Line weights, dpi in Illustrator to Photoshop illustration work

I'm creating illustrations in Illustrator then importing the line art into Photoshop to add color to the drawings. The client needs 2 versions - first a tif, 3" x 3" then a .gif 225 pixels. They've asked for fairly detailed drawings and I'm finding details getting lost - even at .25 line weight in Illustrator, once in Photoshop they get jaggedy and I lose detail.
Can someone advise on best line weight to use for this situation, and best way to import into Photoshop and keep smoothness of lines. Thanks to all respondents -
Leslie

Any line which isn't truly horizontal or vertical will be jagged in Photoshop. That's the nature of raster images. The further from horizontal or vertical, the closer together the "stair steps" will be, and the more apparent, relative to other lines in the same image.
I'm not sure how Photoshop handles line weights when you import Illustrator art, but I'd guess it calculates how many pixels are required at the current resolution to make that dimension, then rounds to the nearest or next whole pixel.
You didn't say what resolution you are using for the 3 x 3 tiff, but the higher it is (and consequently more pixels and larger file), the better your lines will render. As for the gif, you have what you have, in terms of pixels to use, and the art will be rendered the best possible, but a .25 pt line is pretty small if you are saying that 255 pixels represents more than a few picas.
Peter

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Illustrator and photoshop 2014 work perfectly, while Indesign crashes the entire operating system (mac osx 10.7)

Hi all,
Recently updated to CC 2014, and while both Illustrator and Photoshop run perfectly, every time I launch Indesign it crashes my entire operating system, forcing me to restart the computer.
I'm running Mac OS 10.7. Should also mention that clean unistall/install did nothing to fix the issue.
Anyone else having the same issue? Please help.

Hi Sumit
Why can’t I have any answer from Adobe? I bought a licence and now I can’t work with the software.
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[ASAP] Need Help Exporting to PDF - Line weight problems (Illustrator file)

So, I've drawn some stuff in Illustrator which I've then placed in InDesign.
It all looks right on screen, but when I export the document to pdf (Adobe PDF Presets: High Quality Print) the Illustrator stuff appears to lose the line weight settings. This is easily noticeable on some really thin lines that print much thicker than they were supposed to.
I gotta be missing something when exporting to pdf... 'cause if I export to Jpeg everything comes out right. No more line weight problems! The question is: what the hell am I doing wrong???
Please, somebody help me out.
Thx!

1. How are you printing?
I'm using one of the Adobe PDF Export Presets: High Quality Print.
2. What are you using to determine the line weight?
What do you mean? I talking about the stroke size.
3. Have you tried opening the PDF in Illustrator to see what the reported line weight is?
I've tried it now and it looks just fine! Just like it was supposed to! All the line weights are correct.
4. This might just be a limitation of your printer or printer driver.
I don't think so. I have never had this problem up until now!
I'm starting to think it has something to do with some Acrobat preferences settings...

How can I set DPI for a document in illustrator?

I'm designing a user interface for iPad (Resolution: 1024x768, DPI:132). Setting the resolution is a piece of cake but when I change the ruler unit to Centimeters, it shows the screen about 36x27cm which is not right (iPad screen is 24.3x19cm).
Illustrator calculates these lengths based on the DPI. But when creating a new document the only available DPI's are: 72, 150, 300 (File > New > Raster Effect). I searched for the answer on this forum and googled it and looked into the help but couldn't find a satisfying answer. I know that Illustrator is a vector design program but there must be a way to set the DPI to an arbitrary value.
How can I have a 1024x768px artboard in Illustrator that is 24.3x19cm? (DPI=132)

Alex,
only when I'm printing or saving the image for the web, Illustrator will ask me the actual width.
Almost. Illustrator won't "ask you for the width." As with any program, when you export a vector graphic to a raster image, you have the opportunity to specify its resolution, in number of pixels. Illustrator tries to "simplify" (and thereby often confuses) this process by providing different interfaces for the same thing. The so-called "Save For Web" interface is just another way to export a raster image (and other web-centric things, like slicing). The settings available (or at least the ones most prominate) differ between the straightforward Export dialog and the Save For Web dialog.
My question is: how illustrator calculates these measures?
Again: When Illustrator's rulers are set to "Pixels," they are really set to points. A point measures 1/72 inch. So Illustrator assumes a "pixel" is scaled to measure 1/72 inch, even though it may not be in a particular raster image object you have on the page.
But when you export as a raster image (in other words, rasterize the artwork), you don't care what those pixels are scaled to due to the actual, physical, hardware dimensions of the device's monitor pixels (so-many centimeters by so-many centimeters). Regardless of whether the device's hardware pixels are gigantic or microscopic, you just care how many of them there are. So long as you export your finished artwork rasterized to that number of pixels, it will effectively be scaled (in terms of actual measure) by whatever device it is displayed on, becasue the device is going to "turn on" a monitor pixel for each pixel in your image.
In other words, when designing purely for electronic displays (as opposed to printing), forget all about PPI, or DPI, which are nothing but scale factors, and forget about the actual measure (centimeters x centimeters, inches by inches) of the monitor.
If I display your 1024 x 768 image in a web browser on my 15-inch-diagonal Toshiba laptop, your image is going to occupy 1024 x 768 of my monitor's pixels.
If I display your 1024 x 768 image in a web browser on my 10-inch-diagonal Acer netbook, your image is going to occupy 1024 x 768 of my monitor's pixels, and it will display at a smaller actual size than it does on my Toshiba, because the Acer's monitor pixels are smaller than the Toshiba's monitor pixels.
But even though the image's actual measure is smaller on the Acer, and even though your image occupies the exact same number of monitor pixels on both the Acer and the Toshiba, I will have to do some scrolling on the Acer because its monitor has fewer hardware pixels.
So if I'm designing images to fit neatly on my Acer without the need for scrolling, I care about its screen size in terms of number of hardware pixels, not in terms of actual measure (centimeters or inches).
I want to be able to set the lines and curves in terms of pixels.
Because Illustrator considers a pixel to be a particular measure (1/72 inch), work with your rulers set to either the bogus PIxels or to Points (which, in Illustrator, is the same thing). Forget about the dimensions of a device screen. It doesn't matter.
If you want to also spec type in terms of "pixels" you can also (pointlessly) set your General Prefs to use the bogus Pixles as the "Unit Of Measure". But this is pointless because in Illustrator, a so-called "Pixel" is, in fact a point already, and Points is the default UOM for type. Either way, you have to realize that any measure for type (using "Pixels" or Points) is a measure of the font's em-square, not the measure of the actual glyphs. So setting your type to "9 Pixels" doesn't mean the type characters are going to occupy 9 pixels in height.
But you can proceed to specify line weights, box sizes, etc., etc, in terms of ruler units (bogus pixels or legitimate points).
Alternatively, if you want, you can set your rulers to Centimeters. And then as you draw your boxes and set your stroke weights, you can specify them in terms of Points or "Pixels" by just typing "pts" or "px" after the measures you key into the various dimension fields.
But after all this is said and done, the point you're missing is still this: All that means nothing if you don't export the resulting images to the number of pixels that you want them to occupy on the device you are designing for. In other words, you can work with your Illustrator rulers set to "Pixels" all day long; but if you then export the artwork to a raster format using a Pixels-Per-Inch setting other than 72, It won't be the right size, because Illustrator still thinks a Pixel measures one point.
So regardless of how you have your rulers set while working, it is just simpler (and more legitimately meaningful) to export your raster images in terms of number of pixels (N pixels x n pixels), not by PPI. That brings us full-circle right back to where your question started: There is no document-wide PPI for an Illustrator file.
But what you have to understand is this: If your design includes already-rasterized objects, the number of actual pixels included in each of those raster objects is entirely independent of whatever Illustrator's rulers say they "measure" in "Pixels". That is very important. Because if you use as part of your design a raster image that is scaled to anything other than 72 ppi, and/or that image does not align to a point-size increment of Illustrator's grid, then when you export your final product, that image is going to be re-rasterized to whatever PPI you export, based on its on-page position and the quality of that image is going to be compromized. That's why it's important to understand that "Pixels" is bogus as a unit of measure in a program like Illustrator.
In pursuit of web- and device-centric creative markets, Adobe continues to add confusion-generating "conveniences" to Illustrator. For example, to workaround Illustrator's problematic antialiasing, version CS5 added a feature called Align To Pixel Grd which causes vertical and horizontal strokes to align to whole-"pixel" increments, to avoid antialiasing of those edges.
There are also probably templates in your AI installation (depending on version) already set up for mobile devices, and there's the whole "Device Central" online thing, if you're inclined to use that kind of thing. So look up and read about those features.
JET

Transfered drawings to photoshop and lines dont show or dont have the correct line weight

Hi everyone,
I did some drawings using autocad, then transfer them to illustrator for organization purposes. Now I need to transfer them to photoshop to do renders on them, but when I do the line weight and details in photoshop don't look the same. It dims down the color, looks way lighter, and some of the details of my drawings don't show. I thought maybe was a computer or program issue, but when I printed them I could see the difference also from illustrator than from Photoshop
Hope anyone can help
Michelle C.
photoshopillustrator

Hi,
I do, I zoom in and I see my lines, but I don't think that's the problem, because when I print them they look lighter compared to the file that I print from illustrator.
thanks,
Michelle C.

Illustrator to Photoshop to DVDSP. Image cropped?

I have created graphics for a DVDSP menu in Illustrator. I think I need to export to Photoshop to divide into layers for different button states and then import into DVDSP. When I export a 720 x 480 image from Illustrator to Photoshop it is cropped, in some cases quite severely, down to almost the outside edges of the graphic elements in the image. Could anyone please tell me what I am doing wrong and if what I am doing is really necessary to get the file into DVDSP for use as a menu. I'm quite new to this and may be misunderstanding the manual
TIA
Michael
Powerbook G4 1.67 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Michael:
I select the objects in Illustrator, Copy them and Paste in PSD canvas . . . nothing special! But you can learn something about graphic files dimensions and solve the issues. These instructions are straight from DVDSP User Manual Chapter 2 Square Pixels in Graphics:
==============================================
Graphics programs use square pixels. If you set the dimensions of a graphic to 720 x 480 pixels (the NTSC frame size), you will notice that the drawing area of the graphic in the graphics program is not a 4:3 aspect ratio (it is a bit short). If you set a graphic to PAL dimensions (720 x 576 pixels), the drawing area you see in your graphics program is taller than 4:3.
Anything you put in the graphic will be distorted (either vertically stretched or
compressed, depending on your video standard) when viewed on a video monitor. If you draw a square, it will look like a rectangle. In some cases, the distortion is not great enough to worry about, but in most cases you should build your graphics with the distortion in mind.
To compensate for pixel differences between graphics and video, you need to build the graphics at one size, and then rescale them to the appropriate video dimensions, ...
==============================================
Working in Illustrator or Photoshop, you must start with a rectangle size of 720x534 and do all your design work in such dimension. Finally resize your file to 720x480 and import that resized file into DVDSP. Your graphics will look fine !!
If you prefer make your design in Illustrator, start creating a rectangle of 720x534. Select it and go to menu Object > Crope Area > Make. Make your design inside that area and finally make Export > Photoshop 72 dpi.
Open that file in Photoshop and do the resize.
When you became confortable with all these programs you'll find out your best workflow.
Hope it helps !
Alberto

Pdfs from illustrator in photoshop

whenever i open up a pdf i saved from illustrator in photoshop in appears all pixelated. but open it in acrobat or anythin else it opens up grand. these would be all vector based designs so should all be smooth n crisp. ant ideas on how to remedy this?

these would be all vector based designs so should all be smooth n crisp.
No, you just have a wrong understanding of the process. Just because something is vector based doesn't necessarily mean it has infinite resolution. As explained by the previous poster, PS exclusively operates on pixels, meaning that vector art is rasterized to the document resolution. It will look smother in large documents with higher DPI settings, but that's where it ends. The same logic applies to vector smart objects - scaling them re-rasterizes at the new size, but always to the fixed pixel pattern. Other than that PS has no preview function that responds to zoom levels and always stays sharp. It is however to pass on certain vector elements natively to PDFs or send them to the printer that way.
Mylenium

Is Illustrator (or Photoshop) the best path for this design project?

Hello,
Forgive my ignorance on this issue.
I am thinking about creating a number of large banners (8 feet high by 3 feet wide) for a display.
I would like to take some scanned images of some historical mural paintings (out of copyright) and prepare them for large format printing.
Now these images are small, and probably quite poor in resolution. I would like to prepare (enhance?) these images so that they show fairly well on the large banners.
Furthermore, I will probably add some borders around them or at least some kind of neutral-colour field on the top and bottom of the image--so the actually printed image will probably be around 4 feet fight by 3 feet wide.
I thought about hiring a designer, but I would like to pick up the skills to do this myself, as I anticipate more banners in the future, and it would be good to learn this skill.
Willing to do take some courses in the appropriate software, and make this my first project perhaps.
Is Illustrator or Photoshop better for this? Or is there something else?
Thank you for any guidance you can offer.

markerline,
You may look at it this way (literally):
The crucial aspect is the relation between viewing distance and size.
The required number of actual pixels is proportional to the actual size and reversely proportional to the viewing distance.
In other words: if you look at a poster (or whatever) twice the size at twice the distance, exactly the same number of pixels is required.
In yet other words: if you view the artwork at a combination of size and distance that correspond to those intended for the final poster, you can see how it will appear.
In yet other words: the same proportion between size and distance results in the same viewing angle, so if your viewing angle is the same, whatever the size, you see what the final viewer sees.
This means that you may judge the artwork on screen or in small/moderate size print if you view it at the intended angle/relative distance.
The required resolution in PPI/DPI will then be reversely proportional to the size of the artwork while you work on it (10 times greater for a 1:10 scale and so on).
Obviosly, in addition, there are other concerns about required resolution (including which resolution is really effective in connexion with the kind of printing in question, and the desirability of smoothness versus roughness which depends on the artwork/effect/whatever in question). I believe you know all that.

What happen to TOTAL TRAINING, where i can buy a tutorial in DVD of a creative cloud CC Design: InDesign, photoshop, illustrator, acrobat?

Many year ago, i bought the entire collection of DVD of Total Training of the Creative Suite Design, and came with InDesign, Photoshop, illustrator, acrobat, version cue, and was wonderfull learn all, now 10 years ago, i try to get now the Creative Cloud CC for Design, and only found tutorials online, or with Lynda.com any sugestions?

Looking at the current options readily accessible on Adobe.com, for students and teachers it appears that the only options are to get the entire suite for $20/month or the photographers bundle (LR + PS) for $100/year thru Aug 29, so not sure what the price would be, now, so no there is not a way to get 3 apps for cheaper than the entire suite, since there is no single-app price.
If it’s any consolation, for non-educational individuals, the single app price is $20/month and the full-suite price is $50/month, so for three applications like you want to use, it’d be cheaper to go with the full-suite than buy three individual app subscriptions.
The bottom line is that as a student or teacher you’re able to access the full suite of apps for the price of a single app once you’re out of school, and that is as low as Adobe will go.

Pasting from Illustrator to Photoshop has become more complicated and unpredictable-why?

I've been using Illustrator and Photoshop together for years, drawing in AI and pasting the results into PS. For some reason now, with AI 17.1, an unannounced change has been made, as far as I can tell: I have to be aware of the resolution settings in Illustrator-something I never had to pay attention to before-and, before I can paste the AI image from the clipboard into PS I need to adjust-manually- the size and resolution settings in the PS dialogue from the default setting (72dpi) to something resembling the units (pixels v. inches) and the resolution (300dpi) of the AI vector image. But I thought vector art was resolution-independent? Oddly, I don't need to specify a size, just the units. I'm willing to believe that this may solve a problem or resolve an issue. So what is the problem or issue? I can't find bugger-all in the "New features" about it. What's going on? I'm on an iMac w/ 16GB RAM, running Mavericks 10.9.2. AI CC 17.1, PS CC 14.2.1.

I changed the AI File Handling and Clipboard settings as suggested. I even tried changing the "Preserve" settings at the bottom. No change in the cut-paste procedure in Photoshop. One peculiarity I noticed: with an AI image on the clipboard, I open a "new" canvas file in PS to receive the image. The new file shows dimensions in pixels (accurate pixel dimensions, according to AI) and dpi at 72. If I change the dpi to 300 first, then change the units to inches (or centimeters), what I get is a tiny, proportional 300 dpi space into which the actual AI image won't fit. But if I change the PS canvas dimensions first, to inches, THEN change the dpi to 300, the process works and the canvas is the correct size. So even though I have deliberately set the AI Document settings at "High" or "Custom" (300dpi) resolution-something I never had to do before- the clipboard is telling PS 72dpi instead. Why isn't Photoshop reading the actual dimensions off the clipboard? Or why isn't the clipboard getting them from AI? Hardware or OS problem? Clipboard problem?

Importing from Illustrator into Photoshop

Hello
I am struggling to learn Creative Suite CS4, and it is very hard.
Can anyone help me with the following problem.
I have made some line art in Illustrator CS4 using a wacom pen and the pencil tool. it has about 8 layers.
I have brought the artwork into Photoshop CS4 so that I can color it in Photoshop. I find that it has been merged into just one layer in Photoshop.
Is this what is supposed to happen? I expected the drawing to still have all the layers intact.
can anyone tell me how to move stuff from Illustrator into Photoshop and keep the layers structure?
Thanks for any advice.

How did you bring the art into Photoshop?
Try File > Export > PSD in Illustrator and tick the "Write Layers" option in teh second dialog window.
Be aware though... you can't maintain layers and have traditional smart objects at the same time.
If you want smart objects and layers, you need to select an AI layer, copy. Move to PS, create a new layer, paste. Then repeat for each AI layer. And finally realign all the layers in PS so they are positioned correctly.

Pasting from Illustrator to Photoshop is a frustrating experience

If you paste something from Illustrator to Photoshop, its size won't be at 100%. Why the heck? And why is the "Keep aspect ratio" in Photoshop turned off by default? I have to click that every single time when pasting from Illustrator.
And why would Photoshop not start ignoring crap outside a mask. I mask stuff in Illustrator for a reason. I want the bounding box to be the mask, not the extent of its contents.
How hard could it be to finally fix this? How many more versions with more useless new features to be shoved down our throats?

Hello. Check this settings:
Photoshop
Preferences > Units and Rulers > Screen Resolutions: 72 pixels/Inch, Point/Pica Size: PostScript;
Image > Image size > Resolution: 72 pixels/Inch;
Illustrator
File > Document Setup > Preset > Custom > Line Art and Text Resolution: 72ppi, Gradient and Mesh Resolution: 72ppi;
Effect > Document Raster Effect Settings > Resolution: 72ppi;

Anyone have an issue where a font shows in the font list in Photoshop/Illustrator but not in Flash?

Anyone have an issue where a font shows in the font list in Photoshop/Illustrator but not in Flash?
I'm not 100% sure but i may have had flash open when installing, i then uninstalled the font and then reinstalled the font. I even tried going from an OTF font to a TTF font.
No luck.
Do I need to do some sort of font cache clearing?
-Line
I'm using Adobe CS6 Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator on MAC OSX

Yes. It's rare, but some fonts do not play well with Flash. Flash seems to have a more strict method of evaluating a font that can be imported. This is, in my opinion, probably because Flash needs to create a faux version of a font when it is imported. There may be some information that is either missing or not acceptable to Flash in a particular font and so Flash won't allow it to be used - even if you're not going to import that font.

I am trying to run my registered CS6 Design Standard programs for the first time after install. InDesign runs OK, but Illustrator and Photoshop will only run in trail mode. How do I activate those two?

I can't get my registered versions of CS6 Photoshop and Illustrator to run in full mode. I installed CS6 Design Standard online end of June (an upgrade from CS5.5), on my old MacBook Pro. I didn't run the programs then as I was waiting on arrival of new MacBook Pro. I migrated the programs from my old MacBook to the new, and today tried to run those programs for the first time. InDesign work OK (after an initial hiccup) but Illustrator and Photoshop will only run in trial mode, and won't let me save files. My CS6 Design Standard shows with it's registration in my Adobe Account. All seems in order, but Illustrator and Photoshop won't run in registered mode. Can you please help?

Demons1 in the future please only migrate your documents and settings.
Please use the uninstallers to remove your current installation. They are located in the Applications/Utilities/Adobe Installers folder. Once the uninstall is complete you will also want to run the CC Cleaner Tool. You can find more details at Use the CC Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems | CC, CS3-CS6 - http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs5-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html.
If you need to download a fresh copy of the installation files for Creative Suite 6 you can do so at Download CS6 products.

My Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CS6 aren't opening...

Hello, I am having issues with my Illustrator and Photoshop CS6. Both software are encountering different issues. For Illustrator, the issue is that when the software is trying to start up, it crashes unexpectedly (it seems to get stuck on the "ColorHarmony.aip" then quits). Illustrator opens maybe 5% of the time when i sit there and try to open it, but its rare to get it to work.
For Photoshop, it crashes 50% of the time during start up (similar to Illustrator), but the main issue with Photoshop is that when it actually opens, everything becomes incredibly slow. The mouse glitches and it takes extremely long for anything to actually work, I can't even select tools because the mouse glitches so bad.
inDesign however is completely fine.
I own the Adobe Creative suite : Standard
My computer is a HP Envy laptop with windows 8.1. It has 16b of RAM, an i7 processor and has a nvidia geforce graphics card.
I have already un-installed and re-installed the software and even did a system restore and it didn't solve the issue.
Please help I need this for school.
Thanks,
-Eric

Moving this discussion to the Illustrator forum.
Eric you have not posted any installation errors thus I moved this discussion to the Illustrator forum. I would recommend you post any specific launch error or performance inconsistencies in the forum relevant to that software title. You can find a list of available forums at https://forums.adobe.com/welcome.

Line weights, dpi in Illustrator to Photoshop illustration work

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