As we all know, style is very important when it comes to working in design. A client always wants a certain style in his design or a certain look and feel. The filters in this chapter can help define a style in your work and help you achieve that look you've been searching for. We've seen that Illustrator's vector filters can do some pretty cool stuff, and in this chapter, we'll see that they can do some pretty powerful stuff as well. This hour covers:
Sometimes people don't get the credit they deserve. And sometimes filters don't get the credit they deserve. The Ink Pen filter fits that description perfectly. A powerful filter, the Ink Pen fills objects with complex stippling and crosshatching effects (see Figure 18.1).
Some samples of rectangles filled using the Ink Pen filter.
To fill an object with the Ink Pen filter, select the object and choose Filter
Ink PenEffects
(see Figure 18.2). You are then presented with the Ink Pen Effects dialog box (see
Figure 18.3), where you can set exactly how you want the effect to look. It should
be noted that the Ink Pen filter produces complex fills that may produce large files
and may even cause printing problems in some cases.
Choosing Ink Pen Effects.
The Ink Pen Effects dialog box.
You can even create your own hatches for use in the Ink Pen filter. To do so, choose Hatches from the Ink Pen submenu (see Figure 18.4). You are presented with a dialog box where you can import and export hatches (see Figure 18.5).
Choosing Ink Pen Hatches.
The Ink Pen Hatches dialog box.
For more in-depth detail on exactly what each setting does in the Ink Pen dialog boxes, refer to the Adobe Illustrator manual.
The Stylize group of filters, shown in Figure 18.6, is used to add unique and interesting effects and accents to art. Some, such as Path Patterns, are extremely powerful; others, such as Add Arrowheads and Round Corners, may not seem so important, but we'll see how they too can be used to save precious time when creating artwork.
The Stylize filters.
You're creating a diagram and you need to create an arrow to point something out in the illustration. No problem. Just draw a line and use the Add Arrowheads filter (see Figure 18.7). You can apply one of 27 different styles at the beginning, the end, or both ends of the line. The head of the arrow is aligned on the exact same angle as the line, so the arrow is always perfect.
The Add Arrowheads filter's dialog box.
Looking for that old-fashioned calligraphy style? Look no further. The Calligraphy filter (see Figure 18.8) takes any stroked path and makes it look as if it were drawn with a flat-edged nib--a calligraphy pen (see Figure 18.9). The stroke is converted to a filled path when you run the filter.
The Calligraphy filter dialog box.
The original image on the left, and the stylized image on the right after running the Calligraphy filter.
The Drop Shadow filter (see Figure 18.10) is, in my opinion, the most useless filter ever devised. The result of running the filter is simply a duplicate of your object offset from the original. First of all, it's ugly, and second of all, it can be created in a fraction of the time by simply (Option-dragging)[Alt-dragging] the shape (copying it) and then pressing (Command-Shift-[)[Control-Shift-[] (send to back).
The Drop Shadow filter dialog box.
Path Patterns are way-cool because instead of having just an ordinary rule or even a dotted line as your border, you can create virtually any artwork to follow a path. Any pattern that you define within Illustrator can be used as a Path Pattern (refer to Hour 6, "Drawing Bézier Paths," for details on defining a pattern).
To apply a Path Pattern, select an object and choose FilterStylizePath Pattern (see Figure 18.11).
Then choose your settings (see Figure 18.12), click OK, and voilà!
Choosing Path Pattern.
The Path Pattern dialog box.
After a Path Pattern is applied, it is no longer a stroke or a pattern. It's actual art that you can edit or color as you want (see Figure 18.13).
The stroke before and after the "Rope" Path Pattern is applied.
The Round Corners filter, shown in Figure 18.14, didn't appear to be useful to me at first. I mean, if I wanted rounded corners, I would use the Rounded Corner Rectangle tool, right? Then I realized you could apply the Round Corner filter to any shape (see Figure 18.15). Sometimes the Round Corners filter can be a real time-saver.
The Round Corners dialog box.
The Round Corners filter gave these road signs just the touch they needed.
Illustrator ships with many Photoshop-compatible filters (see Figure 18.16), which you can use on any raster image. Refer to Hour 16, "Working with Raster Images," for more information concerning applying these filters.
The lower section of the Filter menu contains filters for raster images.
Today we learned about some pretty cool filters that can help us in our everyday designs, such as the Add Arrowheads filter and the Round Corners filter. We learned all about the Ink Pen filter and how it can help us make fills that look more natural, and we also covered Path Patterns, which allow us to be virtually limitless when it comes to creating complex borders.
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