i’m having MAJOR problems exporting and/or saving an illustration i created in freehand MX as an EPS. my objective is to be able to open the illustration in Photoshop, and continue workng on it there. i dont nesc. need to preserve the layers of the freehand document (would be nice though)… i just need the illustration exported with a transparent background, that i can work on in PS7
i seem to be able to save/export it as a .psd fine, but it gets “flattend” and a white background is added.
this is an old illustration i created a while back, so the file is BIG… with lots of transparencies, gradients and layers. when i try saving/exporting… the program eventually just freezes.
a year ago or so, i DID find a solution… (trying to remember… but i think it involved “flatening” the layers inside the freehand document, and then maybe exporting to fireworksMX, and then to PS… but i cant remember now exactly what i did.)
i’m running freehand MX, on Windows XP machine, with a PIII and 800k+ ram.
[size=3]THANKS![/size]
i ended up having to go take a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNG break, and just let the computer sit and do its thing… but EVENTUALLY it exported! (heh… one illustration exported, one more to go… )
i’ve got another related question, wondering if you might know the anserw or have some input?
do you suspect the problem lies with freehand, or is my system not equiped enough to handle such complex FH documents, or some combo?
i created both illustrations in question, when i first started using freehand, and as a result of the export/freezing problems i had - i subsequently began to REALLY refrain from being so free with using gradients, and transparencies. and though i only need these illustrations for the web at this point… i wonder if i’ll EVER be able to get them exported at a higher resolution/dpi … :-/
and any suggestions for the future? i’d like to be taking full advantage of freehands options… but am not sure what sort (if any) soloutions i have availble to me?
new computer/more ram/a really expensive graphics card/etc… or is it all freehands fault? maybe i should be looking at illustrator CS? what would you suggest?
the freehand files are both under 800kb… but when i have all the levels visible, rendering them takes some time… (maybe 30+ seconds…) i cant rembember what my graphics card is… i could open it up and take a look if that info would be helpfull.
and i was only able to successfully export one of the two files… :*(
this afternoon, i closed down every other application, started the process of exporting it as a .png, and left the machine running for a couple hours… it just froze, and never completed the export…
the only other option i can think of is slicing and dicing the image up in freehand, exporting it in smaller sections, and then reasembeling in photoshop… but… MAN… thats f*ckin LAME… however, i just cant think of any thing else to do at the moment…
vectors are cpu intensive, since its all about mathamatics. even if the file size is small, it can be pretty harsh on the system, especially if you have a really complex scene. So the p3 might be your downfall there, 800 meg ram should be alright, but im guessing your using sdram, not ddr so that could also be a issue. XP itself takes some ram away from you and also i would expect freehand to take some ram as well, so in the end you could really be left with 500 meg or less. Even less if you have other applications open or background applications (msn, music playing apps)
One thing that might help would be if you can set your cache to another drive other than one that windows and your application is installed on.
i have a p4, 1 gig ddr, and a rather fast bus rate happening all round my comp and i dont have much problem running in and out of multiple apps, remember the newer apps require better systems and on top of that a complex scene requires more power.
if this is slowing down your work environment , i think its time to upgrade.
regarding your file problems arent you able to export to psd? i know you can in illustrator but im not sure for freehand.
yeah… i think you’re right. (specifficly i’ve got 851,440k of sdram.) so… looks like this summer i’ll be buildng a new machine.
i have photoshop installed on a seperate 20gig drive, so in the meantime before i upgrade, there should be plenty of room to set the cache for freehand to that drive as well. just not sure how to do that? i’ll look around the web, but unlike PS, info on FH seems to be in short supply!!
and freehand can export as a .psd, but it adds a background to the image - which is why i’ve been trying to export as a .eps or a .png
