Place photos

We had been through this in Lesson 18, when we inserted an image, or rather put it in an Illustrator document, but this subject requires a bit more telling.

To “place” an image in an illustrator file, click the “File” button in the menu bar and choose “Place” in the drop-down menu.

Then navigate to the image you want to attach, select it and click “Place”.

First I’ll talk about the options at the bottom of the dialog box.

You have “Link”, you have “Template” and you have “Replace”.

You use “Replace” when you already loaded an image in your Illustrator file and you want to replace it with another. That is clear.

We use “Link” when we do not really want to enter the selected picture file in Illustrator, but only place a link to this file to make video.

This means that file will not enter into Illustrator, but only a visual link will be placed to that file.

So if you edit this file photo, it will also change the link to this file in Illustrator.

The advantage is that your Illustrator file is not too large (in Kb).

Disadvantage is that when you give the Illustrator file to third parties, for example, your printer, you have to give the picture file in there too.

An advantage of an embedded picture is that you can use a symbol here.

“Template” places a transparent photo in the document, but that we had already seen in Lesson 18.

When a photo is linked, you can see this “Linked File” text in the options bar (1) and a cross on the photo (2).

If you have inserted a photo, there is no scratch over the photo, you have no text “Linked File” in the Options bar, but just the text “Image” (3).

If anyone has any doubt about inserting a picture instead of linking it, you remove the checkmark in the “Link” checkbox, by clicking on it.

If you still wish to add a linked picture, click the “Embed” (4) in the options bar.

Photo Editing

If you have attached a photo and you want to edit it, for example, in Photoshop, click the “Edit Original” button in the options bar.

This will automatically open Photoshop where the image can be edited.

To place your photo, when you return to Illustrator, you will be asked whether you want to make this change now.

Choose “yes”, then this change is automatically updated in the Illustrator file.

If you choose “no”, then you can do it later in the “Links” panel, by clicking the “Update Link” (1).

Here you will find that there are also buttons to relink your file, in other words, select a different picture and edit or select the link. The later is useful when there are several linked images in your document. You only need to select the photo in the “Links” and click on this button.

Featured Courses

• Downloading iPad Apps
• Lesson 1: Introduction to Publisher
• Lesson 65: File Formats