- [Voiceover] In this movie, I'll show you the other way
to get a pixel-based image into Illustrator.
And that's to use the 'place' command to create
a dynamic link to the image file on disk.
So, the first step is to go up to the 'File' menu
and choose the 'New' command, or you can press
control N here on the PC, or command N on the Mac.
And I'm going to go ahead and change the profile
to basic RGB, which these days appears to set
the orientation to landscape.
I'm going to go ahead and switch it to portrait
by clicking on this little icon here.
And then I'll click OK.
Next, what you want to do is go up to the 'File' menu
and choose the 'Place' command,
which has a keyboard shortcut of control shift P here on
the PC, or command shift P on the Mac.
Then, locate the image file that you want to import,
and click on the 'place' button.
Now, that goes ahead and loads your cursor with the image.
At this point, you want to be very careful that
you click instead of drag.
If you drag with the cursor, you will scale
the image as you import it.
And that is generally not something you want to do,
especially when tracing images inside Illustrator.
So just go ahead and click, and you'll import the
full-sized image.
All right, now assuming that you want to scale the
artboard to match the image, go ahead and switch
to the artboard tool, which once again you can get
by pressing shift O.
And then, assuming that you have your smart guides
turned on, just go ahead and drag the top left
and bottom right corners so they snap into alignment
with the image and then you can press the escape key
to exit the artboard mode.
All right, now go ahead and press control zero or
command zero on a Mac to zoom in.
Now, let's take a look at a few key differences when
working with linked images as opposed to embedded ones.
Notice I once again have this link up here that
tells me the name of the original file on disk,
but if I click on it, I bring up a whole slew of
options including edit original.
And this one is very important.
If I choose this command, then Illustrator will
go ahead and switch me back to Photoshop,
at which point if I make a modification as I did
in the previous movie, or I go to the 'Image' menu
choose 'Image Rotation' and choose 'Flip Canvas
Horizontal,' and then go to the 'File' menu and
choose the 'Save' command to update the file on disk.
Now if I go ahead and switch back to Illustrator,
notice that Illustrator is aware of the modifications,
and asks me if I would like to update the image.
At which point if I click yes, then I'm going to see
that update occur inside Illustrator.
This isn't really what I want, however, so I'll
go ahead and choose that command again, or I could
just click on the 'Edit Original' button up here
in the control panel.
And I'll go up to the 'Edit' menu and choose
'Step Backward' in order to turn the image to its
original appearance and then I will once again choose
the 'Save' command from the 'File' menu, after which
point I'll go ahead and switch to Illustrator.
Now, let's say I say no, that I don't want
to update my changes.
I can always update the changes later on by clicking
on this link up here in the control panel once again
and choosing 'Update Link' in order to reflect the
modifications that I made in Photoshop.
Another subtle advantage to working this way is that
Illustrator has gone ahead and populated my swatches
panel, as we are seeing up here in the upper right
corner of the screen.
And of course if you're not seeing your swatches
panel, you can just go to the 'Window' menu,
choose the 'Swatches' command, which for me is located
way down here.
And of course if you can't see your swatches panel,
you can go up to the 'Window' menu and choose the
'Swatches' command.
Compare that to what happens when you open
an image directly.
Notice over here in the swatches panel,
we have just none and the registration swatch.
If you want more, you'd have to click on the
little library icon in the bottom left corner
of the swatches panel, choose 'Default Swatches,'
and then choose 'Basic RGB,' and then you'd have
to go ahead and select all these guys by clicking
on the last swatch, shift clicking on the first one
and then dragging them and dropping them
into the swatches panel.
So, you can still get to those swatches,
but it takes an extra step.
And then finally I want you to see when you select
an embedded image by clicking on it, you see a
selection outline around the outer edge.
Whereas, when you click on a linked image,
it's an X through the center of it as well.
Now, if you ever change your mind, you do have
an embed button.
So you can just go ahead and click on it to
embed that image, and you will lose the X.
That's not what I want, however, because that would
break the dynamic link to the image file on disk.
So I'll just go ahead and press control Z,
or command Z on the Mac to undo that change.
And then, finally, a little bit of housekeeping here
inside the layers panel.
I'm going to click on the flyout menu icon in the
upper left corner, and choose 'Panel Options'.
And then I'll go ahead and increase this row size
value to other and I want it to be 70 pixels
so I can actually see what's going on inside
the panel there so that I have larger previews.
And then, I'll just go ahead and rename this layer
tracing, let's say, and press the enter key,
or the return key on the Mac, to apply that change.
Finally, I'm going to twirl this guy open,
and I'm going to rename this image 300 ppi.
And by the way, ppi stands for the resolution of
this image, which is 300 pixels per inch.
And you can see that reflected up here in the
control panel as well.
And that will become very important in the next movie
when we discuss how to autotrace the image.
And that is the difference between linking to an
image file on disk using the place command
versus embedding the image using the open command.
And the last piece of good news is that this file
with the linked image is about half as big
as the one with the embedded image.
And so you have a more efficient workflow as well.