editing .GIF images?

[couponfork]

Hello, I recently got Illustrator, I have been using PS for quite some time but AI seems much harder, I am opening a .gif file in AI and I want to change the colors on it, all it is, is a black and white clip art, I have no idea how to change the colors, this is a .gif by the way.

 

[eugenetyson]

Illustrator is primarily a program for editing and creating vectors, not pixels. It doesn't really work with pixel images, like gif, jpg, etc.

Usually you would do colour changes etc. to pixel images in PS.

However, if you select the gif and go to Filters>Colors>Convert to Grayscale you will get the desired effect.

However, you would need to redraw the gif in Illustrator to make any improvements in quality. As I've said Illustrator is a vector based package. So saving the gif in Illustrator as a .ai file will still mean it's a gif. Unless you redraw it and then you can scale it to any width or height.

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[couponfork]

how would I get rid of the white background of the .gif? so its transparent

 

[eugenetyson]

You'd have to do that in a pixel editing program like photoshop, corel draw, or fireworks.

As I've said, gifs are pixel formats. You could redraw it in illustrator. But in essence if you bring in a gif file it comes in the way it is in pixels. If the gif has a white background in the image then it will come into illustrator with a white background.

Again, remove it with a pixel editing program or redraw the gif in illustrator.

I'm not being smart here or anything, but do you know the difference between a pixel/raster/bitmap image and a vector image?

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/