Adobe Illustrator CS4 bible phần 9 docx

580 Mastering Illustrator Part III You can accelerate, step through, or pause your Actions as follows: n Accelerated: Plays the action all at once — and quickly. This is great for monotonous, repetitive actions, such as renaming figures or adding a tagline. n Step By Step: Plays the action one step at a time. This lets you decide whether you want to perform a step or add in-between steps. n Pause For: Stops at each step for the specified time. This is a good choice if you want to closely examine how something was recorded and want to stop the recording at a certain spot. Inserting a selected path You can’t record the Pen tool or the Pencil tool, but you can record a path. Follow these steps: 1. Draw a path. 2. While the path is selected, start recording. 3. Choose Insert Select Path from the Actions panel’s popup menu. 4. Stop recording. You’ve just created an action to place a path. Selecting an object If you want to select an object to use later in your recording, you need to apply text to it and then select an object or path first. Follow these steps: 1. Select the object or path. 2. Select Show Note from the Attributes panel’s popup menu. 3. Type the text you want to apply to the object in the bottom field and then click the Begin Recording button on the Actions panel to record the new setting. 4. When you need to select the object or path, choose Select Object from the popup menu to display the Set Selection dialog box, as shown in Figure 17.21, type the name you gave it in the Attributes panel, and then click OK. The object or path is now selected. Clearing, resetting, loading, replacing, and saving actions Whew! Even after creating a bunch of cool actions, you want more options. You can clear, reset, load, replace, and save actions. Now you can create, delete, load sets, and save to your heart’s con- tent by choosing the appropriate item in the Actions panel. The following describes what each option does: 22_345191-ch17.indd 58022_345191-ch17.indd 580 10/24/08 1:40:47 PM10/24/08 1:40:47 PM 581 Customizing and Automating Illustrator 17 n Clear Actions: Deletes all the action sets in the Actions panel n Reset Actions: Resets the panel to the Default Actions n Load Actions or Replace Actions: Lets you navigate to a folder where the action sets are and lets you select one. You can find a ton of prerecorded actions and action sets on the application CD. n Save Actions: Lets you save actions after you record them. You must save your new action just like a file if you want to use it the next time you launch Illustrator. Select Save Action from the popup menu and then navigate to where you want to save your action set (maybe the Action Sets folder within the application folder). FIGURE 17.21 You can use the Set Selection dialog box to select objects by name. Summary You can customize and automate Illustrator to make the program work the way you want. In this chapter, you learned about the following topics: n The different preference areas can be changed in Illustrator. n You can customize many preferences, including keyboard shortcuts, in the various panes in the Preferences dialog box. n The Constrain Angle option controls the angle at which objects are drawn and moved when Shift is pressed. n The General Units option controls the measurement units for Illustrator. n Use the Actions panel to streamline repetitive tasks in Illustrator. 22_345191-ch17.indd 58122_345191-ch17.indd 581 10/24/08 1:40:47 PM10/24/08 1:40:47 PM 22_345191-ch17.indd 58222_345191-ch17.indd 582 10/24/08 1:40:47 PM10/24/08 1:40:47 PM Getting Art Out of Illustrator IN THIS PART Chapter 18 Understanding PostScript and Printing Chapter 19 Creating Web Graphics Chapter 20 Illustrator Workflow 23_345191-pp04.indd 58323_345191-pp04.indd 583 10/24/08 1:47:26 PM10/24/08 1:47:26 PM 23_345191-pp04.indd 58423_345191-pp04.indd 584 10/24/08 1:47:27 PM10/24/08 1:47:27 PM 585 U ntil the mid-1980s, computer graphics were, well, crusty. Blocky. Jagged. Rough. If you looked at graphics that were done on comput- ers in 1981 and printed to a black-and-white printer, you’d laugh so hard you couldn’t breathe, stopping the laughter only when you realized that you actually could not breathe. Of course, in 1981, the world was gaga over the capabilities of computers and computer graphics. Those same pictures were admired, and the average person was generally amazed. The average designer, on the other hand, shuddered and prayed that this whole com- puter thing wouldn’t catch on. Desktop publishing was pushed to a level of professionalism in 1985 by a cute little software package called PageMaker. With PageMaker, you could do typesetting and layout on the computer screen, seeing everything on- screen just as it would eventually be printed. Well, almost. Aldus was the company that created PageMaker. In 1994, Adobe swallowed Aldus. Problems aside, PageMaker would not have been a success if the laser printer hadn’t handily arrived on the scene. Even so, there were problems inherent with laser printers too. At 300 dots per inch (dpi), there were 90,000 dots in every square inch. A typical 8 1 /2-inch × 11-inch page of type had 8.5 million dots to put down. Computers were finally powerful enough to handle this huge number of dots, but the time it took to print made computers pretty much useless for any real work. IN THIS CHAPTER Understanding PostScript Understanding the difference between composites and separations Determining when to use process color instead of spot color separations Printing separations out of Illustrator Understanding line screens Printing separations from other programs Understanding trapping Using Pathfinder Trap Trapping after you create an image in Illustrator Understanding PostScript and Printing 24_345191-ch18.indd 58524_345191-ch18.indd 585 10/24/08 3:40:07 PM10/24/08 3:40:07 PM 586 Getting Art Out of Illustrator Part IV Several systems were developed to improve the printing process, and the one standout was PostScript from Adobe Systems. Apple licensed PostScript from Adobe for use on its first LaserWriter, and a star was born. Installed on every laser printer from Apple were two things from Adobe: the PostScript page description language and the Adobe base fonts, which included Times, Helvetica, Courier, and Symbol. PostScript became fundamental to Apple computers and laser printers and became the standard. To use PostScript, Apple had to pay licensing fees to Adobe for every laser printer it sold. Fonts were PostScript, and if there ever was a standard in graphics, the closest thing to it was PostScript (commonly called EPS, for Encapsulated PostScript). Today, the majority of fonts for both Mac and Windows systems are OpenType fonts, and many of the typefaces used in professional work are OpenType. However, almost all graphics and desktop- publishing software can read PostScript in some form (especially since OpenType is a derivative of PostScript). You can print Illustrator documents in two ways: as a composite, which is a single printout that contains all the colors and tints used, or as a series of color separations, with a printout for each color. Color separations are necessary for illustrations that are printed on a printing press. Understanding the Benefits of PostScript A typical graphic object in painting software is based on a certain number of pixels that are a cer- tain color. If you make that graphic larger, the pixels become larger, giving a rough, jagged effect to the art. To prevent these jaggies, two things can be done: Ensure that enough dots per inch are in the image so that when the image is enlarged, the dots are too small to appear jagged. Or define graphics by mathematical equations instead of by dots. PostScript is a mathematical solution to high-resolution imaging. Areas, or shapes, are defined and then these shapes are either filled or stroked with a percentage of color. The shapes are made up of paths, and the paths are defined by a number of points along the path (anchor points) and controls off those points (control handles, sometimes called curve handles or direction points) that control the shape of the curve. Those paths fill up with dots at print time, but the higher number of dots per inch (commonly referred to as dpi) give the illusion of a perfectly smooth edge. Because the anchor points and control handles have real locations on a page, mathematical pro- cesses can be used to create the shapes based on these points. The mathematical equation for Bézier curves is quite detailed (at least for someone who, like me, fears math). PostScript is not just math though. It’s actually a programming language and, more specifically, a page description language. Like BASIC, Pascal, Forth, SmallTalk, and C, PostScript is made of lines of code that are used to describe artwork. Fortunately, the average user never has to deal directly with PostScript code; instead, the average user uses a simplified interface, such as Illustrator. Software that has the capability to save files in 24_345191-ch18.indd 58624_345191-ch18.indd 586 10/24/08 3:40:08 PM10/24/08 3:40:08 PM 587 Understanding PostScript and Printing 18 PostScript or to print to a PostScript printer writes this PostScript code for you. Printers that are equipped with PostScript then take that PostScript code and convert it to dots on a printed page. Using PostScript That most applications can handle EPS files and that most printers can print PostScript are of great benefit to users, but the strength of PostScript is not really in its widespread use. If you create a 1-inch closed path in pixel-based drawing software and then enlarge that same path in any application, the path begins to lose detail. A 300-dpi path at twice its original size becomes 150 dpi. Those jagged edges become more apparent than ever. If you create a 1-inch circle in Illustrator, you can enlarge it to any size possible without losing one iota of resolution. The Illustrator circle stays perfectly smooth, even enlarged to 200%, because the circle’s resolution depends on the laser printer or imagesetter that prints it. Therefore, a perfect 1-inch circle has the potential to be a perfect 2-foot circle (providing you can find a printer or imagesetter that can print a 2-foot-diameter circle). But scaling objects is only the beginning. You can distort, stretch, rotate, skew, and flip objects cre- ated in Illustrator to your heart’s content, and the object still prints to the resolution of the output device. Here’s an example: A company wants its tiny logo on a 3-foot-wide poster. If you use raster meth- ods, the edges become fuzzy and gross-looking — pretty much unacceptable to your client. Your other conventional option is to redraw the logo at a larger size or to trace the blown-up version — a time-consuming proposition either way. Illustrator’s solution is to scan the logo, trace it either in another software tracing program or with the Live Trace tool, and then allow you to touch it up and build your design around it. Afterward, output the illustration to a printer that can handle that size poster. There’s no loss of quality; instead, the enlarged version from Illustrator often looks better than the scanned original. Knowing What to Do Prior to Printing Before you start the printing process, you may need to change or adjust a few items. For example, you may need to change the page size and orientation or set how certain colors should separate. This section deals with the issues you should be aware of before you press Ctrl+P (Ô+P) to send your file to the printer. Changing the Artboard size Clicking the Artboard tool in the Tools panel allows you to specify the size of the Artboard in your document. If the Artboard is smaller than the printable page, then anything entirely outside the 24_345191-ch18.indd 58724_345191-ch18.indd 587 10/24/08 3:40:08 PM10/24/08 3:40:08 PM 588 Getting Art Out of Illustrator Part IV edges of the Artboard is cropped off when you print the illustration through Illustrator. Any objects that are partially on the Artboard print. Figure 18.1 shows how you can use the Artboard tool to change the Artboard size. FIGURE 18.1 When the Artboard tool is selected, you can change the Artboard size of your document (represented by the dashed line). Printing composites A composite printout looks very much like the image that appears on the screen. If you have a color printer, the image appears in color; otherwise, the colors are replaced by gray tints. NOTE NOTE Objects that are hidden or that exist on layers that are currently hidden don’t print. Objects that exist on layers that have the printing check box deselected in the Layer Options dialog box also don’t print. 24_345191-ch18.indd 58824_345191-ch18.indd 588 10/24/08 3:40:08 PM10/24/08 3:40:08 PM 589 Understanding PostScript and Printing 18 When you’re ready to print your document, choose File ➪ Print or press Ctrl+P (Ô+P). This action opens the Print dialog box, as shown in Figure 18.2, where you can choose which pages to print, how many of each to print, and several other options. If you click Cancel or press Esc, the dialog box disappears and no pages are printed. To print, click Print or press Enter (Return). The Print dialog box has a number of areas. You display each area by choosing an item from the list that appears along the left side of the dialog box. FIGURE 18.2 The Print dialog box provides many options for controlling how your Illustrator documents print. 24_345191-ch18.indd 58924_345191-ch18.indd 589 10/24/08 3:40:09 PM10/24/08 3:40:09 PM [...]... Safari, Opera, or Firefox TIP Illustrator and the Web — the Basics Illustrator is a great tool for creating Web graphics because it possesses all the necessary production tools, supports all the standard file types, and offers superb integration with other Web applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive, and Adobe Flash Even more important, because Illustrator is a vector-based... import Illustrator files that have been saved as Illustrator EPS files When you produce color separations from other software, ensure that any custom colors in the Illustrator illustration are present and accessible in the document that the illustration is placed within Usually, you can set the custom colors to process separately or to spot separately NOTE You can’t change the colors of an imported Illustrator. .. pt) 4/1,000" (.288 pt) 5/1,000" (.3 59 pt) 6/1,000" (.432 pt) 7/1,000" (.503 pt) 8/1,000" (.576 pt) 9/ 1,000" (.647 pt) 10/1,000" (.720 pt) Remember that the greater the trap, the less chance that any white gaps will appear, but the trap may actually be visible Visible traps of certain color pairs can look almost as bad as white space Trapping Illustrator files In Illustrator, you accomplish manual trapping... printers can produce only 256 different shades for each color This limitation of the equipment (not PostScript) drops the number of available colors to 2564, or 4, 294 ,96 7, 296 , which is about 4.3 billion colors — only 1 billionth of the colors that Illustrator can specify This limitation is fortunate for humans, however, because the estimate is that we can detect a maximum of 100 different levels of gray... could create an entire HTML Web page using only Illustrator, no one would mistake Illustrator as the only tool you need for Web design Illustrator s strength is creating graphics for a Web page or designing Web pages for assembly in an HTML editor, such as GoLive or Dreamweaver Brave designers may also utilize text-based HTML editors, such as BBEdit Illustrator is also perfect for creating vector-based... and graphics pretty on-screen, they can also make small text fuzzy and unreadable, as shown in Figure 19. 3 FIGURE 19. 2 This demonstrates how art appears on a monitor with (left) and without (right) anti-aliasing 614 Creating Web Graphics FIGURE 19. 3 Small anti-aliased text can be very hard to read Illustrator has a special preview mode called Pixel Preview (choose View ➪ Pixel Preview) that displays... traditional printers refer to traps in thousandths of inches, but Illustrator likes values in points for this sort of operation Figure 18 .9 is a chart with traps in increments of 1/1000, from 1/1000 of an inch to 10/1000 of an inch, and gives their point measurements The trapped area is represented by black to be more visible in this example FIGURE 18 .9 Different trap amounts 1/1,000" (.071 pt) 2/1,000" (.144... landscape orientations, with and without the Transverse option selected 595 18 Part IV Getting Art Out of Illustrator FIGURE 18.5 An illustration placed on a page in portrait orientation (upper left), landscape orientation (lower left), portrait with Transverse selected (upper right), and landscape with Transverse selected (lower right) 596 Understanding PostScript and Printing Understanding emulsion Hang... important thing Summary Printing Illustrator documents can often be quite a bit more complex than simply choosing File ➪ Print In this chapter, you learned about a number of issues that directly affect the quality of the final printed output, including these: Illustrator can be interpreted as a good front end for the PostScript page description language Print separations from within Illustrator Choose whether... between $7 and $40 per page Service providers often have color output capabilities and offer disk conversion and other services that are sometimes needed by desktop publishers continued 599 18 Part IV Getting Art Out of Illustrator continued Better yet, do what I did: Work at a printing company for a short period of time The first job I had out of college, working in the prepress department of a four-color . options for controlling how your Illustrator documents print. 24_345 191 -ch18.indd 5 892 4_345 191 -ch18.indd 5 89 10/24/08 3:40: 09 PM10/24/08 3:40: 09 PM 590 Getting Art Out of Illustrator Part IV The General. allows. You can always go lower in resolution. 24_345 191 -ch18.indd 590 24_345 191 -ch18.indd 590 10/24/08 3:40: 09 PM10/24/08 3:40: 09 PM 591 Understanding PostScript and Printing 18  Convert All. was. TIP TIP Always save your file before printing. 24_345 191 -ch18.indd 591 24_345 191 -ch18.indd 591 10/24/08 3:40:10 PM10/24/08 3:40:10 PM 592 Getting Art Out of Illustrator Part IV Working with gray colors When