Illustrator Typography & Clipping Paths
This week: Import Art into Illustrator (PDF), Clipping Paths (PDF), Importing & placing graphics, Resize images: Making a Poster, Presentation Friendly Slides, Revealing the Clipping Path, Compositing photos, Bitmap to Vector Art Type Fundamentals, File formats, Saving.. Two good PDF files included...
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- Importing & placing graphics (Whitman.edu)
This is a simple site that gives an example of making a poster. it goes into importing graphics and text as well as placing them on the page. Formatting text and images is discussed too. Working with the clipping paths are mentioned but not in detail. Posted on Sun Apr 4 - Place, Resize images: Making a Poster (UTexas.edu)
When using illustrator, you can bring files in from other progams to use in your document. Illustrator can import files with EPS, GIF, TIFF, and JPEG domains. Linux and XFig programs are helpful in moving files from Photoshop to Illustrator and vice versa. Once they have been placed in Illustrator, they can be resized as needed. After you have completed your project and saved it in Illustrator format, convert the file to encapsulated postscript (.eps) format. It will save your file in CMYK color for printing. Posted on Mon Apr 5 - Presentation Friendly Slides (WISC.edu)
I had an unusually hard time finding a decent website, but this particular site is from the University of Wisconsin - Madison medical school. It is rather dull and has no visual images to accompany the instructions. The overall tutorial could provide a useful resource, because it provides a template for how one can create presentation-friendly slides, particularly when dealing with medical science. The school uses Adobe Illustrator for this process and usings the techniques of importing images, placing images and text are important. They are particularly aware of discrepencies in color between pc screen, and slide projector. Posted on Mon Apr 5 - Illustrator Import / Export (Washington.edu)
In this brief tutorial, it is mentioned how to save and export files for other programs. It breifly goes over the use of a jpeg and why you would need to know about importing or exporting files. Posted on Mon Apr 5 - Revealing the Clipping Path (1)
This is a four page tutorial on working with clipping paths. It starts you off learning about the process against a white background. Each step is illustrated, and the content of this tutorial is that of either a professional or academic nature. I found it to be very informative. There are also additional tutorials available from the homepage. Posted on Mon Apr 5 - Illustrator Clipping Paths (2)
This is a great site for explaining clipping paths. It shows how to create one from a image on a white background. It also shows you the right way to select clipping path options from your tool bars and creating one from an image with trancparency. Posted on Mon Apr 5 - Compositing photos, clipping paths (3)
A clipping path is a drawn vector outline that acts as a mask to hide unwanted parts of a photograph or any other object. You have the flexibility to create a clipping path from an image that contains paths, alpha channels, a white background, or a transparent background. Posted on Mon Mar 22 - Bitmap to Vector Art (Creative Pro)
this site is a nice compendium of tutorials and faq's very similar to graphic-design.com ... feedback and collections of tutorials are broken down and designed to help provide clear and concise means of excuting different processes. Posted on Mon Mar 22 - Clipping paths, photos, etc..
This site was a tutorial on how to use the clipping path, and working with photos. There were specifically seven steps. Each step helped walk you through the procedure to use a clipping path properly. First you took the pen tool and made a clipping path from the image you cropped. then imported all the rest of the photos used in the file, and created a background as well as other steps. overall this was a helpful tutorial to walk you step by step through the actions. Posted on Mon Apr 5 - Importing Files
This this site looks like it also has some other really interesting tutorials on related topics in Illustrator. I wish it was longer, but it was the best one that I could find. It explains how to place a file as image or text using the place dialog box. One can also link or embed an object. One can also import data if one is making a graph. Posted on Mon Apr 5 - Type Fundamentals
This tutorial deals with manipulating colors and gradients within type. Specific examples include merging type, stroke and fill techniques, default gradients, custom gradients, and stylizing the type. The tutorial isn't very expansive, but gives adequate background to prepare the user for some explorative experimentation. Posted on Sun Apr 4 - Importing File formats, Saving
This wasn't my favorite tutorial site but it gave the information I needed. It fully covered the different kinds of files that could be used in illustrator and which files were good for what. It went over the different ways of saving them and what was compatible with other programs. The next section of the site discussed linking and embedding and the advantages and disadvantages of both. It seems to me that embedding images is always the safest thing to do although it makes a large file. It also was good at reviewing the difference between raster images and vector images and how if you import a raster photograph you then have to create a clipping path. It covered most of what I was looking for. Posted on Mon Apr 5
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- (PDF) Import Art into Illustrator
[Synopsis] Illustrator files can easily be cut and pasted from one Illustrator file to another. However, if you want to use art that is from PowerPoint, Photoshop, or even a scanned piece, it has to be inserted through the Illustrator Place feature. The object that you want to place into your Illustrator file can be either a vector graphic or bitmap image. Before you can begin to work on a file, you have to decide whether the image you bring into your document is embedded or linked. With the embedded image you can save the object in Illustrator where as with the linked file it remains an independent file. (It does not matter whether your image is a bitmap or a vector object, either embedding or linking the file will work.) There are a few advantages to embedding an image. For one it is simpler and another is, it is more reliable than linking. Not to mention that it is safer if you are sending your work to a client, because the images are saved directly to your Illustrator file and any changes that need to be made are less likely to get lost. With linked images, they are saved separately from your Illustrator file. Once you decide on the way you want your image to be placed, select "Place" and a new file comes up with you image in it. From there you can work as you please on your image (remembering to save regularly.) Posted on Mon Apr 5 - (PDF) Clipping Paths (SMUMN.edu)
Here is a very short but accurate display what a clipping path is and how to suceessfully use steps and tools to make it work for you. There are two objects that are displayed in this pdf file as examples of how a clipping path works. It also like in class makes the reader aware to flatten the image (no other layers) and to use CMYK when saving it as an EPS file. Posted on Sat Apr 3
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