Expert: Amy - 8/29/2004

Question
Amy:

imac 450, OS 9.2.1, illustrator 10, photoshop 7

I'm back for more advice.  Can you emboss a graphic in Illustrator?  I have been exporting  illustrator files to photoshop so that I can use the embossing feature.  I was told that you can do embossing using illustrator but I haven't been able to find out how.

thanks.,
Ron

Answer
Hi Ron,

I never was able to open any of your files that last time.

Um, anyway, if you are very good at it, you can use a combination of outline stroke, offset path, and the Effects>Stylize>inner and outer glow filters and drop shadows to create a believable beveled or embossed effect on vector objects.  You can also use various artistic effects (Sketch>Plaster) on your objects.

But the bad thing is that your document color mode must be RGB for these artistic filters to be functional. Then you have to flip flop back and forth between the color modes and convert your objects between modes, too.  Because at the end, if it's headed for print, it has to be CMYK. It's involved, at the least.

Honestly I feel that the fastest way is to proceed as you have been - use PhotoShop and create a CMYK raster object that will separate properly. I believe that anything you can create in Illustrator will need to be flattened before RIPing anyway.

From reading the chatter, I believe that Adobe should probably improve this in their next version.

-Amy