New to Illustrator but not Photoshop, need help!

[Zerotide]

Hi, I designed a logo in Adobe Photoshop and the tshirt printing company says the logo needs to be a vector image.

Can someone explain a little how I would go about making the two sides of this tshirt into vector images in Illustrator?

I have been trying to use the autotrace function but haven't been getting anything to turn out right. I still have the full unflattened PSD files with all the layers.

The images that are on the two sides of this tshirt are what I am trying to turn into vector images.

http://i40.tinypic.com/dy1u9j.jpg

 

[apepp]

depends on how you have built the PSD, have you used vector shape layers?

it's possible to drag and drop PSD files onto the illustrator app icon, they become emdedded, you are presented with options to preserve layers, maintaining editability of text, vector elements etc...

...the same is true when you file > place PSD files, then choose embed from the links palette flyout menu (the arrow, top right hand side of the links palette provides the embed function)...

...you can use live trace on separate elements as opposed to one hit method, thats what i would do...

...other than that you may have to re-build parts from scratch...

...you also need to ensure your colors are spot colors from looking at your artwork for screen printing, three inks can be used on your design, spot red, spot blue and spot black...

andrew

 

[apepp]

...also please inform version of illy you are using...

andrew

 

[apepp]

...worst case and if you are struggling, send me the elements and i will work on it for you should your timeframes be tight, include fonts too...

...you can upload to:

http://www.sendspace.com

...the recipient email can be your own, but not required, then post back here the download link the website generates...

andrew

 

[Zerotide]

I'm using adobe illustrator and photoshop CS3.

I messed around with the live trace and while I was getting close to what it should look like there was still weird gaps everywhere.

Here is the PSD files if you still feel like helping out. I put them in a .zip along with the fonts.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/0ncw4s

 

[apepp]

...here we are all fixed:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/511dku

andrew

 

[Zerotide]

Wow man thats great. I really need to learn how to use Illustrator. Thanks a ton you were a huge help.

If you don't mind me asking, what is the gist of what you did here? Also is this dot colored?

 

[Zerotide]

Spot colored I meant. Looks like it is... thanks a ton.

 

[apepp]

...yes, it's all spot plates, red, black and blue...

...you'll need to discuss what exact colors you want to use with your print provider for the red and blue, i've not specified any pantone color names on the files...

...the shirt front i recreated from scratch, using gill sans font, used an opacity mask on the bubbles for the highlight, made them the same blue as the text (less inks to use on the tshirt)...

...the shirt back was file > place PSD, no linking to external file, embedded whilst maintaining layers (not flattened)...

...all parts were live trace, apart from the text, which is converted to outlines (type > create outlines)...

...to get a better trace on the diver i copied and pasted that element into photoshop, resampled to 600dpi, blurred the edges a few pixels to smooth out a bit, converted to bitmap mode, placed back into illy and live traced (default values with "ignore white" turned on)...

...same with the map outline, but that element came in as an opacity mask when placing/embedding the PSD, so had to release the opacity mask (transparency palette flyout menu). Copy and pasted into photoshop, (inverted the image to black with white background) resampled to 600dpi and smoothed out a bit as above, converted to bitmap, placed back in illy and live traced (default values with "ignore white" turned on)...

andrew

 

[landy08]

Hi,

I did the same thing as above... designed a very basic company logo (all text) in PhotoShop and then later in Indesign. I don't know illustrator very well and I was wondering if I am just working with text for company logos, do I need to use illustrator? or is illustrator primarily for drawing vector art?

Thanks,
Jen

 

[apepp]

hi jen,

illustrator is a vector package and is predominantly used in the graphics world for logos, t shirt designs, large format graphics, anything that is needing scalable graphics without loss of quality.

photoshop is bitmap based program, meaning you need to specify a resolution suitable for the end purpose, not really recommended to be designing logos in photoshop, but having said that, photoshop has it's place for sprucing up vector artwork in some instances. You just have to aware of the resolution your dealing with...

...photoshop does have vector drawing features, but to maintain that vector (like fonts, without faux styles) you have to save to Photoshop PDF, but the downside is the PDF files from photoshop can be bloated in my experience. I've found it better to print from photoshop through the Adobe PDF Printer to get smaller PDF files that maintain vector shapes and embedded fonts...

...if scaling up bitmap graphics in page layout programs you lose resolution...

...1bit black and white images (known as bitmap mode) need to be 600 to 1400dpi at actual size...

...continuous tone RGB, CMYK and greyscale (like magazine printing) need to be 300dpi at actual size, but can be lower if dealing with large format printing (in many cases you can use 100dpi at actual size or less)...

...but for logos on large (or small) format printing you really need to use a vector format logo for optimum quality...

...illustrator is also a bitmap program to a degree in that you can use transparency effects, similar to photoshop. With illustrator you also have to be aware of resolution when using bitmap effects (like drop shadows, feathers etc) or importing images. This is controlled under the effect menu (effect > document raster effects settings) and also by the transparency flattening on output to postscript or PDF version 1.3...

...there is much you can do in illustrator that you can't do in photoshop and vice versa, indesign is a bit like illustrator with some features, so all threes programs kind of cross over to a point...

...all in all though, logos really need to be created in a vector program, all the best logos in the world are vector based drawing, simply because vector allows greater flexibility in the creation process, without the worry of resolution problems. As indesign is also vector based people do create logos with that program too because it has some of the features illustrator does...

andrew

 

[landy08]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the information. I have now created the logo with just text in Illustrator and now want to export it to an eps file. It is not allowing me the option to save as an eps. Is there something I have to do to the text first before I export it (rasterize or flatten) to and eps?

Thanks,
Jen

 

[apepp]

...i will post a reply in your new thread here:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1564783&page=1

andrew