dan lott

hi all,
im new to illustrator. i have a photo on my canvas (along with background vector artwork). how can i just marquee a bit of the image and click delete to crop it down a bit? would i have to do this in photoshop and then import it into illustrator? also, what teh difference between illustrator and in-design?
ive started designing for print (im a web designer) and people say to do everything in illustrator, but photoshop seems to have loads more features and is more intuitive.
thanks
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jacob_bugge

Dan,

would i have to do this in photoshop and then import it into illustrator?


Do that.

what teh difference between illustrator and in-design?


Single page/multipage, vector graphics/layout.

people say to do everything in illustrator, but photoshop seems to have
loads more features and is more intuitive.


Vector/raster.

dan lott

cheers for the reply jacob.
it seems to me that the best thing to do is to design everything in photoshop at 72dpi, then when the client approves it, lay it out in illustrator at 300dpi. im sure once ive done a few jobs in illustrator ill egt used to it.
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jacob_bugge

Dan,

im sure once ive done a few jobs in illustrator ill egt used to it.


Or addicted.

james_e._talmage

it seems to me that the best thing to do is to design everything in photoshop
at 72dpi, then when the client approves it, lay it out in illustrator
at 300dpi.


You've just described in a nutshell the problem of designing first for the web and then re-purposing for print: It's a backward workflow which results in duplication of effort, and which can get you into trouble.

Because of its lower resolution and mostly raster content, the web's graphics requirements are generally less demanding than those of print. So when you know the artwork is destined for both (as most should be), it makes more sense to design for print first and then re-purpose for the web. You can always "dumb down" graphics and throw away data. But once it's thrown away, you can't get it back without recreating it. Very inefficient.

what teh difference between illustrator and in-design?


As a web designer, you know the difference between Fireworks and Dreamweaver, right? Generally speaking, Fireworks for individual graphics; Dreamweaver for assembling pages and building whole sites.

In that analogy, Fireworks is your "illustration" program; Dreamweaver is your "page layout" program. You may occasionally build whole page layouts in Fireworks (I guess), but when it comes to building a whole site, you need Dreamweaver. There are areas of overlap: you can assign some URLs or export an HTML page in Fireworks; you can slice or crop an image in Dreamweaver. But generally speaking, one is full-powered for individual graphics; the other is full-powered for expediting the assembly of whole sites.

That's the difference between Illustrator and InDesign. You can build whole individual print pages in Illustrator; but to build the whole book, you need InDesign. There are areas of overlap: you can thread between text objects in Illustrator; you can draw a few vector paths in InDesign. But generally speaking, Illustrator is full-powered for individual artworks; InDesign is full-featured for expediting the assembly of whole book-ish documents.

So Illustrator / InDesign is not an "either-or" question, anymore than is Fireworks / Dreamweaver; or Photoshop / GoLive.

For well-rounded print work you need:

A robust vector graphics program (Illustrator)
A robust raster imaging program (Photoshop)
A robust page-assembly program (InDesign)
A delivery platform (Acrobat)

Thus, the bundling of the Creative Suite applications. Because Illustrator and Photoshop can create artwork meeting the requirements for print (CMYK color space, for example), they can also meet the generally lesser demands of web graphics. So GoLive is added to the bundle as the robust "page assembly" program for the web.

JET

philip_peterson

Are the designs going to involve photos? Otherwise, I'd jump straight to illustrator. Also designing anything at 72 dpi and then redoing it in illustrator seems like a waste of time.

Also, (again, unless you are dealing with photos) illustrator is resolution independent.

dan lott

hi guys
James E. Talmage : thanks for the detailed post. i now understand the differnce between illustrator and indesign. remember now that i knew a designer who did all the design in photoshop (300dpi) and then imported that into illustrator to do the text. i think i will work this way (design in hotoshop and import to illustrator to deal with the text in the layout) unless anyone sees a big problem in doing it this way. The reason why i was talking about 72dpi is purely to save my computer from smoking (its a 3.5gig p4 with 2.5gig of ram but still finds CS2 a handful), and client sinevitably change their minds or teh deisgn is not right etc... working at 72dpi is just more manageable - but yes, not the most efficient way to work.
cheers guys
- D

john_kallios

Try this method for cropping images. (Note: this is a workaround and will flatten any transparency contained in the image)

Set a clip path on a raster image, vector elements or a combination of both.
Set a blending mode to the image+clipping path element. (multiply, darken, ect.)
Flatten transparency.

No need to clean up extra elements beyond the clip path. The clip path is still there allowing ease of stroking the path as needed.

Note: the only extrenuous items that would need to be deleted afterwards is if the final clipped elements contained another clipped element that extends beyond the final clipped elements path.

Still, I would recommend going back to Photoshop to crop, it is just that sometimes it is easier to cheat and do this in Illustrator.

Dan,

Late to the discussion here, but you can't be serious about your computer smoking?... I have a 3 Ghz 2 G ram and deal with HUGE files all the time and have no trouble. You should look into this as it there may be another source of the problem, like spyware or extranneous processes running in the background.

BTW, once you get into Illustrator, you will LOVE it. It is the most awesome program. When I first started, I couldn't see what the hell it could possibly be used for, but once I learned it, I never looked back.