Hot Adobe Illustrator How-Tos « Adobe Illustrator

How To: Use Adobe Illustrator with a Wacom tablet

Every good illustrator knows the advantage of using a Wacom tablet with Adobe Illustrator. When you plug in a Wacom tablet it doesn't automatically set your tools to be pressure sensitive. Terry White will show you how to set your brushes to really take advantage of your new tablet.

How To: Create a falling leaf animation in Illustrator

Ah, falling leaves: They remind of the beauty of nature, fall, and the changing of seasons. And if you've ever walked alongside a row of oaks on the street it seems as if their leaves fall to some unknown, hidden perfect orchestration.

How To: Use the Auto Trace tool in Adobe Illustrator CS4 or CS5

Looking for a quick guide on how to use the Auto Trace tool when working in Adobe Illustrator CS4 or CS5? This clip will teach you what you need to know. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular vector graphics editing software or a seasoned professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and filters, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this free video guide.

How To: Create a cartoon cloud in Illustrator

A great free video training from tasktutorial on how to create a cartoon cloud in Adobe Illustrator. All the project files are available to download for free at the Adobe website. First create a background: select the rectangle tool then create a new layer and draw a rectangle across the canvas. Now select the path, go to gradient and edit the it a bit until it's a shade of blue. Lock the gradient and create a new layer. Select white fill color and 2 point black stroke and draw a few oval sha...

How To: Draw flames using Illustrator

If your graphic requires a little fire, check out this tutorial and learn how to draw very cool looking flames in Illustrator.

How To: Trace an image in Adobe Illustrator 5 without using live trace

This tutorial shows you how to use vector graphics to trace images in Adobe Illustrator 5 without using live trace. Do a manual trace, which will give you a little more creative control over the image you're working on in Creative Suite 5.

How To: Create diagrams and flowcharts in Adobe Illustrator 5

If you need to make some diagrams for a school project or a flowchart for a business proposal, you can easily use Adobe Illustrator 5, part of the Creative Suite package, to create them. This tutorial shows you a few ways to create your own customized diagrams.

How To: Draw a Thanksgiving turkey in Illustrator step by step

This video tutorial explains how to use Adobe Illustrator to create a Thanksgiving turkey. The tutorial delves into tools such as shapes, gradients and Bezier Curves inside Illustrator CS4. An extensive walk through on how to draw and great a Thanksgiving turkey. A fun creation from beginning to end, you'll learn everything you need to know to create this colorful bird, perfect for turkey day.

How To: Create a Twisted Wire in Illustrator

This Illustrator tutorial shows you a way to make a double helix or twisted wire. Using Illustrator and the powerful pattern brush, Bert takes us through the steps from a wavy line to a realistic wire effect or double helix.

How To: Create sparkles in Illustrator

Want to create some cool effects in illustrator? Create a new layer. Draw the ellipse tool and add radial gradient, then go to transparency and select screen. Then create the star tool and deselect stroke. Drag and place the star shape on ellipse and group them. Then duplicate that layer to make multiple sparkles on different layers. Resize other sparkles by holding down shift key. One can change colors of other sparkles. This will help you in making a good background.

How To: Create a lens flare in Illustrator

Ever wondered about the flare hitting your eyes from reflective surfaces (vehicle mirrors)? Let's create one. Open Adobe Illustrator with an image and embed it. Take the flare tool from tool palette. Draw the first shape and then second shape. To change settings, go to flare options. You can change the brightness, opacity and diameter of the flare which will add life to the image(open sky). This will help bring out some cool effects as well as realism to the image.

How To: Create a road in Illustrator

Illustrator denotes how to create a road. First select the pen and draw a path. Now go to stroke. It depend 130. Deselect dash line. Now move our path a little bit upper. Now select our path. Now duplicate of our path several times. Now turn off the new layers. Focus on our first path. Turn on the second path. Change the stroke weight value to 125 and change the color to gray. Now go to the next path. Select our path and change the stroke weight value to 115 and leave the black color. Now go ...

How To: Redraw a pixelated image into a high quality vector image in Adobe Illustrator

If you're a graphic designer, you've probably dealt with clients who sent you the wrong files, like JPG and BMP "source" files. You need to the EPS vector files, but they don't know what that is, and they don't care. They want that image or logo they sent you blown up to poster size for a billboard or something.

How To: Create 8-bit style pixel art using Adobe Illustrator

Copy the popular, retro-style 8-bit pixel art. You can use Adobe Illustrator to create this simple sort of art. This tutorial shows you how to set up your document and how to begin illustrating your project to get that old school feel for your artwork.

How To: Make swooshes & swirls in Illustrator

The first thing to do is open a new document with Adobe Illustrator. Inside the document, make a box, width 200 pt, height 20 pt. Click the bottom right corner with your mouse and hit delete. Then hold down the top right with shift, and tap the down arrow once. Then, click bottom left point, hold shift, join the objects by half. Go to brushes pallet and create a new brush. Click the spiral tool. Use the up and down with the mouse to select range you would like. Select the art brush, and click...

How To: Use the Gradient Mesh Tool in Adobe Illustrator for Vector Portraits

Illustrator's gradient mesh tool is a powerful one for vector artists... if you know how to use it. This tool can help create beautiful and vivid mesh-based vector portraits, as long as your skills are up to par. If not, try out some of the beginner tutorials on WonderHowTo for using the mesh gradient tool in Adobe Illustrator, then move onto mastery...

How To: Make Christmas lights in Illustrator

Learn how to create a string of 3D, multi-colored Christmas lights and turn them into a custom pattern brush that you can draw with along any path. Make Christmas lights in Illustrator.

How To: Create a glossy sphere in Illustrator

Do you want to add some 3D effects in your 2D designs? Open illustrator and draw an oval tool holding shift key. Then draw an ellipse with a different color and place it on the oval. Take blend tool,then click on ellipse shape and then oval one for a gradient effect. Draw another oval with a gradient and give it screen. Your glossy sphere is ready. Adding gloss, specular highlights as well as shadows adds some realism to one's art work.

How To: Convert an image to mosaic in Illustrator

Illustrator is a great tool for creating individual artwork. Creative and clever, it has many functions, one of which is mosaic. If you want to make your illustration or design appear to have a myriad of tiny 'squares' like a Roman mosaic, this guy can help you do it. The short clip explains clearly how to bring the chosen effect to your design. You can see on screen exactly how to do it, so you're not left in the dark, searching every menu for the right tool.

How To: Vectorize graphics in Adobe Illustrator

Vectorizing your graphics will help improve the quality of your content. Task Tutorial helps you out in this Illustrator tutorial by showing you how to take a crappy jpeg image (a logo), clean it up and turn it into a vector graphic.

How To: Improve your text by using Illustrator text effects

In this video, we learn how to do basic text effects in Adobe Illustrator. First, open up Adobe Illustrator and make a new document. Now, type in your desired text and change your font to one that you prefer. To make your text turn into a radiant, you will click "file" then "type" then "create outline". Now you will click on your text then click your radiant swatch. Then, go to "gradient" and adjust your colors to which you prefer. You can now put a stroke on it using the "stroke" tool and ch...

How To: Create a skewed checkerboard pattern in Illustrator

Check out this simple Adobe Illustrator CS4 tutorial to learn how to create a skewed checkerboard pattern. This technique will save you the trouble of having to use the Option and Drag method multiple times. Veerle Pieters expertly takes you through this easy pattern technique. For more Adobe Illustrator tutorials, search for Illustrator on WonderHowTo.

How To: Create a golden award badge in Illustrator

Did your child come home upset that they didn't get a gold star in class today? Well, now you can make them their own award. Watch and learn how to make a golden award badge. Be creative and make silver and bronze too! Perfect for teachers and parents.

How To: Make a six pointed star using the tools in Adobe Illustrator 5

This tutorial shows you how to use the star took and a few other basic functions with Adobe Illustrator 5 to replicate the Star of David on the Israeli flag. Master a few basics of image manipulation with this tutorial.

How To: Use the Perspective tool in Adobe illustrator CS4 or CS5

In this clip, you'll learn how to use and work with the Perspective tool when doing design work in Adobe Illustrator CS4 or CS5. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular vector graphics editing software or a seasoned professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and filters, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this free video guide.

How To: Draw a realistic eye in Illustrator

This two-part video tutorial shows you how to draw an eye that's realistic, using the software program Adobe Illustrator. If you've ever been confused by Illustrator, this video will clear things up for you. The first part of the tutorial shows you the ultra-fast version, and the second part will slow down, with Karl Gude explaining each step of the way. Pretty soon, you'll be drawing your own realistic eyes with great accuracy!

How To: Draw fire and flames in Adobe Illustrator CS4

See how to create a vector flaming box in Adobe Illustrator CS4. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular vector graphics editor program or a seasoned graphic arts professional looking to better acquaint yourself with the new features and functions of this particular iteration of the application, you're sure to benefit from this free software tutorial. For more information, watch this designer's guide.

How To: Create a glossy vector logo or graphic in Illustrator

To create glossy or reflective vector image, you will need to know how to use the offset options in Adobe Illustrator and the basics for pathfinder. You will be creating a vector image that can be resized without hurting its quality. To start select you text style, which be glossy for this. You will have first a white layer, a shadow, a radiant layer, a white outline and a shadow going underneath. In this video the Oh Gizmo Logo! is being used as the template. Right click create outlines. You...

How To: Create a Helix in Adobe Illustrator

This is a 3 part tutorial. Be sure to click on Chapters 2 & 3 to get the full tutorial. In Part 1 of this 3 part Adobe Illustrator tutorial series, Vincent Rosati explains how to use the free transform tool to take the first step in creating a helix with AI.

How To: Create a glass bar in Photoshop

This video will show you have to make a glass bar in Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop is a great program for manipulating photo and adding interesting effects to your pictures. The glass bar is distinctive because of it’s colored shading.

How To: Create a photo realistic mesh shape in Illustrator

This software tutorial shows you how to create a photorealistic mesh shape in Illustrator. You should have a good understanding of Adobe Illustrator since the tutorial is visual only with no text or verbal instruction. If you want to use the mesh shape tool in Illustrator to give your objects realism, this tutorial will help.

How To: Use the Eraser tool in Adobe Ilustrator CS4 or CS5

In this clip, you'll learn how to make use of the standard Eraser tool when doing design work in Adobe Illustrator CS4 or CS5. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular vector graphics editing software or a seasoned professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and filters, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this free video guide.

How To: Make a plus icon in Adobe Illustrator

Learn how to make a plus icon, using Adobe Illustrator

How To: Create your own fonts & types in Illustrator

In this tutorial, user CollegeTut shows you how to customize the shapes of various fonts and text, essentially creating your own custom fonts, by converting the text of any font to outlines and then editing those outlines (bezier paths/strokes). You can modify the points on the path to create different shapes for the letters in your text, or you can manipulate the strokes of the text. You'll create some cool text effects such as text that looks like it's made of bricks, by converting the stro...

How To: Use the Pixel Preview mode in Adobe Illustrator CS5

In this clip, you'll learn how to use the Pixel Preview feature when working in Adobe Illustrator CS5. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular vector graphics editor or a seasoned graphic arts professional interested in better acquainting yourself with the new features and functions of Illustrator CS5, you're sure to benefit from this free software tutorial. For more information, and to get started using this trick in your own Illustrator projects, watch this video guide.

How To: Create a paper scroll in Illustrator

If you aren't familiar with Illustrator software it is very similar to the photo-editing software Photo Shop. This video is a guide on how you can make a paper scroll by using Illustrator. You can follow along with the video and make the basic shapes and then re-size the pieces to look almost exactly like an ancient paper scroll. This would be something really neat to make if you needed a background for an old-timey looking photo or if you needed to make up invitations for a church function.

How To: Use vector smart objects in Illustrator

Using a Vector Smart Object made in Illustrator allows you to keep your type layer fully editable and updating automatically from Photoshop. Use vector smart objects in Illustrator.

How To: Place images inside text with Illustrator

Placing images inside text is nothing new. However, the old way involved converting the text to outlines first and thereby making the text uneditable. In this video you'll learn how to fill your text with an image while maintaining complete edit-ability of the text using Illustrator CS2.

How To: Create a cool blend text effect in Illustrator

In this tutorial, we learn how to create a cool blend text effect in Illustrator. First, open up Illustrator and draw a path, then change the color to black. After this, click on the line and type in your desired text. Increase the font size to 36 points, then select the red color. After this, copy your path and select the duplicate button. Now, move the duplicated path and change the background color to yellow. Now, scale the path and resize, then place on to of the red path. When finished, ...

How To: Create a 3D sphere & reflection in Illustrator

In this video tutorial, viewers learn how to create a 3D sphere and reflection in Adobe Illustrator. Begin by using the ellipse tool and create a circle. Select the black and white gradient, and drag the colors that you want into the gradient panel. Now hold the Alt key and draw a smaller circle inside. Fill it with white/transparent gradient. Select the sphere and go to Object/Group. Now go to Effect/Distort and Transform/Transform. Tick the Preview and Reflect Y, insert 1 copies box and sel...