How to use Perspective Distort on placed image?

[Nicole_1]

Hi guys! I hope you can help me..

I added an area rug into Illustrator and I want to use the Perspective Distort tool to make the rug look like it is laying on the floor. By using the Free Transform tool, it allows me to scale, sheer, and rotate the rug, but it will not let me use the Perspective Distort.. I am not sure why and I can't find any videos to help me with this. Any advise will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Nicole

{Renamed by MOD}

[tromboniator · Accepted solution]

Select the rug image (I'm assuming it's a photo/raster image of some sort), go to Object menu > Envelope Distort > Make with Mesh, and set both Rows and Columns to 1, click OK. You should be able to use the Perspective Distort Tool.

Peter

[Nicole_1]

Thank you so much Peter! That worked :):)

[tromboniator]

You're welcome, Nicole!

[Anna Lander]

IMPORANT MARK!
You have to embed your image into document (EMBED button in Control panel or Properties panel). After that you will be allowed to distort the image any way — using Free Transform tool, Envelope Distort with any base, Free Distort effect. Linked objects are not allowed now to distort.

[Nicole_1]

Thank you Anna! However it was already embeded.. I was able to get it to work though 🙂

[tromboniator]

Anna, just to be clear, Free Transform works on any image, embedded or linked, but Perspective Distort, Free Distort, and Free Distort Effect do not unless Envelope Distort is applied (which can only be done on an embedded image). At least those are my results.

Peter

[Anna Lander]

Yes, you're right. When I checked the workaround, at some moment I created an Envelope distort and then thought it was undoed but it was not. So I wondered why everything was going so well! 🙂