effects

In this two-part article, we’ll take a low-quality digital photo of my youngest son, Sammy, banging on a hopelessly busted piano:

And transform it into a work of otherworldly vector-based weirdness (below bottom). The primary instrument of this transformation will be Adobe Illustrator’s Transparency palette. But while Illustrator can belt out a medley, can it carry a tune? The answer is, yes, so long as Photoshop oversees the final production.

Here's the idea: Illustrator allows you to assign varying levels of transparency to vector-based objects. That’s great because, as we’ll see, it makes for a remarkably versatile drawing environment. The problem is, Adobe's original vector-based technology, PostScript, doesn’t accommodate transparency. And given that PostScript has long been and continues to be the professional-level commercial reproduction standard, this conflict seems to raise a red flag: How can Illustrator make art that PostScript can't print? Read more »