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Creating special effects in Adobe Illustrator

We can change the appearance of any object, group, or layer in Adobe Illustrator by using filters, effects, and the Appearance and Graphic style panels.

Appearance attributes

The attributes are the properties that affect the visual of an object without altering its structure. It includes fills, strokes, transparency, and effects. We can set the appearance attribute at any level of designing hierarchy.

1. Appearance panel/Graphic Styles.
2. Add New Stroke
3. Add New Fill
4. Add New Effect
5. Clear appearance
6. Duplicate selected Item
7. Delete Selected Item

The Appearance panel is the key to working with appearance attributes because we can apply appearance attributes to layers, groups, and objects.

To open the Appearance Panel, you can do one of the following:

• Go to the windows menu and then click on appearance from the drop-down list.

• Or Go to the essential pane and Click on the appearance icon .

The effects in the Appearance panel will be listed from top to bottom in the order in which they are applied to the artwork.

Show or hide additional attributes in the Appearance panel

A triangle icon will appear to the left of the Item’s name when an item in the appearance panel contains the additional attribute. You have to click that triangle to show or hide additional attributes in the Appearance panel.

Specify the way attributes are applied to new objects

If you want to apply a single fill and stroke to a new object:

Step 1: Click on the New Art Maintains Appearance button inside the appearance panel, or you can choose the New Art Has Basic Appearance from the panel menu.

Step 2: If you want to apply the current appearance attribute to a new object, click on the New art Has Basic Appearance button inside the appearance panel, or deselect the New Art Has Basic Appearance from the panel menu.

Duplicate an appearance attribute

Step 1: Go to the artboard and select the object you want to duplicate appearance for.

Step 2: Open the appearance panel from the Windows menu.

Step 3: Select an attribute in the Appearance panel.

Step 4: Click on the duplicated selected item/button on the Appearance panel.

Step 5: Or you can drag the appearance attribute on to the Duplicate Selected Item button in the panel.

Remove appearance attributes

Step 1: Select the object or group on the artboard.

Step 2: Go to the Appearance panel and select the attribute.

Step 3: To remove the specific attribute, click on the Delete icon . Or Select Remove Item from the panel menu.

Copy appearance attribute between objects

The eyedropper tool can be used to copy the appearance attribute from one object to another.

Step 1: Select the object on the artboard for which you want to copy or change the attribute.

Step 2: Go to the Tools panel and select the Eyedropper tool .

Step 3: Now, move the eyedropper tool onto the object whose attributes you want to copy.

Step 4: While holding the shift button, click to sample only the color from a portion of a gradient, pattern, mesh object.

Effects and filters

The effect and filters are applied to an object to change the looks of the object. The Effects are live, i.e., we can apply an effect command to an object and then continue to modify the effect’s options or remove the effect at any time with the help of the appearance panel. While Filters change the object, i.e., the changes can be reversed once the filter is applied.

Apply an effect/filter

Step 1: Select the object from the artboard on which you want to apply the filter.

Step 2: Go to the effect or filter menu and choose a command.

Step 3: Set the option on the appeared dialogue box and click OK button.

Raster Effect

Raster effects generate pixels instead of creating vector data. It includes SVG Filters and all of the effects in the bottom section of the Effect menu. But the drop shadow, Inner Glow, Outer Glow, and the Feather command contained in Stylize submenu.

Adobe Illustrator uses the document’s raster effects setting to determine the resolution of the resulting image when we apply a raster effect.

To set rasterization option for a document, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open the artboard.

Step 2: Go to the Effects menu.

Step 3: Select the Document Raster Effects Settings from the drop-down.

Rasterization options

Following are the options that can be used by the documents:

Color Model: The color model is used to generate RGB or CMYK color image, a grayscale image, or a 1-bit image.

Resolution: It determines the number of pixels per inch in the rasterized image.

Background: It determines how the transparent areas of the vector graphic are converted to pixels.

Anti-alias: It can be used to reduce the appearance of a jagged edge in the rasterized image.

Create Clipping Mask: It can be used to make the background of the rasterized image appear transparent.

Add Around Object: It can be used to add the specified number of pixels around the rasterized image.

Artistic filters and effects

The artistic filters can be used only with the documents in RGB color mode.

Color pencil: It can be used to draw a rough color image. Using a color pencil, the important edges are retained and given a rough crosshatch appearance.

Cut-out: It can be used to create an image that is made through a rough cut-out piece of color paper.

Dry Brush: It can be used to paint the edges of the image using the dry-brush technique.

Film Grain: It can be used to apply an even pattern to the shadow tones and mid-tones of an image.

Fresco: it can be used to paint an image in a coarse manner using a short and rounded stroke.

Neon Glow: It can be used to add various types of glow to the objects in an image.

Paint daubs: It can be used to access different types of brush sizes.

Palette Knife: It can be used to reduce the details in an image.

Plastic Wrap: It can be used to coat the image as it is shiny plastic.

Poster Edge: It can be used to reduce the number of colors in an image according to the Posterization value we set.

Rough Pastels: It can be used to create an image that looks like stroked with colored pastel chalk.

Smudge Stick: It can be used to soften the image using short diagonal strokes to smudge or smear the darker areas.

Sponge: It can be used to create an image with a highly textured background.

Underpainting: It can be used to paint the image on a textured background.

Watercolor: It can be used to paint the image in a watercolor style.

Blur filters and effects

The commands in the Blur menu are based on raster and can use the document’s raster effect settings in the Effect menu whenever we apply the effect to a vector object.

• Gaussian Blur: The Gaussian blur can be used to blur the selection by an adjustable amount. It can be used to remove the high-frequency detail and produces a hazy effect.
• Radial Blur: It can be used to provide a soft bur to the artwork by zooming or rotating a camera. If you want to blur along concentric circular lines, choose spin. And zoom to blur along radial lines.

Brush Strokes filters and effects

It is based on the rasters, and whenever you apply the effect to a vector object, it uses the document’s raster effects settings.

• Accented Edges: It can be used to Accentuates the edge of an image.
• Angled Strokes: It can be used to repaint an image using diagonal strokes.
• Crosshatch: It can be used to preserve the details and features of the original image.
• Dark Strokes: it can be used to paint the dark areas of an image with a short-stroke closer to black.
• Ink Outlines: It can be used to redraw an image with fine narrow lines in a pen-and-ink style.
• Spatter: It can be used to replicate the effect of a spatter airbrush.
• Sprayed Stroke: It can be used to repaint an image using its dominant color.
• Sumi-e: It can be used to paint an image in Japanese styles.

Distort filters and effects

The distort filters and effects are memory-intensive. Whenever we apply the effect to a vector object, it can use the document’s raster effects.

• Diffuse glow: It can be used to render an image as it can be viewed through a soft diffusion filter.
• Glass: It can be used to make an image appear as it can be viewed through a soft diffusion filter.
• Ocean Ripple: It can be used to add ripples that are randomly spaced.

Pixelate filters and effects

It is also raster-based filters and effects. Whenever we apply the effect to a vector object, it uses the document’s raster effects.

• Color Halftone: It can be used to simulate the effect of an enlarged halftone screen on each channel of the image. We should enter a value in pixels for the maximum radius of a halftone dot to use the filter or effect.
• Crystallize: It can be used to clumps colors into polygon shapes.
• Mezzotint: It can be used to convert an image into a random pattern.
• Pointillize: It can be used to convert the image into randomly placed dots.

Sharpen filter and effect

You can access this menu in the Effect menu that can be used to create a blurry image by increasing the contrast of adjacent pixels.

Unsharp Mask: It can be used to find the areas in the image where significant color changes occur and sharpen them.

Sketch filters and effects

The sketch filters and effects are available only for documents in RGB color mode. Many times it uses the black and white color to redraw the image.

• Bas Relief: It can be used to transform an image to appear carved in low relief and lit to accent the surface variation.
• Chalk & Charcoal: It can be used to redraw an image that looks like carved in low relief and lit to accent the surface variation.
• Charcoal: It can be used to redraw an image to create a smudged and posterized image.
• Chrome: It can be used to make an image that looks like a polished chrome surface.
• Conte Crayon: It can be used to replicate the crayon finish of an image.
• Graphic Pen: It can be used to use linear line stroke for the capturing of details in the original image.
• Halftone Pattern: It can be used to simulate the effect of a halftone screen.
• Note Paper: It can be used to create an image that appears to be constructed of handmade paper.
• Photocopy: This option can be used to simulate the effect of photocopying an image.
• Plaster: It can be used to mold and color the image using black & white.
• Reticulation: It can be used to create a clumped image that appears in the shadow areas and lightly gained highlight.
• Stamp: It can be used to simplify the image to appear stamped with a rubber or wood stamp.
• Torn Edge: It can be used to reconstruct the image as ragged, torn pieces of paper.
• Water Paper: It can be used to create an image that appears painted onto fibrous material.

Stylize filters and effects

The stylized command can be used only in the RGB color mode.

• Glowing Edge: It can be used to identify the edge of color and adds a neon-like glow to them.

Textures filters and effects

It is also raster-based and can be available only with the RGB mode.

• Craquelure: It can be used to paint an image onto a high relief plaster surface.
• Grain: It can be used to add texture to an image by simulating different kinds of grain. Such as regular, soft, sprinkle, clumped, contrasty, enlarged, stippled, horizontal, vertical, or speckle.
• Mosaic Tiles: It can be used to draw an image that looks like made up of small chips or tiles.
• Patchwork: It can be used to break an image into a square filled with predominant color in a specific area of an image.
• Stained Glass: It can be used to repaint an image as a single-colored adjacent cell that is outlined in the foreground color.
• Texturizer: It can be used to apply a texture we select or create an image.

Use texture and glass surface control

To use the texture and glass effect in illustrator, follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to the effect menu and click on filters/effect.

Step 2: On the filter or effect’s dialogue box, select a texture type from the Texture Pop-up menu.

Step 3: Choose one of the following:

• You can drag the Scaling slider to enlarge or reduce the effect on the bitmap image’s surface.
• For the adjustment of the depth of the textured surface, drag the relief slider.

Drop Shadows

Step 1: Open an Artboard and select the object or group for which you want to create a shadow.

Step 2: Go to the effect menu.

Step 3: Click on the Stylize from the drop-down menu then select Drop Shadow or Filter from the sub-menu.

Step 4: Now select the Stylize and then click on the Drop Shadow.

Step 5: From the available options, select one and click on the OK button.

• Mode: This option is used to specify the blending mode for the drop shadow.
• Opacity: It can be used to specify the percentage of opacity needed for the drop shadow.
• X Offset and Y Offset: It can be used to specify the distance of the shadow from the object.
• Blur: It can be used to specify the distance from the edge of the shadow where you want the blur to appear.
• Color: It can be used to specify the color for the shadow.
• Darkness: It can be used to specify the percentage of black you want to be added for the drop shadow.

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