[Steve Crook jr]

I don’t use “cue cards”, so my answer might not be for you, but I thought I’d share it.

I use a laptop with an external display (23″ 1080p monitor, actually). I put the display just under the lens so the camera doesn’t see it. When the talent looks to read the screen, it mostly looks like they are looking at the viewer.

Some notes: 1) I use a huge font so I only get 3 to 5 lines of white text on a black background on the display. 2) I use ProPresenter 5, a church presentation software, but obviously Powerpoint will work just as well. 3) External display is used so my screen shows my control system while the other the prompts; just using the laptop screen is fine if it is large enough.

It’s not perfect, but it is much better than my church’s normal projection system. 🙂 Which we have used before. Sigh. Remembering growing pains isn’t fun.

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

Hi. I haven’t encountered this problem before, and I could be way off base, but have you ever tried some form of clipboard management software? Many of the older MS Office products had one.

1) If so, have you tried removing it? (Look through Add/Remove Programs) It may be the culprit…
2) If not, have you tried installing one and using it to clear the clipboard?

Sorry I can’t offer any more advice.

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

I cannot say for certain…

Maybe… Are they both in the same group? If that is the case, perhaps the effect is on the group, not the individual items.

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

It looks to me like your best bet is going to be a couple of “Outline Stroke”s.

Here is what you do:

1) Firstly, let’s be safe – work on a copy of the original file. 🙂
2) Ok, now lets make a working copy of the text. Select all the text, copy (ctrl-c), paste in place (ctrl-shft-v), and hide the original (we will need it later).
3) Convert the text to outlines “Text > Create Outlines” (ctrl-shft-o).
4) Now, let’s start the magic. Ofset the paths of your text “Object > Path > Offset Path”; check the Preview box, enter a value into the Offset box and press tab – play with the value until you get the OUTTER outline. (Make sure you don’t de-select anything.)
5) Use Pathfinder “Window > Pathfinder”, and Merge. Then make a Compound Path “Object > Compound Path > Make” (ctrl-8). This gives you a base for your effect.
6) Clean up any stray paths/points via the layers panel, if you can.
7) Now select your new path, and Offset path again, this time with a negative value to make the path the same size as the inner part of the path.
8) Do steps #5&6 again.

Depending on what you want, you can color these two paths and use them as is. If you are trying to make the outline transparent, select the both and use Pathfinder and “Minus Front”.

Hope these instructions are clear enough.

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

It looks to me like you used the text in a path tool instead of the normal text tool.

I don’t have AI with me at the moment, so I can’t give specific names, but basically if you click and hold on the text tool in the toolbox a flyout shows up where you can choose the various text tools. When that flyout shows up, click on the TOP one for the normal text tool.

Once you have the normal text tools selected, you can then add text two ways.

1) Click & type. Just as it says, click somewhere (although, do make certain that you are not clicking on the edge of a path) and start typing. Your text will show up and you adjust it as needed.

2) Click, draw box, then type. With this method, you create an area type box… your text will not leave the bounding area.

With either of these methods, rotating the bounding box while the text is selected will rotate the text inside.

Have fun!

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

This is normal and expected behavior, and as far as I can tell there is not a way to change the setting.

If you had given us more information on what you goals were, we might be able to help you find solutions.

Such as, do you want the current color to stay what the last object was so that you can apply those settings to the ‘new’ object? If so, select the new object, use the Eyedropper Tool “keyboard ‘i'”, and select the object you want the settings from. Be careful with text though, it also brings in font info and size.

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

I experimented with the sample image for just a moment and got some good preliminary results with the following method. It may save you some time…

1) Magnetic Lasso Tool with options Width 3px, Contrast 1%, Frequency 10 (playing with these may give better results)

2) Trace the outline of the mannequin. You may have to click to manually place a ‘stop’.

3) Refine edge with options Edge Detection 2 or 3px and a little bit of Smoothing. (Again, playing with the options may give better results) {Also, if you put a sample of the final background on a layer below the mannequin, you can use the On Layers view in Refine Edge to see how it will look when you delete the background.}

4) Touch up the selection in Quick Mask Mode with the Brush or Pencil Tools.

I hope this helps speed up your process! 🙂

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

Hi!

Occasionally I have encountered this issue and solved it by methods Jonathon Ziegler suggested in another post in this thread.

But almost always I found the errors to be my mistake or snap not working entirely correctly.

Let’s start with human error. You don’t say, but I will guess your triangles are two different fill colors (if they were the same, you would have used Pathfinder > Add/Unite, right?). The first two things I look at are did I accidentally leave a stroke on either path? If I did I remove it.

Next is snap: I have guides, smart guides, and snap all turned on (usually). Sometimes snap just gets you “close”, not exactly on the mark. Zoom in as much as your version of AI lets you and see if the anchors actually are right on top of each other. If not, move them.

Frankly, the second is more likely than the first these days… I’ve messed up so many times I check my settings before I draw. 😉

Now, if neither of these are the case, then I do as Jonathan suggests: I compensate for Adobe’s limitations. Which brings to mind one last possibility: If one or both of your objects intentionally have a stroke it is a bit tougher, but solved similar to the snap problem by zooming in and adjusting your anchor points until the results look right.

I hope this helps!

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

Photoshop and Illustrator function completely differently; not only are they designed to work on different kinds of artwork, they have to “think” differently to do what they do. That means that very few of the COMPONENTS of the artwork they create and edit are directly compatible with each other. This fact makes it difficult to move artwork back and forth to edit it.

That said, Adobe understands that you may want to try, so they give you the option to export. With “maximum editability”. I downloaded your file and tried it myself.

First, you didn’t embed an image, so I just deleted that layer to continue my testing.

Second, I tried File > Export…; “Photoshop (*.PSD)” check “Use Artboard” select “All” > Export; color model “RGB” resolution “High (300ppi)” options “Write Layers” selected “Maximum Editability” checked > OK. A notification comes up and says “Some containers in the AI document have been flattened.” When I open that document, it is indeed completely flattened.

Next, I ungrouped EVERYTHING (that is a chore, the blends need to be done manually) and tried again (same settings); there was no warning and there were some editable layers in the PSD.

So, tweak your artwork, ungroup and export. Repeat until you get the results you want in Photoshop.

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂

[Steve Crook jr]

Hi!

Let’s assume that you need to stay with a stroked path and give you a couple of options, then we’ll look at something else just in case that helps better.

Stroked Path:

Firstly, anything we do to “close” the gap by closing the path is going to affect any stroke effects you have on the path. It sort of looks like you have a bit of a taper effect on the path, so these steps are going to adjust the overall look of the outline of your brain.

Start with NO objects selected. (CTRL-SHIFT-A)

Method 1: Use the Direct Select Tool (white arrow , A key shortcut) and select the path that is the outline of the brain. Now, select either of the two endpoints of the selected path and then hold in the SHIFT and select the other endpoint. You are now ready to close the path by Object > Path > Join (CTRL-J). That closed the path, but gave you a straight line with probably isn’t what you want so use normal path and anchor point adjustments to get the exact look you are after.

REMEMBER, the outline of the brain may look differently, so be sure your results are acceptable. If not, try

Method 2: Make it a filled path and “close” it with another.
1) Use the Selection Tool (black arrow, V key shortcut) and select the existing path. Object > Path > Outline Stroke – you have just changed your stroked path to a filled one with all those extra points needed. We didn’t “close the gap”, so lets do that.
2) Use your Pen tool to draw another path from the middle of one end of the original path to the middle of the other end (about where the original anchor points were). Adjust its appearance with the correct stroke color and ensure it has a matching “organic” feel. Then outline it, just as you did the first.
3) Select both filled paths that comprise the outline of the brain (and ONLY those two paths) and use Effect > Pathfinder > Merge or the Pathfinder panel if you keep it open.
4) Done

NOTE: Neither option is going to remove that lighter gray background. You may want to add a couple of anchor points (the tool for that shows up if you long select the Pen tool) and move them so that disappears.

Hope this helped.

Steve Crook, Jr.
http://www.stevecrookjr.me

I am a simple creative professional that can get my Adobe suite and a few other creative tools to do what I want. Barely. 🙂