A flaw in Illustrator

I’m not sure why or how, but I seem to have run across a bug or flaw in Adobe Illustrator CS2. I noticed it while working on the next comic for A Little Scary. I changed no settings or procedures from the previous comics. I did every thing the same as usual but all the sudden when I would export my layout from Illustrator to Photoshop, some items would be blurry like they were run through Anti-Alias multiple times. I’ve tried multiple tests and settings and different ways of doing things but I get the same results.

But the odd thing is that the results are not consistent. I created a new AI file and drug the same character PSD into it twice from a Windows Explorer window (just like I normally would). Then I ALT+Clicked and drug each one to make a copy of each. So essentially four identical items all in one Layer in one brand new file. I exported it to PSD format for Photoshop CS2 (just like I normally would) and then opened it up in Photoshop. Two of the four were blurry and the other two were perfectly normal.

As you can see in this sample pic though, it’s not consistent as to which one is blurry.  At the top, the original is fine and the copy is blurry.  At the bottom of this same file, the original is blurry and the copy is fine.  I also tried just adding four different characters to a new Illustrator file and exporting that.  All but one of the characters was fuzzy even though they were all added the same way and all of these characters have been created in the exact same way.

If anyone has any ideas about this, please let me know.  It’s driving me crazy.

Tech tips

I’ve been running across a lot of little miscellaneous tech tips over the past week that I didn’t know about. I’m a relatively computer savvy kind of guy (it’s my job after all), but I was surprised by some of these that I didn’t know. So I thought I’d share a couple of them with you in case you’re interested.

COMMAND PROMPT (DOS WINDOW)

• If you are working in a DOS window and you need to run a command against a file in a really deep folder, I always thought you had to navigate to that folder or type in the path. Little did I know that in Windows XP (if not older) you could type the command you wanted [for example TYPE ] and then find the file in My Computer and drag the file to the DOS window. It will automatically fill in the path and file name for you. Huge help for me.
• Lost your desktop/interface in Windows XP and need to get to Control Panel but can’t remember those MMC names? Just hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and click on Task Manager. On the Applications tab, click new task and type in CMD for a Command Prompt. In the DOS window just type CONTROL and hit Enter and the Control Panel will popup. Nifty!
• Typing NETSTAT in a DOS window will show you all the open ports on your computer. I had no idea that was built in to Windows.
• I just learned MSCONFIG yesterday as it brings up a nice interface for controlling lots of things in Windows. Especially useful is the StartUp section where you can see what programs are starting up with your PC and easily stop them from running without messing with the registry. Good for checking for malicious programs on startup.
• I haven’t used it yet but there is also a file comparison tool called FC that I’d never heard of and used 3rd party software to perform before.

ILLUSTRATOR/PHOTOSHOP

• The more Fonts you have collected on your computer, the longer it will take to start up Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. If you notice either app getting slower and slower, try removing any old fonts that you don’t use anymore.
• When drawing shapes in either application, you can hold down the Spacebar while dragging the mouse and it will move the shape around the screen for you. Really nice for doing speech bubbles around text. If you’re fingers don’t get cramped easily, try combining this by holding ALT to start drawing from the center instead of one corner.

WINDOWS XP

• There are tons of shortcuts in Windows and pretty much anything can be done about five different ways. To bring up Task Manager to see what programs are hogging up all your resources, try pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Much faster than the alternatives.
• The Windows (WIN) key has tons of shortcuts associated with it. I’ve known about these for a long time, but thought they would go well here:
  • WIN+L locks your desktop
  • WIN+M (or WIN+D) minimizes ALL open windows at once
  • WIN+E opens up Windows Explorer
  • WIN+R opens the Run command window
  • WIN+F opens the find files and folders tool
• If you have multiple languages installed on your computer to type with [such as Korean, Chinese and Japanese on mine], you can use CTRL+SPACE to toggle between input languages.  Of course if you are working in Photoshop or Illustrator then this is kind of annoying when zooming with keyboard shortcuts.  Trust me.