Expert: Kamal Krishna - 8/3/2007

Question
I have created a swoosh shape with innerglows, bevels, inner shadows etc to give the effect of water (it has worked really well). but when I place the image into Illustrator cs2 I loose a lot of the defonition and highlights etc. (it still looks ok but not half as good as in photoshop).

I think it's something to do with the flatterning process because if I manualy flatten in photoshop the same happens.

Any advice would be a BIG help.

Craig.

Answer
Hi Craig,
Here's how to get there:

Get your working Photoshop file (.psd) to the point it's ready for Illustrator.

With your file still open in Photoshop, choose File > Jump To > Adobe Illustrator CS. Alternatively, you can choose File > Open… within Illustrator CS then select your Photoshop file. You can also add the file to an existing Illustrator file using Illustrator's Place command, but be sure to uncheck the Link option in the Place dialog.

A Photoshop Import dialog poses the option to either "Convert Photoshop layers objects and make text editable where possible" or "Flatten Photoshop layers to a single image and preserve text appearance" (see Figure 1). Since the point here is to keep the layers editable (along with any text), leave the option set to "Convert Photoshop layers…" and click OK.

Your Photoshop artwork will appear Illustrator. Now take some time to marvel at how well most everything translates. Layers, layer sets, common blend modes, opacity settings, masks, and even text all arrive intact.
Unfortunately, some Photoshop layer features aren't supported in Illustrator and will end up getting flattened (merged and rasterized) in the conversion process. The unsupported layer features consist of adjustment layers, layer effects, clipping groups, and some blending modes: Dissolve, Color Dodge, Color Burn, Difference, Linear Burn, Linear Dodge, Vivid Light, Linear Light, and Pin Light. Illustrator will do its best to preserve the appearance of these features by flattening the layer with underlying or affected layers.

In Photoshop Flattening process happens best when you use the option from the menu Layer>Flatten Image.

Hope this helped.