Adobe Illustrator CS6 Part J

This is the 10th installment in my blog post series on Adobe Illustrator CS6 based on what I learn on the video training course by Infinite Skills on this program. We'll first look at 3D effects which are under the effects tab and there are 3 tools. The rotate tool allows you to turn a 2D image in a 3D way. The image itself is kept flat. The revolve tool extrudes it as if was on a potter's wheel in a 3D and circular way. The extrude and bevel tool lets you customize what you want extruded and all these tools do have various settings along with a preview option which lets you see an up to date image. The programs Indesign & Illustrator use objects and the former is a desktop publishing tool so is artistic based. Layers give you more control over a picture. They let you organize objects as they are and you can turn them on and off to aid you in your work. You can double click on a layer name in order to rename it. You can expand layers with in the layers palette to see the components of that layer. If you double click an object with the mouse it goes into isolation mode and dims everything else so you can work on the item. To get back into normal mode just press escape. Opacity and blending are in the transparency palette which confuses some people because in Photoshop they are in the layers palette. This is because in Illustrator they can be applied to individual objects where as in Photoshop they are applied to the whole image. Alt + Shift lets you drag to re-size an image and is particularly useful if it has been imported and usually you will shrink it to fit.