Lesson 2

Lesson 2 was exciting, as we got the opportunity to work with Adobe Illustrator, and we learnt how to navigate through this application. I had prior experience with Adobe Photoshop, but albeit being similar in certain ways, these two applications are not identical. They have vast differences.

One of which is in relation to raster and vector. Photoshop is raster based, while Illustrator is vector based.
Raster uses the concept of DPI, dots per inch. The higher the amount of dots per inch, the clearer or more high quality the image. This is why zooming into raster images causes them to look pixelated. Raster based applications enables more detail, but less precision.
Illustrator (vector) does not use the concept of DPI, which is why resizing vector images causes it to lose little to no detail at all, but for raster images it is otherwise. Vector images also create smoother lines. Here is an image taken from Google, comparing these two concepts:

Another important thing is also the profile of the document, whether it is for printing, or web, or film and video, etc. Sizes for these different formats vary. The size of the image is also something to take note of. 

Also we learnt briefly about CMYK and RGB, which stands for the respective colours, and that printing should be in CMYK setting while digital should be in RGB. An image in RGB setting being printed will go terribly wrong as a CMYK printer will not be able to read the colours.

Next we learnt about the tools in photoshop, how to use them, tips and tricks, command shortcuts, also the palette that exists on the right hand side of the screen, about layers and how it is safer and more efficient to create layers and work on different areas of the project separately. This part was common sense to me. It does take more practice with Illustrator to fully understand how to use these tools and work with them at a fast pace. I am looking forward to this.

Lastly was about saving work, and exporting it. 'Save As' and 'Export' are two different things. 'Exporting' enables you to save your work in .jpg and .tiff formats. 'Saving' enables you to save your work as a .pdf file. After comparing the sizes and properties of these three files, we concluded that saving it in .tiff format captures more detail accurately whereas a .pdf file captures less details, and is only suitable as a preview, as it is being compressed so that the file takes up lesser space.

Here is my first project on Illustrator:

It was saved as a .jpg file so as to save more space.