Illustrator
The absolute first thing you should know about illustrator is that its used to create vector graphics. Vector graphics are very different that the raster graphics that you typically create in Photoshop (its true that Photoshop has some limited vector capabilities but no where that 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 start using illustrator is that there is a whole lot of stuff going on when you select and edit something. This something that lots of new users tend to hate right off the bat because it looks confusing but in reality all the information and controls that illustrator throws as you are extremely helpful. Bleed = ink that is printed directly to the edge. Crop marks = corner marks from the printer to know were to trim the paper. Illustrator = vector art making Best program for logos, pen tool, etc. Photoshop =pixel art 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 objects 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 yours used to in Photoshop: hold shift to scale uniformly throw in the Alt/option key to scale from the center, etc.
One major different here is that you can't grab an independently move a specific corner of the bounding box like you can in Photoshop transform. This makes shearing 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 fell much more like you're used to in Photoshop.
Smart Guides
Smart guides are the major things that bugs many newbies and pros alike. These are the little bits of information and outlines that will 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 values. 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: All represent lines and texts or can also be called transform tool
Layers Are Different
When switching from Photoshop to illustrator its important to note the conceptual changes in the workflow. Despite the fact that the two applications share so many features its frequently the case that the feature is used in a very different way. Layers are an excellent example of this. In Photoshop every piece gets its own layer. In fact and individual objects really defined by the layers its on. If you throw two elements on the same layer they become a single element and if they overlap you wont be able to separate them anymore. independently edited and arranged at any time also applying an effect on an object effects the whole layer So for example instead of having layers for every item would to create one layer that holds all your various items another from your vector graphics and possibly even a third for every imported Photoshop art. The colored square indicates the color of that layer for convenience the bounding box and other pop up graphics are color coated based on layers that way when you select something you can instantly see which layer it belongs to. Because nothing is accident or coincidence.
C Contrast
R Repetition
A Alignment
P Proximity
Lets face it drawing on a computer is hard. Even simple shapes can be difficult to create if your not a master at the pen tool as with most professionals vector software makes creating complex shapes much easier though 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 in different sizes. Functionality there are a lot of benefits to using multiple artboards within a single documents 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
1. Open each image (not place it) drag it with the selection arrow one image into another.
2. Lasso (3) tool= making selections-list what each does.
3. Image/canvas size-you can change this see it etc. (72 dpi =low resolution 300+high resolution).
4. Layers- each image you drag in gets its own layer lock it, turn on/off change order-layers on top are above.
5. History- lets you go back many steps in time.
6. Selections; magic wand, Marquess, quick mask, etc.
A. POSTCARD=3 images together in Photoshop
B. Add all logo front and back in illustrator
7. 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 printing documents such as brochures and newsletters.
8. Edit Photoshop especially those taken with a digital camera or digitized with a scanner. Photoshop becomes an electronic darkroom.
9. (11-14) Because it is so complex there are often several ways to do the same task. Photoshop Elements is less expensive consumers level graphics editing application. Elements is terrific for simple image editing but does not have nearly the range or capabilities as the full Photoshop application.
Every PSD will be saved with layers. You need to save as a JPEG or GIF to flatten it before you put it on your website.
*Zoom Tool, hand tool, Undo, History Tools, erasers, magic wand, Layers, Transform (Ctrl T) Deselect (Ctrl D)
*Windows; Ctrl alt and/or shift key
BMP Bitmap is a standard windows image format used on DOS and widows computers
EPS Encapsulated Post Script 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 TIFrat most cameras make jepgs
PDF Portable document is a flexible format for a PC and mac PDF is preserves fonts layouts graphics
PSD Photoshop document format is default in 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
Modified Keys
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
re-size/Focus = cropping shrinking enlarging slicing
Changing the aspect rotating leveling mirroring
Enhancement/layering = filters layers clones borders artwork text animation painting morphing ordering styles masks cut always selection move warp shapes.
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, filters. you can use them to apply special effects correct/colorize repair damaged photos or import text.
1-20 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 finalize the color and tone corrections before removing artifacts you only have to clean up artifacts once.
1 Get the digital image from camera phone table or scan it (be sure to scan with correct resolution or high quality print)
2. open and SAVE AS do not alter the original version
3. CROP the working copy to reduce unwanted pixels from its perimeter and straighten the image if appropriate
4. Improve overall image tone and color as needed
5. Fix localized problems and make artistic changes sharpen in needed
6. TONAL RANGE or Dynamic range of an image is determined by the way its pixels are distributed throughout the image.
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
*Property balanced image has pixels in all three areas but some images are meant to look mainly light or dark dues 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
1. Crop edges off of image
2. Improve brightness/contrast levels hue saturation
3.(next week) fixing rips dust etc
Special Tools
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. it is widely used to clean up spots dust tears etc
D. The challenge is to blend into the target areas seamlessly
E. set ('sources point') - press option (mac) or alt (win)
F. cloning is destructive so it is best to duplicate the layer or make a new blank layer to use
2. Spot healing brush tool
A. Skin tones are a challenge because the gentle curves of a face capture light with varying light and shadows
B. This tool works much better than the clone stamp
C. Pixels are first applied and then blended into the surrounding area
D. This tool is a simplified version of the healing brush tool don't get them mixed up
E. This tool works well for dust, blemished, etc it is a quick one click spot remover
F. Be aware it is very sensitive to sudden changes in tones or areas of sharp contrast (best to use a duplicate layer)
3-11-15 "Layers"
1. The background layer- when you open an image the single layer you see is the background. Made of pixels is has special features.*it always is the bottom level of the doc
2. Opacity - the percent to which layer hides the pixels of those beneath it. The background is completely 100% opaque.
3. The move tool- can be used to move any of the layers
4. Blend modes- determine how the visible pixels of each layer combine with the layers beneath it
5. Altering any layer such as erasing part of it will show the layer underneath it.
6. Layers- panel has create, hide, display. duplicate, group, link, lock, delete. The panel displays "Stacking order" from top to bottom.
7. eye icon=show/hide for each layer. you can change the name of any layer and lock them
8. "Active Layer"-This one is shown by a highlight color, you can duplicate layers
9. "layer groups"-are folders that help to organize an manage layers. The triangle expands the contents
10. The bottom of layers panel has many useful buttons
1. link layer
2. Add layer style
3. add layer mask
4. fill or adjustment layers
5. layer group
6. new layer
7. delete layer
11. In theory you can have up to 8,000 layers in one doc
12. You can copy/paste in same layers and into other layers
13. Merge down-combine active layer with one below it Visible, Linked, And Flatten layers, turn all into background
14. blend modes-layers interact with those beneath them in special ways. These use mathematical formulas to blend pixels to create special effects .here are 27 in CC 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 color in the layers
Result color-appears in the doc window after combining the blend and base colors/layers
15. opacity sliders control how transparent a layer is how much show through is has from 0-100%
The absolute first thing you should know about illustrator is that its used to create vector graphics. Vector graphics are very different that the raster graphics that you typically create in Photoshop (its true that Photoshop has some limited vector capabilities but no where that 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 start using illustrator is that there is a whole lot of stuff going on when you select and edit something. This something that lots of new users tend to hate right off the bat because it looks confusing but in reality all the information and controls that illustrator throws as you are extremely helpful. Bleed = ink that is printed directly to the edge. Crop marks = corner marks from the printer to know were to trim the paper. Illustrator = vector art making Best program for logos, pen tool, etc. Photoshop =pixel art 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 objects 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 yours used to in Photoshop: hold shift to scale uniformly throw in the Alt/option key to scale from the center, etc.
One major different here is that you can't grab an independently move a specific corner of the bounding box like you can in Photoshop transform. This makes shearing 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 fell much more like you're used to in Photoshop.
Smart Guides
Smart guides are the major things that bugs many newbies and pros alike. These are the little bits of information and outlines that will 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 values. 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: All represent lines and texts or can also be called transform tool
Layers Are Different
When switching from Photoshop to illustrator its important to note the conceptual changes in the workflow. Despite the fact that the two applications share so many features its frequently the case that the feature is used in a very different way. Layers are an excellent example of this. In Photoshop every piece gets its own layer. In fact and individual objects really defined by the layers its on. If you throw two elements on the same layer they become a single element and if they overlap you wont be able to separate them anymore. independently edited and arranged at any time also applying an effect on an object effects the whole layer So for example instead of having layers for every item would to create one layer that holds all your various items another from your vector graphics and possibly even a third for every imported Photoshop art. The colored square indicates the color of that layer for convenience the bounding box and other pop up graphics are color coated based on layers that way when you select something you can instantly see which layer it belongs to. Because nothing is accident or coincidence.
C Contrast
R Repetition
A Alignment
P Proximity
Lets face it drawing on a computer is hard. Even simple shapes can be difficult to create if your not a master at the pen tool as with most professionals vector software makes creating complex shapes much easier though 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 in different sizes. Functionality there are a lot of benefits to using multiple artboards within a single documents 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
1. Open each image (not place it) drag it with the selection arrow one image into another.
2. Lasso (3) tool= making selections-list what each does.
3. Image/canvas size-you can change this see it etc. (72 dpi =low resolution 300+high resolution).
4. Layers- each image you drag in gets its own layer lock it, turn on/off change order-layers on top are above.
5. History- lets you go back many steps in time.
6. Selections; magic wand, Marquess, quick mask, etc.
A. POSTCARD=3 images together in Photoshop
B. Add all logo front and back in illustrator
7. 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 printing documents such as brochures and newsletters.
8. Edit Photoshop especially those taken with a digital camera or digitized with a scanner. Photoshop becomes an electronic darkroom.
9. (11-14) Because it is so complex there are often several ways to do the same task. Photoshop Elements is less expensive consumers level graphics editing application. Elements is terrific for simple image editing but does not have nearly the range or capabilities as the full Photoshop application.
Every PSD will be saved with layers. You need to save as a JPEG or GIF to flatten it before you put it on your website.
*Zoom Tool, hand tool, Undo, History Tools, erasers, magic wand, Layers, Transform (Ctrl T) Deselect (Ctrl D)
*Windows; Ctrl alt and/or shift key
BMP Bitmap is a standard windows image format used on DOS and widows computers
EPS Encapsulated Post Script 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 TIFrat most cameras make jepgs
PDF Portable document is a flexible format for a PC and mac PDF is preserves fonts layouts graphics
PSD Photoshop document format is default in 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
Modified Keys
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
re-size/Focus = cropping shrinking enlarging slicing
Changing the aspect rotating leveling mirroring
Enhancement/layering = filters layers clones borders artwork text animation painting morphing ordering styles masks cut always selection move warp shapes.
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, filters. you can use them to apply special effects correct/colorize repair damaged photos or import text.
1-20 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 finalize the color and tone corrections before removing artifacts you only have to clean up artifacts once.
1 Get the digital image from camera phone table or scan it (be sure to scan with correct resolution or high quality print)
2. open and SAVE AS do not alter the original version
3. CROP the working copy to reduce unwanted pixels from its perimeter and straighten the image if appropriate
4. Improve overall image tone and color as needed
5. Fix localized problems and make artistic changes sharpen in needed
6. TONAL RANGE or Dynamic range of an image is determined by the way its pixels are distributed throughout the image.
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
*Property balanced image has pixels in all three areas but some images are meant to look mainly light or dark dues 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
1. Crop edges off of image
2. Improve brightness/contrast levels hue saturation
3.(next week) fixing rips dust etc
Special Tools
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. it is widely used to clean up spots dust tears etc
D. The challenge is to blend into the target areas seamlessly
E. set ('sources point') - press option (mac) or alt (win)
F. cloning is destructive so it is best to duplicate the layer or make a new blank layer to use
2. Spot healing brush tool
A. Skin tones are a challenge because the gentle curves of a face capture light with varying light and shadows
B. This tool works much better than the clone stamp
C. Pixels are first applied and then blended into the surrounding area
D. This tool is a simplified version of the healing brush tool don't get them mixed up
E. This tool works well for dust, blemished, etc it is a quick one click spot remover
F. Be aware it is very sensitive to sudden changes in tones or areas of sharp contrast (best to use a duplicate layer)
3-11-15 "Layers"
1. The background layer- when you open an image the single layer you see is the background. Made of pixels is has special features.*it always is the bottom level of the doc
2. Opacity - the percent to which layer hides the pixels of those beneath it. The background is completely 100% opaque.
3. The move tool- can be used to move any of the layers
4. Blend modes- determine how the visible pixels of each layer combine with the layers beneath it
5. Altering any layer such as erasing part of it will show the layer underneath it.
6. Layers- panel has create, hide, display. duplicate, group, link, lock, delete. The panel displays "Stacking order" from top to bottom.
7. eye icon=show/hide for each layer. you can change the name of any layer and lock them
8. "Active Layer"-This one is shown by a highlight color, you can duplicate layers
9. "layer groups"-are folders that help to organize an manage layers. The triangle expands the contents
10. The bottom of layers panel has many useful buttons
1. link layer
2. Add layer style
3. add layer mask
4. fill or adjustment layers
5. layer group
6. new layer
7. delete layer
11. In theory you can have up to 8,000 layers in one doc
12. You can copy/paste in same layers and into other layers
13. Merge down-combine active layer with one below it Visible, Linked, And Flatten layers, turn all into background
14. blend modes-layers interact with those beneath them in special ways. These use mathematical formulas to blend pixels to create special effects .here are 27 in CC 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 color in the layers
Result color-appears in the doc window after combining the blend and base colors/layers
15. opacity sliders control how transparent a layer is how much show through is has from 0-100%