With the release of Illustrator 7, Adobe has completed a tightly integrated trio of applications (Photoshop 4, PageMaker 6.5, and now Illustrator) that all work in the same way. Most key commands are the same across all applications, and palettes look and work the same. The applications are truly cross-platform, working virtually identically on both the Macintosh and Windows 95/Windows NT platforms. If you are already familiar with Photoshop, many things will be familiar to you as you learn Illustrator.
If you are already an Illustrator user, you will need to adjust to version 7's new interface, and its metaphors. And for those new to Illustrator in general, this chapter will deal with how Illustrator works, and how it differs from other graphics programs.
This hour, we will learn about:
Just A Minute: Illustrator 7 is a major program upgrade. Whereas the last Macintosh version was 6, the last Windows version of Illustrator was 4.1. Version 7 finally brings identical features to both platforms while sporting a completely revised user interface. If you've used Illustrator before, you may go through a short transitional phase to get used to working in version 7.
In the ever-growing world of computer graphics, there are two types of images -- raster and vector. Some programs that create raster images (also known as pixel or paint images) are Photoshop, MacPaint, PC Paintbrush, or Painter. Some programs that create vector art (also known as object-oriented art) are Illustrator (that's us!), FreeHand, MacDraw, and Expression. Other programs, such as Canvas and CorelDRAW, have tools to create both raster and vector images.
Raster images are made up of a whole lot of tiny dots, called pixels. To illustrate this concept, we will use a sheet of graph paper. Each square on the sheet represents one pixel (see Figure 1.1). Let's start simple and create a black and white circle that is 20 pixels in diameter (see Figure 1.2). The number of pixels determines the resolution of your file. The computer stores this file by recording the exact placement and color of each pixel (see Figure 1.3). The computer has no idea that it is a circle, only that it is a collection of little dots.
Each square in the raster represents one pixel.
A raster circle.
Each pixel has a coordinate, and the contents of that pixel are recorded and saved in a file.
In this example, we saw each individual pixel, and the circle was very blocky. By adding more pixels, thereby increasing the resolution, we can make that same circle appear smoother because the pixels are much smaller (see Figure 1.4). Of course, the higher your resolution is, the larger your file size will be because the computer has many more pixels to keep track of.
Where the problem arises is when you try enlarging a raster image. Because the resolution is set, when you scale the art, in reality, you are just enlarging the pixels (see Figure 1.5), which results in a jaggy (or pixelated) image.
By creating a circle with a higher resolution, we are able to make edges appear smoother at the cost of having a larger file size.
At 100% (left), the circle appears to have a smooth edge. Enlarging the circle, however, reveals the jaggy edges (right).
Vector art is different in that instead of creating individual pixels, you create objects, such as rectangles and circles. By noting the mathematical coordinates of these shapes, a vector program can store files in a fraction of the space as raster images, and more importantly, be able to scale images to virtually any size without any loss in detail (see Figure 1.6).
Unlike raster images, the vector circle appears smooth at 100% (left) and just as smooth when enlarged 800% (right).
Now that we know all about Illustrator, let's actually open it up and see what it has to offer. If it isn't already installed, follow the instructions that came with Illustrator to install it on your computer. Now, let's launch Adobe Illustrator 7.
Just A Minute: If you've launched Illustrator before, or if you're working on someone else's computer, it's a good idea to trash your Preferences file so that what you see pictured in this book matches what you see onscreen. Follow these steps to trash your files.
On a Macintosh:1. In the Finder, open your System Folder.
2. In your System Folder is a folder called Preferences. Open it.
3. Find and select the file in your Preferences folder called Adobe Illustrator 7 Prefs.
4. Drag it to the Trash, and empty the Trash.On Windows:
1. Locate the Illustrator application folder.
2. Within the Illustrator application folder is a folder called Preferences. Open it.
3. Find and select the Illustrator Preferences File.
4. Drag it to the Recycle Bin and empty the Recycle Bin.The next time you launch Illustrator, a sparkling new Preferences file is automatically created.
Just A Minute: Did you know that you can edit Illustrator's Preferences file? If you're the daring type, open the file in a text editor and you can make changes, such as turning off warning dialog boxes.
CAUTION: You should learn how to trash your Preferences file, as it is a great Troubleshooting tip. If Illustrator seems to be acting weird, or even crashing often, trashing the preferences and restarting Illustrator usually clears things up.
After viewing the beautiful Illustrator splash screen and trying to read all the names of the programmers to see whether you know any of them, you are presented with Illustrator's working environment and an open Untitled document--we're ready for action.
First, let's take a tour of the Illustrator window. We'll start with a general look at Illustrator (see Figure 1.7) and then go into more detail about each part.
Welcome to Illustrator. This is what Illustrator looks like when you open it for the first time.
Across the top of the screen is the menu bar, which contains Illustrator's commands and essentials such as printing, saving, copying, and pasting.
Directly underneath is the document window, which is the actual Illustrator file. In the title bar of the document window is the filename and the percentage at which it is currently being viewed.
On the far left of the screen is a tall narrow strip of boxes. This is the Toolbox, which contains the tools you will use to work in Illustrator.
In the center of your screen you will see the page border of your document. You can change the page size to fit whatever you might need--anywhere from 2x2 inches to 120x120 inches.
Right inside the page border is a dotted line that represents the physical print area of the printer. Illustrator determines this by taking information from the PPD (PostScript Printer Definition) file of your currently selected printer.
At the upper-right side of the screen you will find four of Illustrator's many floating palettes: Color, Attributes, Stroke, and Gradient. They are clustered and docked, which we will soon see when we discuss palettes in detail.
At the lower-right side of the screen you will find two more floating palettes: the Layers palette and the active Swatches palette.
At the very bottom of the document window, as well as along the right side, are scroll bars. By clicking the arrows at each end, or by dragging the box within the scroll bar, you can move your page around within the document window. Now that you've learned what it is, don't ever use it. We will learn far more efficient ways to move around as we progress.
To the left of the scroll bar at the bottom of the document window is the status bar. Clicking the mouse on the status bar allows you to choose to have Illustrator display important information for you as you work. Or try holding down the (Option)[Alt] key while pressing the mouse button on the status bar for a list of not-so-important things to keep track of.
Immediately to the left of the status bar is the zoom magnification bar, which identifies the current zoom percentage of your file. You can quickly zoom to any of Illustrator's zoom percentages by clicking the mouse button with the cursor on this bar and selecting a zoom percentage.
How can you keep track of Illustrator's different tools (see Figure 1.8)? Well, I can give you a hint--look at your cursor. Sometimes it's an arrow, other times a crosshair, a paintbrush, or different variations of a pen (see Figure 1.9). By recognizing the different cursors, you will be able to concentrate more on what you're drawing rather then on how to draw it. Wherever appropriate, I will bring these tell-tale cursors to your attention.
The Illustrator Toolbox.
Depending on different circumstances, the Pen tool cursor changes to quickly help you complete your drawing.
I strongly suggest that you learn the keyboard shortcuts for the Toolbox. Adobe has made it easy by assigning single keystrokes to every tool (see Figure 1.10). For tools that have several options (such as the Rectangle tool), hit the shortcut key repeatedly to cycle through the tools.
You're dragging the mouse over the Toolbox when a tool tip pops up, identifying the tool and the keyboard shortcut for it.
The following is a brief description of the tools found in the Illustrator Toolbox. The keyboard shortcut for each tool is in parentheses following the tool name.
You'll notice that a lot more tools are listed than what appear in the Illustrator Toolbox. To make life easier on all of us, tools that are similar in function are grouped together in the Toolbox. Those tools with a little black arrow in the lower-right corner of the box have other tools in their space. You can access these tools by either clicking and dragging the tool, which brings up a pop-up box of the tools in that group, or press the keyboard shortcut command for that tool repeatedly to cycle through all the tools in that space.
Just A Minute: Do not be alarmed if you find a tool in the Toolbox that is not listed here. Illustrator 7 enables the addition of third-party plug-ins and the ability to place those plug-ins directly into the Illustrator Toolbox. VectorTools from Extensis, for instance, adds a Magic Wand selection tool to the Toolbox.
Used most often, the selection tools are used to tell Illustrator which objects you are working on. The selection tools are
It would be kind of silly if you couldn't create anything in Illustrator, right? The creation tools allow you to create your artwork, each tool serving a specific drawing task. The creation tools are
Power is being able to change that which you have. Illustrator's transformation tools give you the power you need to perfect your art. The transformation tools are
Some tools just can't be categorized. Illustrator contains a wealth of task-specific tools to assist you in your quest for the perfect art. Illustrator's remaining tools are
Underneath the tools are two swatches depicting the currently selected fill and stroke colors, with a small button on the lower left to quickly set the fill and stroke back to the default white fill, black stroke (D), and a small button on the upper right to swap the fill and stroke (see Figure 1.11). Using the X key toggles focus between fill and stroke. You'll learn more about these features in Hours 10 and 11, "Fills" and "Strokes."
The fill and stroke selectors. If you use Photoshop, these are identical to the foreground and background swatches.
Below the fill and stroke selectors are three buttons (as shown in Figure 1.12) that you can use to quickly access Color (,), Gradient (.), and the None attribute (/).
Quick-click shortcuts to the Color and Gradient palettes, as well as the None attribute.
Finally, at the bottom of the Toolbox are three options for document viewing: standard screen mode, full screen mode with menu bar, and full screen mode (see Figure 1.13).
Also similar to Photoshop are options to hide the menu bar and view a file full screen.
I think it all began when someone said, "Hey, the Toolbox is always visible, why can't we have other stuff also always visible?" Thanks to that one person, we now have floating palettes. They're called floating palettes because no matter what you are working on, they still remain in the foreground, accessible at all times. They can also be moved around by pressing and dragging the mouse over the title bar at the top of each palette.
The people at Adobe must really like floating palettes, because they gave Illustrator 13 of them (see Figure 1.14):
Throughout the book, we learn how to use each of these to our advantage.
If you opened every Illustrator palette onscreen, you wouldn't have much room left to draw anything.
Time Saver: Screen real estate is really valuable, so it's nice that you can quickly hide all palettes at any time by hitting the Tab key. To hide all palettes except the Toolbox, press Shift-Tab.
Well, if you want to criticize Illustrator for having too many floating palettes, then you must also praise Illustrator for making it so easy to manage them. All of Illustrator's palettes "stick" to each other like magnets. They also stick to the edge of the screen window, which makes positioning them easy.
But it gets even better than that. Double-click the tab (the tab is the area where the actual name of the palette appears) of a floating palette, and the palette collapses, showing you only the tab (see Figure 1.15). Double-click the tab again to expand the palette.
Double-clicking a tab collapses the palette.
You already know that you can position a floating palette by grabbing the top bar of the palette, but you get an extra surprise when you grab the tab of a palette. Clicking the tab of a palette and dragging produces the outline of the palette (see Figure 1.16). Now drag the outline right over the middle of another palette. Notice that the underlying palette now has a black outline around it (see Figure 1.17). Let go of the mouse button, and both palettes are now clustered (see Figure 1.18). Click the tab to bring that palette to the foreground. This capability gives you unlimited possibilities to configure your palettes.
Dragging a palette by its tab.
Notice how the palette underneath becomes "selected" with a black outline.
The new clustered palette.
Believe it or not, there's even another way to configure palettes called docking. Grab the tab from a palette, and drag it over so that your mouse cursor just touches the bottom of another palette (see Figure 1.19). Notice there is a black outline only along the bottom of the underlying palette. When you release the mouse, the two palettes are docked (see Figure 1.20). You can now move the entire palette as one, but still collapse and cluster each palette individually. Cool, huh?
Positioning a palette for docking.
The palettes, docked.
There are three viewing modes in Illustrator: Preview, Artwork, and Preview Selection. You can toggle between Preview and Artwork viewing modes by pressing (Command-Y) [Control-Y]. In Preview mode, you see the file as it would print, with colored fills and strokes (see Figure 1.21). There are times when it is necessary to view your file in Artwork mode where you see only the outline of each object (see Figure 1.22). Finally, the last view mode, Preview Selection (Command-Shift-Y)[Control-Shift-Y] is a combination of the two (see Figure 1.23). Whichever object you have selected shows in Preview mode, while all other artwork appears in Artwork mode. This is very useful when working on large files that seem to take years to redraw.
A page viewed in Preview mode.
A page viewed in Artwork mode.
A page viewed in Preview Selection mode.
Illustrator lets you zoom in and out of your page, letting you view the entire page for layout, and giving you an up-close view for detail work. There are several ways to change the zoom percentage of a document.
Zooming in using the marquee method, as we did with the Selection tool.
Time Saver: To instantly access the Zoom tool at any time, no matter what tool you are using, simply press (Command-Spacebar)[Control-Spacebar], and your cursor will change to the magnifying glass. By also holding down the (Option)[Alt] key, you can zoom out, seeing more of your image. Upon releasing these keys, Illustrator brings you right back to the tool you were using.
When you zoom in really close to work on an image, there is only a small portion on the image visible. That's where the Hand tool (see Figure 1.25) comes into play. Select the Hand tool from the Toolbox. Press the mouse button and drag. The little hand "grabs" the page and moves it so you can see other parts of the image.
The Hand tool.
Time Saver: To quickly zoom to fit your page in your document window, double-click the Hand tool. To quickly go to 100% magnification, double-click the Zoom tool.
If you work with large, complex images, you will be very happy that you took the time to read this chapter. I'll explain why. Everyone is always complaining about how slow computers are for graphics, and that you need expensive multiprocessor computers to keep up with today's work. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret. One of the biggest bottlenecks in computer graphics today is screen redraw. An accelerated graphics card can do wonders for your application speed. But Illustrator has a secret weapon that costs a lot less than a graphics accelerator: custom views.
Imagine yourself in a TV recording studio. There's one show that's happening on center stage, and they have five different cameras aimed at this stage. This gives the guy in the recording studio the ability to jump from camera to camera, seeing different views, instantaneously. Well, Illustrator's custom views work similarly.
To create a custom view, simply choose New View from the View menu (see Figure 1.26). Whatever your current view is, it will be automatically added to the Views list in the View menu. Attributes such as zoom percentage, viewing mode (Preview or Artwork), and window position are all saved, enabling you to quickly jump from an extreme close-up in Artwork mode, for example, to something such as a fit-in-window view in Preview mode. The first 10 views you define are also automatically assigned keyboard shortcuts--(Command-Option-Shift)[Control-Alt-Shift] and 1 through 0.
Creating a new custom view.
Illustrator has a feature where you can create two different windows that contain the same artwork. It's the same file, but just viewed in two windows. You could, for example, work in Artwork mode in one window, and have another, smaller window in Preview mode, so you can see changes as you work.
To use this feature, choose New Window from the Window menu (see Figure 1.27), and a new window opens. Of course, whatever you do in one window automatically happens in the other.
Creating a new window.
Another great way to use the New Window feature is if you have two monitors. By setting one of the monitors to 256 colors, you can see how your artwork will look if viewed at two different color settings. This can be very useful when designing art for the World Wide Web.
A new feature added to Illustrator 7 is context-sensitive menus. From anywhere on the screen, hold down the (Control key)[right mouse button] and click the screen. You will get a pop-up list of the most common functions, depending on what you currently have selected (see Figure 1.28).
Illustrator's new context-sensitive menus offer you a slew of relevant and usual commands, right where you want them, all at the touch of a key.
Congratulations! You've spent your first hour in Illustrator. There, that wasn't so bad now, was it? We learned how Illustrator is different from paint programs such as Photoshop, and we learned all about Illustrator's palettes and tools. Next hour, we will learn how to customize Illustrator to our needs and tastes, as well as learn how to set up a document to work in.
Palettes--Small windows that contain settings such as colors or fonts.
Cross-platform--Terminology used to describe software that runs on multiple operating systems, such as Mac OS and Windows 95.
Raster image--A graphic consisting of a collection of dots, or pixels (see pixel).
Vector image--A graphic defined by a scalable, mathematical outline.
Pixel--A square that is the smallest part of an image; also called raster.
Pixelated--An image enlarged to the point where you can see the individual pixels.
Cursor--The icon on your screen that indicates the position of your mouse or selection point.
Focus--The active part of the screen. Because of all the new keyboard shortcuts in version 7, Illustrator might not know when you are entering data in a palette, or when you are trying to envoke a keyboard shortcut. By making a palette the active part of your screen -- making it the focus -- you are telling Illustrator exactly what you plan to do.
Floating palettes--A palette that is always visible (remains in front) even though the document window is selected.
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