In this video you will see how to draw two different text boxes in Illustrator. You will learn how to add multiple strokes and effects to single shapes and also to grouped shapes each having a very different result in the final art. These techniques will help you build confidence as you use multiple strokes on shapes in Illustrator and with using the all important Appearance panel too.
Labels: adding strokes to groups, appearance panel, Illustrator, multiple fills, multiple strokes, text boxes
Categories:Illustrator, video
You will have seen this effect in advertising and wedding photography but it is equally as effective for other photos. Here I will show you how to take an image which has a lot of detail which is a single color and make that color pop in the image. You will see how to play down other colors – without necessarily turning the image into a black and white and how to change colors that aren’t quite the right color to make them look better. In this image I will take some orange tones and make them more red, for example.
This is a fun effect and you might be surprised at just how many images in your photo collection it will work with – I didn’t have to look very far at all to find a few images that this will be appropriate to use this effect with.
Labels: color pop effect, isolate color, Lightroom, Selective color
Sometimes I get so wrapped up in complex design solutions I forget the simple things. Like making patterns! So here is a quick and easy solution to turning any jpeg image (or indeed any image you can open in Photoshop) into a repeating pattern. These aren’t seamless repeats – but not everyone wants them to be seamless – sometimes all you need is to make a repeating pattern from something! So here’s how to do it – just make your selection – save it as a pattern and fill a new document with it – it is quick and easy.
I’ll show you how to do this with text and with a photo, they both work exactly the same.
Labels: how to make a repeating pattern in photoshop, jpeg., jpg, pattern, Photoshop tutorial, repeating pattern
If you hate the pen tool but want a different and easy way to create shapes in Illustrator why not try the Blob Brush? This tool lets you paint real vector shapes with paintbrush like strokes.
In this video you will learn how to use the Blob Brush – how to select a color, how to add to existing strokes and how to edit shapes you have painted using the Smooth tool, Pencil tool and Eraser.
The blob brush is fun and extremely useful as you will see when you click to play the video:
Labels: Blob brush, Illustrator, illustrator eraser, illustrator pencil tool, illustrator smooth tool, paint vectors
Categories:Illustrator, video
Neon is a fun effect to make and in this set of three video tutorials you will see how to make a retro neon sign in Illustrator. You will start by making the lights and the sign itself. In part 2 see how to add a glow effect to the sign to give it some light and dimension. In the final video see how to add the Neon text to the sign.
Here are clickable links to all three videos in the play order:
Labels: 50s neon, glowing neon sign, illustrator tutorial, neon sign, retro neon, vintage neon sign
Categories:Illustrator, video
Perspective problems vary – they include keystoning issues where a building is smaller at the top than at the bottom. There is barrel distortion where the sides of the image bend out and pincushion distortion where they are sucked in. Luckily, for all these distortion and bending lines issues Lightroom has a tool that will fix them for you.
In this video you will learn to use the Upright tool and the manual adjustments for fixing lens distortion and perspective problems in Lightroom.
Labels: barrel distortion, keystone, keystoning, Lens correction, Lightroom, perspective correction, pincushion distortion, upright, vignetting
Illustrator has a great rotation tool which makes it easy to make flowers. In this video you will see four very different flowers made in Illustrator and you will see now only how to make flowers but also how to use gradients and transparency and how to harness the power of the distort and transform effect to make the flowers automatically from one single shape.
Labels: distort and transform, draw flowers, gradient fills, how to draw flowers in Illustrator, Rotate
Categories:Illustrator, video
This nightscape city drawing is fun to draw in Illustrator and, in drawing it, you will learn a lot of tricks and techniques for filling and making shapes in Illustrator. You will make patterns and create repeating elements and you will learn how to texture an image. This video is jam packed with useful Illustrator skills as well as being interesting and challenging to draw.
Labels: cityscape, illustration, Illustrator, night time city, nightscape, vector cityscape
Categories:Illustrator, video
Where Photoshop has Actions, Illustrator has Scripts that help you automate complex and tedious tasks. You don’t need to know how to write code – just how to copy and paste it to harness the power of scripts to automate your workflow in Illustrator.
From scripts which make a rectangle the size of the artboard, which make metaball shapes and divide text frames you’ll find lots of practical use for scripts every day. I’ll show you how to find scripts online that you can use. I’ll show you how to find free scripts for Illustrator, how to download scripts and install them. I’ll even show you how to make a script file if you can find the code but it’s not in a downloadable format.
So you will learn to make use of .js and .jsx scripts and how to copy and paste script code from a web page and save it correctly so you can install it into Illustrator. I’ll also show you how to run the scripts you download.
Some of the scripts discussed include join reasonably which joins paths better than Illustrator does and a range of other handy scripts.
Labels: best scripts for illustrator, download scripts, free download, free scripts for illustrator, Illustrator, illustrator scripting, illustrator scripts, install scripts, scripts, use scripts in ilustrator, video
Categories:Illustrator, video
