Illustrator Learnings

Learning Illustrator CS4

But why you may ask? Why do I need to learn Illustrator?

Vector artwork is the short answer – paths do offer the ability to create some beautiful simple artwork that can be scaled up to huge sizes for printing big advertising banners and hoardings.

Photoshop does offer similiar functions for creating paths but Illustrator wins overall as the app is focused on vectors and allows more powerful functions to manipulate and create paths.

In the end I’ve boiled it down to the following things that Illustrator does better than Photoshop. This does not pretend to be a comprehensive list – more a starting point to help you understand why you should bother to expand your skill set into this application.

Creating Paths

Editing paths is one of those things that is very unintuitive – needs a lot of practice to get good at – but is really powerful once you figure it out.

Important notes/reminders:

Path selection (v) – dark arrow

Object selection  (a) – light arrow – then using arrow keys is quite nice for small adjustments.

Pen tool (p) – does all you need to create paths via keyboard shortcuts – can add or subtract anchor points – hold alt and it can convert curve/corner points back and forth (click drag to convert to curve)

Simplify path function is cool – does what it says on the can

Joining- Averaging points – beware – joining is crude – averaging is more intuitive.

Colors/Swatches

Really useful when printing – can use print precise colours such as Pantones that professional printers can match with to ensure color correctness.

Rastar to Path

Obviously converting rastars to paths is what Illustrator is all about – trace feature is awesome. Intuitive too – no need for notes – it just works.

Font Symbols

Nice ability to view all the special ornaments within a font.

Further reading/viewing

I spent a bit of time watching the latest Illustrator CS4 videos from Lynda.com. But they didn’t really go into detail on the path editing functions.

Eventually the best educational material I found was an old video:Lynda.com – CS 4 Essential Training – They have a group of video’s on “Basic path editing” which really helped clarify the correct workflow and shortcuts to get up to speed fast on path editing.

For my reference the file is located here: D:\Business\Training\Lynda.com – Illustrator CS4 Essential Training\5. Basic Path Editing

Further Notes after spending 12 hours+ working with the app

Love the feeling of control it gives you. Getting a feeling for how to place anchor points to trace a curve or shape really does take time. Understanding whether to use a smooth or corner anchor point is also something that comes with time. Grouping paths, joining paths together and usings fills and strokes started to happen within the 12 hours – but I feel I have a fair way to go before it freels ‘natural’