a question about illustrator

[DDD]

I am giving illustrator another go and I had a question. When you begin the artboard is white (default) now if the graphic I am creating needs to be on a black or colored background can I change the color of the art board or do I hav to make like a big square on a lower layer that has the color or effect I want? I am using Ill 10.

One thing I hate already is how when you use the pathfinders ILL groups the objects for you and if you dont watch closely you'll end up with a bunch of nested groups irritating. :frustrated:

[.soulty]

Hey 3d-iva, glad your giving illustrator another go, its a excellent app , wouldnt know what i would do without it. :love:

Anyway to answer your question , yes you do have to create a square or shape to create your background, not too hard, create the shape in a layer, then lock the layer then thats it.

anything thats not drawn in illustrator will remain transparent, say you create some lines in colours blue, red. you export that to photoshop, it will open as a transparent background with the blue and red lines.


Regarding the pathfinder tool. sometimes when you use this tool and you dont want all the nested groups, you can press the button called Expand(found on the pathfinder pallette) which basically gets rid of all the compound paths and ect.. to leave a vector shape.

Hope this helps, any more question just ask :)

[DDD]

thanks Soulty I was wondering what the expand button does and I figured it out just b4 reading your post. The last time I use ILL was 8 so far I must say from using 10 there is a big diff. I am kinda growing fond of it. I redid our logo using it I will post it in a bit....mesh is rather cool also. After coming from freehand the interface is rather weird..template layers are cool also.

[.soulty]

no probs, stick with it. :)

Illustrator CS is coming out soon as well. :beam:

[grimdeath]

The new freehand roxors and has some new features Illy doesnt have yet i hope the new Illy introduces these new toosl like the extrude function otherwise its Freehand all teh way Baby :thumb: