# Illustrator: How to make torn paper look?



## Eclipse2003

My cousin is working on redesigning a business card for a company. The business card they have now has a picture on the left side and then the right edge of the picture looks as if the picture was torn and then to the right of that is just plain white with their logo, name, contact info. Can anyone point me in the right direction to get this torn look? I'll attach a proof here for you to see. Not only do I need the shadow and jagged look, I'd like to have the little tear marks that make it really look like a tear. Thanks guys.


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## Inactive

tutorial on page tear


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## Eclipse2003

Will that work for Adobe Illustrator as well?


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## ebackhus

The tutorial was designed around tools available in PhotoShop. I've used Illustrator a bit, but I can't say with certianty that it can be applied in there as well.


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## v-six

what you're asking for is image editing, not necessarily vector art. Is there a reason that you'd prefer to do this in illustrator?


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## Eclipse2003

Only reason being these business cards are going to print and we've heard that text in Photoshop doesn't turn out as well as text in Illustrator. What do you think? Or is there a way that we can do the image editing in Photoshop and the text in Illustrator?


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## ebackhus

At high DPI (150+) you can create great images directly from PhotoShop that do well when printed. For better quality you want at least 300dpi.


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## Eclipse2003

What about text? I heard text is sort of pixelated if done in Photoshop. If that is the case, can we create the image in Photoshop and the text in Illustrator?


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## koala

Photoshop is used for all sorts of things, from business cards to magazines and billboard advertisements, and can handle text at any size without pixellation. Use a good quality font designed to be used for printing rather than a Windows font designed for the monitor and you'll have no problems.

For business cards, do some test prints at 100, 200 and 300dpi and see if you can tell the difference, and try a few different serif and sans-serif fonts to see which are more legible printed at a small size.


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## Eclipse2003

How do you know if its a Windows font or not? Just see if the font is listed in Word and such?


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## v-six

Eclipse2003 said:


> What about text? I heard text is sort of pixelated if done in Photoshop. If that is the case, can we create the image in Photoshop and the text in Illustrator?


yes.

Create the image in photoshop, bring it into illustrator, and typeset it there. If this is for print, be sure you're editing the image in photoshop at 300 pdi, not the default screen dpi (72). You may not be able to tell the difference, but some grumpy old soul with good eyes will.

Basically, what Koala was saying about the font is not to use a font made for use on the internet or in a word processor. Open up word, type something in Times. Then go into illustrator and choose something designer for opentype (it will have a 'pro' extension). Note the difference, and put Times in the closet with the other skeletons.


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## Eclipse2003

Ok so basically only used fonts that have a Pro Extension like Trajan Pro or something. Don't use anything without a Pro extension? Correct?


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## koala

You can experiment with printouts using different fonts and dpi, but generally the pro fonts look better in print and can be resized without pixellation.


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## Eclipse2003

Ok great. Thanks for the help.


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## v-six

Eclipse2003 said:


> Ok so basically only used fonts that have a Pro Extension like Trajan Pro or something. Don't use anything without a Pro extension? Correct?


You aren't limited to fonts with a 'Pro' extension. I just recommeneded that you compare one of them to what you see in the typical windows font. Pro fonts simply imply that the font has opentype features, and in your case would only be fonts from Adobe, which are fine for print.

If you have any questions/concerns about whether a font is a good choice for print, ask away.


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## Inactive

forgive my blind ignorance, but i have mainly TTF fonts installed, some are listed as open type and some true type. whats the difference? there are also some .FON extensions, but they look like sprites. remember the olden days with the 8-bit computers.


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## Eclipse2003

Ok another question. We decided to go the route of editing the image in Photoshop and then using Illustrator to put the text in. Problem we are having is when we save as .pdf in Illustrator and then open that file in Photoshop to check the resolution, it saves it as 72 dpi. Any clue why its doing this or how to fix that? How do you save as a .jpg in Illustrator?


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## Inactive

what is more important is the size the image is in pixels. lets say you create an image 1500X1200 pixels. that is it's size and then it comes down to the printers resolution. so if the printer prints at 300 dpi, then the image size will be 5"x4". if the printer prints at 150dpi then the image will be 10"x8".

you can get photoshop to work this out for you when you are creating a new image by using this dialogue








you can specify the size it needs to be printed at and the resolution and it will create the number of pixels you need.


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## Eclipse2003

See thats the thing. In Photoshop we created it at 300 dpi at 2.25 x 3.75 (business card with 1/8" bleed on each side). But when we placed the .psd file in Illustrator and then added text and saved as a pdf. It becomes 72 dpi. If we go back to Photoshop and force it to 300 dpi it won't change it right? Also, how would you save these as .jpgs?


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## Inactive

click on image>image size...
on the top of that dialogue it should be 675x1125 pixels. (2.25x3.75 @300dpi) if it is not then something has altered it. 

to save a file as a jpg in photoshop is just file>save as>. in illustrator i'd imagine you'd need to export it some way.

but are you working in photoshop or illustrator?, because i don't use illustrator so i cannot advice you on that.


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## Eclipse2003

Ok we are using both. Image editing in Photoshop then putting the text in in Illustrator. We are going to try to do it all in Photoshop using a "pro" font and see how that comes out.


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## Eclipse2003

Looking at the fonts list in Photoshop they have a little icons next to each (double T, O, and a red A). What does these mean?


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## Inactive

i'm guessing that 
o=opentype 
t=truetype and 
a=that pixel type font.
i asked that question earlier, (no one has answered that yet) but according to six, the O type would be the better ones to use. i'm using photoshop 7, so i don't have those little graphics beside my fonts.


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## Eclipse2003

Ok that makes sense. Thanks for the help. I'll let you know if I have any more questions. Any clue if it matters if the file is in RGB or CMYK for printing?


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## Inactive

it does make some difference to the colour saturation levels if you choose one or the other. which you should use...:4-dontkno 
i always use RGB.


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## Eclipse2003

What about when it asks if I want to rasterize the image when I save as .gif for proof purposes? Should I rasterize or not?

Also, when saving as a high res .jpg it asks if I want to save as Progressive, Baseline Standard or Baseline Optimized for format options. Which do I choose?


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## ebackhus

Rasterization is converting an image or design from something like Vector to bitmap. A raster image is just a fancy way of saying it's composed primarily of set pixels.

I don't remember the new meaning, but it used to describe how the image was rendered in a browser.


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## koala

Only rasterize if you've finished editing it. This will convert it from vector text into a bitmap.

Baseline standard will be fine. Progressive is used for saving images for the web where the image fades into view rather than being drawn on the screen from top to bottom. It's irrelevant for printing purposes.

RGB is used for monitors and CMYK is used by printers. You will see a slight difference between the two, but you can preview both modes in Photoshop to see if they're close enough for you.


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## Eclipse2003

Great, thanks guys


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