Know Your "Place"

There is a handy-dandy little function in Adobe Illustrator called "Place."

You can find it here:

If you haven't tried it, allow me to introduce you.

Suppose you want to bring an image into Illustrator, but you anticipate that the picture may change.  For example, I was recently working on a piece of concept art for a contest.  I scanned the drawing and fixed it up a little in Photoshop, but I wanted to add some text.  I like Illustrator for text, so I saved the drawing as a .PSD (Photoshop Document).

I placed the .PSD in the Illustrator file and added text.  After adding the text, I decided to alter the drawing.  I made changes to the .PSD and saved.  Once the .PSD is changed and saved, Illustrator recongnizes that the original placed file has changed and automatically updates the image.

This function is fantastic for certain types of work.

And now you know how to use it.  Enjoy!

BTW, here is the concept art i was working on: