Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 10/6/2008

Question
Hello, I have a quick question for you

Im using Illustrator CS3 to create an inner glow and drop shadow effect on a shield that I created. However, when I go to the live effects menu to select the effects, they are not there.The only one that is there is glowing edges.

I went into illustrator's main folder, and then went into the folder for plugins. I see that illustrator uses a PS file for all photoshop plugins that are in it. so I compared that file to the one that is in photoshop's plugin folder, and I noticed that the sizes were different, so I copied the one from photoshop into illustrator's plugin folder, but the effects still dont show up.

How do I add them to illustrator? I searched the net looking for the plugins,but I was unable to find anything.

Your help on this would be highly appreciated. Thank you  

Answer
Hi Ishnock,

Im a little puzzled as to why you cannot use the effects under the Effects Menu. First make sure you have the object selected. Sounds silly, but you never know. Then go to Effects>Stylize and you should have access to all effects.

NOTE: Do not go to the Photoshop Effects or Filters as these are different and only to be used on raster images (and I wouldn't do that either - always use Photoshop Filters in PS is my motto).

There is no way to "add" these back into Illustrator without a full uninstall and reinstall as they are loaded upon installation. However, I think if you check the Effects>Stylize you will find that they are there. If you do not even see the list of effects, then you are truly missing them, but if they are just grayed out and unaccessible, let me know and I can troubleshoot your document.

Thanks

Kevin