I am a beginning user of Illustrator. Recently I created a number of technical drawings by cutting them out of a .psd file, modifying them, and saving as a .gif for use in Microsoft Frontpage. The problem is, the quality of these drawings is very poor. I tried creating a similar drawing directly in Illustrator, but when I save it as a .gif, the image quality is incredibly poor: fuzzy and broken looking. These are simple, black & white line drawings of aircraft cockpit displays. HELP! Am I missing something? I would think this would be a simple task for a tool as powerful as Illustrator. I have tried changing all the options available when Saving for the Web, but it has not significantly improved the quality of the final image. These drawings are part of a web-based tutorial, and so saving as a .gif is a must. It Illustrator is NOT the right tool, can you give me other suggestions?
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Need Help Optimizing technical drawings saved as .gif 1
- Thread starter oneilllm
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When you say that you tried creating a similar drawing directly in Illustrator, how are you going about it? Are you still using the original .psd file, or are you using the standard Illustrator tools?
Assuming you're using Illustrator's vector tools, there shouldn't be a problem. A few things to look out for:
* Make sure the thickness of the lines you use are sufficient
* In the "Save For Web" dialog, make sure "Lossy" is set to 0
* Try changing the "Color Reduction Algorithm" to "Selective".
* Make sure there are sufficient colors. If in doubt, set it to 256.
* Turn of Dithering.
* In the "Image Size" tab, turn on "Anti-Alias" and click apply.
Note that these setting might need to tailored to your needs, but they should provide a good starting point. Illustrator is very capable of creating crisp, sharp images of the type you're describing.
If you are simply manipulating the original .psd file, then you might want to investigate the differences between raster and vector artwork. A .psd file is (generally) a raster image, and although it can be placed in Illustrator, it won't improve it's quality.
Assuming you're using Illustrator's vector tools, there shouldn't be a problem. A few things to look out for:
* Make sure the thickness of the lines you use are sufficient
* In the "Save For Web" dialog, make sure "Lossy" is set to 0
* Try changing the "Color Reduction Algorithm" to "Selective".
* Make sure there are sufficient colors. If in doubt, set it to 256.
* Turn of Dithering.
* In the "Image Size" tab, turn on "Anti-Alias" and click apply.
Note that these setting might need to tailored to your needs, but they should provide a good starting point. Illustrator is very capable of creating crisp, sharp images of the type you're describing.
If you are simply manipulating the original .psd file, then you might want to investigate the differences between raster and vector artwork. A .psd file is (generally) a raster image, and although it can be placed in Illustrator, it won't improve it's quality.
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