- In this movie, I'll show you how to align objects to the pixel grid and I'll explain why it's so very important to do so when you're exporting pixel-based screen graphics whether they're bound for the web, a device, a presentation, or what have you. So, here we are looking at a slide from my Adobe Pen Tools Fundamentals Course. And, let's say I go ahead and zoom in by control + spacebar clicking, that's command + spacebar clicking on the Mac. And, as you can see, no matter how far I zoom in, everything looks absolutely perfect and that's because Illustrator is continuously rendering my vector-based artwork to my pixel-based screen on the fly.
But, that's not how things work when you export a pixel-based image, and that's because pixels are always little squares of color. And so, to get a sense for what your screen graphic is going to look like, you can go up to the View menu, and choose Pixel Preview. You also have that key board shortcut of control + alt + Y, or command + option + Y on the Mac which is based on that shortcut that allows us to switch back and forth between the Outline and Preview modes. Anyway, I'll go ahead and choose Pixel Preview and notice, now, we can see all these choppy transitions.
Now, these transitional pixels, right here, are not blurry pixels, rather they're what's known as anti-aliasing. So, the idea is this. If a pixel occurs entirely inside this white letter, s, it's going to be white. If it occurs entirely inside this blue bar, it's going to be blue, but if it strides the line, then it's going to be some sort of mix of the two. Generally speaking, that's really a great thing, because even though it looks pretty jagged up close, it looks very smooth from far away, and you can see that's the case if I press control + 1, or command + 1 on the Mac, to zoom out to 100% at which point everything looks pretty darn good.
I'll go ahead and control + spacebar, or command + spacebar, click again. And notice, by the way, if you zoom into 600% or further, you're going to see the pixel grid which are all these little lines between the pixels. I'm going to zoom out a bit, here, so that we can see the big problem, and, that is, the perpendicular edges. So, anytime you have a horizontal or vertical line or edge, you're going to get unnecessary anti-aliasing. And the reason that this isn't necessary is because the perpendicular edges fit very nicely inside square pixels.
So, what we want to do is turn the anti-aliasing off for these objects, by aligning them to the pixel grid, and you do that by selecting the objects, like so. In my case, by partially marqueeing them with my black arrow tool. And then, you have one of two options. You can right-click inside the document window and choose this command right here, Make Pixel Perfect, or you also have this icon that's available to you on the far right side of the control panel that will align the selected art to the pixel grid. And notice, as soon as I click on it, all of that anti-aliasing around the horizontal and vertical edges disappears.
Now, you need to bear in mind that not all objects need to be aligned to the pixel grid inside Illustrator. And so, for example, if I were to select one of these curving drops, right here, by clicking on any one of them. Notice that they're currently grouped together. Because we have these smooth organic curves, not everything is going to fit into square pixels. And so, in this case, if I were to go ahead and click on that same icon, I'm going to get a warning that tells me that the selected art cannot be made pixel perfect, and that's because curves always require anti-aliasing when they're converted to square pixels.
But, consider this artwork right here. If I go ahead and, once again, partially marquee it with the black arrow tool, we have some curves as well as these straight and perpendicular lines. Now, like curves, angled lines require anti-aliasing, because, again, they're not going to fit into the perfect squares. But, any edge that's perpendicular, and, once again, by that I mean exactly horizontal or vertical, then you can align that edge to the pixel grid by clicking on this icon on the far right side of the control panel.
And just like that, as you can see, all the anti-aliasing along that horizontal edge disappears. Now, you make take issue with that and say, "Well, wait a second. "We still have a little bit of anti-aliasing "right there along the top of that edge." And that's coming to us from a different piece of artwork, namely this guy right here. So, to make it disappear, I'll just go ahead and click on it to select it, and then, just for the sake of variety, I'll right click inside the document window and choose Make Pixel Perfect, and that final bit of anti-aliasing goes away.
And that, friends, is how you align horizontal and vertical edges so that they snap into exact alignment with the pixel grid when preparing screen graphics here inside Illustrator.
Author
Released
3/3/2017As Creative Cloud evolves, this course gets updated. Check back for new movies, new feature reviews, and new ways to work.
- Opening, creating, saving, and closing documents
- Working with artboards
- Zooming and panning
- Drawing lines, arcs, grids, and spirals
- Drawing shapes
- Creating compound paths
- Working in RGB vs. CMYK color modes
- Creating and applying swatches
- Adjusting the line weight of strokes
- Formatting text
- Building custom paths with the Shape Builder and Join tools
- Freeform drawing with the Pencil
- Painting and erasing artwork
- Painting with a tablet
- Drawing with the Curvature tool
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
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Learning the Adobe Pen Tool
with Deke McClelland3h 50m Beginner
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Introduction
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Welcome to One-on-One4m 21s
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1. Working with Documents
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Creating a new document5m 20s
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Saving your changes7m 46s
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2. Working with Artboards
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Using the Artboard tool8m 6s
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Undo, Redo, and Revert3m 16s
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Artboard tips and tricks4m 46s
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Autoarranging artboards6m 41s
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Artboards and rulers7m 26s
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3. Getting Around
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Zooming in and out5m 59s
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Cycling between screen modes6m 38s
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4. Drawing Lines
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Now, we draw44s
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Creating center guides8m 3s
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Using the Line Segment tool6m 55s
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Drawing straight lines5m 25s
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Duplicating and extending5m 19s
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Using the Move command5m 19s
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Joining your line segments5m 23s
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Using the Arc tool6m 45s
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Using the Polar Grid tool3m 29s
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Using the Spiral tool7m 31s
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5. Drawing Shapes
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Using the Ellipse tool7m 45s
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Live ellipses and pies4m 44s
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Creating compound paths7m 1s
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Using the Rectangle tool5m 40s
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Using the crazy Flare tool6m 19s
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6. Color and Swatches
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How color works1m 7s
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Working with global swatches5m 43s
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7. Strokes, Dashes, and Arrows
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Adjusting the line weight4m 42s
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Caps, joins, and miter limit6m 25s
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Dashes and arrowheads7m 24s
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Variable-width strokes5m 58s
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Combining multiple strokes4m 18s
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8. Creating and Formatting Type
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Text at its best1m 2s
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Setting up page margins7m 54s
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Placing and flowing text5m 34s
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Working with point type7m 4s
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Formatting display text7m 39s
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Formatting body copy5m 59s
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Creating a drop cap3m 39s
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Resolving widows and orphans4m 49s
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Redefining a paragraph style6m 48s
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Creating type on a path7m 47s
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9. Building Custom Paths
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Using the Join command6m 26s
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Using the Join tool4m 16s
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Creating an inset reflection6m 32s
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Drawing with the Shaper tool5m 31s
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10. Using the Pencil Tool
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Creating a tracing template3m 28s
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11. Painting and Erasing
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The best tools for painting1m 27s
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Merging selected paths4m 58s
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Releasing compound paths6m 7s
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Erasing and smoothing lumps6m 13s
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12. Using the Curvature Tool
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Drawing one point at a time1m 46s
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Curvature tool curiosities4m 32s
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Creating quick smooth shapes6m 29s
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13. Using the Pen Tool
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Creating corner points6m 55s
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How smooth points work6m 51s
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Drawing smooth points7m 55s
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Creating cusp points6m 34s
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Using the Anchor Point tool5m 32s
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Drawing perspective edges5m 48s
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Drawing a few distress marks10m 1s
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A preview of round corners9m 26s
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14. Drawing with Round Corners
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Making corners smooth1m 7s
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The round corner widget3m 44s
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Rounding off corner points4m 54s
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Changing the corner type3m 37s
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Rounding characters of type6m 15s
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Decorating an iPhone screen6m 37s
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Reshaping rounded paths9m 40s
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15. Making Screen Graphics
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Saving an 8-bit graphic6m 32s
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Saving a JPEG image5m 10s
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Assigning a copyright3m 7s
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Using the Asset Export panel4m 42s
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Conclusion
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Until next time1m 30s
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Video: Aligning objects to the pixel grid