Import Layered Photshop file into Illustrator

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
March 4, 2024
2 replies
11042 views

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just assumed that if I dragged and dropped a photoshop file into Illustrator that it would bring in all of it's layers as a minimum, and layer effects intact as a bonus. But what I get is a flattened image, no layers, no effects. Here is where it gets crazy. I open the same Illustrator file in Affinity Designer. Then I drag and drop the same Photoshop file into the open Illustrator file and the whole thing comes in, layers and all, and the fx are are still live as well as layer multiply, pass through folders etc. Am I to understand that Affinity Designer which I paid $49.00 for can handle a Photoshop file better than Adobe Illustrator? I've been an Adobe user for like 30 years! I was certain that this was possible but I hope at this point I'm just missing something. But if I am, it is still a failure that whatever I'm missing is not as simple as it is with Affinity Designer. Well, there's 1 extra step in Affinity Designer. It drags in like a linked file. Double click and it expands the whole thing into a separate document. At first, I didn't understand what had happened other than I was looking at all of the layers and stuff. Then I copied all of it and pasted it into the illustrator file and that was it. I had everything I needed.

How-to

TheHetster

Participant

I am having the same problem, and my file is not complex at all!. Yes, I got many leyers, but they have no effects, they are simply square colored flat leyers. I have tried everything and lost days investigating and trying over and over, no matter what, I still got a flat image in AI.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

PLease show the Layers panel in Photohop.

TheHetster

Participant

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

You have to use the File>Open or File>Place command to bring layered Photoshop artwork into Illustrator as layered objects rather than a flattened image. The file import options setting must be checked when opening or placing the artwork. That will bring up the dialog box that allows the image to be imported either as layered objects or one flattened image. When using the Place command the "Link" button has to be unchecked in order for the PSD imagery to import as separate layered objects.

I disagree with the notion Affinity Designer can handle Photoshop PSD files better than Illustrator. Affinity Designer has a number of serious limitations. I find it especially annoying the application still does not support OpenType Variable fonts (or OpenType-SVG fonts either).

K

KuttyjoeAuthor

Inspiring

I tried everything. File/open. File place. Drag and drop. I get the dialog with options to convert layers to objects but it still comes in as flat image. Link button checked/unchecked makes no difference. If checked, you still have the opportunity to embed it, and when you do it asks to convert to layers or flatten layers. The result is flat image no matter what I choose.

I agree that Affinity Designer has lots of limitations compared to Illustrator, but this particular situation it's making Adobe look ridiculous, and I'm feeling ridiculous. This is not the only situation where Affinity Designer is better than Adobe. AD can open webp images, no problem. Adobe can't. AD can copy/paste transparent images from a web browser. Adobe can't. Those are things I can remember quickly because I'm dealing with them daily and pitifully using AD to "help out Adobe". Another thing. Affinity Designer can open pdf documents without utterly destroying all of the text. Illustrator can't. AD also doesn't have a problem with missing linked images. It opens them as if they're not missing. Still I can name a hundred things that Illustrator has better than AD, but for what I pay for Adobe software I truly expect it to be better at dealing with it's own formats. Not being able to import this layered psd file into Illustrator is kind of unforgiveable. One more thing. Illustrator is really bad at opening SVG files. So bad that I use AD as my default application for opening SVG files.

K

KuttyjoeAuthor

Inspiring

Regarding how bad Illustrator is at opening SVG files, some of that has to do with the app creating the SVG file (hence one of my complaints about Canva). It seems like every app that can generate SVG files puts their own spin on it. Even Inkscape does it. I feel like SVG is the new PDF: a format that can display vector graphics but isn't edit-friendly. SVG also has the glaring RGB-only limitation.

As far as cropping images goes, I'd rather use Photoshop for that. I'll place images into Illustrator layouts and do things like stick them into clipping mask containers. But I don't do anything "destructive" to the images.

If the problem is a poorly formed SVG, yet it's not a problem for Affinity Designer, then why would I make excuses for Illustrator which costs exponentially more than Affinity Designer?

For cropping images, doing it non-destructively is an option, but I'm talking specifically about the destructive kind. Illustrator has a way of doing it that is slow, clunky, and can only be done on a single image at a time so it's not production friendly. Astute Graphics allows me to select however many images at the same time, and it doesn't matter if my selection includes other objects such as text and vectors. It will only operate on the images. With a single click it crops every image. I don't even have to carefully pick out images from among all of the other objects. I can actually just do Control/A and select everything. It saves a ton of time. Illustrator should do that natively.

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