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Scaling and Editing Traced Artwork

Submitted by deke on 29 October 2010 - 12:15am.
Illustrator CS5 One-on-One: Advanced PREVIEW, Part 6

Welcome to the final installment in my six-day, cradle-to-grave, Halloween-induced extravaganza, in which I finish off the large-format pirate flag that I've been making all week. I begin by enlarging the skull and sabers in Illustrator. The result is a work of infinitely scalable razor-sharp line art that I could not have possibly matched had I upsampled the original pixel-based image in Photoshop. Then I adjust the color scheme and modify the placement of a few paths---if for no other reason than to demonstrate that what began as a sketch is now a pliable collection of vector-based outlines that I can modify as much as I want.

Here's the official description: Read more » 

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The Power of Multiple Martini Transformations in Photoshop

Submitted by deke on 29 September 2010 - 12:15am.

Wouldn't it be great if you had a device that would create martinis for you, each one a suitable replica of the previous, without your having to painstakingly mix each of them separately? Well, when it comes to virtual cocktails---or really anything else of value and deliciousness---you can leverage Photoshop's ability to duplicate, scale, and reposition a layer with the Free Transform command and the judicious application of some modifier keys. And then, amazingly, you can ask Photoshop to do it all over again.

See, a while back, I was creating a graphic for my weekly Martini Hour podcast (using a martini glass image from Gunnar3000 of the Fotolia image library, shown below), and really appreciating this terrific, if largely undocumented, shortcut that allows you to repeat a transformation---including duplicating, scaling and repositioning a layer---without having to tediously reenter values, mouse around your image, or remember how you lined things up the first time. 

Here's how I turned this single refreshing beverage into three, each spaced equidistantly and scaled appropriately, efficiently, and somewhat miraculously. Read more » 

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Photoshop Top 40, Feature #20: Free Transform

Submitted by deke on 1 December 2009 - 12:15am.
Feature #20: Free Transform

As powerful as Photoshop is, there is little about the program that is obvious. Case in point: How do you rotate a layer? Right-click on it and select Rotate? Choose Rotate from the Layer menu? Click on the rotate tool? The answer is no, no, and no. Fortunately, there’s the Free Transform command, which lets you not just rotate but also scale, slant, and distort a layer in one continuous operation. Edt > Free Transform is one of Photoshop's most fundamental commands, with a keyboard shortcut to prove it: Ctrl+T (Cmd-T on the Mac). Read more » 

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Stretching a Photo in Illustrator (and Elsewhere)

Submitted by deke on 25 August 2008 - 4:00pm.

Hey gang,

Meant to have this post up bright and early Monday morning, but the punative Internet gods conspired against me and robbed me of my usual beloved-martini-in-hand 3am site access. Jerks.

Anyhoo, as promised, more detailed information about the "Stretching a Photo in Illustrator" trick from last week's dekePod. Remember her?

jumper

(Image ©2008 Andrzej Burak. Used by permission of iStockphoto.)

Here's the full story: Read more » 

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