• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

dumb scale question

laserman70

New Member
Ok, I usually set everything to scale in photoshop.

How do i set to scale in AI?

Learning to us AI more and more and enjoy it.
Thanks
 

J Hill Designs

New Member
I dont use illy, but im sure you can:

draw box around your 'scaling object'
compound the path and the photo (im imagining this is like powerclip in corel)
resize to scale
uncompound
?
 

oksigns

New Member
google and youtube have tons of the common questions answered

If your on pc, using selection tool, you can drag a corner and free transform it. If you want it to scale in proportion, hold alt while dragging. Holding shift+dragging will scale it from one corner.

Otherwise in the menu, Object>Transform>Scale

just remember these are primarily for vector art so you wont have options to optimize rasterized art
 

J Hill Designs

New Member
google and youtube have tons of the common questions answered

If your on pc, using selection tool, you can drag a corner and free transform it. If you want it to scale in proportion, hold alt while dragging. Holding shift+dragging will scale it from one corner.

Otherwise in the menu, Object>Transform>Scale

just remember these are primarily for vector art so you wont have options to optimize rasterized art

I was under the impression that he meant 'set it to a scale'
 

laserman70

New Member
I did mean set it to a scale.

in photoshop you can times it by 20 in image size.

Is there anything like that in ILLy?
 

J Hill Designs

New Member
I did mean set it to a scale.

in photoshop you can times it by 20 in image size.

Is there anything like that in ILLy?

in the transform window, where it says W or H (width or height, doesnt matter) add *20 at the end and press enter - make sure the proportion is 'locked' (the chain isn't broken)
 

jfiscus

Rap Master
You need to pick a standard scale that you are comfortable designing at and stick with it whenever possible.
This will get you accustomed to the standard numbers you'll use to re-size between scaled and full-size.
When I design artwork for vehicles I use 1/20 scale as that is what our templates come in at.
I ALWAYS type the scale below the artwork whenever a file is scaled and also usually put it in the filename also just in case.

In illustrator I personally just select my artwork and go to the Transform Pallette and type in 5% or 2000% and hit tab and the artwork scales itself.
The other designer here likes to use the scale tool. Neither way is superior to the other, it's just personal preference and whichever gets the job done easier for you.

REMEMBER: in the main preferences page for Illustrator (EDIT>PREFERENCES>GENERAL) there is a checkbox that you can turn on or off to scale strokes and object effects.
Make sure you are using it appropriately or you will run into issues when scaling graphics.
 

laserman70

New Member
You need to pick a standard scale that you are comfortable designing at and stick with it whenever possible.
This will get you accustomed to the standard numbers you'll use to re-size between scaled and full-size.
When I design artwork for vehicles I use 1/20 scale as that is what our templates come in at.
I ALWAYS type the scale below the artwork whenever a file is scaled and also usually put it in the filename also just in case.

In illustrator I personally just select my artwork and go to the Transform Pallette and type in 5% or 2000% and hit tab and the artwork scales itself.
The other designer here likes to use the scale tool. Neither way is superior to the other, it's just personal preference and whichever gets the job done easier for you.

REMEMBER: in the main preferences page for Illustrator (EDIT>PREFERENCES>GENERAL) there is a checkbox that you can turn on or off to scale strokes and object effects.
Make sure you are using it appropriately or you will run into issues when scaling graphics.


This is not for car templates. We do DOD work for government. The trailers are 36' and sometimes larger.
The sides are set at different scale then front and back. From drawing to drawing the scale changes.. I dont know why.
 

jfiscus

Rap Master
This is not for car templates. We do DOD work for government. The trailers are 36' and sometimes larger.
The sides are set at different scale then front and back. From drawing to drawing the scale changes.. I dont know why.
For drawings coming from CAD like these, most of the time the templates are set to a certain scale based upon what the blueprints are printed out of, not any particular scale.
We do quite a lot of DOD contract work here also, and custom emergency apparatus graphics I was just stating that I tend to use the scale of 1/20 due to the use of the templates received at 1/20 scale. (A lot of the time the trailers we do are paired with tractors which also receive corresponding artwork)
 

jfiscus

Rap Master
I would pick a standard size to save your illustrator template at, or just be sure to name the filename with the scale in it.
Then place it as a smart object in PS and scale it appropriately in PS.

To get it to a standard size, use your transform palette.
Illustrator and Photoshop allow you to use mathematical formulas in the transform boxes. (see attachment)
For your oddball 1:19 scale files, select the object then go to the transform palette and input a *19 after the current size and hit enter.
that will re-size it to full size. If full size is too large, then you will have to use something like *9.5 and then you're at a "standard" 50% scale.

Once you get a standard that you like, either save your file or scale it down.
If it is full size and you want it smaller, use the /20 to scale it down in the same way or I just type the percentage directly in (ie 5% for 1/20)
 

Attachments

  • scale.jpg
    scale.jpg
    10.6 KB · Views: 133

Andy D

Active Member
This is not for car templates. We do DOD work for government. The trailers are 36' and sometimes larger.
The sides are set at different scale then front and back. From drawing to drawing the scale changes.. I dont know why.

We do the same here with our mechanicals, we set the scales different from page to page depending on what
the art is, if one page had a 30' sign and the next had door vinyl and you had the scale both set to 1/2" = 1' you wouldn't even be
able to see the door vinyl. Scale is set and called out so that anyone can put a scale ruler to any of the prints to see sizes.
 

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
I use CadTools with Illustrator

I have a template set up where my layers are assigned a different scale. That way I don't have to have single page scales. I can have multiple pages/artboards and have as many scales as I need, all color coded. If I change the scale of the drawing, I can pull the drawing to the adjusted scale.
 

Attachments

  • scalage.jpg
    scalage.jpg
    50.7 KB · Views: 144
Top