To compensate for potential gaps between colors in artwork, print shops use a technique called trapping to create a small area of overlap (called a trap) between two adjoining colors. You can use a separate, dedicated trapping program to create traps automatically, or you can use Illustrator to create traps manually. DirectPrefs is a completely free plugin that seamlessly integrates into Adobe Illustrator. It gives you access to Illustrator's most useful preferences via one simple panel, plus set-up time-saving custom settings. Trap Colored Outline icons PNG, SVG, EPS, ICO, ICNS and Icon Fonts are available. Icons are in Line, Flat, Solid, Colored outline, and other styles. Download free and premium icons for web design, mobile application, and other graphic design work. Download Trapcode Shine - A complex graphic plugin that you can use within Adobe After Effects or Premiere Pro for designing appealing light rays for your projects. Instant Trapper is the new interactive trapping tool from EskoArtwork, available as a plug-in for. Instant Trapper for Adobe Illustrator.
Adobe Illustrator is a marvelous application to create vector art, graphics and illustrations. But that’s not all. You can extend the capabilities of Illustrator with the help of 5 illustrator plugins to achieve more.
Today we are going to explore 5 exciting illustrator plugins for graphic designers and illustrators.
5 Amazing Illustrator Plugins
These Illustrator plugins will help you save a lot of time and effort.
1. Phantasm
- By Astute Graphics
- Price: $73.85
If you’re a vector artist, I’m sure you may have sincerely wished to have some direct controls for color adjustments within illustrator. Astute graphics has answered your prayers and brings you color adjustment controls where you can have fine grain control over your colors, just like the ones found in Bitmap editing applications.
The Phantasm plugin brings you controls for brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves, levels and more color adjustment filters that otherwise ship with Photoshop.
This is one such plugin that you can’t live without once you use it. Check out the demo here, and I’m sure you would agree with me.
2. Artlandia Symmetry Works
- By Artlandia, Inc
- Price: $364.00
This illustrator plugin would be of great use to apparel and textile designers, though any designer interested in creating patterns and image tiles may find this indispensable. Symmetry works makes a tedious and calculated task of creating patterns a piece of cake.
With this amazing illustrator plugin you can also create tiled borders, rotational designs, harmonic growth designs and more. No matter how complex your pattern is or which direction you want the design to tile, Symmetry Works is sure to take care of such complexities for you.
You can use Symmetry works' amazing ‘Insertion Mode' where you can directly draw into a pattern and see the motif alter simultaneously in preview.
See the demo video here and download Symmetry works to create some awesome patterns for your next design project.
3. CAD Compo
- By BABY UNIVERSE
- Price: $150.00
CAD Compo is for Engineers, Architects and Interior designers who want to use 2D CAD tools within the Illustrator interface. The convenience offered by this Plugin for its price is really astounding.
CAD Compo is a combination of two very powerful plugins offered by baby-universe. The 2D drafting capabilities come from BPT-Pro3 plugin and the DXF export feature comes from EXDXF-Pro3 plugin.
This powerful plugin can be either used to create drawings or to enhance imported CAD drawings for additions, annotations and improve overall presentation of the design.
Moreover, these files can be exported as DXF that can be opened and edited in most CAD applications. So if you’re an engineer this plugin definitely will save you a lot of time and effort.
4. Studio Designer
- By Esko
- Price: $1,550.00
This Illustrator Plugin is specifically meant for 3D packaging design professionals. The beauty of this plugin is that it enables you to create artwork efficiently as you get to preview the 3 dimensional version simultaneously within a window.
Further you can export the result in a 3D pdf format that can be opened in a PDF reader to get an interactive 3D view. Isn’t that great? Now your client can see a virtual mockup before approving designs.
With Studio, errors such as misalignment, back-match and other packaging design mistakes can be eliminated before sending it for production.
If you’re looking for more, Studio Store Visualizer, another plugin by Esko helps you get a preview of your package design in a virtual environment. With this, you can see your product placed next to your competitors on a virtual shelf. What better way to make your client happy than this!
5. Select menu
- By Rick Johnson/Graffix
- Price: Free
Though the functionality offered by this plugin is fairly simple, this can come real handy while working on complex illustrations. This plugin will certainly save you loads of time when editing intricate artwork.
More often than not we need to select specific objects within an artwork. Though this may sound easy, it may turn out to be a hard slog when trying to select through a furry of different objects and groups. With ‘Select Menu' now you can specifically select between 9 different types of paths; open, closed, filled, unfilled, undashed, dashed and compound paths. Besides an array of different path types, you may also select grouped objects, live object groups, meshes, raster images and EPS files too.
This Illustrator plugin can save you tons of time and effort and is an ideal plugin for all kinds of designers.
Bonus Plugin – Magic Exporter
- By Jérémy Marchand / kodlian.com
- Price: 25,00 €
UI and web designers spend a tremendous amount of time to export their works. Magic Exporter simplifies the process and save your time.
How is it works? You mark the objects to export and when your document is ready, use the dedicated export menu. It’s as simple as that! Moreover, since it exports objects separately you no longer need to hide other objects that might be behind or over the object to export.
Devices nowadays require artworks with different pixel definitions, like iPhone or Android phones. Magic Exporter lets you export multiple images scaled for these platforms and fully define your own scaling options.
This plugin offers also customisation of files naming and trimming transparent pixel.
You can try it out here and use it right now on your projects.
I hope you find these Plugins beneficial. I would love to know if you did. Go on and try some of these awesome plugins now! Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletters! Enjoy your illustrator plugins!
Images © Ljupco Smokovski – Fotolia.com
ESKO DeskPack Viewer for Illustrator
A correct visualization of your packaging design is crucial in a professional environment. Catch errors early on with the Viewer for Illustrator. It is the perfect tool for packaging quality control.
With Viewer for Adobe® Illustrator®, you can work with predefined Press Settings to detect first printable dots, to simulate dot gain and registration errors, and to calculate the total area coverage in your file.
Watch the video.
View – Inspect – Measure
Digital Quality Control tool and viewer for Adobe® Illustrator® design and production files, with accurate in-house soft proofs.
This viewer plug-in for Illustrator® offers high resolution separation viewing, as if you were inspecting your final printing plates. Showing a process related preview. Viewer offers a Separation preview, TAC (Total Area Coverage) preview, Flexo Plate preview, Flexo Print preview and Registration Error preview. A digital densitometer gives instant and precise readouts of all inks in any area of the packaging design.
Separation preview
- different viewing modes for individual or combined separations
- precise inspection tools with color correct preview
- high zoom factors – DeepZoom 150.000 procent in Illustrator®
TAC preview
Anticipate run time printing problems: this viewer plug-in for Illustrator® will tell you the Total Area Coverage of a job and the minimum and maximum densities per ink. The Ink Coverage check settings are printing process aware. The TAC preview layer highlights the areas where the total area coverage exceeds a give limit.
Flexo Plate preview
The Flexo Plate preview layer displays a single channel of your image as a processed flexo plate.
Flexo Print preview
The Flexo Print preview can accurately predict:
- breaking out highlights
- disturbing edges in the black highlights
- isolated groups of pixels that can potentially print as scum dots
- general loss of dynamic range and print saturation
Registration Error preview
The Registration Error preview simulates the press missregistration per separation, allowing the operator to check for instance if the applied trapping distance covers the press miss-registration tolerance to avoid gaps.
Best Free Illustrator Plugins
Tickets
Viewer tickets are shared between Adobe® Illustrator® and Adobe® Photoshop®. Each operator in the plant can view and inspect jobs at any stage in the workflow. Viewer beats inspecting film on a light table, hands down. It saves time and cuts costs.
Trapping Plugin Illustrator Tutorial
Image viewing
Images are previewed based on the embedded or linked high resolution process or spot color linked images, even in an OPI environment.