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Illustrator Output

Lesson 12 from: Basics of Adobe CC: Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign

Jason Hoppe

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Lesson Info

12. Illustrator Output

Lesson Info

Illustrator Output

We save this file. If we were to go in and save this file, you can save it as an Illustrator file. But I may be sending this to somebody. They don't have Illustrator, so they won't be able to open this. So I don't know where this is gonna end up. This is a logo that I'm gonna send to the clients, and the client may send this on to their freelancer or whatever. So if I send them the Illustrator file, they'll be able to edit it. But I think the best way to go ahead and send it them is a PDF. They may be doing a PowerPoint presentation, or using it for tee shirts, or printing it on a banner. I don't know. So I'm gonna save this as a PDF file. Now what's unique about this is that when I save this as a PDF file, this can still be edited in Illustrator. Because I'm gonna embed the Illustrator file in here. But if you don't have Illustrator, you may not be able to get into this but you'd like to be able to see it, print it and place it. So you can. If I save this just as an Illustrator file, ...

I limit the usage end of it. But if I save this as an Adobe PDF file, I click Save. And then it asks me, okay here it is. Do I want to preserve the Illustrator Editing Capabilities? Yes. I'm gonna send it to mom. Mom has no idea what Illustrator is, but she would like to put it into her InDesign template and make it look good. Here you go mom, you got it. So I've got that, Illustrator Editing Capabilities. I can click Save. And when I have that, it saves it as a PDF. And there's my little PDF icon right there, awesome. Anybody that has Illustrator can go and open up this PDF. It'll open it up, and they'll see exactly this file. If you don't have it, you can take your InDesign file, go under File, Place, place it into InDesign, just like we did here on the file, right there. There's the final one placed in there. Perfect, just like I need. But if I don't have that, I still have the editing capabilities to open this file up right from the PDF file, and here's a real cool trick folks. You get a PDF and you need to make changes. Acrobat PDF and Illustrator have the same basic coding inside there. So even if a PDF was made in a completely different application, you may be able to open that PDF up and do some basic editing. Because whenever you save a PDF file, if I export a PDF file from InDesign that has type in it, and I open that PDF up in Illustrator, I can actually edit that type and those graphics and everything because if it's all Vector type, it's all Vector. And what does Illustrator do? Vector, right here. Now, I can save directly to a web-based file from Illustrator if I want to. If I go into the File menu and I choose Save as, some of the file formats that we have are gonna be Illustrator or SVG, which is a Scalable Vector Graphic. Now a Scalable Vector Graphic is fantastic because it acts like Vector on the Web. But a lot of people are like, yeah I don't know what SVG is. I don't know how to use it. I don't know what it tastes like. I don't know how to cook it. You know it's just, forget it. Not gonna touch. So if I wanted to go in and I wanted to do something else with this file, then I could go under the File menu and choose Export. Export will then go in and allow me to process this file as a file that will probably make a little bit more sense to me. Now somebody says, okay I need a JPEG for my website. And you're like, ehh sorry. It's a logo. Never save a logo as a JPEG, ever. And they're like, well that's what we need. And you're just like, sorry can't do it. But if I wanna save this, saving it as a PNG, Portable Network Graphic, works great. 'Cause now I can use this for any type of web-based application. If you need a logo for your website, this is exactly how I would do it. Go in, save it as a PNG. Actually, I'd go into Photoshop and do it and use the Save for Web. But this is a basics class, so if you need to go right from Illustrator here, I save this as a PNG. Keeping in mind when save this as a PNG, or any of these files here, in most cases it will no longer be Vector, it will actually become rasterized with pixels, and the size that I save it at is pretty much the size that it has to be used at. At that point, it can no longer be edited. We have to go back to the original file to be able to get in there and make any changes. If I save this as a PNG, which I will do, and I export this, there it is. It asks me what my screen resolution is. The backgrounds can be Transparent. I click OK. And then if I go under Photoshop and I open this up in Photoshop. Go to my Desktop here. There's my PNG. I open it up. And if I actually look at this, it looks really good, but it is all pixelized. Because that's what a Photoshop file is. It's all pixel based. But it looks really good, if I do say so myself. So that's how you can export a file. But if you just wanna save an Illustrator file for use in virtually any other application that you want, Save as an Illustrator PDF with the Illustrator Editing Capabilities. That way if you have Illustrator, you can edit it. If you don't, it's still completely usable, printable, sizable. Whatever you want. This is from Jamie Cantor. "How do I save an individual graphic "on an artboard?" So if you just wanted one of those. Well this is awesome because artboards are fantastic. And I'm glad Jamie you asked that question. Because now I have these two of these, and I want them to be separate. So that wonderful artboard that we created there, I can go back to my Artboard tool. And I can actually resize my artboard so that I could have each graphic on its own separate artboard. And I can actually draw another artboard with my Artboard tool so that they don't have to live together. And some people just build everything in an artboard. Well that's not ideal because I may wanna go in and just have each one separated out. Now if I create a different artboard for each one, you can do this afterwards. You don't have to start with this, that's the great part. I can create an Artboard and put my graphics on the Artboard. Go back to my Selection tool. Now if I was gonna go in and I were going to save this file, I could go in and save this file as Save as. And I can save this as a PDF if I want to. I can do that, and there it is. Everything is gonna be there but it's gonna be two separate pages of the PDF. If I were to go in and I were to Export this, and save this as a PNG, I can actually use my Artboards, and I would get two separate PNG files. Awesome. Instead of having to do one file, open up in Photoshop, separate them out, save them. I can use my Artboards as my dividers. One more cool thing with Artboards here, as I'm dealing with Artboards, if I have a logo that I would like to create several different versions of, I don't wanna have to keep creating artboards and then using the Copy, Paste, and then changing attributes. If I use my Artboard tool, and I take my artboard and I copy my artboard using the Option or Alt, Click and Drag, I can actually duplicate my artboards with the art on it. So if I wanna do slight changes on my logos or my graphics there, I don't have to Create an Artboard, Copy, Paste, Create an Artboard. No, I could go in and could create multiple artboards using my Artboard tool, Option or Alt, click and drag. It duplicates the artboard with all the content. Then, if I wanna export every one as a separate PNG. Export, there it is, use the Artboards. Every artboard gives me a unique graphic in its own file. Lorien Davy had said, "A lot of us actually like to hand write. "And so suppose you wanted to create "freehand lettering in Illustrator, "which tool would you choose for handwriting?" Well the interesting thing with freehand lettering in Illustrator is that trying to go in an draw here is a little bit tricky. But you can use the Pencil tool. And the Pencil tool allows you to have very accurate or very smooth drawing here. But one cool thing is if I go in and draw something like this with my Pencil tool, in fact I just did a post on this. We got the Width Shape tool, which allows you to take a path after you've drawn it, and allows you to go in and actually change the width parameters of this so you can get kind of a thick or thin narrow kind of style with this. Yeah, very cool. What about if you are using a tablet of sorts? So a tablet introduces a whole different aspect into it. Because when you use a tablet, there's other functions and features that you don't get with Illustrator when you're using a mouse, 'cause a mouse is not pressure sensitive. But if you use a tablet, some of these drawing features, especially when the drawing tools change, and it becomes much more fun to be able to do that. Because then you can create different brushes or different textures or profiles here where you can actually draw thicks and thins with your lines depending upon the way your pen tilts, the way it rotates. Whole different world. So there's a whole lot more to Illustrator than that, that's well beyond the basics. But it's really cool.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Color in InDesign
InDesign Basics
InDesign Images and links
Photoshop Basics Shortcuts
Photoshop Color Correction
Photoshop Layers
Photoshop Selections Basics
Photoshop Terminology
Shapes Paths Guides InDesign
Type in InDesign
Illustrator Shortcuts
Shapes & Pathfinder in Illustrator
Photoshop Assets
Illustrator Assets
InDesign Assets
Infographic

Ratings and Reviews

user 1398976626171314
 

Such an important overview that clarifies and simplifies each piece of software and its role in achieving a beautiful and organized end result. Love Jason's brilliant and funny style and I appreciate his going into the "whys" of the software design evolution so it's not just memorizing methods but truly understanding what you can do even with a eye to the future changes. Fascinating, fun and empowering! My first Creative Live purchase!

Renee Hamilton
 

Enjoying this class immensely. Havent used illustrator properly for a while but this class is refreshing my memory. Its so awesome and it makes illustrator seem so easy! Wow wow wow! Thank you Jason and Creative live

Corrine Radergraham
 

WOW!! Jason is a very engaging instructor. It's obvious that he knows the programs inside and out. He imparts a tremendous amount of excellent material in a very short time, he makes sense and he is well-spoken with a sense of humor and he doesn't get lost in the materials and have to bungle his way out, very well prepared. I've been using PS and IA for the past several years on and off and currently have 6 on my computer but looking at going to CC in the near future. Even with that experience, he provided tips and tricks for both that were very enlightening in using them more productively. I'm not so familiar with ID and I now feel that I have a working knowledge of all three programs. I've taken Adobe classes taught by other instructors and found them rather boring to drag myself through. Jason is not boring in the least! So if you aren't familiar with these programs or are even curious about them and want an excellent overview, I totally recommend that you take this class. You will definitely not be sorry and will get your money's worth. I took this when it was offered on air free of charge. The only down of taking it free is that there are downloadable materials that are only available by purchase which sound excellent and I would like to have them, but I want to take one of Jason's other classes and can't justify the expense of this class only for the downloads, because I am familiar with the programs and would be unlikely to actually watch the class again, and there is his interactive pdf class that I am really looking forward to......5 stars and all thumbs up for Jason's instruction!

Student Work

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