Illustrator for Scientific Visualization I – Drawing Scientific Figures

This tutorial demonstrates beginner-level tools in Adobe Illustrator that support data visualization.  We’ll walk through the creation of a poster and the placement of customized data plots, charts, and graphics.  The tutorial is parsed so that each chapter tackles a specific tool or function, making it easier to find the topic most relevant to your work.  With an emphasis on creating data figures for scientific publication, the topics covered here will give viewers a fundamental understanding of Illustrator and how the program may be used to create and manipulate vector graphics.

Learning Objectives:

  • Learn to set-up a new document
  • Learn to edit document settings to fit your purpose
  • Understand the difference between CMYK and RGB
  • Learn to create basic shapes
  • Understand how to handle raster and imported images
  • Understand the difference between the Selection Tool and Direct Selection Tool
  • Manipulate and transform shapes with the Transform Tool and via control points
  • Learn to create custom shapes with the Pen Tool
  • Learn to use and understand the difference between guides, grids, and rulers
  • Learn to use the Text Tool and to manipulate Text Boxes
  • Learn and understand the Graph Tools provided in Illustrator
  • Learn how to export a file in different formats

 

Photoshop for Scientific Visualization

This tutorial series explores beginner and intermediate-level Photoshop tools. For our beginner-level Photoshoppers, the chapters take you step-by-step through three mini-projects. We start with basic document creation, and move onwards to more and more advanced tools as we progress through the projects. We’ve also kept the course modular for our intermediate-level Photoshoppers. Chapters cover a single function, tool, or aspect of a tool, making it easier to jump in and out of the topics you need to explore. In this course, we will cover a wide variety of common, as well as not-so-common, tools and features that will help improve and expedite your storyboarding, illustration, and design needs.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  • Learn to set-up new documents
  • Learn to edit document settings
  • Understand the difference between CMYK and RGB
  • Learn to create text, painted layers, and vector shapes
  • Learn to create different brushes to create lines, textures, and color
  • Learn to manipulate and save paths and vector shapes
  • Learn how to manipulate visibility and editability of layers and objects
  • Learn different color and image adjustment tools
  • Understand difference between different color blending modes
  • Learn to use actions and layer comps
  • Understand how content and file types affect file size