Transcript:
Let’s export out some images from illustrator. So my file here has two artboards. Now if you don’t use artboards or even know what they are, don’t worry, everything I’m about to show you works with the default artboard that you get inside of illustrator, so I’ve got two artboard’s going on just here and I have the Artboard’s panel just here, so you can see I’ve actually given the two artboard’s names. Now you don’t have to do this. It’s just that when you do export out the artboards which we will do shortly, those names actually make it all the way through to the final file names, which can be convenient. Okay, so we’ve got two artboard’s going on just here. I’ve got my layer’s panel just here. We’ve got the sky background layer, pretty subtle, but it’s definitely there. We’ve got the grass layer and then the sheep. Now we want to export out specifically, some PNG files here, so let’s explore the transparency side of things, so I’m going to turn the visibility of the sky off now. If you’re thinking, that’s a solid white. If I go up to view show transparency grid, you can see those areas that were the sky now are transparent. Now I’m just going to turn that transparency grid off, because if you look at it for long enough, you will get a headache, so just remember. The sky is transparent. I’m going to export out. Using two methods. The first will be exporting out the artboards in their entirety. The second method I’ll be showing you will be how to get individual assets out such as a standalone sheet, so let’s go for the artboards as a whole first so file export export for screens. Okay, there’s two tabs just up here. Make sure you’re not in assets. You want to be in artboard’s? So here’s our two artboards just here. Notice the check marks. If you click on one, you will unselect i’t. Click it again, you will select it. Also, you can make determinations of what’s getting exported out from this area. Just up here now. I’m going to push this out just to the desktop. You can, of course, choose wherever you like, and whether you want a subfolder to be created or not just here, but the real magic happens just down here. Okay, so we’ve got a scale factor just here. It’s currently set to times 1 so whatever the output size is, that’s what the equivalent jpeg or PNG file will be so within the scale section. You can see, there’s a bunch of options just inside of here. There’s a suffix which you can manually change or is sometimes automatically populated, and then there’s a format option Just here now I’m going to go with this high quality PNG. Just here you can see. There’s a lower quality PNG file just here, then there’s jpeg compressions of 100 80 50 and 20 and then options for an svg or a PDF file just here now. The defaults straight out of the box are fantastic. If you want to tweak those, you can hit the little cog just up here, and when you do, you can go through the different options and tweak some, but not all of the settings. I’ll just cancel out of there and run with the default high quality PNG file just here, so while we’re at it, why don’t we add a second scale? So I’ll click on the add scale button just here. Lets maybe go for a times two jpeg, and let’s go, uh, an 80 quality jpeg, so you can see. The suffix was changing just there. I could still select that and change that. If I wish to summarize, we’ve selected two artboards and we are exporting out two formats for each of those artboards so that should give us four files in total, so we’re popping this out to the desktop, lets. See what we get, so I’ll choose export artboard. It’s already complete. If I just, uh, move illustrator over a little, there’s our four files just there. So if I just click on this and tap my spacebar to preview which I can do because I’m on a mac just here and I’ll just press my down arrow to go through the files. So that’s my PNG file just there you can see the transparency and there’s the jpeg. There’s the white because, of course, Jpegs don’t support transparency, and there’s my other version just there the PNG and there’s the jpeg equivalent just there and actually just to prove that it’s, um, scaling as well, so for example, the file just here the PNG. I’ll just right, mouse. Click on that, which is get info you can see that’s come out at 1080 by 1080 and if we go and look at the jpeg version, which should be two times Get info sure enough 2160 by 2160 fantastic. So that scaling is working very nicely. Let me just, uh, scoot these files over in anticipation of some new files, which we will create in just a few moments so guys that was exporting out upwards. Okay, what I’d like to show you now is how you can export out individual assets so back here in the layer’s panel. I’m going to unlock the sheep layer just here so you can see I can access those sheet just there and I’d like to introduce you to a new panel. The asset export panel so window asset export is where you can find that now. What you want to be doing is dragging assets into this area just at the top here. So let’s start with this sheet Just here, so I’m going to. [MUSIC] drag over it to select everything like this and drag it in just here and we get a sheet and its shadow, and they seemingly come in as two separate assets. Let me back up a step. Just there what’s going on just here is we’ve got this shape grouped together and we’ve got its shadow down here as two separate elements, so when we drag well when we select both of those and drag them in, they indeed come in as two elements now. If I just grab the sheep and dragged it in, you can see it comes in as a single asset minus the shadow again. Let me back up just there, so if you’re selecting multiple elements and you want them to be a single asset, but you’re not wanting to group them first. You can do a couple of different things. The first option is to actually hold down your alt or option key and drag those multiple elements in and you’ll see they come in as a single asset. There’s the sheet with the shadow. I’ll undo that the other alternative is with everything selected. There’s two little buttons just down here. The first just here generate a single asset from the selection and the second one just there, which is pretty much what we were already getting generate multiple assets. So if I click on that first button just there fantastic, our multiple separate items are now a single asset. Okay, and you can also rename this thing as well, so I’m going to click on here just once and I’ll call this side the side view just there, so let’s go and grab some more elements, so let’s go and grab the, uh, the front view, just here holding down Alt option and dragging it in, and I’ll click to rename this front and then let’s go and grab the jumping version just here, so I’ll select both and let’s click on the button just here and let’s call that gel. Okay, So we’ve got three separate assets inside of our asset export panel. I want to show you a cool thing with this. Jump example, just here so you can see. The sheep is high above its shadow, and you can see that reflected also in the graphic within the asset export panel. Now, watch what happens if I grab the sheep and move it down. That actually updates here within the panel, proving that there is a live link between your assets and what is over here inside of this panel, which if I go one step further if I select a part of the sheet and I maybe re-color it to something crazy like pink, You can see that updated here as well, so that’s fantastic to know. Guys, so you can drag stuff into here. Continue to edit it and still export things out at a later stage. I’ll just back up a couple of steps just there, so we’ve got our three assets here inside of the panel. Okay, let’s come down to this section at the bottom here, which looks very similar to the artboard export options. We saw a few moments ago, so let’s go with the scale 1 and I’m liking a high quality PNG. That’s a great starting point. Let’s add another scale and lets. Maybe go for a, uh, like before. Let’s go for times two jpeg. Actually, maybe let’s go. Uh, yeah, go 100 jpeg. This time you can see. The suffix is updating just there again. I’m happy with the default just there and let’s go and add a third scale. This time now, let’s do something a little different this time as opposed to choosing a preset scale. I’m going to choose width and I can actually specify whatever width I want these to be, and maybe let’s make that 200 pixels and I’m going to put in my own suffix. Just here of dash 200 px, and let’s see, let’s go for a high quality. PNG very nice. Okay, so we’ve set up our three scale options just here and we come down to export and the export button is grayed out, so what you need to do? Is you need to actually select which assets are going to be exported out so as soon as I, for example, click on sizes here you can see, we get that little blue. Highlighting just there showing it’s selected and now export becomes available. Now you don’t have to export these out one at a time, you can do multiple ones at a time, Of course, so the trick there is having clicked on the first If I say held the shift key down and clicked on the last one, I’ve now clicked on all three. I’ll just click away to deselect. Let’s say I wanted to click on a multiple but individual elements. I’m going to hold down the command of the control key. Click on side and click on jump. So you can see side and jump are now selected, but front is not okay, so we are pretty much ready to export at this stage. You guys, Ill just, uh, shrink up illustrator a little bit, so we can see our desktop just out there, so I’ve got two assets selected. We’ve got three scales set, so we should when I hit the export button, get a total of six files, So let’s export that out now. Pop it out to the desktop. Choose yes and fantastic. Look how quick that is. So there’s our six assets just there, so there’s our three jump ones, and there’s our three side ones just there again here on a Mac. I’ll just click on one and tap my spacebar, so there’s my small 200 pixel version just there, and there’s the larger PNG fantastic we can see all the transparency just there, and there’s my jpeg just there and I can see the white just through there and the same is true for these three versions of the sheep from the side. Fantastic there, guys. So we are pretty much done at this point. I hope that gives you some great ideas on how you can be exporting out your assets from illustrator and also getting the transparency. Should you need it? Catch you later, you!