Linking vs. embedding images

In this movie I'll discuss the difference between linking to an image file on…disk and actually embedding the image into your artwork.…And we'll see the relative advantages and disadvantages of each.…So I am going to start things off by clicking on this dinosaur photograph.…Because it's part of a clipping mask, I have to click on the Edit Contents…icon on the left side of the Control panel in order to gain access to the image information.…You can see over here on the far left side of the Control panel that this is a…Linked File, and you can also see the name of the file Kingpin and henchman.tif.…

Now as we have seen, the great thing about linked images is that you can modify…them inside of Photoshop, for example, in which case Illustrator will…automatically update the document to reflect those changes.…You also end up with a more efficient document as we are about to see.…The big downside however, is that you're always going to need access to this…original image file in order to edit this document.…So for example, if I click on Linked File, up here in the Control panel, I'll go…