James Dempsey over at the CreativeGuy design blog, has a post up recommending using native graphics files when placing them in layouts. This is something I am all in favor of as well, and have been doing so since picking up InDesign.
One benefit he mentions is the treatment of drop shadows with a placed .ai file as opposed to a placed .eps file as well as the smaller file sizes, but another cool thing is the ability to control layers in a placed Photoshop document (at least in InDesign CS2 and up) right within InDesign.
Many times in Illustrator I will have a multi-layered Photoshop sketch for my vector template, and I love being able to go back to the PSD file and turning off and on layers as I build the vector art (re-saving each time). This saves me from having to save each part of the sketch as a separate file.
I like to build my vectors (yes, I hand-create them – down with AutoTrace!) in as many discrete parts as possible without making too much extra work. It allows me to go back and tweak, deform, resize and reshape elements separately, which many times results in a 238% increase in the quality of the art.
Now, if I could turn off and on Photoshop layers from within an Illustrator file, that would be awesome.
Of course, I also follow this when working on designs in InDesign, even with my ancient copy of CS1 and the lack of the ability to manipulate Photoshop layers. I guess I just like the idea of staying with native files, especially working in the Creative Suite.
Plus I bet it throws a monkey wrench into all those Quark Xpress holdouts! Or can you place a PSD in Quark now?
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio
Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Tags: Adobe, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, art, Creative Suite, design, Illustration, illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, productivity, sketch, tip, vector
By the way George, you can also turn on and off layers in your placed Illustrator files just like you can with Photoshop files!
Yes, you CAN place a PSD in Quark, and you can even turn on and off layers. But it’s cumbersome and buggy. And forget about doing it to Illustrator files.
Great site you have here!
Great to hear about the Illustrator layers in placed files! I really need to upgrade soon, I am missing out on lots of great stuff.
No surprise to hear things are clunky in Quark, but at least being able to place native PSD files is good news.
And thanks for the kudos on the site!
NOTE:
I edited the post slightly to add my wish to be able to control PSD layers in a placed file in Illustrator. Also edited some clunky sentence wording. This must have been one of my insomniac posts.