Placing Your Image into Illustrator and FreeHand

Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand are graphics programs like Photoshop, but instead of enabling you to edit images, they let you create smooth-line vector graphics. Information graphics, logos, maps, architectural plans, general artwork, and single-page documents, such as flyers and ads — all these projects are ideally suited to Illustrator and FreeHand.

Both programs enable you to import images. Save your Photoshop image in the Photoshop EPS or Photoshop PSD format. In Illustrator, choose the File Place command to import your image. In FreeHand, choose the File Import command or Ctrl+R (z+R on a Mac) to import your image. Both Illustrator and FreeHand also support the TIFF format, but drawing programs work better with the EPS or PSD formats.

After placing the image, you can combine it with vector graphics or integrate it into a single-page document. The Wiley Publishing Composition Services staff used Illustrator to label the figures in this book. It’s not advisable to label the figures inside Photoshop — which is where they all originated for this book. Although Photoshop has improved its text capabilities, it’s best used with larger text. Likewise, PageMaker and InDesign are great for creating long text documents, but they aren’t so good at handling little bits of text here and there.