Transcript:
Alright, so in this video. I’m going to be showing you how to reduce the amount of points on objects inside Adobe Illustrator and I have two objects here to show that, or to illustrate that this one, which has almost 40,000 points, which is a pretty extreme example and then on the left here. I have a deer with looks like 206 points in the document info, and I’m mainly showing the deer to illustrate some of the considerations that you should be mindful of when reducing the amount of points because it can somewhat drastically alter the way the image looks, but we’re gonna start with this giant one here with almost 40,000 points and when it comes to a truly intense object like this inside illustrator, reducing the points basically helps illustrator run much more smoothly, much more quickly. Even as I show this example, it’s going to run very slow because of how many points this thing has so what you want to do to reduce the amount of points in an object is to highlight that particular object inside illustrator, and then you wanted to go to object and from object, you want to go to path and from path, you want to go to simplify, and now it’s going to take just a second to open this up because this is a huge monster of an image and this little bar that showed up right here is the very basic way of editing in this and by default, it goes to about the 3/4 mark, and as you change this, it will tell you how many points it is changing to so in this case. I moved it to the maximum quality, which is all the way to the right. My screen is going black because this is a crazy image, So it changed it from. Basically, if I look at my document info. It was 39,000 something points when I started now. It’s at 11,000 675 and the overall look of this particular image is extraordinarily similar as I went ahead and did that. So if I open up my Photoshop here? Which is the thumbnail on the left side. Is that image that I had opened up in Illustrator right here? The original of 40,000 points is on the left and on the right that same image just contained over. Is that image at 12,000 points? So while there are some really subtle differences in terms of basically the grit of the image, as far as most people are concerned, indistinguishable where you have almost a quarter as many points with a nearly indistinguishable image. So you can make that trade-off and decide if that’s worth it to you, so that’s by far the most easy way of doing this, and just as an example of what can happen if you are really really aggressive when you reduce points, so right, now it’s at eleven thousand. I’m gonna move this bar all the way to the left, which is gonna be the most aggressive change. You can see that pretty drastically altered the way that this looks It becomes much more muddled. There isn’t as much distinction, and while the image has now just seven thousand seven hundred points, which is still a lot, but it did cut down quite a bit from the eleven thousand of this maximum render here, but I think that trade-off wasn’t worth it because the image lost a lot of quality, it lost what it really looked like and the result of doing that, so in this case, just use your best judgement about what you think will look the best, but as a less extreme example on the left here. I have this deer, which can be used to illustrate some of the more advanced options inside this, so in this case. The deer using the document info has 206 points. I’m gonna select the deer. I’m going to go to object and then path and then from object path. I’m going to go to simplify in this case. I’m gonna use a more advanced option, or if you click the three dots mean you for more options, it’ll actually change the way that this looks so here. You have simplified curve and then curve. Point angle threshold and it also below that will say the original amount of points so 206 was the original, and then the new is 39 So I’m going to do is go to the preview box here. I’m gonna uncheck preview. So that’s the before and pay close attention to the deer’s face as you can really see what this is starting to do. When it simplifies, it simplifies the shapes, perhaps a little bit more aggressively than I would like because you lose a little bit of the distinction and character of the original image, so what you can do is increase the simplify curve, which, basically lets it do more aggressive curves as opposed to very simple curves. So to do that, you can move it all the way to the right, which will bring back some of the definition there if I check preview again, So when from basically this where there’s a little bit harsher angles, especially up here and on that ear, and if I go all the way to the right, it starts to smooth out the things to look a little bit closer to like. I did before if I go all the way to the left. It’s a pretty extreme example where you lose a ton of what made the look like the image in the first place, almost like a drastic geometric simplification of some sorts, so generally, when I simplify things, I keep things near the maximum, and it still went from 206 points to 67 points, so that’s really good and then for corner Point angle threshold, basically, the further right, the more definition You get once again in this case. The lips on the deer are once again The shape that they were before it reduced it to 181 points as opposed to 206 Basically, at this point, all it’s doing is cleaning up points. That didn’t need to be there in the first place when I was drawing it, I might have had points that were very, very close to each other, just because the way I was drawing at the time so this will go ahead and reduce that we’re in the most extreme, or if I move these all the way down, it ends up with a really strange looking image, so I basically just play a Rama things. Decide how aggressive do I want to be with the point simplification? And then I can just go from that point to decide what I think is right to do for that particular image as I continue working and in most cases when it comes to a very simple image like this deer, reducing the points doesn’t matter a whole lot because it’s not going to have a substantial effect on the speed at which illustrator runs. If you want to just clean up the points a little bit to make it a bit easier to adjust or work with, you can certainly do that, but in the case like this right side image where it’s a really really intense image with a ton of points in that case, simplifying, it can have a really drastic or dramatic difference because when it comes to intense images like this inside illustrator, especially if you have multiple of those inside illustrator, it can run incredibly slow. It can even cause illustrator to crash, sometimes as you try to move stuff around or make modifications, it freaks out because the amount of points that it has to process with every single movement or change in that particular image so in those cases is totally worthwhile and very valid to do and also abstract images like this much easier to do more dramatic changes as far as point reduction goes. Because you can’t really tell the difference, so we’ll, like, in the Photoshop example, there’s almost no visual difference between these two. The one on the right. This looks a little bit more smooth, as opposed to one of left. Looks a little bit more rough, but you watching this video. I want to even expect you to be able to see that, but when you’re doing is something that represents an actual image, then you can really start to pay attention to the differences that happen and also when you go to object and then path and then simplify and then go to the Advanced Options, there’s also an option to show original path, which will just draw a line which might be kind of faint on your screen, but it will show you the differences between the original and then the point reduction 1 so you can make sure that those changes are changes that you’re okay and happy with before you move forward So that is it for this video. I do hope you found it helpful. If you did find it helpful, feel free to subscribe as I do. My best to keep creating new content just like this. If you have further questions or comments feel free to drop those in the comment section either. I or someone else might be able to help you, but that is all for this video. Thank you so much for watching [Music] you?