Graphic Design Newbie Question

[cleing]

I am totally new at graphic design. If I have a photograph of a human or animal subject in a room and if I want to extract just the human or animal into a separate graphic or even as a silhouette in Illustrator, should I;

1) scan it to a .jpg then import/convert it to Illustrator
2) take a high resolution digital photo, upload into my computer then import to Illustrator
3) another way to do this with the intent of having just the human or animal subject into a usable Illustrator file???

[defjoe]

clipping path


2 ways of doing this in PS (well there are a few ways but these are the typical 2). you can draw the clipping path with the pen tool (that the long way) or you can use the alpha channel method and make a mask. I had done a tutorial awhile back on how to do this. Maybe Morea will look in, she is our links chicky.

[morea]

Illustrator is not really meant for working with photos... you'd probably want to use Photoshop for this... BUT

you can just open the photo in Illustrator and redraw it with the pen tool to get a silhouette.

Good luck! And http://mysite.verizon.net/amthibodeau/welcome.gif

[keith1]

you are not going to be able to edit any photo in illustrator. i hope you have photoshop or some other photo editing program you can use. You should get familar with these programs if you are not already. But the simplest way would be to just carefully erase the background with an eraser tool (zoom in a lot for this) and save the picture. Then import it into illustrator and you will have the photo of your subject matter with a white backgound. Assuming that you will just keep this white background and add text or something you will be fine. However if you want to start layering other photos with no backgrounds and adding color you will need to learn photoshop and how to make clipping paths. They are pretty easy to do but harder to do well.

[defjoe]

he COULD make a mask in ILLY if he wanted too. but it's a HUGE pain.

[PrintDriver]

Like Morea said, You can make clipping paths in Illustrator. But you won't have fine control or any other image editing abilities (unless you have the photoshop filters loaded into illy).

DO NOT work in jpg format. Use .psd or .tif or .eps.
You will compress your image to death resaving continually in jpg format.

What is your end use. Print usually requires 300dpi at final size. Depending on what you are doing, a digicam may not cut it in that department. Read the Resource Forum section sticky on DPI and Resizing.

[cleing]

Thanks everyone for your input so far. I do have Photoshop (even though I'm just a novice at that too. Eventually, I'll need to get it into Illustrator since I want to use the final graphics for t-shirts and other items which require vector files. In Photoshop, which would be the best tool to use for a clipping path?

[PrintDriver]

Just placing an image into Illustrator does not make it a vector file. You use a color image, you'll need to find a 4-color screen printer.
See the Resource sticky about Raster vs Vector.

Placing is the operative word. You don't import images into Illy. You want to keep em linked rather than embedded too if going to print.

As for making a silhouette, you can do that in Illy. You'll need to become proficient with the pen tool.

[keith1]

Don't listen to Printdriver he's a grande format digital print dude. His opinions may not apply to the 4-color/offset/web world. :)

[morea]

hey, listen to PrintDriver!

and not jsut cause he said I was right. lol

[zubaier]

the extract tool in photoshop is another option if you don't want to go thru the ordeal of learning about clipping paths... you're unlikely to get a perfect extraction however...

if you're serious about learning graphic design you will have to tackle paths at some point tho...