How to manipulate Illustrations between Illustrator and Photoshop

[romeggs]

I'm working in an Illustration I've created in Illustrator tracing the a scanned draw. Now I need to add shadows and lights but when I bring the image into Photoshop all the borders get jagged and when I bring the image back into Illustrator to add it to the logotype I can't edit it anymore...
This is my first excersice in creating something from scratch...please someone help me out!!!

Thank you!

 

[dimoj]

Hi there. Are you familiar with the difference between vector graphics and raster graphics? If not you may want to look into that and you will probably find your answers. If you are saving an Illustrator file as .ai and then go to Photoshop and use File>Open to open it make sure the antialias box is checked otherwise that will cause your graphic to look jagged. The graphic will be 'rasterised' once you do this so you cannot then take that back into Illustrator and edit it with vector tools.

If you copy and paste a graphic from Illustrator to PS then you will get the option to paste as Pixels, Path or Shape Layer. Pasting as pixels will again rasterise the graphic but it should appear smooth and antialiased. Pasting as Path or Shape layer will leave the graphic as a vector but it only pastes the 'path' of the graphic with no fill or stroke attributes. These paths can be edited in PS and then saved back as an .ai (or copy and paste back) and continue to edit in Illustrator but if you want to apply lighting effects in PS then the graphic must be rasterised anyway so you will need to paste as pixels.

In short you really need to 'finish' your vector work in Illustrator before you go to Photoshop and do that part. Once you've applied lighting effects to the graphic there is no way to then edit it with Illustrators vector tools.

 

[hparmar]

There is probably another way out for you.
Illustrator can save(Export) your document to PSDS.
This export operation would try to preserve as many vector attribs as it can (Giving you suitable options during export). The primary aim of this export is to preserve appearance and then the structure if possible e.g
clipping masks get exported as vectormasks and opacity masks in Illsutrator as layer masks in PSD.You can also under certain constraints export compound shapes live as shape layers.
A good news is that these features can subsequently be imported back into illustrator but goverened by the same criterion as mentioned above i.e preserve appearance first and then the structure.
Do write back if you think I can help you more.
-Hardeep
hparmar@adobe.com