Illustration How-Tos

Make Vector Splashes

Get all Jackson Pollock and make a splash -- literally. Then use Illustrator's easy Live Trace feature to bring your art into the digital world.

Transform a Busy Photo into a Strong Silhouette

When you want a clean, strong image for a print or Web project, use Illustrator to turn a photo into a striking silhouette.

How to Break into T-Shirt Design

T-shirt design is huge, and thanks to online stores like Threadless, you don't have to open a brick-and-mortar storefront or even build your own Web site to see success.

Illustrator How-to: This Technique is a Real Knockout

Thanks to the Knockout Group checkbox in the Transparency panel, you can accomplish the seemingly impossible in Illustrator.

Illustrator How-to: Why the Appearance Panel Rocks

Although the Appearance panel has been around since Illustrator 9, many people don't realize how helpful it really is. This tutorial gets you up to speed.

Turn Color Photos into Duotones in Photoshop

You can transform one photograph into a wide variety of duotones to use in print or on the Web.

Add Strokes to Placed Images in Illustrator

Because placed images in Illustrators aren't vector shapes, you have to know these insider tricks if you want to apply a stroke, or keyline, around the images.

Round Corners Quickly in Illustrator

With this how-to, a free corner style library, and a free Action, you can round one, two, three, or four corners in no time.

Make Illustrator Behave!

Yesterday, you resized an Illustrator text frame and the text reflowed, staying the same size. Today, you enlarged an Illustrator text frame and the text grew right along with it. How do you force Illustrator to act the way you want it to?

Using Public Domain Images for Art

With the help of Adobe Illustrator, you can adapt fantastic old images that aren't copyrighted and use them for your own projects -- for free!

Illustrator Type Tricks: A Frolic on the Far Side

These techniques for "enhancing" your type will have your mild-mannered fonts cowering in fear as you take them to places they dared not ever go.

Understanding Illustrator's 9-Slice Scaling

What is it? How do you use it? And is this new feature good for print or the Web?

I Bleed for You

If you're dealing with artwork that's missing a bleed allowance, you're not out of luck. Cleverly fake it in Illustrator and Photoshop.

Create the Layered Look in Photoshop

Stack several shades of one color to turn a so-so photo into a trendy illustration.

Illustrator How-To: Quick Tips for Great Results

Looking for the best ways to make hanging indents, place multiple images at once, or customize views of your Illustrator files? You've come to the right place!

Use Illustrator and Photoshop Together For Unique Effects

To create a background that looks like Pop art (or a halftone screen!), try this easy how-to.

Illustrator How-To: White Overprint Gotchas

You know that white shouldn't be set to overprint. But what about objects that already had the overprint, and later were changed from black to white? They can cause real trouble. Here's how to find 'em and fix 'em.

Illustrator How-To: Retain Spot Colors without Losing Your Marbles

Are you using Photoshop to create something with both transparency effects and spot colors? You may be better off with Illustrator instead.

How To Map Artwork onto 3D Objects with Illustrator

Using Illustrator symbols, you can map artwork onto 3D objects you create. Here's how!

Illustrator How-To: No More Boring Graphs EVER

Why settle for dull data when you can use Adobe Illustrator to make graphs so visually appealing that they practically jump off the page?