Alt key and click on it with the  Reflect tool. Select Axis:Vertical and click Copy to create the other side of the tree. Add a brown trunk if you wish.
2. make a rectangle around it, with no fill, no stroke, send it to the back (Control -)
3. Object:Graph:Design
4. Select the Chart Tool. Click on your page. Enter (or import) chart data. Click OK.    
5. Object:Graph:Columns. Select your design. Choose the “Vertically Scaled” option. Click OK.
   
           

Here’s another example. using a different type of graph. This time, we’re repeating the graphic instead of stretching it. Create your design as in steps 1 - 4, above. Choose the Repeating design. Enter a 1 in the "each number represents x units" field. Click OK.

Exercise 3 - Placing a bitmap "over" a drawing

1. In Photoshop, convert drawing to Bitmap
2. Save as EPS. Set "Make Whites transparent."
3. Place in Illustrator

Layers

(Parts of this section are paraphrased from the excellent book, The Illustrator Wow Book, by Sharon Steuer.) Layers can simplify and enhance the Illustrator working environment significantly.

Layers themselves are quite easy to use, once you’re in the habit. One of the beautiful aspects of Illustrator’s implementation of multiple layers is that you cannot move objects to locked or hidden layers. That might seem like an unnecessary restraint, but in Aldus FreeHand the opposite approach results in objects mysteriously disappearing into hidden layers.

Though the Layers palette is a relatively new addition, Illustrator has always provided a powerful and flexible drawing environment to manage the stacking order of objects. The seemingly straightforward commands Hide, Show, Lock, Unlock (from the Arrange menu), and Paste InFront and PasteInBack (from the Edit menu) offer considerable control over Illustrator objects. Even though you can now benefit fully from the newer layers functions discussed at length in this chapter, the original secret powers are still well worth learning:

Paste In Front, Paste In Back ( -F, -B) Even if you use a million layers to separate objects, you will still need these two functions. They don’t merely paste an object in front of or behind all other objects; they paste exactly in front of or behind the object you select. The second, and equally important, aspect is that the two functions paste objects that are cut ( -X) or copied ( -C) in the exact same location (in relation to the page margins). This ability applies from one document to another, ensuring perfect registration and Layers palette basics:

• A dot under the Eye means a layer is visible; a dot under the Pencil means it’s unlocked.
• Click to place dots in, or remove them from, the Eye or Pencil columns. Or, click-drag up and down to remove dots or place them in multiple layers.
• Double-click on a layer to open that layer’s print and view preferences.
• Shift-click to select multiple layers, then let go of the Shift key. When multiple layers are selected, if you then click on the Eye or Pencil itself, you will hide/ lock all layers that are not selected. Double-clicking on one layer will access Preferences, which you can set for all the selected layers.

Shortcut keys can be handy here:

• Unlock and show all layers ( -2),
• unlock and show all objects ( -4).

In the dialog box which then appears, click to Replace the selected EPS with this new one. If you didn’t intend to replace an EPS, click Ignore (which places the new EPS in addition to the one that was selected), or just Cancel. To move a selected object to another layer: open the Layers palette, grab the colored dot to the right of the object’s layer and drag it to the desired layer. To move a copy of an object: hold down the Alt key while you drag.

Making Gradients

Make your own gradients by placing and spacing pointers representing colors along the lower edge of the color scale in the Gradient palette, or by adjusting the midpoint of the color transition as a result of sliding the diamond shapes along the top of the scale. Illustrator saves gradients by name, so changing the colors or styling of a previously used gradient will automatically update all objects filled with that gradient. You can adjust the length, direction and center-point location of selected gradients, as well as unify blends across multiple objects by clicking and dragging with the Gradient-fill tool. To fill type with gradients, convert the type to an object.

Exercise

1. To open your Gradient palette, double-click on the Gradient tool or on a gradient name in the Paint Style palette, or choose Window: Show Gradient.
2. Click on the lower edge of a gradient to add a new color.
3. Hold down your Alt key to drag a copy of a color pointer.
4. With the Eyedropper tool, Control-click in your image to load that color into a pointer.
5. Drag one pointer over another to swap their colors.

Use blends for irregular or contoured transitions.

For domed, kidney-shaped or contoured objects (such as shadows), only a blend will do. Make two objects with the same number of points (try scaling one to create the other). Set each to the desired color and click on a related anchor point on one, then the other, with the Blend tool.

Try setting the number of steps that the Blend dialog box recommends (you can experiment with fewer, but there is rarely a need for more). The more similar the colors, the fewer steps you’ll need. (See the Adobe CD’s “Smooth blends” for technical specifications for calculating smooth blends.)

Explore!

Experiment with the filters. Pathfinder filters are the best!

Illustrator Easter Egg!

As many already know, clicking Illustrator’s status bar brings up a pop-up menu, letting you change what’s displayed in the status bar.

Should you like a change of scenery, or have the impulse to innocently confuse a coworker for a few hours, press the Alt key before you click the status bar!

Imaging Essentials

The following review was written by Randy M. Zeitman on behalf of the User Group Alliance(UGA). It may be freely distributed or reprinted in its entirety. If printed, please send a copy to:

UGAPO Box 29709Elkins Park PA 19027-0909

Thank you, Randy M. Zeitman

Imaging Essentials, the second installment of Adobe Press’s Professional Studio Techniques series, nicely integrates step-by-step insights into Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Dimensions, and Premiere.

As with its predecessor, Design Essentials, Imaging Essentials serves as a “cookbook” for artists familiar with the basic features of the program. Each recipe is highly detailed in color and peppered with relevant software tips and insights.

In fact, the examples detailing the creation of banners, tubes, hoses, and three-D cans in Dimensions might inspire you to buy a copy of the Adobe Dimensions as well! (Dimensions is a 3-D graphics program that saves files in Illustrator format.)

A fraction of the indispensable topics include: Simulating graininess in a photograph, impressionist effects, painting in neon, transparent shadows, masking images with type, metallic type, creating gradations with type (most interesting!), blending images together, and creating masks for QuickTime movies.

Deserving special note are sections exploring the idiosyncrasies of combining Illustrator and Photoshop artwork as well as various printing considerations.

If you already own Design Essentials, you’ll be happy to find a set of upgrade notes to keep your copy in sync with Photoshop and Illustrator.

When a team of Adobe Designers get together to detail their digital discoveries, only good things can happen. Imaging Essentials, Adobe Press, ISBN 1-56830-051-4

Design Essentials

The following review was written by Randy M. Zeitman on behalf of the User Group Alliance(UGA). It may be freely distributed or reprinted in its entirety. If printed, please send a copy to:

UGAPO Box 29709Elkins Park PA 19027-0909

Thank you, Randy M. Zeitman

Design Essentials, the first release in Adobe Press’s Professional Studio Techniques series, might be one of the best digital special effects book on the market to date.

In a nutshell, Design Essentials provides step-by-step instructions to reproduce a variety of traditional photographic techniques in Photoshop. While several Illustrator effects are also detailed, particularly the magic behind creating three-D boxes, many effects described are directly available in Illustrator 5.5.

Beautifully detailed sections on impressionist effects, stippling, posterizing, bleeding, textures, text effects, translucent shapes, rustic effects, halftones, and even duotones, tritones, and quadtones are just a sampling of the techniques demystified. Charts showing the effects of applying a combination of Photoshop filters to an image are also helpful. And not only does Design Essentials show you how to create a stereoscopic image, a pair of three-D glasses is included in the back of the book!

Considering that Design Essentials is packed to the gills with information, in color no less, the $39.95 isn’t hard to take at all. Design Essentials makes a great addition of any Photoshop users bookshelf. Design Essentials, Adobe Press, ISBN 0-672-48538-9