Username:
Password:
Autodesk AutoCAD 2007 for Architects Tutorials

CAD Drawings / Introducing Photoshop

Subtitles of the Movie

With Adobe Photoshop I can add color to my AutoCAD files. I'd like to briefly introduce the advantages of using Photoshop and later in the tutorial get into more details about the program. For now I will select file, open, and I will open the EPS file that I created in AutoCAD. The file needs to be rasterized, the image width will be 8.5 inches and the height will be 11 inches. I am setting the resolution to 150 pixels per inch. I do not want to go any lower then that unless I am going to create this for the web and in that case it would be 72 pixels per inch. The mode is RGB color, I will click OK and there is the EPS image, I'm going to maximize that, I'm going to select the zoom tool and zoom into this area of the file, that looks pretty good and I just want to point out that if I zoom in even closer you can see that they are no longer lines, but rather they are pixels. What I'd like to do now is select fit screen and maybe just zoom into this area and proceed. The image has a transparent background, so what I need to do now is create a new layer and maybe I can call this the back. I have two layers now, layer one which contains my plan and the back, with the back highlighted or rather the back being the current layer I will select edit and fill. I would like to fill the back with either the foreground color or the background color and how do I know which one is foreground and background? I can come over here and look at the swatches, currently black is the foreground color and white is the background color. So that's what I will select and I will click OK. It appears that the plan is no longer there but what I am going to do is click and drag that layer down so that layer one which does contain the plan is on top. Next what I'd like to do is create yet another new layer and call this one walls and I now have three layers. I'm going to make layer one the current layer, I'm going to select the magic wand tool and I will click inside of the walls, very much like selecting a hatch boundary. As you can see that area is now highlighted, I will now switch to the walls layer, I'm going to pick a color, let's say red and I'd like to fill that area with the color red. And yes use the foreground color in this case and now I can come up here to select and de-select and I have now painted or colored in the wall. The reason I put it on a separate layer is so that if I like to I can still turn that off and keep my image of the floor plan on its own layer. Again this is an introduction and I will come back to it later in the tutorial. For now I will select file and save as from an EPS file to a native Photoshop file and simply click OK and this is how I begin to add color to a floor plan.

Tutorial Information

Course: Autodesk AutoCAD 2007 for Architects
Author: Ivanhoe Tejeda
SKU: 33850
ISBN: 1-934743-54-2
Release Date: 2008-02-27
Duration: 13 hrs / 136 lessons
Work Files: Yes
Captions: Available on CD and Online University
Compatibility: Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux
QuickTime 7, Flash 8

VTC Sign up & Benefits

  • Unlimited Access
  • 81,350 Video Tutorials (20,800 free)
  • Video Available as Flash or QuickTime
  • Over 782 Courses
  • $30 for One Month Access
  • Multi-User Discounts Available