Adobe illustrator cs4- P4

Adobe illustrator cs4- P4: Good designers have many tools at their disposal. Especially in an environmentwhere most designers have other powerful graphics applications, itcan be diffi cult to choose which one to use for a particular task. For example,a designer can apply soft drop shadows in Photoshop, Illustrator, andInDesign—is one application any better than the others for this?
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Adobe illustrator cs4- P464 CHAPTER 2: SELECTING AND EDITING ARTWORK many steps as are necessary to display a smooth and gradual transition between key objects (Figure 2.43). The Specified Steps setting allows you to define exactly how many blend steps Illustrator creates. Using a higher number of steps results in a smoother transition, whereas a lower number allows you to see the individual steps in the blend. The Specified Distance setting allows you to specify how far apart each step appears from the next. When you want to create shading techniques using blends, the Smooth Color option provides the best results. When creating steps for a Flash animation, specifying fewer steps will help playback performance.Figure 2.43 The BlendOptions dialog box offersspacing and orientationoptions for blending. • Orientation. The Orientation setting controls the baseline angle of each step in your blend. With the Align to Page setting, each blend step aligns parallel to the bottom of the page, even if the path is curved or diagonal. With this setting, all blends steps share the same orientation. In contrast, the Align to Path setting aligns the baseline of each blend step to the angle of the path. With this setting, you’ll see that each blend step has a different orientation (Figure 2.44).Figure 2.44 On the left, theblend is set to the Align toPage option. The blend onthe right is set to the Alignto Path orientation option. Replacing the Spine of a Blend As we briefly mentioned earlier, you’ll notice a straight path that connects the key objects in a blend. This path is referred to as the spine of the blend. The individual steps that are created in a blend follow along the spine as CREATING TRANSITIONS WITH BLENDS 65they connect the two outer objects. The spine is an editable path, and youcan use the Pen tool and the Direct Selection tool to edit the path if youwant to alter the direction of the blend steps. In fact, the position of thecontrol handles on a spine can control how the individual steps are distrib-uted along the spine.Additionally, you can perform a delicate operation—a spine transplant.You can draw any vector path, open or closed, and use it as the spine foran existing blend. To perform this surgery, select both the blend and thepath you’ve created, and then choose Object > Blend > Replace Spine.Illustrator then uses the path you created as the spine for the blend,allowing you to customize how blend steps appear.Reversing BlendsWith a blend selected, you can choose Object > Blend > Reverse Spine toreverse the order of the key objects in your blend. This function is helpfulwhen you want to flip the blend so that it travels in the opposite direction.You can reverse the stacking order of the key objects in a blend by select-ing the blend and choosing Object > Blend > Reverse Front to Back. Thissetting is especially useful for when you are using blends to create anima-tions, which always travel in one direction. To have your animation play inreverse, you use this feature.Releasing and Expanding BlendsAs with Envelope distortions, you can select an existing blend and chooseObject > Blend > Release, which removes the blend steps and returnsthe artwork to its original state (just the two original objects). In addition,you can choose Object > Blend > Expand, which applies the blend to theartwork itself, leaving the individual blend steps visible and available forediting. Once a blend has been expanded, it is no longer updated when theoriginal two objects are edited.There is yet another way to release a blend that is useful, especially whenyou’re creating frames for animations either that will be exported directlyfrom Illustrator as SWF (Flash) files or that will be imported into videosoftware such as Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, or Apple FinalCut Pro. This method actually expands the blend into its individual steps66 CHAPTER 2: SELECTING AND EDITING ARTWORK and then places each step on its own layer. To release a blend in this way, ...