Another question for those familiar with Illustrator...?

Question

i dragged in a jpg image into the screen and im trying to give it the effect of having it degrade little by little from one end to the other. i thought using the Gradient tool would do the job, but its not doing anything. i selected the image, then click on the gradient tool on the left side of the screen and clicked on one end of the image and dragged along to the other end and no change is occuring.

how does it work?

i know if i create a color image or color box or whatever in illustrator the gradient will work, but with a jpg image dragged in, shouldnt it still work either way?

how do you do it?

Answer 1

Illustrator is a VECTOR graphics program, so it doesn't work well with bitmap images (ie jpg, gif, png, bmp etc).

The effects you're trhing to do isn't meant for bitmap images, only for graphics you created through the program. You'd have to trace your bitmpage Image (i forget what menu its under) then apply the changes to the resulting trace

You need a program like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro. or Gimp to dwhat you want with bitmap images as they are bitmap image editors.


Photoshop 30 day trial
http://www.adobe.com

Paint Shop Pro trial
http://www.jasc.com

Gimp
http://www.gimp.org

Answer 2

You're potentially getting into complex/powerful areas of Illustrator - Masking, Compositing, etc..

>> Opacity Masks
1 - Open the raster file with Illustrator.
2 - Click 'M' for the Rectangle (marquis) Tool, with View/Smart Guides 'Ctrl+U' enabled, and create a box the exact size of your image. The fill can be any color.
3 - Move this new box away from the raster, so you can play with it easier, and keep it selected. Now perform Copy Front 'Ctrl+C,F', this duplicates an object on top of itself. Fill this top object with a linear black/white gradient.
4 - Lasso select both of these objects and go to Transparency tab/Dropdown/Make Opacity Mask. Place this transparent gradient back on top of your raster.

Another way to apply an Opacity Mask to a raster would be to put a gradient filled object directly on top of the raster and directly group them as the opacity mask. (!The gradient or mask always goes on top of the subject.)

Once you have a working Opacity Mask you can try applying different Transparency Blending Modes to it, such as Multiply, or Soft Light. It is best to apply a fill color to this object to see the effects of these blending modes

>> Clipping Masks
1 - Open the raster file with Illustrator.
2 - Click 'M' for the Rectangle (marquis) Tool, with View/Smart Guides 'Ctrl+U' enabled, and create a box the exact size of your image and keep it selected. The fill can be any color, but should be blank.
3 - Click '+' for the Add Point tool. Add random points to the side that you wish to damage. Than click 'A' for the Direct Selection Tool and pull every other point of the damaged line into the bounds of the raster to create a tattered edge.
4 - With this, now, damaged mask still selected, press Shift and click inside the raster to have both objects selected (or do a lasso select with the Selection Tool 'V'). Click 'Ctrl+7' (Object/Clipping Mask/Make).

There are probably a hundred ways to approach this..

You could place a raster that already has the edge you want into the AI file, and mask/blend/composite it to your subject..

Theres are also Object Blending techniques that you could apply to the edge you want to damage...

...but that is another story