Learn Adobe Photoshop - From Illustrator to Photoshop and Back Again!

By David Peters

Illustrator and Photoshop are remarkable programs individually, but when they are both used together toward a common goal the results are nothing less than amazing. Artists can utilize features from both programs to create stunning artwork for publication. There are three basic methods for moving a document between Photoshop and Illustrator.

You can "place" a Photoshop image into an Illustrator document, or place Illustrator artwork into a Photoshop file a using the File - Place command in either program. This is the "time-honored" method of moving a file into the other program. The only caveat is that the image (or artwork) must be in a file format that the other program can read.

Photoshop is very adaptable at reading various file formats. Illustrator has a few more restrictions in the formats it recognizes, but once a Photoshop file is in an understandable format (i.e. TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.) using the File - Place command with the desired image is simple. Illustrator will "place" this image inside the Illustrator file and allow you some manipulation of the file in Illustrator.

The second way to convert a Photoshop file into Illustrator (or vice versa) is the Clipboard method. Simply copy the file elements you want from one program using the Copy command, and paste it into the other program using the Paste command. The Copy-Paste method does come with certain limitations. It does not work as well for files of large size and you can easily overload the receiving program by pasting a large file into it.

The third method for converting a file from one program into the other is dragging and dropping. To perform this method, both programs must be open. Decide on the artwork you want to transfer, and simply drag it out of the Photoshop window onto the Illustrator window. To take Illustrator art into Photoshop, simply select the artwork from an open Illustrator window, drag it to an open Photoshop window and drop it into Photoshop.

One last tip is that you can place paths from Photoshop to Illustrator files by using the Path Selection tool in Photoshop. With this feature, simply pick the paths you want to move and paste them into Illustrator.

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