User Guide Cancel

Summary of effects

Last updated on Oct 23, 2024

Illustrator User Guide
Get to know Illustrator
1. Introduction to Illustrator
2. Workspace
3. Tools in Illustrator
  1. Tools at a glance
  2. Select tools
  3. Navigate tools
    1. Hand
    2. Rotate View
    3. Zoom
  4. Paint tools
  5. Text tools
  6. Draw tools
    1. Pen
    2. Add Anchor Point
    3. Delete Anchor Point
    4. Anchor Point
    5. Curvature
    6. Line Segment
    7. Rectangle
    8. Rounded Rectangle
    9. Ellipse
    10. Polygon
    11. Star
    12. Paintbrush
    13. Blob Brush
    14. Pencil
    15. Shaper
    16. Slice
  7. Modify tools
    1. Rotate
    2. Reflect
    3. Scale
    4. Shear
    5. Width
    6. Free Transform
    7. Eyedropper
    8. Blend
    9. Eraser
    10. Scissors
    11. Dimension
4. Generative AI (not available in mainland China)
5. Quick actions
Illustrator on the web (beta)
Illustrator on the iPad
1. Introduction to Illustrator on the iPad
2. Workspace
3. Documents
  1. Work with documents in Illustrator on the iPad
  2. Import Photoshop and Fresco documents
4. Select and arrange objects
  1. Create repeat objects
  2. Blend objects
5. Drawing
  1. Draw and edit paths
  2. Draw and edit shapes
6. Type
7. Work with images
  1. Vectorize raster images
8. Color
  1. Apply colors and gradients
Cloud documents
1. Basics
2. Troubleshooting
  1. Troubleshoot create or save issues for Illustrator cloud documents
  2. Troubleshoot Illustrator cloud documents issues
Add and edit content
Import, export, and save
1. Import
2. Creative Cloud Libraries in Illustrator
  1. Creative Cloud Libraries in Illustrator
3. Save and export
Printing
1. Prepare for printing
2. Printing
Automate tasks
Troubleshooting

Learn how to apply effects in Illustrator to make your designs stand out.

Artistic effects

Artistic effects are raster-based and use the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector object.

Colored Pencil	Draws an image using colored pencils on a solid background. Important edges are retained and given a rough crosshatch appearance; the solid background color shows through the smoother areas.
Cutout	Portrays an image as though it were made from roughly cut-out pieces of colored paper. High-contrast images appear as if in silhouette; colored images are built up as if from several layers of colored paper.
Dry Brush	Paints the edges of the image using a dry-brush technique (between oil and watercolor). The effect simplifies an image by reducing its range of colors.
Film Grain	Applies an even pattern to the shadow tones and midtones of an image. A smoother, more saturated pattern is added to the image’s lighter areas. This effect is useful for eliminating banding in blends and visually unifying elements from various sources.
Fresco	Paints an image in a coarse manner using short, rounded strokes as if hastily applied.
Neon Glow	Adds various types of glows to the objects in an image. This effect is useful for colorizing an image while softening its look. To select a glow color, click the glow box and select a color from the color picker.
Paint Daubs	Lets you choose from various brush sizes (from 1 to 50) and types for a painterly effect. Brush types include simple, light rough, light dark, wide sharp, wide blurry, and sparkle.
Palette Knife	Reduces detail in an image to give the effect of a thinly painted canvas that reveals the texture underneath.
Plastic Wrap	Coats the image as if in shiny plastic, accentuating the surface detail.
Poster Edges	Reduces the number of colors in an image according to the Posterization value you set; then finds the edges of the image and draws black lines on them. Broader areas of the image have simple shading, while fine, dark detail is distributed throughout the image.
Rough Pastels	Makes an image appear as if stroked with colored pastel chalk on a textured background. In areas of bright color, the chalk appears thick with little texture; in darker areas, the chalk appears scraped off to reveal the texture.
Smudge Stick	Softens an image using short diagonal strokes to smudge or smear the darker areas of the images. Lighter areas become brighter and lose detail.
Sponge	Creates images with highly textured areas of contrasting color as if painted with a sponge.
Underpainting	Paints the image on a textured background, and then paints the final image over it.
Watercolor	Paints the image in a watercolor style, simplifying details, and using a medium brush loaded with water and color. Where significant tonal changes occur at edges, the effect saturates the color.

Blur effects

The commands in the Blur submenu in the Effect menu are raster-based and use the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector object.

Gaussian Blur	Quickly blurs a selection by an adjustable amount. This effect removes high-frequency detail and can produce a hazy effect.
Radial Blur	Simulates the soft blur created by a zooming or rotating camera. Choose Spin to blur along concentric circular lines, and then specify a degree of rotation. Choose Zoom to blur along radial lines, as if zooming in or out of the image, and specify an amount from 1 to 100. Blur quality ranges from Draft for the fastest but grainy results to Good and Best for smoother results, which are indistinguishable except on a large selection. Specify the origin of the blur by dragging the pattern in the Blur Center box.
Smart Blur	Blurs an image with precision. You can specify a radius, a threshold, and a blur quality. The Radius value determines the size of the area searched for dissimilar pixels. The Threshold value determines how dissimilar the pixels must be before they are affected. You also can set a mode for the entire selection (Normal) or for the edges of color transitions (Edge Only and Overlay). Where significant contrast occurs, Edge Only applies black-and-white edges, and Overlay Edge applies white.

Brush Strokes effects

The Brush Strokes effects are raster-based and use the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector object.

Accented Edges	Accentuates the edges of an image. When the Edge Brightness control is set to a high value, the accents resemble white chalk. When it is set to a low value, the accents resemble black ink.
Angled Strokes	Repaints an image using diagonal strokes. The lighter areas of the image are painted in strokes going in one direction, while the darker areas are painted in strokes going the opposite direction.
Crosshatch	Preserves the details and features of the original image while adding texture and roughening the edges of the colored areas in the image with simulated pencil hatching. The Strength option controls the number of hatching passes (from 1 to 3).
Dark Strokes	Paints dark areas of an image closer to black with short strokes, and paints lighter areas of the image with long, white strokes.
Ink Outlines	Redraws an image with fine narrow lines over the original details, in pen-and-ink style.
Spatter	Replicates the effect of a spatter airbrush. Increasing the values of the options simplifies the overall effect.
Sprayed Strokes	Repaints an image using its dominant colors with angled, sprayed strokes of color.
Sumi‑e	Paints an image in Japanese style as if with a wet brush full of black ink on rice paper. The effect is soft, blurry edges with rich blacks.

Distort effects

The Distort commands can be very memory-intensive. They are raster-based and use the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector object.

Diffuse Glow	Renders an image as if it were being viewed through a soft diffusion filter. The effect adds see-through white noise to an image, with the glow fading from the center of a selection.
Glass	Makes an image appear as if it were being viewed through different types of glass. You can choose a preset glass effect or create your own glass surface using a Photoshop file. You can adjust scaling, distortion, and smoothness settings, as well as texturizing options.
Ocean Ripple	Adds randomly spaced ripples to the artwork, making the artwork look as if it were under water.

Pixelate effects

The Pixelate effects are raster-based and use the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector object.

Color Halftone	Simulates the effect of using an enlarged halftone screen on each channel of the image. For each channel, the effect divides the image into rectangles and replaces each rectangle with a circle. The circle size is proportional to the brightness of the rectangle. To use the effect, enter a value in pixels for the maximum radius of a halftone dot (from 4 to 127), and enter a screen-angle value (the angle of the dot relative to the true horizontal) for one or more channels. For Grayscale images, use only channel 1. For RGB images, use channels 1, 2, and 3, which correspond to the red, green, and blue channels. For CMYK images, use all four channels, which correspond to the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black channels.
Crystallize	Clumps colors into polygon shapes.
Mezzotint	Converts an image to a random pattern of black-and-white areas, or of fully saturated colors in a color image. To use the effect, choose a dot pattern from the Type pop-up menu in the Mezzotint dialog box.
Pointillize	Breaks up the color in an image into randomly placed dots, as in a pointillist painting, and uses the background color as a canvas area between the dots.

Sketch effects

Many of the Sketch effects use black and white colors to redraw the image. The effects are raster-based and use the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector graphic.

Bas Relief	Transforms an image to appear carved in low relief and lit to accent the surface variations. Dark areas of the image are colored black; light colors are colored white.
Chalk & Charcoal	Redraws an image’s highlights and midtones with a solid midtone gray background drawn in coarse chalk. Shadow areas are replaced with diagonal charcoal lines. The charcoal is drawn in black, the chalk in white.
Charcoal	Redraws an image to create a posterized, smudged effect. Major edges are drawn boldly while midtones are sketched using a diagonal stroke. Charcoal is colored black; the paper is colored white.
Chrome	Treats the image as if it were a polished chrome surface. Highlights are high points and shadows are low points in the reflecting surface.
Conté Crayon	Replicates the texture of dense dark and pure white Conté crayons on an image. The Conté Crayon effect uses black for dark areas and the white for light areas.
Graphic Pen	Uses fine, linear ink strokes to capture the details in the original image. The effect replaces color in the original image using black for ink and white for paper. This command is especially striking with scanned images.
Halftone Pattern	Simulates the effect of a halftone screen while maintaining the continuous range of tones.
Note Paper	Creates an image that appears to be constructed of handmade paper. The effect simplifies an image, and combines the effect of the Grain command (Texture submenu) with an embossed appearance. Dark areas of the image appear as holes in the top layer of paper surrounded by white.
Photocopy	Simulates the effect of photocopying an image. Large areas of darkness tend to copy only around their edges; midtones fall away to either solid black or white.
Plaster	Molds an image as if from plaster, and then colorizes the result using black and white. Dark areas are raised; light areas are sunken.
Reticulation	Simulates the controlled shrinking and distorting of film emulsion to create an image that appears clumped in the shadow areas and lightly grained in the highlights.
Stamp	Simplifies the image to appear stamped with a rubber or wood stamp. This command is best used with black-and-white images.
Torn Edges	Reconstructs the image as ragged, torn pieces of paper, and then colorizes the image using black and white. This command is useful for images consisting of text or high-contrast objects.
Water Paper	Uses blotchy daubs that appear painted onto fibrous, damp paper, causing the colors to flow and blend.

Stylize effect

The Glowing Edges effect is raster-based and uses the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector graphic.

Glowing Edges

Identifies the edges of color and adds a neon-like glow to them.

Texture effects

The Texture effects are raster-based and use the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector graphic.

Craquelure	Paints an image onto a high-relief plaster surface, producing a fine network of cracks that follow the contours of the image. Use this effect to create an embossing effect with images that contain a broad range of color or grayscale values.
Grain	Adds texture to an image by simulating different kinds of grain—regular, soft, sprinkles, clumped, contrasty, enlarged, stippled, horizontal, vertical, or speckle. For more information on using these texturizing options, see Use texture and glass surface controls.
Mosaic Tiles	Draws the image as if it were made up of small chips or tiles and adds grout between the tiles. (In contrast, the Pixelate > Mosaic command breaks up an image into blocks of different-colored pixels.)
Patchwork	Breaks up an image into squares filled with the predominant color in that area of the image. The effect randomly reduces or increases the tile depth to replicate highlights and shadows.
Stained Glass	Repaints an image as single-colored adjacent cells outlined in the foreground color.
Texturizer	Applies a texture you select or create to an image.

Video effects

The Video effects are raster-based and use the document’s raster effects settings whenever you apply the effect to a vector graphic.

De‑Interlace	Smooths moving images captured on video by removing either the odd or even interlaced lines in a video image. You can choose to replace the discarded lines by duplication or interpolation.
NTSC Colors	Restricts the gamut of colors to those acceptable for television reproduction to prevent oversaturated colors from bleeding across television scan lines.

Use texture and glass surface controls

Some effects included in Illustrator have texturizing options, such as Glass, Rough Pastels, Grain, and Fresco effects. You can make an object appear painted onto various textures, such as canvas or brick, or viewed through glass blocks with texturizing options.

In the Effects dialog, select a texture type from the Texture pop-up menu (if available) or Load Texture (only available for Rough Pastels or Glass commands) to specify a file.
Set any of the following options, if available:
- Drag the Scaling slider to enlarge or reduce the effect on the bitmap image’s surface.
- Drag the Relief slider to adjust the depth of the texture’s surface.
- From the Light Direction pop-up menu, choose the direction you want the light to appear.
- Select Invert to reverse the surface’s light and dark colors.

related resources

Talk to us

We would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts with the Adobe Illustrator Community.

Get help faster and easier

New user?