Need some help with Adobe Illustrator, Any Takers?

Hi,

I have not touched Adobe illustrator since I was in design school back in 98', and I find that in order for me to keep up with the graphic artist competing with me on an outsourcing website, I should at the VERY LEAST attempt learn illustrator so I can do vector illustrations instead of potentially jagged, pixelated Photoshop designs. Bare in mind I'm a virtual Photoshop master, and so I figured illustrator would be the same, uhh, no. Its not; though it is similar thankfully.

Anyway, I'm having some issues which are probably straight forward as hell, I'm just being dense.
For example: Clipping masks, and how I can remove or trim away extra "crap" so that things look neat. I tried pathfinder and I dont get the results Im looking for. Say I have a circle, and I lay another circle over it and apply a gradient fill. How do I clip of the overlapping top circle so that its shape conforms to the lower one. Like I said pathfinder tools are not accomplishing this, and clipping mask looks like it is working then screws me over at the last second, by reestablishing the old overlapping shape again.

Also How to cut out or punch holes in something.
Example: I have a vector of an Uzi I traced with the pen tool, so I have this nice clean silhouette going on right?
Okay so then I need to cut out the trigger hole and some other things how do I do that? Can you? Or do you have to do something crazy like take the opacity way down and cut on another layer and all that stuff.

I hope I'm making my self clear, I'm going into coma here.

Anyway If someone is even halfway decent at illustrator PLEASE help me out.

Thanks a lot
Snowen

I like this thread. I have an Adobe Illustrator but I don't know how to use it.

reply to post by snowen20


I'm not by any means an expert on Illustrator. Done some things for posters, etc. Self taught. I used Vertus Fluid Mask in Photoshop (the only way I could do a decent job) and imported the images into Illustrator. Vertus will do just about anything. Check out www.vertustech.com.... Hope this helps a little.

reply to post by be4peace


I guess we are both bad people, cause Im broke as #@##, and I need it for my job.
Anyway thanks for the info Im getting on it now.

I find that whenever I need to find out something about illustrator or photoshop for that matter. I can Google around for tutorials on doing things. Also too check out youtube. Tons of examples on there.

now for making a mask so you can hide things. in the transparency window. click on the arrow to find the opacity mask option. once you do that your main item will disappear. Create a shape over the hidden item and then resize it to how you want it to appear.

now for dividing below objects.
it's object->path->divide below objects.
create a square. then another square on top and off to the side. follow the above path and you will remove a chunk of the original object.

for more info google around or check out youtube.