Moving Files from Photoshop to Illustrator
Illustrator and Photoshop are powerful programs by themselves, but most artists find that using a combination of the two programs enables them to produce beautiful artwork for publication. There are three basic ways to move Photoshop files into an Illustrator document.
You can “place” a Photoshop image into an Illustrator document, or place Illustrator artwork into a Photoshop file a using the File > Place command found in both programs. This is the most traditional method of moving a file from one program to the other. The only issue of concern is that the image or artwork must be in a file format readable by the other program.
Photoshop is very good at reading multiple file formats. Illustrator is a bit more limited in the formats it understands, but once a Photoshop file is in a readable format (e.g. TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.) you can simply use the File > Place command and select the image. Illustrator will place the desired image inside of the Illustrator file, and you will have some ability to manipulate the file within Illustrator.
Another way of moving a Photoshop file into Illustrator (or vice versa) is with the Clipboard. Just copy the file essentials you want from one program with the Copy command and paste it into the other program with the Paste command. There are limits to the Copy-Paste method however. This method does not work well for large files and you can easily overload the receiving program by pasting a large file into it.
The last method to consider in moving a file between these two programs is the Drag and Drop method. In order to do this, both programs must be open at the same time. Choose the artwork you want to transfer from Photoshop for example and simple drag it out of the Photoshop window onto the Illustrator window. To move artwork the other direction, simple choose the artwork form an open Illustrator window and drag and drop it into an open Photoshop window.
You can also place paths from Photoshop into Illustrator files. Using the Path Selection tool in Photoshop, choose and copy the paths you want to move and paste them into Illustrator.