Indiana University: IT Training Tips Blog

I was teaching an Illustrator class recently, and talking briefly about the Pathfinder panel:

I realized as I was discussing it, that many of these options are not as straightforward as the end-user might like. I promised the class I would go into more depth on our blog.

So in the following video, I will explore the Pathfinder panel, and demonstrate each of the buttons, so that we can see exactly what they all can accomplish.  Hopefully this will spark your creativity, and give you a better idea of the power of these simple buttons.

Illustrator: Exploring the Pathfinder Panel

You may have attended the IT Training & Education STEPS workshop, "Adobe Illustrator CS4: The Basics," and would like to learn more. Make lynda.com your personal trainer! If you would like a little review of Illustrator followed by more advanced concepts, see Mordy Golding's Illustrator CS4 Essential Training.

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When installing the CS4 applications available from IUWare, you might have missed some important additional content that is also available.  In this post, we'll explore what is available in these Extra Content installers, and which items should be considered essential. If you have purchased the disc version of Design Premium, this extra content will be available on the Content disc.

First of all, let's find out where to get this Extra Content.  It is available from IU Ware at the following address: http://iuware.iu.edu/list.aspx?id=196

NOTE: You should have any CS4 applications you wish you use installed before downloading and installing these files.  Fonts in these packages can be installed without installing CS4 applications.

Here you can download all of the Extra Content that is available. It is separated by program, but we will see shortly, that some of the files inside are duplicated.  First, let's list what programs have Extra Content available, and what can be downloaded.

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The utility of multiple artboards might not be obvious to all Illustrator users.  However, the power of this feature is undeniable to experienced users.  See why this new feature will make so much difference in this video from Layers Magazine:

Multiple Artboards in Illustrator

Trying to import a Photoshop file containing a subject with a transparent background into InDesign or Illustrator can be frustrating. You need to extract the subject from an image and place it into an InDesign or Quark XPress document, like this:

In your page layout program, it might appear that you have done all you need to do by copying and pasting selections or by using a layer mask and importing it. Sometimes, even if the transparent part of the image displays correctly on your monitor, it may still come out all wrong in the printout. That's because you need to create a clipping path in Photoshop before you import it into InDesign or Illustrator.

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Did you know you can create your own custom brushes in Adobe Illustrator from any artwork object? This makes it easy to scatter copies of an object across an area, or to apply artistic effects without modifying the original object.

For example, on the left is a simple, two-piece object drawn in Illustrator. From it, we can make a paintbrush that creates a design like you see on the right:

Let's see how to do this.

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You may find that you have with a logo or piece of clipart that has a white or solid-color background, and you need to remove the background. For example, you may need to drop the artwork into InDesign over a tinted text box, or to apply it to a colored object that isn't paper.

In other words, you may need to go from this:

  To this:

Adobe Illustrator has a particularly good way to tease the background out of a logo or clipart. You can also use this technique if there is plenty of contrast in a photo for which you want to remove the background.

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With the announcement that IU had acquired free Adobe software for all of it's employees and students, your first thought was probably "How do I get it?" Now that we've all had a couple of months to get the software downloaded and installed, you're likely thinking now: "What do I do with all of this stuff?"

Adobe is one of the largest software companies in the world, and while most people are familiar with their core apps, like Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash, there are many applications included in the suite that you might not be familiar with. In this post, we'll take some time to examine all the different applications that you can install with the various Adobe suites. We will focus on the applications in Design Premium CS4 and Production Premium CS4. There are many add-ons and extra technology included in the installers, but we will look only at the applications included.

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