Speeding up Illustrator "effects" on large files

[Gilligan]

I may have asked this before.

When working on a banner or something if you decide to do a drop shadow and do a feathering or something... rendering is BRUTAL!

Is there anyway to dumb down the "preview" of the effects until you are ready to see full deal effect?  Every time you move or tweak the effect it has to rerender making it hard to work with.

There has to be a better way that I'm missing.  I know in my video editing program I can pick from 4 different levels of clarity on my preview window "Draft, Preview, Good, Best".

Or am I just going about this completely wrong?

[Sbrem]

Preview mode is just wireframe; command Y on Mac, control(?) Y on PC. But since you're trying to judge the image, what's the point of viewing in wireframe? Maybe you could put your drop shadow on a different layer and hide it until you need it, I think that would keep it from starting to render all over again each time you edit another part of the image...

Steve

[Gilligan]

Right.

You can also toggle the "eye" in the appearance window of the effect... But if you are looking to adjust the effect a bit then you are stuck.  I don't want wire frame but maybe a "draft" version that gets the point across without being crisp and beautiful.  Example with feather do you want .7, .8, .6?  Each time you change it you have to wait almost a full minute to render.  Then if you need to nudge it around to sit where you want it you have to wait that minute each time.  I know that isn't really long but if you have to try 5 different settings and move it around 5 times then that is 10 minutes just trying to place an effect under some text on a banner... Time is money.

[cclaud3]

At the sign & print shop I managed, we would work in a smaller proportional scale. 3x6' banner would be 6"x12" in Illustrator. This would make working with effects much less resource intensive. We would let the RIP handle the scaling up before output. We would rarely work in anything close to final scale. You may already be doing this, if not try it.

Second option would create the effects on the components in photoshop then drop all the components into inDesign, still at a smaller scale. Sometimes you need the effect on a large portion of the layout so it may not be as easy as the first option.

[Gilligan]

At the sign & print shop I managed, we would work in a smaller proportional scale. 3x6' banner would be 6"x12" in Illustrator. This would make working with effects much less resource intensive. We would let the RIP handle the scaling up before output. We would rarely work in anything close to final scale. You may already be doing this, if not try it.

Second option would create the effects on the components in photoshop then drop all the components into inDesign, still at a smaller scale. Sometimes you need the effect on a large portion of the layout so it may not be as easy as the first option.

Yeah, that's probably the route I need to be taking... just scaling it up at the last minute and letting them render then.

We are sending this out to be printed so we don't have the control that we would have if printed in house.  So I think it needs to be to full size.

[aauusa]

switch to corel and have no issues.

well not really just had to throw that out there.

But on another note,  I do very large files for full dye jerseys and they can get into the gig sizes easily.  I ended up upgrading my processor, ram, and op system to 64 bit as well as a 2 gig video card.    maximizing all components helped me out tremendously.  just a thought.

[Gilligan]

My system is definitely not a beast as I just can't justify that... but it's not a slouch either.  I am a computer consultant/repair guy.

It's 64 bit w/ 8 gigs of ram and an i3 processor.  Though it does lack in graphics and hard drive (it's not SSD... yet).  I'm running 64 bit Illy as well.  I'll have to test on my wife's machine... she has the beast and is about to get a new machine as well (mainly so I can give hers to my production manager as his is doo doo and he's doing more and more art these days.)

I really think it's just the CPU intensive calculations these effects have to do... I started working on an individual letter to get the rough effect I was going for and then applying it to the entire group after that.  From now on, I will just start small and scale up before output.

[aauusa]

I know in Corel I learned to make the effects a bitmap and you can adjust the size not sure about AI though   

But I have learned the faster the hard drive the better.  Your system is very similar to mine. Except video and hard drive. 

[Gilligan]

I know in Corel I learned to make the effects a bitmap and you can adjust the size not sure about AI though   

But I have learned the faster the hard drive the better.  Your system is very similar to mine. Except video and hard drive.

Pretty sure I'm running built in video card (and a crappy usb > vga adapter for 2nd monitor which taxes the system a little.  But I really don't do much graphics geared stuff.  Most of what is done for screen printing and such (flat/2d work) doesn't need a beefy card, the video cards really shine when it comes to 3d acceleration.  If I was doing modeling or auto cad work then the video card would be more of a necessity.  But for 2d work most of that lifting is done in the CPU.

[IntegrityShirts]

AFAIK Illustrator is still a single threaded program only utilizing one core of whatever processor you're running. Drop shadows and rendering speeds have always sucked in illustrator. Once you apply the drop shadow or effect, you can turn it off in the appearance panel and keep working/moving things around and then turn it back on intermittently to see how the finished piece looks.

[Gilligan]

Don't think that is accurate any longer.  Running CS6 here and seeingn 26 threads being used at times and the CPU in use bounces around a lot.  This is just a dual core machine and I don't really have any files on hand to really tax it.

When I get to my office in a second I mess with the file in question and see what the cpu monitor says.

[IntegrityShirts]

Ahh a quick google confirms, yes CS6 is multi-threaded.

[mimosatexas]

At the sign & print shop I managed, we would work in a smaller proportional scale. 3x6' banner would be 6"x12" in Illustrator. This would make working with effects much less resource intensive. We would let the RIP handle the scaling up before output. We would rarely work in anything close to final scale. You may already be doing this, if not try it.

Second option would create the effects on the components in photoshop then drop all the components into inDesign, still at a smaller scale. Sometimes you need the effect on a large portion of the layout so it may not be as easy as the first option.

This is the standard way to handle it in my experience, or buy a new computer   Mine can tear through basically anything and was under $1k, custom built during black friday last year.  more or less maxed out everything.