ACG112 Electronic Illustration

Begin Classmates project

• Goal of this project
  • Create a single document containing photos and brief descriptions of all the students in the class.
  • In today's lab session we will complete the first three steps of the project, which will be continued in the following classes.
• First step--text entry.
  • Each person in the class will be responsible for typing up a brief biography of themselves--two or three paragraphs mentioning prior experience with computers, reasons for learning electronic illustration, expectations for the class.
  • Launch Illustrator by double-clicking on its icon, located in the "Illustrator" folder in the "Drawing" folder on the hard drive of your computer.
  • If you don't have a new, Untitled document on the screen, use the File-->New command.
  • File-->Save As. Call this file "YourName-Illustrator" and save it on the desktop of your computer. Use File-->Save every five minutes or so afterwards.
  • If the Toolbox is not visible, bring it up with Window-->Show Toolbox. Select the Text tool (the one with the "T") and drag a dotted box on the page (this is your type block). Type your bio file at the flashing insertion point that appears.
    • Use the magnifier glass tool to enlarge your view of the type.
    • Use standard selection and cut-and-paste techniques to edit text as needed (you will need the text tool to do this).
  • When done, export your bio to a text file that others in the class will later use:
    • Deselect all.
    • File-->Export. In the dialog box, type "YourName-Text", select "Text" from the "Format" pop-up menu, then export to the desktop.
      • In the "Choose a Format" dialog which appears afterwards, choose "ASCII-Mac".
• Second step--use the scanner to create your portrait picture file.
  • Go to the black&white (Apple) scanner station. If it is not up and running, make sure the scanner is on, then turn on the computer connected to it.
  • Place a photo of yourself (a picture ID will do) face down on the glass of the scanner, towards the edge closest to the hinge of the lid. Close the lid.
  • Start the program "Ofoto" (in the "Scanner" folder on the hard drive).
  • If the "Scan Controls" palette is not visible, use Windows-->Show Scan Controls. If the palette does not display the "Manual" button, use Options-->Expert Controls On.
  • In the "Scan Controls" palette, check the "Manual" button to make the controls available. Set them to: Scan Bits 4 and Print Bits 8; Scan Dpi and Print Dpi 100.
  • Click <Prescan> to locate your photo on the scanner. As soon as the preview image shows your photo in its entirety, you may click <Stop>.
  • Click and drag the edges of the flashing selection box to resize it until it encloses only the preview of your photo.
  • Use Image-->Tone-->Brightness & Contrast and adjust the sliders as needed.
  • Click <Scan>. The scanner will proceed to read your photo into the computer.
  • When the scan is completed, use File-->Save; select "TIFF" and "LZW Compression" from the pop-up menus at the bottom of the Save dialog box; type "YourName-Photo" for the file name; click <Save>
  • Close the window with your scanned image. Make sure to copy your photo file to one of your floppy disks, and to make a backup copy on a second disk. Return to your computer to continue the project.
• Third step--import your photo into a FreeHand document:
  • If Illustrator is still running, use File-->Quit to free up memory. Launch FreeHand by double-clicking on its icon, located in the "FreeHand" folder in the "Drawing" folder on the hard drive of your computer.
  • Use the File-->New command to create a new, Untitled document.
  • File-->Import. Find the file "YourName-Photo" on the disk and open it. Click on the page where you want to place the upper-left corner of your photo
  • File-->Save. Call this file "YourName-FreeHand".
  • Do NOT throw away your picture file from your disks, as FreeHand will still need it to handle the photo correctly.
• After these three steps are completed
  • Consider spending some time poking around in Illustrator and FreeHand (now that you know where they are). You can't break anything, and you might make interesting discoveries.
• Before leaving
  • Make sure you have copies of all your files (an Illustrator file, a Text file, a TIFF file, and a FreeHand file) on both your original and backup floppy disks. Remove any files you have created on the hard drive by dragging them to the trash.