How best to use Illustrator with other Adobe CC software

Hey there, in this video, we've drawn something in Illustrator, now we need to use it in other Adobe programs. We'll start with the most common programs, then work a way down to the beads. So probably the best way for all of them is, if I select my fox here, go to my libraries-- If you don't have a library you can create one, 'Create New Library'. I'm just going to grab him, just drag him in here. I should give him a name, I never do. There he is, in any program, let's say, Photoshop I can go to my library, there he is, drag him, got a fox. That works for any of them. InDesign, go to my libraries, 'Window', 'CC Libraries'. 'My Library'. I've got two of My Libraries. I basically got three. So that is a way to bring in these graphics. The pro is that, I can double click this guy in my library now, it opens it up in a separate window in Illustrator, and I can go through and recolor it. I can say, I don't want to choose that color. Hit 'Save', and if I jump back into InDesign now, you'll notice, that's updated, Photoshop's updated. Not this original Illustrator file, just so you know, it's kind of a one way street once it goes in there, they're not connected. I could drag it back out now, and it will be. I've got kind of a link there. 

Now, sometimes that can be problematic. Say you want to kind of not link to the libraries because you're like, "Man, it's connecting to libraries, and it's causing dramas." What you can do is, instead of just dragging it out like that, what you can do is, hold down the 'Option' key on a Mac, and drag out. The difference between that and that is that they're not linked. While dragging it out, just make sure you hold down the 'Alt' key on a PC, or 'Option' key on a Mac, and when it comes out, it won't be connected. Same in Photoshop, drag it down holding down the 'Alt', or 'Option' key. And now if I go back to that original - where is he? there he's there. - and I go and change him to something else, the ones that are linked will change. 

Let's have a look in Photoshop. The link won't change, but this one won't. I often always drag mine out, not connected. I like to kind of have them separate. That's a great way, but there's another way. Most of them, you can just copy and paste, right? Instead of going through that drama, you can just select this, copy it - Do I have a white background? I don't - select all, copy it, and go into-- actually let's go back to this original one. So 'Edit', 'copy', and just 'paste'. 

When you're using Photoshop-- so let's do Photoshop now. So if I paste into Photoshop, it's going to ask me this. Most people go to-- depends if you know or not. A lot of people use pixels, because that makes sense. This one here is the one you want to be using, 'Smart Object'. Click on 'Smart Object'. The cool thing about it is that I get to resize it. Pixels means-- if I do it with pixels and I resize it afterwards it's got to potentially pixelate, so watch this, if I resize this one now you start seeing the pixels. This one though, because I said 'Smart Object' it's clever, it keeps the vector in there. So that's the one to use. 

Let's look at InDesign, you can do the same thing. You can, instead of using the libraries, you can just paste them in here as well. Brings it through as a vector, it's perfect. It doesn’t connect to anything. Just copy and paste into InDesign. Let's look at some of the other ones, say After Effects. I do most of my drawing in Illustrator and bring it in, and animate in After Effects. In here, you can-- let's say we want-- there's a couple of things we need to. Doesn't really matter how you get it in here, you can't copy and paste. You can 'File', 'Import' the Illustrator file, drag this guy in, that works too. The only drama with this, when you bring it in, there's two things you need to do. One is, you need to-- often if you want to animate this in any kind of way it doesn't like that, this is an ai file. What you can do to get around that, say you're doing some animation, and you're like "Man, Illustrator files just don't work." Go to 'Layer', and go to this one that says. 'Convert Shapes from Vector Layer'. It kind of takes into a shape that After Effects likes a lot more. 

What it does down here, is that was the original layer, it's created this new layer, and turned the old one off. We don't need him anymore. So this one here is-- often you can do a lot more effects with it when it's being converted that way. The other thing to do is, whenever I scale something up, let's say I don't do it that way, and I just bring in my graphic, it's just a logo that needs to sit there, but I decide to scale it up, can you see, it pixelates. So whatever original size it comes through it is vector, but it just won't show you, and it will pixelate. So you got to click this option. Make sure you're on this, you can toggle and switch it—

I know this might be hard core, this is for people that know After Effects or at least a little bit. Click on this magic button there, you can see, it re-renders it. It can stress your machine out a little bit doing it. If you need to make it smaller, don't worry about it, but if you need to make it bigger, definitely click that option. 

Okay, coming up to something like animate. Say you're doing banner ad animation, all you need to do is, copy and paste to this one as well or use your libraries. So 'New Layer', I'm going to paste it in. I'm going to leave 'Illustrator Import Preferences'. And there's my little graphic. The cool thing about this is that I can animate it. And let's preview our cool little parallax ad we've ruined with our foxes here. If you're not sure what animate does, it's mainly for banner ads. That's what I use it for anyway. 

Next one, Dreamweaver. So you want to go out to Dreamweaver, this is probably the most complicated, not complicated, but it's not a copy and paste job. So I've got my graphic, I want to get this out into Dreamweaver. Because it's vector, we want to take advantage of the new format called SVG, which is the Scalable Vector Graphic. To do that, go to 'Window', and go to this one called 'Asset Export'. What we do is, you drag it in and you can see, it dragged it in all the pieces. So I'm going to undo that, we're going to group it first then drag it in, so it's one unit. And down here you can say what kind of format you want it to be. So let's say you want to get it out, just the same size it is as a PNG, which gives you transparency. You might go to that option for Dreamweaver, or this is the kind of newer, fancier, Scalable Vector Graphic. You can do that, hit 'Export', and you're going to get the file to use in Dreamweaver. Just go to your 'Insert Image'. 

The last one is Dimension. Dimension is the new kind of 3D modeling kind of program. I'll do that in a separate whole video. So check that out, we'll do that in a bigger kind of thing. This is a pretty cool little addition to Illustrator but it just wants to bring in ai files. Before I go on with my sales pitch, you can switch over next. Say, like the Photoshop, I've got an Essentials and an Advance course that I'm making right after this one. If you're an InDesign user, I've got an Essentials for that as well and an Advanced one, so if you're enjoying, like this Illustrator Advanced course, there's an InDesign Advanced one, and a Photoshop Advanced. 

Another thing you might do, is a good step for you, you might be going to something like XD. XD, we haven't really looked at yet. XD is basically a vector-- It's kind of like a simple drawing program but it allows you to draw really kind of-- looks very like Illustrator, it's very similar except that it has this Prototype option. You can kind of see here, if I prototype this I can make it feel like-- this is a prototype we make in my XD course. So if you want to get into UI design, or User Experience design XD is a great step for you. If you are at this level of Illustrator you're going to be able to do XD quite well, if you do my course. In this one here you can just copy and paste as well and the vector comes through, and the cool thing about it is you can double click on it, and it's still kind of editable pieces and you get to build your XD using the drawing tools from Illustrator. Just kind of adding the interactivity in here. You can see here it's our kind of website mockup. 

I've also got courses on After Effects there's Motion Graphics, Animate Banner Ads loads of Dreamweaver ones. All right, stop trying to sell your things. Let's get on to the very next video.