what exactly does ILLUSTRATOR do? - SBB Digital Scrapbooking Forums | Scrapbook-Bytes

afwife · #1 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005

i got it w/ photoshop and i have no idea what it does...or what to use it for...

???anyone???

Tracey R (Haley64) · #2 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005

Maybe read through this link and see if you can get an idea!!
Sorry I am a newbie with Adobe, but I know where the stuff is!!! LOL
http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/main.html

Emma · #3 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005

Illustrator is a vector graphics program, like the Pen Tool in Photoshop, but a lot more powerful! A lot of people use it as a page design program, making graphics in PS and then assembling everything in Illustrator. The .ai file type is also a LOT smaller than .psd files in PS

Silver_Magick · #4 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005

Illustrator is used for a lot of things actually. Being a Designer I use it to draw in.. I have always like Illustrator for that over photoshop. Also I use it to do brochures and ads where as I normally dont use photoshop other then enhancing my images that I wish to use. The text is normally clear in Illustrator. I normally find functioning in Illustrator easier but photoshop can do way more with photo enhancing... I dont know if thats any help but I try.

afwife · #5 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for your answers!!!
i will have to play around w/ it now that i know what its useful for!

fertilepress · #6 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005

Illustrator is a vector graphics program, as opposed to Photoshop, which is a raster graphics program. What does that mean? Well, it means that Illustrator uses algorithms to define an image while Photoshop uses exact pixel locations. This is a big deal because once you create a drawing in Illustrator, its algorithms can resize it to your hearts content without losing any image integrity. No can do in Photoshop.

Illustrator is not a great tool to use for photos because they are inherently raster images (jpeg). So Photoshop is best suited for enhancing and modifying photographic images and Illustrator is perfect for line drawings and text.

How I use Illustrator:

I use illustrator primarily for drawing. I scan in pencil sketches then use Illustrator along with my pen tablet to recreate those drawings on my Mac. When I'm satisfied with an Illustrator drawing, I often move it into Photoshop to add color and shading.

Hope this helps!

Renee

tbones · #7 (**permalink**) 11-06-2005

ive got a question about this as well. You say you take the drawing back into photoshop so you can use it in an LO.

But how can you make sure you have got the right resoution, because as i use drag and drop into PS it gets rasterized.

I want to use Illustrator to make 'paper-piecing-drawings' and backgrounds as well.