Expert: Amy - 9/1/2007

Question
QUESTION: Dear Amy,
        I have been trying to find a solution to this problem for some time; and my question is: How does one activate "Artistic" and its subcatagories in either Effects or Filter? I have tried rasterizing the images and so forth, however I have been unsuccessful.

ANSWER: Hi Trevor.

I struggled with figuring out the "rule of thumb" about what's available in what mode and on what image for a long time... it's probably because you're working in CMYK mode like a good designer should... most of the artistic ones only work in RGB mode. Adobe finally wrote a page about it in their help file (v CS3). I copied it and summed it up for you below. I hope it helps!

-Amy

THIS IS TAKEN FROM THE ADOBE HELP FILE:

All of the commands in the top section of the Effect menu (3D, Convert To Shape, Distort & Transform, Path, Pathfinder, Rasterize, Stylize, SVG Filters, and Warp) can be applied to vector objects. These same effects won’t affect a bitmap object unless you apply the effect to a fill or stroke added to the object in the Appearance panel; the exceptions to this are the effects in the 3D, SVG Filters, and Warp submenus, and the Transform, Drop Shadow, Feather, Inner Glow, and Outer Glow effects, which will affect a bitmap object. All of the commands in the bottom section of the Effect menu (starting with Artistic) are raster effects and can be applied to either bitmap or vector objects. When these raster effects are applied to an object, they use the document’s raster effects settings.

Important: The effects and filters in the Artistic, Brush Strokes, Distort, Sketch, Stylize, Texture, and Video submenus aren’t available with documents in CMYK color mode. If an RGB document that uses any of these commands is converted to CMYK, the effects remain listed in the object’s Appearance panel but don’t affect the object’s appearance.
All of the commands in the top section of the Filter menu (Colors, Create, Distort, and Stylize) can be applied to vector objects (with the exception of Object Mosaic), but only some commands in the Create and Colors submenus can also be applied to bitmap objects. All of the commands in the bottom section of the Filter menu are raster filters and can be applied to bitmap objects, but not to vector objects or 1‑bit (black-and-white) bitmap objects.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Dear Amy,
        Thank you so much for your quick response. I did as was suggested on the artwork I am presently working on; however, was not able activate the "Artistic" catagory. I shall probably have to start over; i.e., rasterize the image and convert to RGB. In any event, that is very valuable info you passed along to me and I am very grateful. Thanks, Trevor

Answer
Hi again Trevor,

Just keep in mind that you'll want to set your raster effect settings at a nice high number, like 200-300 dpi depending on your final output (print, web).

Another thing - noticed you are working in 9 (my favorite version of all time). I just remembered something that would happen to me. The effects settings would get messed up a lot and sometimes appeared as grayed out when they shouldn't have been!

Try deleting your preferences file - it might help!  If you've never done that:
1 - Quit AI
2 - Locate the AIprefs file on your machine and delete it.
3 - Restart AI.

The prefs file also retains information about your screen settings and other stuff (basically everything you've set in preferences). This will all need to be re-set if you delete it, so if you prefer not to delete it, just move it to your desktop or something to see if this process even helps with the effects/filters issue.

-Amy