[InkedApparel]

I do screen printing and most of the work I do is in Photoshop. I would like to learn how to distress text in Illustrator ..I have read a few tutorials on this and get stuck when using the subtract back and the subtract front options in the pathfinder toolbox.

when I do the subtract back or front all that happens is the distress part gets deleted.

anyone know how to get this done in Illustrator?

Inked

 

[miktoxic]

when I do the subtract back or front all that happens is the distress part gets deleted.

Inked

but isn't that what you want to happen?

can you post an image of the final result you want so we might be able to help?

 

[InkedApparel]

hahahaha!....i mean all the distress part gets deleted and the text isnt touched......if I post a pic of the final image all it will be is a pic of the text untouched.......

Inked

 

[Skinbus]

Unless you want to learn distressing as a tool, you can get distressed fonts from numerous online sources for free.

 

[InkedApparel]

I want to learn distressing as a tool....not just fonts

Inked

 

[dot-tone]

It's hard to explain in one post, but distressing type can be done many ways. You can lay a white bitmap textur from photoshop overtop and print for one, then you can actually change the type like you are doing.

For how you are doing it, ( the distressed part) what is its source? Is it a placed texture from photoshop or is it vector art that you want to knock out of the type? From the sounds of how y ou are doing it, you must be using vector art. You can do it the other way, (with a placed texture).

Without going thru them in front of me, I suggest trying each different section in the path finder options. Apply one, if it's not it, then undo and apply the next. Be careful to also view in key line as well. Sometimes it looks like nothing happened but it did and the result took your colors away. So your art might have been changed how you need it but shows no chance. You select the area in key line and color again. Sometimes that works.

 

[miktoxic]

in illustrator place text. with text selected create outlines (type>createoutlines)

in my example i'm using a splatter brush from the brush library. using the brush tool i just make a 'swash' and end up with splatter. to make this editable you have select the splatters and go to object>expand appearance. i just learned this from a fellow forum member. i don't know for sure but unless an object has a fill the pathfinder options won't work on it. but after 'expanding' say strokes or lines it WILL work correctly.

then change the fill so you can see the what you're doing with the spatters. in the example below i selected a fill area that i didn't like:

then deleted it leaving me with this:

then i moved and contracted the selection box of the splatters until i was happy with it (knowing where the spatters would be removed in the text and this is my final positioning:

then i select the splatters first and while holding down the shift key select the 'R' object. then go to pathfinder window and select minus front then expand.

-tim.

 

[miktoxic]

and if you wanted to do the efect using the pencil or pen tools (making strokes) and have it work using the pathfinder tools you have to do these steps.

so i just scribbled using the pencil tool beside a square filled with black:

then i placed the scribbles over the square

then using the pathfinder tool selected minus front and this is what i got:

the problem is i didn't add a stroke to the scribble (no fill) and didn't use the expand command.

after adding the stroke and using the expand command the expand options window will pop up asking exactly what you want to expand. in this case just the stroke. then using the pathfinder minus front then expand i get what i wanted:

i learned this other day from ProSepatorNJ. there is a ton of stuff i still don't know about illustrator. but when i finally learn it from either months of trying different things or learning from someone else or a tutorial etc. etc. it's kinda cool in my books.

 

[royster13]

I am no pro in Illustrator, but most of that I know came from Googling questions on YouTube.....

 

[Blackroot]

I made a quick tutorial too on a simple distressing technique for printing without a white under base

Distressing Tutorial

 

[Skinbus]

I want to learn distressing as a tool....not just fonts

Inked

Distress is done easily with brushes. Pick a distress brush, illustrator has to have them, just click on the areas until you get the desired amount of distress or you can do it with spray paint. This is just a quick example.

 

[miktoxic]

Distress is done easily with brushes. Pick a distress brush, illustrator has to have them, just click on the areas until you get the desired amount of distress or you can do it with spray paint. This is just a quick example.

i think he wants to knock out the color, not just use a brush to paint on top of the image, which can leave remnants of the stroke outside the image.

 

[smellvir]

There is a real easy way to distress.

1. Object or Text that you turned into outlines and the distress object above it same layer.
2. select all objects
3. In the transparency window click on mask
4. In the transparency window un-tick clip and tick invert mask