The Workshop is all about being creative and thinking outside of the box. These workshops will help your right-brain soar, while making your left-brain happy; by explaining why things work the way they do. Exploring Illustrator’s possibilities is great fun; however, always stay grounded with knowledge of how things work. Knowledge is power.
Each project in the Workshop includes a start file to help you get started with the project, and a final file to provide you with the results of the project so you can see how well you accomplished the task.
Before you can use the project files, you need to download them from the Web. You can access the files at www.perspection.com in the software downloads area. After you download the files from the Web, uncompress the files into a folder on your hard drive to which you have easy access from Illustrator.
Artboards are regions of a document that contain printable artwork. You can use artboards as crop areas for printing or placement. You can create multiple artboards (up to 100), which are useful for creating documents at different sizes, creating and organizing artwork elements in different places within the same document, and creating multiple page PDFs. You can view all of your artboards by using Artboard Navigation on the Status bar. Each artboard is numbered so you can quickly switch between them. You can only work on one artboard at a time. After you activate an artboard, you can perform the following artboard operations: change the view (outline or preview), resize, move the artboard with or without its contents, rotate, and delete. In addition, you can also change the display for artboard rulers, center mark, cross hairs, and video safe areas.
In this project, you’ll learn how to create and use multiple artboards to work with multiple art pieces in a document.
Open Illustrator CS4, click the File menu, click New, and then enter a new document name as multiple_artboards.
Change the number of artboards to 2.
Select the Arrange by Column button.
Use the remaining defaults for the New dialog box.
Click OK.
Save the new Illustrator file with the defaults as multiple_artboards.ai.
Select the Artboard tool on the Tools panel.
Click the bottom artboard, and then click the Delete Artboard button on the Control panel.
Click the File menu, click Open, and then open the file sea creatures.ai.
Select all the objects on the artboard using the Selection tool on the Tools panel.
Close the file sea creatures.ai.
Paste the objects on the Clipboard to the artboard.
Select the Artboard tool on the Tools panel.
Drag the resize handles on the artboard to make the objects fit in the artboard.
Drag in the workspace (outside an artboard) to create a new artboard.
To create an artboard within an artboard, hold down Shift and then drag.
To use a preset dimension, click the Preset list arrow on the Control panel, and then select a preset.
Click to select the artboard, click the New Artboard button on the Control panel, and then click to place the duplicated artboard.
To create multiple duplicates, Alt-click instead as many times as you want.
Select the Selection tool on the Tools panel.
Drag the shark objects to artboard number 2 and drag the dolphin objects to artboard number 3.
Select the Artboard tool on the Tools panel.
Click artboard number 3 to select it.
Click the Move/Copy Artwork With Artboard button to select it (pressed in) on the Control panel.
To show artboard rulers, select the artboard, click the View menu, and then click Show Artboard Rulers.
Drag artboard number down a little bit.
The artboard and the contents of the artboard move together.
Click the Move/Copy Artwork With Artboard button to deselect it on the Control panel.
Drag artboard number down a little bit.
The artboard moves without the contents of the artboard.
Click the Edit menu, and then click Undo.
The artboard moves without the contents of the artboard.
To navigate between artboards, use the Navigation buttons on the Status bar.
To exit the artboard editing mode, press Esc or click a different tool.
If you have a raster graphic, such as a JPEG, TIFF, or PSD file, in your document, you can use tracing options to convert the graphic into editable vector artwork. You can set options to create a close simulation of the graphic or a more artistic rendering of it and then fine-tune your results. The Live Trace command detects and traces the color and shading in a raster graphic to create an editable vector object. You can use tracing presets (recommended for first time users), such as Simple Trace, Hand Drawn Sketch, or Inked Drawing, or set your own tracing options in the Tracing Options dialog box. Tracing options are live, which means that you can apply these options before or after using the Live Trace command. When applied, a traced object is known as a live trace object. You can start a Live Trace in Illustrator or in Adobe Bridge. Live Paint allows you to fill open or closed paths by creating Live Paint Groups. After you create a path using a drawing tool or Live Trace command, you can use the Live Paint command or the Live Paint Bucket tool to convert the paths into a Live Paint Group that you can paint. The Live Paint Bucket tool allows you to click an area formed by intersecting lines to apply fill (known as face) and stroke (known as edges) attributes. As you reshape the Live Paint objects, the paint attributes also change.
In this project, you’ll learn how to create a Live Trace starting from Adobe Bridge and use Live Paint tools to color the artwork.
Open Illustrator CS4, and then click the Go to Bridge button on the Applications bar.
Navigate to the projects folder to display the project files in Adobe Bridge.
Select the sneakers.png file.
Click the Tools menu, point to Illustrator, and then click Live Trace.
The Live Trace dialog box appears.
Select Technical Drawing from the Tracing Preset.
Deselect the Save and Close Results check box.
Use the remaining defaults for the New dialog box.
Click OK.
Adobe Illustrator opens, displaying the live Trace object. In Illustrator, you can create a live trace object by selecting the object, and then click the Live Trace button on the Control panel.
With the Selection tool, resize the sneakers object.
Click the File menu, click Save As, and then save the new document using the defaults with the name live_trace_paint.ai.
Select all the paths using selection tools on the Tools panel.
Click the Live Paint button on the Control panel.
You can also click the Object menu, point to Live Paint, and then click Make.
You can also click the Live Paint Bucket tool on the Tools panel, and then click the selected paths.
The paths are nested together into a Live Paint Group, which appears in the Layers panel.
Double-click the Live Paint Bucket tool on the Tools panel.
Select the Paint Fills and Paint Strokes check boxes to paint fills and strokes with the Live Paint Bucket tool.
Click OK.
Select the Live Paint Bucket tool on the Tools panel.
Display a Live Paint Group object.
Select a fill color on the Swatches (including other libraries), Tools, or Control panels to use with the Live Paint Bucket tool. Select a stroke color, weight, or other attributes on the Strokes, Tools, or Control panels to use with the Live Paint Bucket tool.
If the Cursor Swatch Preview appears above the pointer, you can press the left or right arrow keys to select or display the next or previous color from the Swatches panel.
To remove colors from stroke edges, select None.
Point to the face that you want to fill or the edge that you want to change. The face or edge becomes highlighted.
Click an individual face or edge or drag multiple edges.
You can access and download more workshop projects and related files at www.perspection.com in the software downloads area. After you download the files from the Web, uncompress the files into a folder on your hard drive to which you have easy access from Illustrator.
Instead of downloading everything from the Web, which can take a while depending on your Internet connection speed, you can get all the files used in this book and much more on a Illustrator CS4 On Demand DVD. The DVD contains task and workshop files, tips and tricks, keyboard shortcuts, and other goodies from the author.
To get the Illustrator CS4 On Demand DVD, go to www.perspection.com.