Working with Images & Illustrator

The page layout program (Adobe Illustrator) allows the user to open a template file, import images and text, select from a variety of type fonts and sizes, column justifications, document formatting, and image linking. Page layout programs enable designers to produce professional quality results inexpensively and quickly without the need for outside typesetting or assistance.

1. Support Illustrator with a good image processing program like Photoshop to create, modify, size and effect photo/bitmap images for placement into Illustrator.

2. Word editing with Illustrator is a bit clumsy so while you can create and edit text within page layout programs, using a word editor speeds the process of typing and typo fixing since you are working only on the text and ignoring the formatting.

Importing Images using : File Place

Illustrator allows you to PLACE images into your layout template.  This option allows you to keep the image as a link. The upside is that any edits to a linked image will automatically be updated within Illustrator.  Choose "Link" on the File Place window to keep files linked.  If you do NOT do this, the image is embedded (good for sending us files) but slows you down if you are still editing and playing around.

Avoiding problems with images

In the above example you can see one text block looks better than the other.  Photoshop allows you to TYPE into an image, however, when you do this, you are setting yourself up for lower resolution type if you flatten or rasterize the text layers even though you save as an EPS or PSD file for importing into Illustrator.  Flattened or rasterized text means you have converted the shape of the letter into pixels and removed its vector path.  

Unless you have a good reason why you want to keep Photoshop images linked and are able to supply all the font files, you should type all your words in Illustrator and keep text out of your Photoshop image.   Photoshop is for images and graphics, small words and letters should be typed in Illustrator and then converted to paths. 

To retain vector mapping of letters and lines use Illustrator

Problems with Illustrator

Illustrator is an Illustration program and not really set up to handle multi-page booklets and traycard layouts. For single sheet output like a CD label it is an excellent choice. Features we enjoy with Illustrator are the layers palette which allows us to add masks, non-printing comments and guidelines to assist designers with our templates. Also the ability to work with compound paths makes CD face design a breeze.  For multi-page layouts, you'll need to save multiple files and use descriptive naming. ie:  pages 12-1.ai  ; pages 2-11.ai and so on. 

What about saving files as PDFs?

We prefer to have the original layouts in Illustrator (.AI), and linked images could be saved as Photoshop (.PSD) if you do not want to embed. We can accept PDF only if they are press ready and already pre-flighted.  Keep in mind that PDFs have a plethora of options using compression that can cause low quality printing. We can not adjust your files if you inadvertently make a layout error. Therefore, PDF files are accepted but not recommended. Exceptions are reserved for experienced designers willing to take chances.