Friday, October 21, 2011

Illustrator Pixel Preview

A while back I  learned about a preview mode in Illustrator called "Pixel Preview." I wasn't sure why anyone would use it until recently.

The Pixel Preview is good for viewing Bitmaps.

Bitmaps looks strange in Illustrator if you're using the regular viewing mode, but I recently discovered if you change the view mode to "Pixel Preview" you can see how the bitmap will look when printed.

By the way, in case you aren't familiar with bitmaps, I'm talking about the kind of file you would get if you went into Photoshop under "Image," then "Adjustments" and converted your image to Bitmap mode. Bitmaps are one color images with transparent backgrounds. Screen printers use them a lot.

A bitmap normally looks like this in Illustrator:


They look rough. If I'm setting up a proof for someone to see how their graphic is going to look on a T-Shirt I can't use this. After trying some roundabout methods of getting good images for proofs when using Bitmaps I discovered the "Pixel Preview."

This is how the same graphic looks in Pixel Preview Mode:

This more accurately represents how the image would look printed on a T-Shirt. You can change the view mode in Illustrator by going to "View" and "Pixel preview":


Just change your view mode to Pixel Preview before saving the file and you'll easily have a more accurate proof.

This mode is also useful for Bitmap distress patterns.


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