Questions about Illustrator?

[Praxius]

As similar to the Photoshop thread, do you have any questions or concerns about Illustrator that you might want answers to?

I could list off a few common questions like I did about Photoshop, but I imagine there's plenty of questions that can and will arise that I even don't know where to begin listing them off.

I know through talking to a bunch of people over the years, they get easily fed up with the pen tool, wonder what's the point of Illustrator when they can do most of what they want in Photoshop (or so one might think), so if you have any concerns in regards to Illustrator, let me know and I will attempt to do my best to resolve any issues, questions or concerns.

 

[DurkaDurka]

I haven't used this app since the early 2000's, mostly due to me having no artistic sense but in the right hands it's a very powerful tool. What I like about the tool is that it is vector based and easily exported to flash etc, which allows you to do some pretty cool things.

Do you use Illustrator at work much, Praxius?

 

[Praxius]

I haven't used this app since the early 2000's, mostly due to me having no artistic sense but in the right hands it's a very powerful tool. What I like about the tool is that it is vector based and easily exported to flash etc, which allows you to do some pretty cool things.

Do you use Illustrator at work much, Praxius?

Currently yes, we use it for about 99% of all our project here, as it works very well with vinyl cutting machines, and easily scalable for solvent printing without getting pixilated coming out.

That, and Illustrator comes included with many color books such as Pantone. Photoshop has Pantones as well, but they don't seem to match up to the pantones in Illustrator.... which I can only assume is due to how a file in photoshop is saved/compressed..... or perhaps how it is imported into illustrator and if it get's converted into RGB or CMYK.

I prefer Photoshop for many things, but Illustrator still beats it out over a few things, esspecially with large format printing and design compared to file size.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Do the files get pretty massive when dealing with Vinyl designs etc?

 

[Praxius]

Do the files get pretty massive when dealing with Vinyl designs etc?

Nah, you can get some pretty complex designs and layouts in AI format with many different colours, and the files are still well under a Meg..... no matter how large you make them.

Sometimes though, when they get really complex you might push above a megabyte in file size, but usually unless you embed a high quality photo into the file, they remain quite small.

AI and PDF are the smallest formats for vector, while EPS files can be pretty nasty in file size.

Vinyl cutting is usually just with one machine cutting one colour at a time..... you lay them all out on the cutter and the program, slice them all up, do the same for the other vinyls, etc. until you have them all done, and then you apply them all one at a time over one another until they look something like this:

However with solvent printed graphics (which can be both vector or pixel based) which is just solvent ink which burns directly into a glossy white vinyl film (There are hundreds of other materials as well) you can get away with such things as:

 

[DurkaDurka]

Cool stuff praxius! Do you do designs like the one's on the car & bus?

 

[jenn]

wow..impressive.. I used to use photoshop alot.. years ago early version. (which I probably still have) lol.. now I sat down with a new one a year or so ago..and it was like.. akkkkk. I remembered nothing!!!!

 

[Praxius]

Cool stuff praxius! Do you do designs like the one's on the car & bus?

That and more, however the two examples I provided I did not do, those were just quick examples off the net of what I was talking about.

I probably am not in a position to go into deail of what I do in the company based on client's projects, or what the company can and can not do, per say..... but here is my company's web site so you can see some of the things we do do.

http://www.mattatall.com

Added:

Hmmm.... seems like they didn't finish up the web site yet, and the portfolio section is none existent at present.... should have passed it over to me.... but hey, what do I know? I'm just the junior graphic designer :roll: (Even though I have the most experience here for web design) Oh well.... I got enough to do as it is I suppose.

 

[Praxius]

wow..impressive.. I used to use photoshop alot.. years ago early version. (which I probably still have) lol.. now I sat down with a new one a year or so ago..and it was like.. akkkkk. I remembered nothing!!!!

Well I started back on Photoshop 5.... and althought there has been plenty of versions from then until now on the program, all the tools that were in version 5 are all still in CS3, only they work better, and there's a bunch more added to it now.

There are also plenty of online tutorials and forums one can visit to get a refresher, or just to learn from scratch.

As I have said a few threads a while back, everything I have learned in college on these programs and many others, one can find all of those lessons online for free. The only thing it costs is time and patience (Minus the internet connection)

 

[DurkaDurka]

Cool, looks like you have some pretty big clients.

 

[Praxius]

Yeah we have some steady contracts from some big clients, and we do work in all the atlantic proviences...... so it's usually pretty steady. The company has been kicking around since..... er.... 1979. I've been here for about 2.5 years now. I've worked in three other sign companies around here, and prior to that I was at a photography studio covering a lot of grad photos, weddings, school pictures, family portraits all over Nova Scotia, etc..... it was a repetitive job and rotted the mind after 3 years of doing the same thing day in and day out.

Nothing like having princess class presidents trying to get their heads cropped off of one pose and put onto another, with all kinds of other stupid requests..... it was pretty easy to tell which kids got everything they wanted growing up.

Oh and word of advice for those getting professional photos done...... don't bother with using makup to cover pimples..... it only makes retouching more horrible, because when you're done, it's all patchy. The retouching does all the work and still keeps you looking somewhat natural. More makup means less skin texture to work with for covering up the bad spots.

Man I couldn't stand that job. Sure I was good at it, and I don't mind doing the odd photo here and there.... but not the amount I was thrown day in and day out..... ugh

 

[Kreskin]

I have the CS4 Design suite and am quite impressed with Illustrator.

 

[Andem]

I'm still doing everything with CS2, as I never had a reason to upgrade. This web site was designed with Photoshop CS2, for example.

What are the benefits up upping to CS4 from what I'm running?

 

[Kreskin]

Probably none Chris. CS4 is my first experience with Adobe. I see they now have CS5, but I still don't know how to use half of the features of 4 so why get more.

 

[DurkaDurka]

I'm still doing everything with CS2, as I never had a reason to upgrade. This web site was designed with Photoshop CS2, for example.

What are the benefits up upping to CS4 from what I'm running?

I would skip CS4 and go with CS5. CS5 is great if you are into photography, it now has lens correction built in, allows you to correct barrel distortion, pin cushion effect etc and has profiles built in for many a different lens. Also, it has HDR tone mapping built in now which is quite handy as previously you had to export to a 3'rd party program to edit the HDR file properly.

Seeing as you mostly use photoshop for web design though, I don't think there would be a great need to upgrade as your usage would consist of layouts and slicing images I assume.

 

[#juan]

This is not a subject I know a lot about but there are many similar programs out there that don't cost an arm and a leg.

10 Free Web-based Alternatives to Photoshop

 

[NZDoug]

Procreate, Which uses the Apple Pencil on iPad pro only and incredible program and cost peanuts.
Any files created can be JPEG‘s, TIFS, PSD files so they can be imported into any program like photoshop for final tweeks.
Check out Procreate on YouTube