With the PDF long established as one of the common currencies of the creative industries, it’s not unusual to have clients hand you a PDF and ask if you can take an image or a logo from within the file for use in an alternate layout. In an ideal world we would always want to […]
Category Archives: Illustrator
If you find yourself repeating certain functions in Illustrator, or find you’re longing for a keyboard shortcut that doesn’t seem to exist, then it’s well worth getting to grips with the Actions panel. Here’s a quick guide to get you up and running with the basics (Adobe’s online help documentation has more detailed information on […]
One of Illustrator’s many potent tools, and something of an unsung hero, is the Width Tool which we cover on our Adobe Illustrator classes for beginners. Nested in with some of the other exotic tools, like Warp and Bloat, the Width Tool allows us to vary the thickness of a stroke at any given point along […]
The Layers Panel in Illustrator and InDesign is a potent tool when it comes to organising and editing your content. Both applications work in much the same way allowing you to select, duplicate, lock and generally organise your content in a logical fashion. Depending on your workflow you might use Layers to separate out different […]
When using the Colour Panel in InDesign or Illustrator you have control over each component colour channel when working in RGB or CMYK enabling you to mix specific hues of reds, purples, oranges etc. Sometimes you’ll arrive at the colour you’re after but just need to go deeper or paler. If this has you fiddling […]
BOOKING THE EXAM The Adobe ACE exams are currently run through the Pearson Vue network of testing centres, which also runs exams for organisations including Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, and Oracle. The centres are available at a wide range of locations across the UK, and you can find your nearest centre using the Pearson Vue […]
Use the Illustrator Join tool to join segments and points The Join Tool in Illustrator isn’t the most exciting, featured-packed, weapon in your Adobe arsenal but it does make short work of what was once a laborious process. Nested in with the Pencil and Shaper Tools the Join Tool is essentially a brush, but unlike […]
A very nice feature in Illustrator CC is the ability to create patterns. Basically you can create a collection of shapes, select them and then bring up the Pattern Options panel. Go to the top right-hand corner of the panel and click on the little drop-down menu. Choose Make Pattern. A dialog appears saying that […]
Here’s a quick tip for unlocking all the Transform functions when working with Vector Smart Objects. In the example below I have two versions of a logo placed as Smart Object Layers – the top one is Vector-based and contains an Illustrator file, the bottom one is a standard Raster-based Photoshop layer that has been […]