PrePressProduction.com / tips / illustrator

So you get an EPS file with an embedded image, and you want to find out what resolution the image was embedded at. How do you do it? In recent versions of Illustrator, selecting "information" from the Links palette only shows how the image was scaled. It does not show the resolution of the image.

Well, it turns out Illustrator always imports artwork at 72 ppi. You can test this yourself. Save a Tiff or EPS that is 1"x 1" at 300 ppi in Photoshop, and then place the image in Illustrator. If you embed the image and then select "information" in the Links palette, you'll notice that it says the image is scaled down, even though you did no such thing! That's because Illustrator imported the image at 72 ppi (approximately 4.2" x 4.2") and automatically scaled it down to be at the correct 1" x 1" size.

So, the next time you need to find the resolution of an embedded image, find out how much it was scaled, and then scale it back to 100%. You can then copy and paste the image into Photoshop at 72 ppi. Illustrator 10 users can download a free AppleScript from Graffix that will automatically un-transform an embedded image.

Global vs. non-global colours

Global colours are linked to the swatch pallette, so that if you change a colour swatch, all objects coloured with that swatch will also change. Non-global colours apply only to the object selected, and must be changed manually. Also, when copying and pasting, only global colour swatches will be carried over to other documents. Always have your colours selected as global, whether they are spot or process; it will not affect how the colours separate.

Photoshop 5.5 and Illustrator 9

Photoshop 5.5 does not recognize EPS files saved from Illustrator 9: Make sure you downsave them as version 8 EPS files.

Related links:
Tutorials (Adobe)
Support database (Adobe)
Special report on version 9 (Macintouch)

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