Expert: Amy - 5/30/2009

Question
Hiya,

I have a large vector drawing in illustrator and a large image file in photoshop, with lots of layers. I want to combine the 2, and I can't loose any of the vector detail so definately can't rasterize. I've been trying to 'place' the photoshop file into illustrator, but gets so so big and slow that I can't even use preview mode in illustrator. I dont need the photoshop layers, so i have placed without layers. I have tried saving the photoshop file as a tiff but it makes no difference, if anything its worse. Is there any other way of doing this, or any settings I can change? Currently I am sitting at my laptop for hours at a time while illustrator struggles to do anything..and often it just gives up!

I dont need to work on the file much, its mainly for print.

Oh yes and i'm on a new macbook pro with CS3.

Thank you!

Claire

Answer
Hi Claire,

Are you selecting the LINK option when you place the file? And it still slows your machine to a crawl?

If your machine can't handle the large file, why don't you create a low-resolution JPEG of the PhotoShop Image and place it into the Illustrator as a placeholder.

Then, when it's time for print, replace the placeholder with the real image and save.

That's what I would do!

-Amy