Create professional comps
Adobe® Creative Suite offers many techniques for creating comps. To create comps, some illustrators like to sketch their ideas on paper and then scan the drawings. Others start working directly on the computer. In this tutorial, we show you a technique for turning sketches into an Adobe PDF comp, and then reusing the sketches to start your illustration. Not only is this technique a quick way to get comps to your client for approval, but it saves you time during the illustration process.
1. Scan your sketches into Adobe Photoshop® CS.
You can import scanned images directly from any scanner that has an Adobe Photoshop-compatible plug-in module or that supports the TWAIN interface. Simply choose File > Import, and choose the scanner name. For information on alternative methods of importing scanned images, see Photoshop Help.
2. Save the scans as Adobe PDF files.
For each scanned image, choose File > Save As, choose Photoshop PDF as the file format, and click Save. Then, select additional PDF options, and click OK.
Because you will send the files as email attachments, you want to create the smallest files possible. We saved our scans with a JPEG Quality setting of 5 to create the best file size to file quality balance.
3. Email the PDF files to your client.
Simply attach the PDF files to an email message, or, if you have Adobe Acrobat® 6.0 Professional, you can start an email-based review.
Email-based reviews simplify the review process by allowing reviewers to submit comments with a single mouse click. For more information on email-based reviews, see “Setting up an email-based review” in Complete Acrobat 6.0 Help.
4. Import the approved sketch into Adobe Illustrator® CS as a template layer.
Start a new Illustrator document. Then, choose File > Place, select the sketch, select the Template option, and click Place.
Use a template layer whenever you want to base a new illustration on an existing piece of artwork. You can tell when artwork is in a template layer because it’s dimmed on the artboard and the template icon appears in the Layers palette.
5. Draw your illustration.
Use the sketch as a guideline for your drawing. You can turn off the visibility of the template layer when you don’t need it anymore by clicking the template icon in the Layers palette or by choosing View > Hide Template.
For our illustration, we used the new 3D effects in Illustrator to speed up the process of drawing the three-dimensional elements in the gallery. We also used symbols and the new Scribble effect to add visual interest to our illustration. For more information on these features, see Illustrator Help.
