Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Ready to Export
Exporting Options for Layers to Photoshop
Illustrator & Photoshop
Overview:
Organize objects on layers that Photoshop can understand; use Export to Photo-
shop (PSD) or Copy/Paste as Smart Object for editing layers in Photoshop; add texture or run
other filters as Smart Filters.
When Kevan Atteberry wants to add finishing touches to his illustrations in
Photoshop, he has several options for preparing and exporting his artwork from
Illustrator. Shown above is a detail from his “Frankie Stein” series, where Atteberry
uses Illustrator's ability to write Photo-shop layers when exporting to the PSD
format, as well as Photoshop's ability to paste selected and copied objects directly as
Smart Objects. Exporting layers as PSD layers is the quickest method for adding
texture or other raster effects in Photoshop. To use Transform on the object (scale,
rotate, etc.), Atteberry copies and pastes it from Illustrator as a Smart Object, which
preserves the underlying vector for Photoshop to work with. (For the full illustration,
see the “Frankie Stein” gallery following this.)
1 Organizing and rasterizing the layers in Illustrator for export as Photoshop PSD.
When Il-
lustrator writes layers for a Photoshop file, it attempts to maintain the layer
structure, including all the sublayers. But some types of objects, such as those
created with brushes, blends, symbols, or envelopes, generate an unmanageable
number of extra sublayers. Two important steps in Illustrator can prevent this from
becoming a nuisance in Photoshop. First, Atteberry collects all paths that make up a
given ob-ject into a named layer. This might be a sublayer of a layer that contains
more of a subject, such as the “MUM-layers” containing a “mumsDress” layer. This
is just like organizing your hard drive in miniature, making it easy to quickly identify
what ob-jects the layers contain. Next, he targets the sublayers, opens the
Transparency panel and enables Knockout Group (you may need to expand panel
options). To extend our example, “mumsDress” now becomes a single, rasterized
layer in Photoshop, but is still separate from “mumsHair,” and both are contained in
a Layer Group called
“MUMlayers.” Photoshop now can preserve Illustrator's file structure and layer
names, without creating too many nested groups.
1
Each brush object is listed in the Layers panel as a <Path> with a
filled target icon (see the chapter
Your Cre-
ative Workspace
for help with targeting)
