Illustrator
The absolute first thing you should know about Illustrator is that it's used to create vector graphics. Vector graphics are very different than the raster graphics that you typically create in Photoshop (it's true that Photoshop has some limited vector capabilities, but no where near what you can achieve in Illustrator.). Instead of being comprised of static individual pixels, vector graphics are mathematically drawn by your computer and can therefore be drastically changed with absolutely zero loss in quality. The first thing that you're likely to notice when you first start using Illustrator is that there is a whole lot of stuff going on when you select and edit something. This is something that lots of new users tend to hate right off the bat because it looks confusing, but in reality all of the information and controls that Illustrator throws at you are extremely helpful. Bleed= ink that is printed directly to the edge. Crop Marks= corner marks for the printer to know where to trim the paper. Illustrator= vector art making. Best program for logos, pen tool, etc. Photoshop= Pixel Art making. Best program to alter photos.
The Bounding Box
For starters, whenever you select anything, you'll see its bounding box. This is an intuitive feature that you should instantly understand, the part that's not intuitive is why it won't go away. In Photoshop, you only see an object's bounding box when you're in the midst of a transform. In Illustrator, you see the bounding box whenever you have a complete object selected and the active tool is the Direct Selection Tool (V). If you have multiple objects selected, the bounding box will appear around all of them, allowing you to move or transform them together. The same rules apply as you're used to in Photoshop: hold shift to scale uniformly, throw in the Alt/Option key to scale from the center, etc. One major difference here is that you can't grab and independently move a specific corner of the bounding box like you can in a Photoshop transform. This makes shearing and putting perspective on objects a bit trickier as you have to use the dedicated tools for these types of transformations. Later we'll get a glimpse of how to use Free Transform, which will feel much more like you;re used to in Photoshop.
Smart Guides
Smart Guides are the major thing that bugs many newbies and pros alike. These are the little bits of information and outlines that pop up as you hover over, move or transform something. They may seem like they're just getting in your way but try to get used to them and use them as much as possible, you'll soon start to see their value. Smart Guides allow you to size objects on the fly using precise measurements and align whatever you have selected with points and lines from other objects around it. They make it really easy to create complex layouts very quickly and are much easier than "eyeballing" things. You also of course have a full set of alignment tools for these types of operations.You also of course have a full set of alignment tools for these types of operations.
Layers
When switching from Photoshop to Illustrator, it's important to note the conceptual changes in the workflow. Despite the fact that the two applications share so many features, it's frequently the case that the feature is used in a vary different way. Layers are an excellent example of this. In Photoshop, every piece gets its own layer. In fact, an individual object is really defined by the layer it's on. If you throw two elements on the same layer, they become a single element and if they overlap, you won't be able to separate them anymore. Also, applying an effect to an object affects the whole layer. So, for example, instead of having a layer for every item, it would be pretty typical to create one layer that holds all your various text items, another for your vector graphics and possibly even a third for imported Photoshop art. The colored square indicates the color of that layer. For convenience, the bounding box and other pop-up graphics are color-coded based on layers, that way when you select something you can instantly see which layer it belongs to. Nothing is by accident or coincidence.
C.R.A.P.
Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity
The Pathfinder
Let's face it, drawing on a computer is hard. Even simple shapes can be difficult to create if you're not a master of the Pen Tool. As with most professional vector software, Illustrator makes creating complex shapes much easier through the use of Boolean operations found in the Pathfinder palette. You can create as many artboards as you want in a single document. They can even be different sizes. Functionally, there are a lot of benefits to using multiple artboards within a single document instead of simply creating multiple documents. You can easily move/copy objects back and forth and print or export selected artboards all at once.
Photoshop Notes
- Open each image (not Place it) drag with the selection arrow, one image into another.
- Lasso (3) Tool = making Selections - list what each one does
- Image/ Canvas size- You can change this, see it, etc. (72 dpi = low resolution, 300+ = high resolution)
- Layers- each image you drag in, gets its own layer; lock it, turn on/off, change order - layers on top are above.
- History- let's you go back many steps in time
- Selections; Magic Wand, Marquee, Quick Mask, etc.
- Adjust scanned or digital camera images for better screen display or printing. Photoshop lets you easily change the file format of images to use as email attachments, on Web pages, or in printed documents such as brochures and newsletters.
- Edit photographs, especially those taken with a digital camera or digitized with a scanner. Photoshop becomes an electronic darkroom.
- Because it is so complex, there are often several ways to do the same task. Photoshop Elements is less expensive, consumer level graphics editing application. Elements is terrific for simple image editing, but does not have nearly the range of capabilities as the full Photoshop application. Save as JPEG of GIF to flatten it.
Photoshop Tool Bar
From top to bottom:
- Button To Display Palette In Two Columns
- Gripper Bar
- Move Tool (V)
- Rectangular Marquee Tool (M)
- Lasso Tool (L) : 3 types of Lasso tools used to outline, similar to pen tool in Illustrator
- Quick selection Tool (W) : Magic wand used to quickly select background or foreground.
- Crop Tool (C) : Used to crop a photo.
- Slice Tool (K)
- Spot Healing Brush Tool (L)
- Brush Tool (B)
- Clone Stamp Tool (S)
- History Brush Tool (Y)
- Eraser Tool (E) : Able to erase one layer at a time and used on basically
- Gradient Tool (G)
- Blur Tool (R)
- Dodge Tool (O)
- Pen Tool (P)
- Horizontal Type Tool (T)
- Path Selection Tool (A)
- Rectangle Tool (U)
- Notes Tool (N)
- Eyedropper Tool (I)
- Hand Tool (H)
- Zoom Tool (Z)
- Switch Foreground and Background Colors (X)
- Default Foreground and Background Colors (D)
- Set Foreground Color
- Set Background Color
Different Image Types
BMP=Bitmap is a standard Windows image format used on DOS and Windows computers
EPS= Encapsulated PostScript files can contain both bitmap and Vector graphics. They are supported by almost all programs.
GIF= Graphics Interchange Format commonly used on Web pages, is a compressed format designed to load quickly.
JPG or JPEG= Joint Photographic Experts Group commonly used to show photos on the web, supports many color modes, retains all color info in a RGB image, unlike a GIF format. Most cameras make JPEGs.
PDF= Portable Document is a flexible format for PC and Mac. PDF preserves fonts, layouts, graphics.
PSD= Photoshop Document format is default for Photoshop, is the only format that supports all features.
RAW= Photoshop Raw format is flexible for transferring images no pixel or file restrictions in RAW.
TIF or TIFF= Tagged Image File Format is a flexible bitmap image format supported by most applications.
EPS= Encapsulated PostScript files can contain both bitmap and Vector graphics. They are supported by almost all programs.
GIF= Graphics Interchange Format commonly used on Web pages, is a compressed format designed to load quickly.
JPG or JPEG= Joint Photographic Experts Group commonly used to show photos on the web, supports many color modes, retains all color info in a RGB image, unlike a GIF format. Most cameras make JPEGs.
PDF= Portable Document is a flexible format for PC and Mac. PDF preserves fonts, layouts, graphics.
PSD= Photoshop Document format is default for Photoshop, is the only format that supports all features.
RAW= Photoshop Raw format is flexible for transferring images no pixel or file restrictions in RAW.
TIF or TIFF= Tagged Image File Format is a flexible bitmap image format supported by most applications.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Windows= ctrl, alt, and/or shift keys
Mac= Apple, command, control, and/or shift keys
Alt+ click to do certain functions, click with mouse and keys.
Resize/Focus= cropping, shrinking, enlarging, slicing, changing the aspect, rotating, leveling, mirroring.
Enhancements/Layering= filters, layers, clones, borders, artwork, text, animation, painting, morphing, ordering, styles, masks, cut aways, selections, move, warp, shapes.
Mac= Apple, command, control, and/or shift keys
Alt+ click to do certain functions, click with mouse and keys.
Resize/Focus= cropping, shrinking, enlarging, slicing, changing the aspect, rotating, leveling, mirroring.
Enhancements/Layering= filters, layers, clones, borders, artwork, text, animation, painting, morphing, ordering, styles, masks, cut aways, selections, move, warp, shapes.
Layers in Photoshop
Layers= one of the most powerful tools in Photoshop. It is a section within a PSD, that you can manipulate independent from the rest of the document. They can be stacked, and the order is important. They can be deleted, displayed, hidden, merged, locked, grouped, flattened. They can be images, patterns, text, shapes, colors, or filters. You can use them to apply special effects, correct/colorize photos, repair damaged photos or import text.
Correcting Image Tonality
There is no reason to spend time removing dust, scratches, mold, or other artifacts from parts of an image you will later trim off. When you adjust an images overall tone and color, artifacts become more or less obvious. If you wait until you have finalized the color and tone corrections before removing artifacts, you only have to clean up artifacts once.
1. Clone Stamp Tool- to remove unwanted artifacts in an image.
A) way to paint with photographic pixels.
B) is used to sample an area of an image and then paint it to another area.
C) cleans up spots, dusts, tears.
D) challenge is to blend into the target areas seamlessly.
E) set source point. Option (Mac) or Alt (Win)
F) cloning is destructive so it is best to duplicate the layer or make anew blank layer to use.
2. Spot Healing Brush tool
Layers
- Get the digital image from: camera, phone, tablet, or scan it (be sure to scan with correct resolution for high quality print)
- Open and SAVE AS. Do not alter the Original Version.
- Crop the working copy to reduce unwanted pixels from its perimeter and straighten the image if appropriate.
- Improve overall image tone and color as needed.
- Fix localized problems and make 'artistic' changes, 'sharpen' if needed.
- How many light, dark, or medium level pixels are in it.
- How much contrast is in the image.
- If it is light or dark.
- If the image was captured with an incorrect exposure.
- Pixels range in brightness from 0 (black) to 255 (white)
- Highlights 205-255
- Midtones 65-204
- Shadows 0-64
- Properly balanced image has pixels in all three areas, but some images are meant to look mainly light or dark due to the lighting.
- Flat image = pixels are in the midtone range. Too light = lacking shadows. Too dark = lacking highlights
- Histogram = graphical display of its color and tones. It is like a mountain range of the 3 tone ranges, we want to have all 3 areas in the image for quality image tone.
1. Clone Stamp Tool- to remove unwanted artifacts in an image.
A) way to paint with photographic pixels.
B) is used to sample an area of an image and then paint it to another area.
C) cleans up spots, dusts, tears.
D) challenge is to blend into the target areas seamlessly.
E) set source point. Option (Mac) or Alt (Win)
F) cloning is destructive so it is best to duplicate the layer or make anew blank layer to use.
2. Spot Healing Brush tool
- Skin tones are a challenge because the gentle curves of a face capture light with varying highlights and shadows.
- This tool works much better than the Clone Stamp
- Pixels are first applied and then blended into the surrounding area.
- This tool is a simplified version of the Healing Brush tool, don't get them mixed up.
- This tool works well for: dust, blemishes, etc. it is a quick one click spot remover.
- Be aware it is very sensitive to sudden changes in tones or areas of sharp contrast. (best to use a duplicate layer)
Layers
- The background layer- when you open an image, the single layer you see is the background. Made of pixels, it has special features. It always is the bottom level of the doc.
- Opacity- the percent to which a layer hides the pixels of those beneath it. The background is completely 100% opaque.
- The Move Tool- Can be used to move any of the layers.
- Blend Modes- determine how the visible pixels of each layer combine with the layers beneath it.
- Altering any layer, such as erasing part of it, will show the layer underneath it.
- Layers- panel has create, hide, display, duplicate, group, link, lock, delete. The panel displays the "Stacking Order" from top to bottom.
- Eye icon- show/hide for each layer. You can change the name of any layer and lock.
- "Active Layer"- This one is shown by a highlight color, you can duplicate layers.
- Layer Groups- are folders that help to organize and manage layers. The triangle expands the contents.
- The bottom of Layers panel has many useful buttons. Link layers, Add Layer Style, Add Layer Mask, Fill or Adjustment Layers, Layer Group, New Layer, Delete Layer.
- In theory, you can have up to 8,000 layers in one document.
- You can copy/paste in same layer, and into other layers.
- Merge; Down- Combine the active layer with the one below it. Merge; Visible, Linked, and Flatten All Layers - turn all into background.
- Blend Modes - layer interact with those beneath them in special ways. These use mathematical formulas to blend pixels to create special effects. There are 27 in CC(New Version). They are grouped together by their general results. Blend Color - is color displayed in the active layer when you view it all by itself. Base Color - is the sum of all visible colors in the layers. Result Color - appears in the doc window after combining the blend and base colors/layers.
- Opacity - slider control how transparent a layer is, how much show through it has from 0-100%.