0 1 00:00:00,094 --> 00:00:03,945 Okay, so why is Illustrator running so slow on your machine? 1 2 00:00:03,970 --> 00:00:05,093 Maybe just some documents. 2 3 00:00:05,118 --> 00:00:07,803 Let's talk about the major things. 3 4 00:00:07,828 --> 00:00:11,359 We'll start at the top, the most probably common thing to slow you down... 4 5 00:00:11,384 --> 00:00:15,211 is adding kind of pixel effects or raster effects to vector. 5 6 00:00:15,289 --> 00:00:16,773 Like this graphic here I made. 6 7 00:00:17,319 --> 00:00:20,476 It's some Compound Shapes, and I added in a glow... 7 8 00:00:20,609 --> 00:00:24,102 which makes this kind of beveled Drop Shadow kind of look. 8 9 00:00:24,195 --> 00:00:27,234 Watch this, every time I move it, and move it back... 9 10 00:00:28,219 --> 00:00:30,211 the bouncing ball, a doom appears. 10 11 00:00:30,984 --> 00:00:33,671 It struggles, right? And this is a pretty good machine. 11 12 00:00:34,224 --> 00:00:36,998 So if you've added lots of Drop Shadows to things... 12 13 00:00:38,427 --> 00:00:40,623 basically there's two things you can do. 13 14 00:00:41,021 --> 00:00:43,724 You can make it run faster, by going-- with nothing selected... 14 15 00:00:43,749 --> 00:00:46,693 we go to 'Effect', and go into 'Document Raster Settings'. 15 16 00:00:46,818 --> 00:00:50,349 And in here, mine is set to 300ppi, which is awesome for print... 16 17 00:00:50,374 --> 00:00:54,177 but it stresses my machine out. If I switch it to '72', click 'OK'... 17 18 00:00:54,404 --> 00:00:57,279 nothing really changes in my document, it's not worst quality. 18 19 00:00:57,451 --> 00:01:01,037 It will print worse, but now if I click off and drag it... 19 20 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:02,708 it kind of just works faster... 20 21 00:01:02,733 --> 00:01:05,709 because it's only redrawing it at a lower resolution. 21 22 00:01:06,037 --> 00:01:07,380 When I go out to print... 22 23 00:01:07,506 --> 00:01:10,357 I need to make sure, I'm sending out a PDF, or making JPEG... 23 24 00:01:10,382 --> 00:01:11,888 I just got to make sure I turn this back up... 24 25 00:01:12,552 --> 00:01:15,810 because it is essentially vector, and I just need to do that again... 25 26 00:01:16,224 --> 00:01:18,177 right at the end, I'll wait for it... 26 27 00:01:18,748 --> 00:01:21,544 and it goes through all of its features. 27 28 00:01:22,896 --> 00:01:25,427 It can take a long time, but now if I make a PDF... 28 29 00:01:25,452 --> 00:01:29,036 it will be that great quality, you haven't lost quality in that go. 29 30 00:01:29,529 --> 00:01:31,826 That's kind of one of the easy ones. 30 31 00:01:32,388 --> 00:01:34,647 The other one is, let's say you've got this graphic... 31 32 00:01:34,672 --> 00:01:37,763 and you use it a lot, and just causing you drama... 32 33 00:01:37,997 --> 00:01:39,741 every time you move it, or resize it. 33 34 00:01:39,766 --> 00:01:41,076 You can just select it all... 34 35 00:01:41,294 --> 00:01:44,724 and go to this one that says 'Object', and go to 'Rasterize'. 35 36 00:01:44,749 --> 00:01:46,365 Now this is a one way street. 36 37 00:01:46,849 --> 00:01:48,264 If I click on 'Rasterize', and say... 37 38 00:01:48,289 --> 00:01:50,912 actually I want this to be '300ppi', so great quality... 38 39 00:01:51,177 --> 00:01:53,982 make sure it's the size you need it to be, I've made it quite big. 39 40 00:01:54,318 --> 00:01:56,787 You might make it even bigger, so you've got a big version of it... 40 41 00:01:56,812 --> 00:02:00,856 but when it's being rasterized, it's now going to be pixels eventually. 41 42 00:02:02,404 --> 00:02:04,394 You'll notice that sometimes I've made a Clipping Mask... 42 43 00:02:04,419 --> 00:02:05,904 it's got a white box around the outside... 43 44 00:02:05,936 --> 00:02:08,153 which is not fun, I'm going to have to clip it out again... 44 45 00:02:08,181 --> 00:02:11,376 but I've lost a few things, transparency is gone... 45 46 00:02:11,401 --> 00:02:14,298 but at least now, if I zoom in, I can start to see the pixels. 46 47 00:02:14,744 --> 00:02:19,235 So not vector anymore, but now it is super quick and easy... 47 48 00:02:19,260 --> 00:02:21,149 to move around, to rotate. 48 49 00:02:21,174 --> 00:02:23,955 It's not trying to do those effects every single time. 49 50 00:02:24,204 --> 00:02:26,931 So rotating it around, I'll do this often. 50 51 00:02:26,956 --> 00:02:29,996 Keep a backup version of it, all vectory and good... 51 52 00:02:30,465 --> 00:02:34,676 but, maybe in your day-to-day use, just use the rasterized version. 52 53 00:02:34,777 --> 00:02:36,324 Another big thing can be fonts. 53 54 00:02:36,723 --> 00:02:40,691 You might be, like me, kind of freelanced your way around the world... 54 55 00:02:40,716 --> 00:02:43,426 and eventually you end up with this huge pile of fonts, and you're like... 55 56 00:02:43,715 --> 00:02:45,832 you keep installing them every time you get a new Mac. 56 57 00:02:46,192 --> 00:02:49,144 The trouble with fonts is that it slows down your whole system. 57 58 00:02:49,613 --> 00:02:52,004 So what you might want to do is use... 58 59 00:02:52,029 --> 00:02:54,957 Mac has Font Book, I have no idea what PC has... 59 60 00:02:55,582 --> 00:02:58,059 but just uninstall the fonts you're not using. 60 61 00:02:58,596 --> 00:03:00,182 Especially if there's some bad fonts... 61 62 00:03:00,207 --> 00:03:03,135 if you got like a dodgy cactus shaped letter font... 62 63 00:03:04,090 --> 00:03:06,637 some weird font, and it's got some problems in it... 63 64 00:03:06,662 --> 00:03:09,559 you're machine spends ages when it loads programs... 64 65 00:03:09,584 --> 00:03:11,886 trying to figure that out, and sort it out. 65 66 00:03:12,145 --> 00:03:15,535 So go through, just be super clean with your font installs. 66 67 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:18,879 Any dodgy ones, just get rid of, or uninstall them. 67 68 00:03:19,051 --> 00:03:22,043 Yes, fonts can be a big-- they can slow down your whole entire system. 68 69 00:03:22,160 --> 00:03:23,777 Actually quickly, I'm going to show you-- 69 70 00:03:23,802 --> 00:03:26,356 So Font Book is what Mac uses. 70 71 00:03:26,381 --> 00:03:30,152 So you can go through and just select all the fonts you don't want... 71 72 00:03:30,177 --> 00:03:31,176 and get rid of them. 72 73 00:03:31,894 --> 00:03:33,940 'All fonts', and just have a little look. 73 74 00:03:34,707 --> 00:03:37,668 I've got 381, and mine runs okay. 74 75 00:03:38,067 --> 00:03:41,925 Check, leave a comment, see how many-- I want to see who's got the most. 75 76 00:03:42,590 --> 00:03:44,223 I want to see screenshots as well. 76 77 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:47,106 Don't install too many fonts. 77 78 00:03:47,131 --> 00:03:50,574 Another thing can happen, or things that can slow you down... 78 79 00:03:50,599 --> 00:03:53,848 is, while you make a new document, is the way you bring in images. 79 80 00:03:54,074 --> 00:03:56,582 So if you bring in 'File', and go to 'Place'... 80 81 00:03:56,607 --> 00:03:59,196 and I'll bring in an image from our 'Exercise Files'. 81 82 00:03:59,471 --> 00:04:00,518 I'll bring in the 'Bike'... 82 83 00:04:00,543 --> 00:04:02,652 This option here, 'Link'ing, or not linking. 83 84 00:04:02,895 --> 00:04:05,551 By default, I'm pretty sure, it doesn't link. 84 85 00:04:05,576 --> 00:04:07,793 You have to check, click on 'Options' down the bottom here. 85 86 00:04:09,270 --> 00:04:12,558 It will embed, so if I 'Embed' a file... 86 87 00:04:12,957 --> 00:04:16,683 versus bringing in the same image, and linking to it... 87 88 00:04:16,708 --> 00:04:17,980 there's pros and cons. 88 89 00:04:18,652 --> 00:04:21,644 Linking to it, the pro is, that it will run faster. 89 90 00:04:21,669 --> 00:04:23,238 Everything runs faster when it's linked. 90 91 00:04:23,910 --> 00:04:27,433 The con is that if I send this Illustrator file to somebody... 91 92 00:04:27,458 --> 00:04:29,371 I need to make sure I send the image with it. 92 93 00:04:29,559 --> 00:04:31,606 This one is actually embedded in there... 93 94 00:04:31,631 --> 00:04:34,816 and if I send them an Illustrator file, it will be there. 94 95 00:04:35,636 --> 00:04:37,265 This one here, it will open up Illustrator... 95 96 00:04:37,290 --> 00:04:39,449 and say, "Hey, you're missing that file." Where did that go? 96 97 00:04:39,690 --> 00:04:41,214 So that's one of the drawbacks. 97 98 00:04:42,284 --> 00:04:44,167 What you can do to fix that... 98 99 00:04:44,192 --> 00:04:46,440 let's say you've got lots of linked images, like this guy. 99 100 00:04:47,127 --> 00:04:49,901 You can just go to 'File' now, and go to 'Package'. 100 101 00:04:49,926 --> 00:04:51,675 Where is Package? I can never find it. 101 102 00:04:51,878 --> 00:04:54,253 It's right there, right in front of me. Click on 'Package'. 102 103 00:04:55,502 --> 00:04:58,480 Save the document, and you'll give it a name. 103 104 00:04:58,628 --> 00:05:00,480 And we'll just gather up your Illustrator file... 104 105 00:05:00,505 --> 00:05:02,569 all fonts that you've used, and all the images. 105 106 00:05:02,594 --> 00:05:04,121 That can be a handy way of doing it. 106 107 00:05:04,370 --> 00:05:06,394 So, Link rather than Embed. 107 108 00:05:06,419 --> 00:05:09,284 Other thing to check is, up the top here, you got this rocket chip. 108 109 00:05:09,495 --> 00:05:11,526 GPU enabled-- 109 110 00:05:11,551 --> 00:05:15,440 That just means you've got a good enough graphics card in your computer. 110 111 00:05:15,526 --> 00:05:17,635 That it is helping out. 111 112 00:05:18,948 --> 00:05:22,127 You wouldn't turn this off, I haven't found a reason to turn it off. 112 113 00:05:22,386 --> 00:05:24,167 What you want to do though is... 113 114 00:05:24,292 --> 00:05:26,482 if you've got a machine that's maybe a bit old... 114 115 00:05:26,507 --> 00:05:28,214 you might want to update your drivers. 115 116 00:05:28,386 --> 00:05:30,292 That can sometimes fix that. 116 117 00:05:30,464 --> 00:05:34,870 So if this is disabled, you can try and fix it by... 117 118 00:05:34,895 --> 00:05:37,300 if I go to 'Illustrator', 'Preferences'... 118 119 00:05:37,550 --> 00:05:39,682 and we're going to go to 'Performance'. 119 120 00:05:39,971 --> 00:05:43,806 If you're on a PC, go to 'Edit', 'Preferences', 'Performance'. 120 121 00:05:43,831 --> 00:05:44,965 Let's have a little look. 121 122 00:05:45,589 --> 00:05:46,799 So this is unticked. 122 123 00:05:49,097 --> 00:05:50,573 It just says it's not available. 123 124 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:54,987 You can see down here, I have up-to-date graphics card. 124 125 00:05:55,167 --> 00:05:56,300 And that's pretty good. 125 126 00:05:58,151 --> 00:06:01,495 It's good enough, I think it's a MTek Graphics card, 4GB. 126 127 00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:03,956 Anyway, what you can do is... 127 128 00:06:03,981 --> 00:06:07,409 it's not super easy, but you can then come out of Illustrator - 128 129 00:06:07,434 --> 00:06:09,120 So it's nothing to do with Illustrator really. 129 130 00:06:09,269 --> 00:06:11,565 - is you can go into your System Preference on a Mac... 130 131 00:06:11,729 --> 00:06:13,542 on a PC, I think it's Control Panel. 131 132 00:06:13,714 --> 00:06:17,362 Find your video card and just see if the drivers are up-to-date. 132 133 00:06:17,542 --> 00:06:21,472 And if not, go see if you can download them from the people that make it. 133 134 00:06:21,659 --> 00:06:23,870 In my case, you saw that was ATI. 134 135 00:06:24,081 --> 00:06:26,604 It might be in Video-- 135 136 00:06:27,144 --> 00:06:29,987 That's hard to do, and often doesn't fix it. 136 137 00:06:30,012 --> 00:06:31,269 It's done it for me before. 137 138 00:06:31,511 --> 00:06:33,627 I've updated my graphics card, and it kind of goes... 138 139 00:06:33,652 --> 00:06:36,644 "Okay, you can use GPU," and it does runs faster. 139 140 00:06:36,776 --> 00:06:39,354 The other thing you can do, and it's simple enough... 140 141 00:06:39,379 --> 00:06:41,136 it's updating the RAM in your computer. 141 142 00:06:41,198 --> 00:06:42,487 So RAM is king. 142 143 00:06:43,319 --> 00:06:46,065 You want a minimum of 8GB of RAM... 143 144 00:06:46,090 --> 00:06:48,667 and as much as you can get. 144 145 00:06:48,692 --> 00:06:53,471 The cool thing about RAM is, often on PCs, it's really easy to upgrade. 145 146 00:06:53,675 --> 00:06:55,003 Won't cost you very much. 146 147 00:06:55,028 --> 00:07:00,222 You can go from 4GB to 8GB, or 16, or 32 pretty cheaply. 147 148 00:07:00,247 --> 00:07:03,214 That kind of gives your computer... 148 149 00:07:03,628 --> 00:07:05,278 the kind of grunt you need for... 149 150 00:07:05,303 --> 00:07:07,901 especially like those Drop Shadows in Illustrator. 150 151 00:07:08,089 --> 00:07:09,448 So RAM upgrade. 151 152 00:07:10,495 --> 00:07:12,909 I'm kind of a half tinker, and I can do it myself. 152 153 00:07:12,934 --> 00:07:15,573 I'm not very good, but RAM in a PC is easy enough. 153 154 00:07:15,598 --> 00:07:18,917 I'll unscrew it, pick it out, and put the other one in. 154 155 00:07:19,222 --> 00:07:22,307 On a Mac, it's near impossible, you can take it to people to get it done. 155 156 00:07:22,332 --> 00:07:25,167 But RAM is the thing, when you're buying a computer, get lots of it. 156 157 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:28,486 Another thing that can really cause problems is your hard drive. 157 158 00:07:28,780 --> 00:07:34,592 So if you've got a-- say you've got a 500MB hard drive... 158 159 00:07:34,780 --> 00:07:38,148 and it's got 0 or 2GB left... 159 160 00:07:38,374 --> 00:07:39,695 I said Megabyte... 160 161 00:07:39,835 --> 00:07:44,062 Sorry, you've got 500GB of space, and you've only got a couple of GB left. 161 162 00:07:44,585 --> 00:07:46,639 That is just not enough, it means-- 162 163 00:07:46,851 --> 00:07:50,632 Things like Photoshop and Illustrator, they need about half your hard drive empty. 163 164 00:07:50,882 --> 00:07:52,991 It needs a big chunk of space to work. 164 165 00:07:54,667 --> 00:07:57,182 Let's say you don't have that. 165 166 00:07:57,207 --> 00:07:59,447 What you can do is you can use an external drive. 166 167 00:07:59,472 --> 00:08:01,324 You can go to Illustrator', 'Preferences'. 167 168 00:08:01,349 --> 00:08:03,151 We're getting pretty nerdy here, this is the last one. 168 169 00:08:03,176 --> 00:08:05,526 If you're a nerd, as buzzing... 169 170 00:08:05,551 --> 00:08:07,717 you can skip on to my next video. 170 171 00:08:07,912 --> 00:08:10,076 I catch myself sometimes, we're getting nerdy. 171 172 00:08:10,268 --> 00:08:13,815 But if you're a nerd like me, 'Illustrator CC', 'Preferences'... 172 173 00:08:13,840 --> 00:08:15,170 'Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks'. 173 174 00:08:15,195 --> 00:08:18,002 Remember, it's under 'Edit', 'Preferences' if you're on a PC. 174 175 00:08:18,456 --> 00:08:21,128 And here, my Scratch Disk is just my start up drive. 175 176 00:08:21,878 --> 00:08:25,494 What you can do is, if you go out and buy, say your computer is a bit old... 176 177 00:08:25,675 --> 00:08:28,340 and your hard drive is the old tape drive one... 177 178 00:08:28,365 --> 00:08:29,654 and it's just full up... 178 179 00:08:29,862 --> 00:08:31,450 what you can do is, you can say... 179 180 00:08:31,475 --> 00:08:33,855 Illustrator, I want you to use my extrernal drive. 180 181 00:08:34,089 --> 00:08:37,518 And what will happen is, if I had an external drive plugged in here... 181 182 00:08:37,543 --> 00:08:39,627 it would show in this list, and I can click on it. 182 183 00:08:40,377 --> 00:08:42,229 The pros for is... 183 184 00:08:42,328 --> 00:08:44,844 is that if I get a really good hard drive... 184 185 00:08:44,869 --> 00:08:48,203 what you're looking for is an SSD drive, Solid State Drive. 185 186 00:08:49,800 --> 00:08:51,331 Get as big as you can afford. 186 187 00:08:53,477 --> 00:08:58,157 Often those connections are really fast, and it will speed up Illustrator. 187 188 00:08:58,813 --> 00:09:01,001 The drawback is, and it's a big one. 188 189 00:09:01,026 --> 00:09:02,818 You need to carry the hard drive around all the time... 189 190 00:09:02,843 --> 00:09:04,678 otherwise, when you're using Illustrator... 190 191 00:09:04,703 --> 00:09:07,095 it's not going to find it, it's going to snap back to using Primary. 191 192 00:09:08,782 --> 00:09:11,399 Here's that effects, yes, kind of is. 192 193 00:09:11,424 --> 00:09:13,938 I used to a lot to my old PC laptop... 193 194 00:09:13,963 --> 00:09:17,321 it was really old, I couldn't afford to upgrade it, I bought a hard drive... 194 195 00:09:17,610 --> 00:09:20,310 and changed the Scratch Disk... 195 196 00:09:20,335 --> 00:09:25,438 on every Adobe application, and it ran twice as fast. It was awesome. 196 197 00:09:27,491 --> 00:09:30,733 That is it. If you've got any questions, drop me a comment. 197 198 00:09:30,758 --> 00:09:33,686 That is how to speed up Illustrator. 198 199 00:09:34,349 --> 00:09:38,060 If none of these things help, it might be time to buy a new computer. 199 200 00:09:38,085 --> 00:09:40,094 All right, on to the next video.