Freehand to Illustrator Help
mbennett2 (425 pencils) | Wed, 2008-05-07 17:51I have in front of me some old technical illustrations that were done in Freehand. My task is to darken the coloring of the gradients in these illustrations.
I don't work in Freehand, don't want to work in Freehand. The problem, as it has always been, is that when gradients are brought into Illustrator from Freehand, they are broken up into umpteen little slices of slightly different shades to simulate the original gradient. Normally I would just recreate the gradient in illustrator or work in Freehand, but on this job, I don't have the time to do that. There are simply too many to do.
My question is if there is any way to convert or save a Freehand file that will open with an Illustrator style gradient when opened in Illustrator?
Commenting on this Forum topic is closed.
Aldus Freehand!? My sympathies...I *LOATHE* that program. Had to deal with that crap when working with a designer in Kansas.
In regards to the banding, what version of Illustrator have you pulled it into? I've found that some of these issues disappear based on that.
ciao
3dogmama
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
Macromedia Freehand (may be the same thing, I dunno)
We had an illustrator working for us for a long time in a freelance capacity and he only worked in Freehand. Pain in the rear. I'm glad Adobe won that battle.
Sorry. You're right. I was recalling PageMaker. Glad you fixed the prob.
Cheers.
3dogmama
"Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised." - James Thurber
Nevermind.
I found a document on Adobe dealing with migration from Freehand to Illustrator. Apparently exporting as .fh9 will preserve linear gradients in Illustrator.
Anyhow, the document contains useful info on other topics relating to these migration issues, so I will post the link for future generations to stumble upon.
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/illustrator/articles/illcs2ip_fhilltech/illcs2ip_fhilltech.pdf
How about also saving out as eps from FH to Illustrator?
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
Saving as an eps out of FH doesn't preserve the gradients, it expands them. So essentially what you end up with is a bunch of slices, all of which have a slightly different solid color in them. If you want to edit them, you have to click each box one at a time and manually change the colors.
Open the document in Freehand. Yes. Freehand.
Select the elements with the gradients. Command A selects all.
Go under the Xtras menu: Colors/Darken Colors.
Done.
Save.
Open Illustrator and open the Freehand file (CS3 will open native Freehand files). Save as an illustrator file.
Terrell Thornhill
e-zign Design Group
I appreciate the response, but I need more control over the colors/gradients than simply hitting Colors/Darken Colors.
But the solution is actually listed above. The problem was that the files were coming to me saved as a FH EPS. All I need to do is save them as FH9 and they will open with the gradients intact.
Good to know. :)
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
I am pretty sure you can fix the gradient problems in photo shop, it will come out professionally if you do it correctly
Um yeah, except you will no longer have a vector gradient.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust