This section is very tricky for us because as soon as we suggest a certain program, we make a choice that affects the look of the artwork. And for many artists and illustrators, their medium of choice is a very important decision. So, at the risk of offending any artist who uses different techniques, here are some of our choices.
Fine ArtMost people find that their artwork is a little more organic and looks more traditional when they use Photoshop. Others use Illustrator. We even have a friend who uses InDesign for her image collages. Here then is a very brief look at the various options for creating artwork using Creative Suite applications. SketchesMany of our artist friends start with paper sketches and then scan them into digital format. The next question is which program should you use to modify, color, or otherwise enhance the sketches. Most of the time artists will use Photoshop. But with the Live Trace feature in Illustrator, you have other options for converting paper sketches into vector artwork. Watercolors and PaintingPhotoshop is definitely our first choice for creating effects that mimic watercolors, paintings, and other traditional media. That's not to say that you can't replicate some of those looks in Illustrator. It's just a lot harder. We'd rather work in Photoshop. CollagesCollage or montage refers to taking many different images and arranging them into a larger composition. Photoshop is the obvious choice here; each image should be placed on its own layer as a Smart Object, and then it can be scaled or transformed without any problems. However, one artist we know uses InDesign to do the rough layouts of her collages. Sharon Steuer, author of The Illustrator CS2 Wow! Book, uses InDesign for the composition of her photo-collage projects. She works with the placed images in InDesign because doing so create smaller files that are easier to move around, save, and reopen especially when her final artwork is large, mural-sized pieces. PhotorealismBert Monroy, a Berkeley-based artist and Photoshop guru, has to be one of the best photorealistic Photoshop artists in the country, if not the world. Based on Bert's work (www.bertmonroy.com), we would have insisted that you should use only Photoshop to do photo-realistic art. Bert starts in Illustrator to set up the outlines of his paintings, but he finished them in Photoshop. That's where he adds the textures, wood grains, lighting, and other effects to make his images realistic. However, we've seen incredible photorealistic artwork created entirely in Illustrator. For instance, Scott Crouse (www.scottcrouse.com) is a talented artist who uses Illustrator for a wide range of artwork including photorealistic images of building, people, automobiles, and outdoor scenes. Another amazing artist is Takashi Kondo of Japan (homepage3.nifty.com/highside). Takashi is a part-time artist (full-time truck driver) who has written his own book on Illustrator in Japanese. Technical DrawingsIllustrator is definitely our choice. With its graphic styles, text styles, and precision drawing tools, Illustrator offers everything for the technical illustrator.
MapsThere's no doubt about it. Illustrator is the program of choice for all types of cartography, especially road maps, political maps, weather maps, and street maps. As you work on map projects, remember to use Illustrator symbols, which make it easy to modify each instance used throughout the document. Also, look at the graphic styles that can help you update the style for different types of roads, boundaries, rivers, and other elements.
Those who design maps usually make heavy use of layers sometimes dozens of them to separate the different map components. This makes it easier to hide or lock certain parts of the map while working on a complex illustration. Illustrator has very sophisticated layer controls. We talk more about using layers in Illustrator and other CS2 applications in Chapter 12, "The Flexibility of Layers." Many years ago, Sandee was hired to create maps to show the locations of endangered species in North America. Rather than draw North America from scratch, she started with the collection of maps from www.mapresources.com. These are well-drawn maps that give you unrestricted use in print, multimedia, web, and broadcast. She was then able to open those maps in Illustrator and modify them to show the areas of interest.
Charts and GraphsThe only drawback to using Illustrator for charts and graphs is that it requires a bit of work to create well-designed graphs. The default style for the art is basic black and white. Adding color, shading, depth, and other enhancements takes time. If you don't want to fuss with styling the charts and graphs in Illustrator, look for a third-party product that will allow you to export your artwork either as EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) or in PDF. And make sure that colors can be specified in CMYK values and, if necessary, defined as spot colors you don't want to be stuck with RGB colors in a CMYK job. (See Chapter 10, "Colors and Color Management," for more information on using color in Creative Suite.) |