Vectordiary

Day 29: Saving & Printing

By Tony Soh Posted on August 11th, 2008

In this lesson, we will learn how to crop your artwork for exporting to JPG for website or printing. We will also cover about EPS file which is the universal format for saving vector graphics.

Savings Files Using Crop Area

When you try to export your file to a JPG, sometimes you may notice white areas around the image. This is due to the hidden images under the mask (see example below). Illustrator exports the bounding box of all the objects in the artboard regardless of whether it is masked away. To solve this problem, you will need to define a crop area to tell Illustrator this is the area to export rather than exporting the whole graphic.

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Defining Crop Area

Draw a rectangle to define the area your want to export. Select it and go Object>Crop Area>Make.

The crop marks will appear.

Go File>Export. Select JPEG as file type and click Save. The JPEG Options will appear. Depending whether you are saving for website graphics or printing, you may need to change the settings.

For Website/Screen:
Quality: 6-8
Resolution Depth: Screen

For Printing
Quality: 12
Resolution Depth: High

Saving As EPS File

I have introduced you the Illustrator file .AI format in the first lesson. However, this file can only be read by Illustrator. There is also another universal format which Designers normally save for printing and exporting artwork to Indesign and QuarkXPress. This is the EPS file. Go File>Save As and select EPS for file type. When you save the EPS Options will pop up. Saving at default normally will work. However you may need to save to a lower version if someone else got problems opening your file.

Version: Choose Illustrator 8.0 if you want it to make sure that all programs are compatible. However, transparency objects will be flattened.

Preview: Embeds a quick preview for seeing your artwork when importing to other softwares

Transparency Preset: Set it to High Resolution if you are printing and the artwork contains transparency

Embed Fonts: Check this if you want to embed the fonts in the EPS so that the font will be available when someone else opens it.

Next Lesson: Designing a Logo »
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[private_premium]

Defining Crop Area

Draw a rectangle to define the area your want to export. Select it and go Object>Crop Area>Make.

The crop marks will appear.

Go File>Export. Select JPEG as file type and click Save. The JPEG Options will appear. Depending whether you are saving for website graphics or printing, you may need to change the settings.

For Website/Screen:
Quality: 6-8
Resolution Depth: Screen

For Printing
Quality: 12
Resolution Depth: High

Saving As EPS File

I have introduced you the Illustrator file .AI format in the first lesson. However, this file can only be read by Illustrator. There is also another universal format which Designers normally save for printing and exporting artwork to Indesign and QuarkXPress. This is the EPS file. Go File>Save As and select EPS for file type. When you save the EPS Options will pop up. Saving at default normally will work. However you may need to save to a lower version if someone else got problems opening your file.

Version: Choose Illustrator 8.0 if you want it to make sure that all programs are compatible. However, transparency objects will be flattened.

Preview: Embeds a quick preview for seeing your artwork when importing to other softwares

Transparency Preset: Set it to High Resolution if you are printing and the artwork contains transparency

Embed Fonts: Check this if you want to embed the fonts in the EPS so that the font will be available when someone else opens it.

Next Lesson: Designing a Logo »
Back to Table of Contents[/private_premium]