IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:05 | Welcome to Illustrator CS4 Essential
Training. My name is Mordy Golding.
| | 00:10 | Having once been the product manager for
Illustrator over at Adobe and having taught
| | 00:14 | Illustrator for many, many years,
if there is one thing that I have learned is
| | 00:17 | that there is no one way to use
Illustrator. In fact, Illustrator itself is
| | 00:21 | used for such a wide variety of tasks
to begin with. So the one thing that you
| | 00:24 | won't find in this title is how to
create a business card or how to create a
| | 00:28 | logo inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:29 | Rather in this title, I'll provide you
all the tools and knowledge that you'll
| | 00:33 | need to get started using Illustrator
CS4. Once we get a basic understanding of
| | 00:37 | exactly what vector graphics are,
we'll learn how to use all of Illustrator's
| | 00:40 | drawing tools and move forward from there.
| | 00:44 | Most importantly, by the end of this
title, you'll have all of the knowledge
| | 00:46 | that you need to tackle any design
task. To really get the most out of this
| | 00:50 | training, it's important to realize
that using Illustrator is fun, at least it
| | 00:54 | should be fun, and that's what this
training is all about. Are you ready? Let's go!
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1. Key Illustrator ConceptsWhy use Illustrator?| 00:00 | I'm often asked, why should I use
Illustrator? And that question is usually
| | 00:04 | phrased in the context of comparing
Illustrator with other applications such as
| | 00:07 | Photoshop or maybe InDesign. And I
believe that I get that question because
| | 00:12 | Illustrator suffers from what I would
like to call an identity crisis. On a
| | 00:15 | very basic level, it's easy to describe
what some other design applications do.
| | 00:19 | For example, on a very basic level you
can say Photoshop is an image editing
| | 00:23 | program. At the same time, you can
refer to a product like InDesign as a page
| | 00:27 | layout tool. Flash does animation,
Dreamweaver lays out web pages.
| | 00:32 | When it comes to Illustrator, in one
sentence it's very hard to sum up exactly
| | 00:35 | what it does and that's because --
well, it kind of does everything.
| | 00:39 | Once you get to understand exactly what
Illustrator is and the toolset that it has,
| | 00:43 | you begin to understand when it's
time to use Illustrator. In fact, many
| | 00:47 | elements used in a photo composition
in Photoshop may come from Illustrator.
| | 00:51 | Likewise, Illustrator artwork can make
its way into a page layout in InDesign
| | 00:55 | and through an animation in Flash
or a web page design in Dreamweaver.
| | 00:59 | Many people refer to Illustrator as being
a vector graphics application. And while
| | 01:03 | that is an easy way to describe what
Illustrator is, very few people understand
| | 01:07 | exactly what a vector-based application
is or what that means. We'll talk more
| | 01:12 | about vectors in the next movie, but
basically Illustrator's strengths lie in
| | 01:16 | the fact that it can create graphics
that are infinitely scalable, meaning they
| | 01:19 | can be resized to just about any
size that you need, and they are also
| | 01:23 | extremely easy to edit.
| | 01:25 | This sample file that I have opened
right now is a great example of that,
| | 01:28 | in fact, this sample file ships with
Adobe Illustrator. If you go into your
| | 01:31 | Illustrator applications folder,
you'll find a folder called Cool Stuff, and
| | 01:35 | there are some great sample files and
including this one from Von Glitschka.
| | 01:38 | It's called the Loyal Order of
Wormwood. It's a great illustration, looks
| | 01:42 | wonderful. If I take a look at it for
example, I see how nice that looks.
| | 01:45 | But if I zoom in let's say right here on
this little bird that's whistling, you
| | 01:48 | notice that I lose no detail at all in
that, as opposed to an application like
| | 01:52 | for example Photoshop where as you
begin to enlarge your artwork or you zoom in,
| | 01:56 | you start to see pixels, and again
we'll talk more about this in the next
| | 01:59 | movie. But I could zoom in as close
as I'd like to and still see beautiful
| | 02:02 | sharp edges in these graphics. Because
of their object-based nature, it's
| | 02:06 | also easy for me to click on a particular
object and change its attributes as well.
| | 02:11 | As we go through this entire title,
we'll learn about the functions available
| | 02:14 | inside of Illustrator, it will
become readily apparent to you on when you
| | 02:17 | should be using Illustrator, what its
strengths are and what its weaknesses are.
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| What are vector graphics?| 00:00 | Before we go any further let's take a
moment to really understand what a vector
| | 00:03 | graphic is. Now, the term vector is
tossed around a lot especially in the world
| | 00:08 | of graphics and not everyone has a core
understanding of what that means and
| | 00:11 | again, the more that you know about
how Illustrator works, the better you can
| | 00:14 | take advantage of its
features and functionality later on.
| | 00:17 | Now when we talk about vectors, we are
usually comparing it to something else
| | 00:20 | called pixel-based graphics. So let's
get those terms down from in here.
| | 00:24 | We have something called pixel-based or
raster-based images. Sometimes they are also
| | 00:28 | called bitmaps. Those are the kinds
of graphics that a program say like
| | 00:31 | Photoshop creates.
| | 00:33 | Then again, you have vector
graphics or object-based graphics.
| | 00:36 | Those are the kind of graphics
that Illustrator creates.
| | 00:38 | So let's see exactly what that means.
I'm using a file here called
| | 00:41 | vector_graphics.ai. If you have access
to the exercise files, you'll find it
| | 00:45 | there in Chapter 1.
| | 00:46 | What I'm going to do is I'm going to
go to my Layers panel here and turn on
| | 00:48 | this first layer called Grid. So let's
imagine just a sheet of graph paper for
| | 00:52 | a moment. You have a whole bunch of
basically these little squares, and if you
| | 00:56 | think about it in mathematical terms,
and I know I'm not a big math person,
| | 00:59 | I don't like talking about math, but
that's the core understanding of what these
| | 01:02 | graphics are and that we are
doing with computers here.
| | 01:05 | So basically imagine you have the
sheet of graph paper and each square
| | 01:09 | represents a little dot that you can
color in. Now imagine you had a bunch of
| | 01:12 | magic markers and you wanted to draw
some kind of a picture, and the rules of
| | 01:15 | the game are that you have to fill
in each particular square on that grid
| | 01:19 | completely with only one color. You
can't have two colors within the same box
| | 01:24 | and you also can't have a box that's
only half-filled with colors. So every box
| | 01:27 | itself has to have some kind of color
attributed to it, and if you looked at it
| | 01:30 | right now I would basically say that
every box in that grid is still white.
| | 01:34 | This is the way that Photoshop
works, through pixel-based graphics.
| | 01:37 | A raster, basically, the definition of
raster would be number of boxes width,
| | 01:42 | and number of boxes height. So
basically you can see I have a whole range of
| | 01:45 | boxes from left to right here and a whole
bunch of range of boxes from top to bottom.
| | 01:50 | Now going ahead and coloring each of
these in, I can then create a graphic. Now
| | 01:53 | I'm going to go over here to where it
says raster. I'm going to turn on the
| | 01:56 | raster layer. So this is basically how
you might go about creating a graphic or
| | 02:00 | a raster image let's say inside of
Photoshop for example. I'm exaggerating
| | 02:04 | these pixels here, but basically at
the core part of how Photoshop works,
| | 02:08 | you have a grid and each of those elements
or those dots inside of that grid, which
| | 02:12 | we refer to as pixels, is filled with
a color. And again, like we said before,
| | 02:16 | you can't have a pixel that is half
filled or that contains more than one color.
| | 02:20 | A pixel can only contain one color.
| | 02:22 | Now as you see right now, I have these
boxes that are filled in black. These
| | 02:26 | are filled white and these are filled
with this orange color, and I'm trying to
| | 02:29 | create an image of maybe a surfboard.
Doesn't look that great, but that's
| | 02:32 | because this particular image here
has what we call a low resolution.
| | 02:36 | Resolution refers to basically the
number of squares that you have in your grid.
| | 02:41 | So you may have heard, let's say for
example, digital camera's have something
| | 02:43 | called megapixels. How many megapixels?
5 megapixels, 10 megapixels, so on and
| | 02:48 | so forth. Well, basically a pixel is
the smallest dot or size of a square that
| | 02:54 | you can fill in with a color.
Megapixels refer to the thousands or millions of
| | 02:59 | pixels basically that you
have in a particular image.
| | 03:01 | Now obviously, if I cram a whole bunch
of pixels into an image, these boxes start
| | 03:05 | to get smaller and smaller. So that
would allow me to have more and more detail
| | 03:09 | in my image. Now if I would for
example have a digital camera that had a
| | 03:12 | resolution of 100x100 for example or
something like that, you would get very,
| | 03:16 | very big blocky squares
that I'm seeing right here.
| | 03:19 | Now if you have an expensive camera
that has many megapixels, then of course
| | 03:23 | those pixels are so tiny that the human
eye doesn't really pick up on them and
| | 03:27 | therefore, it appears if it's a
regular photograph that has all those
| | 03:30 | continuous tone, but really down at the
bottom of the core of that are each of
| | 03:34 | these pixels. And the reason why that's
important to us as designers or people
| | 03:37 | who use graphics is that when you
start to enlarge those photographs, then
| | 03:42 | those pixels start to come into view.
| | 03:43 | You may have noticed that when you're
using a program like Photoshop,and you
| | 03:46 | have an image, that image maybe set at
a certain resolution. It may look great
| | 03:50 | at the resolution that it was created
at, but if you want to enlarge their
| | 03:53 | graphic, then these boxes
start to become visible.
| | 03:55 | Just for example, if I zoom out for
a second here you might see that that
| | 03:58 | particular piece of artwork starts to
look a little bit more smoother, and
| | 04:02 | again it's a very low resolution,
just exaggerated. Imagine that little
| | 04:05 | message on the cereal boxes that says
"Enlarged to Show a Texture," right?
| | 04:09 | They just want you to be able to understand
and see what this particular raster image is.
| | 04:12 | But if I zoom in really close as I get
bigger, basically when you enlarge a
| | 04:16 | Photoshop file, it's not adding more
pixels, it's basically taking those pixels
| | 04:21 | and just making those pixels bigger
and bigger. So now the squares just get
| | 04:24 | bigger and I see them. So let's
contrast this now with vector graphics.
| | 04:28 | So I'm going to turn off the Raster
layer here in my Layers panel. I'm going to
| | 04:31 | turn on the Vector layer. So now what
I'm seeing here is the way that vectors work.
| | 04:35 | Vectors are all based with math.
I'm taking that exact same grid.
| | 04:38 | I'm taking that coordinate system basically.
I have X number of boxes, X number of
| | 04:43 | boxes, but instead of actually
having to fill in each of these individual
| | 04:46 | pixels, what I'm doing is I'm
plotting anchor points and these boxes that I
| | 04:50 | have right here are the areas where you
might see those to your anchor points.
| | 04:54 | And those anchor points define the
area where that shape is going to be and
| | 05:00 | you have basically a path that gets
drawn through those particular anchor points.
| | 05:05 | We'll talk more about how you create
those paths and the settings for what
| | 05:08 | makes them curve and how much do they
curve and when it's a straight line,
| | 05:12 | we'll deal with that later, but for now,
it's important to understand the core
| | 05:15 | concept that these dots that I have
right here are anchor points that are
| | 05:20 | basically points plotted on a grid.
And you took Geometry in school, you know
| | 05:23 | that when you have let's say a graph,
you can plot a certain point and that
| | 05:26 | point has a coordinate. For example,
if you have an X and a Y axis that this
| | 05:31 | particular point may have a specific coordinate
of X-20 and Y-35 ,or something like that.
| | 05:37 | Now the reason why that's important
is that if I decide now that I want to
| | 05:40 | enlarge or scale this particular
graphic, what Illustrator something does is
| | 05:43 | that it takes that math and it just
enlarges that particular image or those
| | 05:48 | anchor points and it re-plots them and
it recalculates using math where those
| | 05:52 | belong on a grid.
| | 05:53 | So you can basically take any graphic
that you create inside of Illustrator,
| | 05:56 | and you can scale it to any size,
that's whatever I mean you could take, is the
| | 06:00 | size of literally a postage stamp and
enlarge it to be the size to fit onto the
| | 06:04 | size of a blimp, and you have no
loss in detail whatsoever. There is no
| | 06:08 | blocking and there is no chunks; there
are no pixels that come into play here.
| | 06:12 | One other benefit of working with
vector images is that when it comes time to
| | 06:15 | actually saving your file, in general,
vector graphics tend to be smaller in
| | 06:19 | file size, or I guess you can say,
more easier to deal with and that's again
| | 06:23 | because of how these files are saved.
You can think about it, the way that
| | 06:26 | Illustrator saves this file from
mathematical standpoint, it just remembers the
| | 06:29 | coordinates of this anchor point, this
anchor point, this anchor point, this
| | 06:33 | anchor point, and the two attributes,
which are what we call the Stroke color
| | 06:36 | and the Fill color, and
we'll talk about that shortly.
| | 06:38 | But for now, basically that's all that
a particular file for Illustrator needs
| | 06:42 | to be calculated by. A Photoshop
document, however, needs to take account
| | 06:47 | basically at every single pixel that
exists in the file, whether or not it's
| | 06:50 | painted or not. I mean, again, this
would be white and let's go back to the
| | 06:53 | raster image for a second here.
| | 06:55 | With Photoshop would need to do is
memorize, okay, pixel number one is white,
| | 06:57 | pixel number two is white, pixel
number three is white, pixel number four is
| | 07:00 | white, down the line throughout the
whole particular image, and obviously
| | 07:03 | if you think about images that have
megapixels, remember? So many more pixels
| | 07:07 | in the file that it has to keep tabs
on what each of those particular pixels
| | 07:10 | are colored. That's when a Photoshop
file start to grow in size and they get to be
| | 07:13 | hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes in size.
| | 07:16 | So finally, I'm just going back to
the vector graphic here for a minute and
| | 07:19 | I'll turn off the raster layer here.
Another name for vector graphics is
| | 07:23 | something called object-based graphics.
And again, that's simply because of the
| | 07:25 | way that Illustrator works. Because
this is defined as a shape by these anchor
| | 07:30 | points in this particular path here,
it's not like I just have a whole bunch of
| | 07:33 | pixels that live in the same area. If
I click on this object right now, I see
| | 07:37 | that the entire object as a whole gets
selected and that's another reason why
| | 07:41 | vector graphics are often referred to
as object-based graphics, because I'm not
| | 07:45 | working with a whole bunch of
individual pixels; I'm working with an object and
| | 07:48 | that object that I'm working with
can have attributes so on and so forth.
| | 07:51 | So now that we have this core
understanding of what a vector graphic is, let's
| | 07:55 | take a look and understand exactly what
these paths are, how they are created,
| | 07:59 | how they are stored and the way
that I can actually interact with that.
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| Understanding paths| 00:00 | So now we understand the
difference between vector-based graphics and
| | 00:03 | pixel-based or raster-based graphics.
So now let's take a look at more of an
| | 00:07 | understanding of what these vector graphics are,
what makes them tick, what are they made of.
| | 00:12 | So you'll notice we're here in this file,
and by the way, if you have access to
| | 00:15 | the exercise files, you can follow
along by opening up the file called
| | 00:18 | understanding_paths, which
you'll find in the Chapter 01 folder.
| | 00:22 | So I have basically these four charts
that I have created. I have put these
| | 00:25 | graphics onto them and we're kind of
just getting a better understanding of
| | 00:28 | what each of these graphics are now.
From a vector standpoint, there are
| | 00:32 | really two classifications or two types of paths;
there are what we refer to as open paths,
| | 00:37 | which are the two that we see at
the top of my screen right here. Open
| | 00:40 | paths have no enclosed area. Then you
have closed paths, which basically have an
| | 00:44 | enclosed area here as well.
| | 00:46 | As we learn more about Illustrator,
there will be times where there are
| | 00:49 | differences between open and closed
paths, especially when we talk about the
| | 00:53 | attributes that those particular paths have.
| | 00:54 | Now a path itself-- let's say we take
a very simple case, a straight line.
| | 00:57 | Basically, I have here is two anchor
points, one anchor point here, which
| | 01:01 | defines start point, and one anchor
point, which determines the end point, and
| | 01:06 | basically when you are working with
Illustrator by plotting the anchor points
| | 01:10 | here, this path is automatically
created or connecting the two.
| | 01:13 | By default, anchor points themselves
are connected by straight lines.
| | 01:17 | The shortest distance between two points
of a straight line; that's kind of what
| | 01:20 | you have there. As we'll learn more
about anchor points, we'll talk more about
| | 01:23 | the Pen tool as we learn later on.
Other things inside of Illustrator. But just
| | 01:27 | as a basic idea of what's to come, there
are also different types of anchor points.
| | 01:31 | Right now this anchor point is what
we refer to is a corner anchor point,
| | 01:34 | meaning that the line that emanates or
that comes out of that anchor point is a
| | 01:37 | straight line. As you notice over here,
this anchor point has a curve line that
| | 01:41 | comes out of it, and that particular
anchor point is referred to as a smooth
| | 01:45 | anchor point. So you have corner anchor
points and smooth anchor points. We'll
| | 01:49 | talk about the classifications of
those as well. But again, that's how you
| | 01:51 | define these particular shapes here.
| | 01:53 | Now each point that you have has a
coordinate on that chart, and obviously when
| | 01:57 | that chart gets enlarged or you make
your file size bigger so on and so forth,
| | 02:02 | Illustrator simply remaps that
particular point on a particular chart and then
| | 02:05 | draws that new path again.
| | 02:07 | If you look over here at a rectangle,
for example, a rectangle is made up of
| | 02:09 | four anchor points, one, two, three
and four; they are corner anchor points,
| | 02:14 | which means that they are all
connected with straight lines, and that's what
| | 02:17 | creates the rectangle.
| | 02:19 | It's important to note that an oval,
circle or any of the kind of shape like
| | 02:22 | this has also four anchor points. But
the only difference is that the anchor
| | 02:27 | points are positioned differently
inside of the corners to position the top,
| | 02:30 | bottom, left and right.
| | 02:32 | You'll notice that the lines that
connect these anchor points are curved. So
| | 02:35 | let's first focus on this one over
here and understand what that means.
| | 02:38 | I have an anchor point but Illustrator
also has this curve path that comes out
| | 02:43 | of it. Now what's making that path
curved? Remember, the actual coordinates of
| | 02:47 | this anchor point and this anchor point
are the exact same coordinates of this
| | 02:51 | anchor point and this one.
| | 02:53 | So what's making this line straight
is, in fact, these are corner anchor
| | 02:56 | points. These are smooth anchor points
and that allows it to be a curve. Now
| | 02:59 | what controls that curve? We'll notice
there is a line over here that's kind of
| | 03:03 | coming out here with little dot.
This is what we call a Control Handle.
| | 03:06 | The Control Handle is what determines
that particular curve. Notice that the
| | 03:10 | path itself over here follows that
curve. As we'll start to learn inside of
| | 03:14 | Illustrator, I can start to manipulate
these control handles in the path, kind
| | 03:18 | of is drawn to almost like a magnet
. As I would for example take this
| | 03:22 | particular Control Handle and pull it
up higher this part of the curve would
| | 03:25 | also kind of be attracted and
move in that particular direction.
| | 03:29 | That's really what's making this
particular overwork as well. I have a regular
| | 03:32 | anchor point here, but this Control
Handle is pulling out the curve in this
| | 03:36 | direction. At the same time, the
Control Handle from this curve from this
| | 03:40 | particular anchor point here is making
the curve appear in that particular way.
| | 03:44 | Now, when you're talking about Vector
Graphics as well and you started having
| | 03:46 | control handles, there are coordinates
for those control handles as well, which
| | 03:50 | memorize where that part goes. Now,
it's important to realize by the way.
| | 03:53 | When I print my files I don't really
see the anchor points, I just see the path
| | 03:57 | itself. And again, we'll talk more
about how that works, but for now I just
| | 04:01 | realize that these are ways that I
can actually work with and edit these
| | 04:04 | particular paths. But the way that
I control them or what we call the
| | 04:08 | appearance of these particular paths is
what we'll cover now in the next video.
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| Fill and Stroke attributes| 00:00 | So we're starting to understand what
these vector objects are. We know that
| | 00:03 | paths themselves are made up with
anchor points. They are connected with paths.
| | 00:08 | Some paths, which are curves, also
have control handles, which define those
| | 00:11 | curves. But all of that has to do with
the actual geometry of the shape itself,
| | 00:15 | not how that particular path may
visually appear. Let me explain.
| | 00:19 | All the things that we've been seeing
so far as far as anchor points and the
| | 00:23 | paths and these control handles, those
don't actually print down on a piece of paper.
| | 00:27 | That would be pretty silly, right?
What the paths actually do is those
| | 00:31 | particular control handles and
those anchor points are there for us to
| | 00:34 | interface with those paths when we are
working with them inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:38 | However, when we print a particular
path, what we need to do is we need to
| | 00:41 | apply an appearance to that particular
path. Think of a path on its own with
| | 00:45 | just the anchor points and the paths
itself as naked, and we need to get them
| | 00:49 | dressed with something. So we get them
dressed with two types of attributes,
| | 00:53 | something called Fills and
then something called Strokes.
| | 00:57 | The Fills refer to the part of a path,
which is the enclosed area and there are
| | 01:01 | different types of fills. The Strokes
themselves refer to the appearance of the
| | 01:05 | physical path itself, and again there
are different types of attributes of
| | 01:09 | those strokes as well. Let's take a
quick look at what those are. Later on in
| | 01:13 | the video titles we'll talk more
about what each of those settings are.
| | 01:17 | I'll start off with something simple,
which is the Fill. I'll move over to the
| | 01:20 | rectangle here on the bottom and I'll
use my regular Selection tool to click on
| | 01:23 | the shape. If you want to follow
along, you'll find this file called
| | 01:25 | fills_and_strokes in the first chapter
folder in the exercise files, or you can
| | 01:30 | just sit back and watch as
I go through these concepts.
| | 01:32 | Now this particular file is selected,
again we'll talk more about details about
| | 01:36 | how to select objects and what that
means. But for now I've selected this
| | 01:39 | particular object right here. If I go
to my Control panel here, I have two
| | 01:43 | buttons. One on the left here refers
to the Fill Setting for that particular shape.
| | 01:48 | So I'm going to go ahead and click on
that. I'm going to see a range of colors
| | 01:51 | or swatches that I can choose from. For
now, I'm just going to click on yellow,
| | 01:54 | by the way yellow is my favorite color,
I'm sure that you will find that out as
| | 01:56 | you go through the rest of the title here.
| | 01:59 | I now have this box that's filled with
yellow. I just want to show you by the
| | 02:02 | way, I'm going to go my Layers panel
here and I actually have a layer here
| | 02:05 | called Path Appearance and Path
Geometry. I'm going to hide the Path Geometry
| | 02:09 | layer. I'm just going to turn off the
eyeball there, because Path Geometry
| | 02:12 | itself and those anchor points are
things that we see when we work inside of
| | 02:15 | Illustrator. For example, when I click
on this rectangle right now, you see the
| | 02:19 | little anchor points that are right
here. But those don't print down when I
| | 02:22 | print this on a printer or even when I
save them to be viewed on a web page.
| | 02:25 | They are there for me to interact with
the object when I need to, but the way
| | 02:29 | the artwork will look is just this.
It's got a yellow fill and it's got that
| | 02:32 | shape of that rectangle.
| | 02:33 | So that is the Fill Attribute, and
like I say there are other Fill attributes
| | 02:37 | as well, this is a basic idea, you have
something called Gradient Fills, which
| | 02:41 | are fills that start off with one color
and then gradually go to another color.
| | 02:45 | Then you also have Pattern Fills,
which are fills that have other kinds of
| | 02:48 | artwork that repeat itself over-
and-over again inside of that.
| | 02:50 | So you have these particular types of
fills that apply to an object. Remember,
| | 02:55 | the important thing is that the past
geometry in this stuff that we've been
| | 02:58 | talking about till now is stuff for us
to see on our screen. However, we don't
| | 03:01 | really see that when we print that out
in the file. Let me go ahead and just
| | 03:04 | actually hide the Path Geometry.
| | 03:06 | I'm going to select this circle that
appears here. You see now when I select
| | 03:09 | the path, I see those control
handles, and I see the anchor points; but
| | 03:13 | remember, those don't print at all.
But what I can do is take this particular
| | 03:16 | circle right here, click on it, go
over here to my Fill, and maybe we'll fill
| | 03:21 | that with like this gradient, it's
called the Radio Gradient; we'll talk more
| | 03:24 | about this later as well.
| | 03:25 | So now I have these two shapes, and
again I've applied that particular Fill to
| | 03:29 | it. Remember, when I print it out I
don't see any of those paths or anchor
| | 03:33 | points or control handles as well.
| | 03:35 | Let me go back over here now, for
example, to this shape. Let me turn the Path
| | 03:39 | Geometry back on again. I'm going to
select this part of the path that's right
| | 03:42 | here. Now, the other attributes that I
have besides a Fill is something called
| | 03:45 | the Stroke Attribute, and the Stroke
Attribute, if I go over here to my Control
| | 03:49 | panel here, I can see the word Stroke,
it opens up the Stroke panel that's right here.
| | 03:53 | I can apply what's called the Stroke
Weight. Now the Stroke Weight is basically
| | 03:57 | the thickness of that particular stroke.
Let's say I choose something really
| | 04:00 | thick, I really have like 10 points,
for example. Do you see now I have a very
| | 04:03 | fat appearance of that particular
stroke that's right there? I can control that
| | 04:07 | thickness, I can make let's say 40
points, or I can make it very thin and
| | 04:11 | narrow and make it just 1 point, for
example. Again, if I turn off the Path
| | 04:14 | Geometry here, I see the way it is
going to look when it prints is this way.
| | 04:18 | Now I mentioned before there were
different settings for strokes, for example,
| | 04:22 | strokes have what we call a Dash Setting.
If I click on this setting, it allows
| | 04:25 | me to have -- now instead of a solid
line just kind of a broken line. Again,
| | 04:29 | I'm just going to click and drag here
to select this particular curve path as well.
| | 04:33 | I can apply a stroke as well here,
maybe a 5-point stroke, and I can also
| | 04:37 | change the color of that stroke. Maybe
we'll do some cyan here. And again, I
| | 04:41 | also have the ability to control
some of the ways that stroke looks. For
| | 04:44 | example, if I change the Stroke
Weight here to maybe 20 points.
| | 04:48 | See how it kind of ends in a very
square edge right here. What I can do is from
| | 04:52 | the Stroke panel choose to define
how the cap or the end of that stroke
| | 04:56 | appears. For example, a Round Cap
would make the stroke appear as such.
| | 05:00 | So these are the settings that you have
basically, the way that you 'get a path
| | 05:04 | dressed,' you give it an appearance,
and we'll talk more about appearances as
| | 05:07 | we go through into the title. But now
we have the basic premises or ideas of
| | 05:11 | what vector graphics are.
| | 05:13 | Vector Graphics are basically made
up of these anchor points. There are
| | 05:18 | different types of anchor points.
Smooth anchor points have control handles
| | 05:21 | that help define the paths that
connect to these particular anchor points and
| | 05:25 | then what I can do is I can define
how my path looks by applying Fill and
| | 05:29 | Stroke attributes to that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selections and stacking order| 00:00 | A key concept in working with vector
graphics is something called selections
| | 00:04 | and stacking order. So let's take a
look at both of these. I have a file open
| | 00:08 | right now. It's called selections
stacking; you'll find it in Chapter 1 of your
| | 00:12 | exercise files if you have access
to those. And I have basically three
| | 00:15 | surfboard designs right here. Now
let's say I wanted to change one of those
| | 00:19 | particular colors in the let's say
the orange surfboard. But I can't just
| | 00:23 | choose a different color than orange
because how does Illustrator know which
| | 00:27 | surfboard I'm referring to? So the act
of actually making a selection becomes
| | 00:31 | very important inside of Illustrator,
because it's really the only way that you
| | 00:35 | can interface and give instructions
to Illustrator with regards to which
| | 00:39 | graphics you want to work with or
which shape in your file you want to work
| | 00:41 | with. Now let's, for example, contrast
this with maybe a program like Photoshop
| | 00:46 | for example. Photoshop, as we discussed
before, relies on the use of pixels and
| | 00:50 | each individual pixel has a color. If
you wanted changed the color of a blue
| | 00:54 | sky in a photograph, you couldn't
select the sky as a whole because each pixel
| | 01:00 | in that sky is its own entity and
in reality in a real continuous tone
| | 01:04 | photographic nature or environment,
every pixel may have a little bit of a
| | 01:07 | different shade of blue so you can't
even tell Photoshop to necessarily select
| | 01:12 | just all the blue pixels. Remember with
Illustrator we're dealing with objects.
| | 01:17 | So making selections in Illustrator can
be a lot easier. For example, I'll use
| | 01:20 | my tool over here, this regular black
arrow tool called the Selection tool, and
| | 01:24 | I can simply click on this surfboard.
In doing so, I now have selected that and
| | 01:28 | when I do so, I'll see now that the
attributes of that particular object are
| | 01:32 | now highlighted so now I could change
that for example to yellow. So that's one
| | 01:36 | thing I can do as far as selections. I
do want to point out though that these
| | 01:39 | particular surfboards are a little
different. For example this one is this one
| | 01:42 | is just one particular shape on its own.
This one over here is actually a group
| | 01:46 | of several shapes and this is a group
of even more shapes. Now we group things
| | 01:50 | together so we can move them very
easily. For example, again I'm using the
| | 01:54 | Selection tool here, the regular black
arrow tool inside of Illustrator and I
| | 01:57 | can actually move this entire
surfboard with all the elements together. Let's
| | 02:01 | say though, I just wanted to move just
this blue shape somewhere off, maybe I
| | 02:05 | want to offset it just a drop. How can
I do that? Well Illustrator has another
| | 02:09 | selection tool called the Direct
Selection tool. So this tool is what we call
| | 02:13 | the Selection tool. The tool right
beneath it or sometimes beside it, depending
| | 02:17 | on what your layout is inside of
Illustrator, is going to be the Direct
| | 02:20 | Selection tool or the white arrow. When
I click on that, I now have the ability
| | 02:24 | to select individual parts of a group
and I can now move that independently of
| | 02:28 | the entire surfboard artwork in general.
So again, the regular Selection tool,
| | 02:34 | when I click on say a group, will
select the entire group whereas the Direct
| | 02:38 | Selection tool will let me drill down
and select parts of that particular group
| | 02:41 | and modify those shapes individually.
Now in the next video we're going to talk
| | 02:45 | about something called Isolation mode,
which makes this process a little bit
| | 02:47 | easier, but it's important to realize
that people who've been using Illustrator
| | 02:50 | for very long time, they are basically
in the habit of using keyboard shortcuts
| | 02:55 | to help move between these two
different tools because it can get tiring by
| | 02:59 | going back to these particular tools,
back and forth. It can be very annoying
| | 03:02 | to work with that. So there is some
intelligence built into Illustrator and how
| | 03:05 | that works. Let me show you basically
the difference between these two arrows,
| | 03:08 | not on groups, but actually working
with a single object. So as I showed your
| | 03:12 | before, if I take my regular black
arrow tool I call it the black arrow tool
| | 03:15 | but it's been called a solid arrow and
the hollow arrow. You can really call it
| | 03:19 | anything you want to for that matter.
But if I click on this particular shape
| | 03:22 | right here, again, I can click on the
edge over here and I can drag this out.
| | 03:27 | Even if I click on say, just the tip
of the surfboard right here, with the
| | 03:30 | anchor point there, I can go ahead and
I can scale it because I have what we
| | 03:34 | call the bounding box here and I can
stretch that if I want to. But if I wanted
| | 03:37 | to let's say click on one point over
here, I can't really click on one point.
| | 03:40 | The entire surfboard moves as a whole.
But if I switch now to the Direct
| | 03:43 | Selection tool and I click let's the
say this point right here-- notice how
| | 03:47 | that highlights when I mouse over that
? Soon as I click and I drag I can move
| | 03:50 | just that one anchor point. You'll see
the control handles right here. So the
| | 03:55 | Direct Selection tool not only allows
me to edit individual parts of the group,
| | 03:59 | it will also allow me to edit
individual anchor points on a path, which is
| | 04:03 | something that the Direct Selection
tool can do, but the regular Selection tool
| | 04:05 | cannot do. The regular Selection tool
only selects all the anchor points at one
| | 04:09 | time on a particular path that's there.
So let's circle this around now one
| | 04:14 | whole concept of how the selections
work. Let's say I'm working with the
| | 04:17 | regular Selection tool. I'm working
with this shape right here and I realize,
| | 04:20 | you know what I really want to edit
that particular point. Well, you don't need
| | 04:23 | to go ahead and switch manually to
the other tool because if you're using a
| | 04:26 | keyboard shortcut, hold down the
Command key on my keyboard. I'm on a Mac but
| | 04:30 | if you're on a PC, hold down the Ctrl
key. And you see how my arrow, which is a
| | 04:33 | black arrow now, turns to the white
arrow. So this is a keyboard shortcut that
| | 04:37 | power users know. They work with this
all the time inside of Illustrator. The
| | 04:40 | Command key or the Ctrl key is actually
one most powerful keyboard shortcuts to
| | 04:43 | know inside Illustrator. It allows you
to toggle between the two arrows because
| | 04:47 | those are the things that you use
most often. So if I'm working on this
| | 04:50 | particular surfboard and moving it
around, mow I realize I want to go ahead and
| | 04:53 | I want to just adjust the corner. I'm
going to press and hold the Command key--
| | 04:56 | again, the Ctrl key if you're on Windows.
And I'll click once now to select it.
| | 05:00 | Now just an anchor point is selected.
If we take a closer look see how these
| | 05:03 | are filled like they're hollow, they're
white. But this has a color on it. That
| | 05:07 | means that that one is selected. I can
now click and drag just to move that one
| | 05:11 | that's there. So I don't have to
physically go ahead to the toolbox, keep going
| | 05:14 | back and switching the two tools I can
use the keyboard basically to make that
| | 05:18 | happen. Now when it comes to selecting
objects there could be times when I want
| | 05:22 | to select more than just one object. So
here's how you select multiple objects.
| | 05:25 | If I click on one object right now,
I'm using the black arrow, I select an
| | 05:29 | entire object. If I hold down the
Shift key and I click on the second shape
| | 05:34 | right over here, this surfboard,
that adds to my selection and now both
| | 05:37 | surfboards have been selected. If I
move them now you see they both move
| | 05:40 | together. The Shift key is actually a
toggle. It allows me to add items to a
| | 05:44 | selection by a Shift-clicking on
other objects but at the same time, if I
| | 05:48 | Shift-click on an object that is
already selected then that Shift key deselects
| | 05:52 | that object. So for example if I
realize, oh! I just want to move this yellow
| | 05:55 | surfboard on its own, I can once
again Shift-click on the surfboard and now
| | 06:00 | that is removed from my selection. So
let's just kind of review on this one
| | 06:04 | more time. If I click once on this to
select this one, I can Shift-click on
| | 06:07 | this surfboard and this surfboard.
Now all three are selected. But if I
| | 06:12 | Shift-click now on the yellow surfboard,
it is dropped from my selection and
| | 06:15 | now these are the only two that are
selected. Now let's finalize this by
| | 06:18 | talking about stacking order. So we
understand what selections are. When you
| | 06:22 | think about stacking order inside of
Illustrator, stacking order itself is
| | 06:26 | basically a way to determine which
objects sit on top of other objects. So
| | 06:30 | here's how it works. Imagine you have
a desk in front of you and you have a
| | 06:33 | couple of pieces of paper and each of
those pieces of paper are stacked on top
| | 06:36 | each other. Well, some papers cover
up parts of some other pieces of paper,
| | 06:40 | right? You have basically papers on
top each other or below each other. Well,
| | 06:44 | the way that it works inside of
Illustrator is that you can never have two
| | 06:46 | objects that kind of sit on the exact
same level. Objects are always bound by a
| | 06:51 | hierarchy or a stacking order and
objects are either above or beneath other
| | 06:55 | objects. For example in this case, if I
were to take this surfboard right here
| | 06:59 | and drag it on top of this surfboard, I
will see now that this covers over that
| | 07:03 | one and in the stacking order, this
one is in the front; this one is in the
| | 07:07 | back. And if I click on this one
over here I'll see that this one is even
| | 07:09 | behind that one. So this is my
stacking order that I have inside of
| | 07:12 | Illustrator. Now at anytime I can
adjust the stacking order. For example I can
| | 07:16 | click on this yellow surfboard here, go
to the Object menu, choose Arrange and
| | 07:21 | then choose Bring to Front. Bring to
Front will actually now bring this in
| | 07:24 | front of all the objects and now if I
move it over here, I'll see it covers
| | 07:27 | even this front one that was here
before. I'm going to press Undo and I'll do
| | 07:31 | that by pressing Command+Z or Ctrl+Z
on Windows. I can now go to the Object
| | 07:35 | menu, choose Arrange and rather than
say Bring to Front, I could choose Bring
| | 07:39 | Forward and that brings it forward just
one step in the hierarchy. So now it's
| | 07:44 | still behind this one, but it's in
front of that one of there. I'll undo that
| | 07:47 | to go back to the original one. I'll
be honest with you. When I'm working
| | 07:50 | inside of Illustrators it's very rare
that I'll use the Bring Forward command.
| | 07:53 | Because when you have lots of
different objects it's almost impossible to
| | 07:55 | figure out where a single object may
fit in that stacking order. So what I'll
| | 07:59 | usually do is always use Bring to Front.
There's also a setting here, if I go
| | 08:03 | to the Object menu and choose Arrange,
called Sent to Back. Sent to Back will
| | 08:07 | take any object of course and send it
to the back of the stacking order. Again
| | 08:10 | likewise you also have the Send Backward,
which brings it back one step in the
| | 08:14 | objects hierarchy. So again, when
you're working inside of Illustrator, you
| | 08:17 | have the ability to select objects.
More importantly, there's always the
| | 08:21 | stacking order, which means objects
are either in front of or behind other
| | 08:24 | objects and how you actually manipulate
and work with that stacking order will
| | 08:28 | ultimately control how your design looks.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Isolation mode| 00:00 | So the final key concept that I want to
cover here before we actually get into
| | 00:03 | using Illustrator is
something called Isolation mode.
| | 00:05 | Now, all the concepts we have learned
up until this point have been traditional
| | 00:09 | things, which have existed inside of
Illustrator since its existence. However,
| | 00:13 | Isolation mode is more of a recent
kind of phenomenon I guess you can say
| | 00:16 | inside of Illustrator. It's a way to
more easily work with objects inside of an
| | 00:21 | illustration.
| | 00:22 | As you start to build more and more
complex illustrations you will find it's
| | 00:25 | that much more difficult to select
the objects that you want to work with.
| | 00:29 | Building on concepts that you already
know, we mentioned in the last video that
| | 00:32 | when using Photoshop you have to
select individual pixels, and that can be
| | 00:35 | tedious and there are certain tools
that Photoshop has to help you select
| | 00:38 | those pixels.
| | 00:39 | With Illustrator there is also a
variety of Selection tools, but the more and
| | 00:42 | more objects that you add, even though
they are object-based graphics, there
| | 00:46 | are that many more objects that kind
of get in the way, again, because of
| | 00:49 | the way the stacking order works.
| | 00:50 | For example, if you have objects that
are visible behind other objects it can
| | 00:55 | become difficult to actually select
those objects, only because other things
| | 00:58 | get in the way, and that's
where Isolation mode comes in.
| | 01:02 | Isolation mode allows you to isolate
individual parts of a graphic so that you
| | 01:05 | can focus on just that part of it.
Isolation mode first appeared in Illustrator CS2.
| | 01:10 | It got better in CS3, but now in
Illustrator CS4 it really has turned into
| | 01:15 | one of the greatest enhancements I
think that is available in the program,
| | 01:19 | only because of how often
you can end up using it.
| | 01:20 | For example, I mentioned before how
when you are working with different pieces
| | 01:25 | of artwork, maybe for example a group.
Let's take this surfboard here on the
| | 01:28 | far left here. This is a group that's
made up of many elements. What I could do
| | 01:32 | is if I wanted to use the Direct
Selection tool I could go ahead and work with
| | 01:35 | individual objects that are part
of that group as well and move those
| | 01:38 | individually. Or maybe let's say
individual letters that are part of this
| | 01:41 | particular logo, so on and so forth.
| | 01:44 | But even using the keyboard shortcut
it could become tedious moving back and
| | 01:47 | forth between these two Selection tools.
I'm going to stay only right now using
| | 01:50 | the black arrow or the Selection tool.
| | 01:53 | I'm going to come over to this
surfboard and you know that when I click and
| | 01:55 | move this entire surfboard
moves at one design unit.
| | 01:58 | Let me press Undo. What I'm going to
do is I'm going to actually double click
| | 02:02 | on this particular surfboard. Now, you
will notice that the other surfboards in
| | 02:06 | this file are grayed out. I can't even
select them. I can see them but I can't
| | 02:10 | even move them. I now basically have
isolated just this group to work with, and
| | 02:14 | in fact, you will notice the gray bar
now appears across the top of my screen
| | 02:19 | and I now see that it has something
called breadcrumbs; I'm in Layer 1 and I'm
| | 02:23 | now within, or I have isolated this group
that lives on Layer 1 inside of my graphic.
| | 02:27 | Now, it doesn't end there, because I
can start now to begin to isolate parts of
| | 02:31 | that group itself. For example, if I
wanted to move just this blue part of this
| | 02:36 | particular surfboard, I'll double click
on it once again. Notice what happens.
| | 02:40 | The rest of the surfboard gets grayed
out. In fact, this blue slice that was
| | 02:44 | kind of here was living behind the logo
called GROUNDSWELL, well now you see it
| | 02:49 | kind of pops to the front.
| | 02:51 | I didn't actually change the Stacking
Order, what Illustrator did was it says,
| | 02:54 | hey, you obviously want to edit and
work with that graphic, I'll bring it
| | 02:58 | forward in context that you can work
with it, when you are done I'll put it
| | 03:01 | back in the place that it belongs.
| | 03:02 | So imagine if you have a very complex
illustration. By simply double clicking
| | 03:06 | with the mouse in different areas you
can bring pieces of artwork that are
| | 03:09 | maybe hidden behind other areas or that
are maybe difficult to work with, bring
| | 03:13 | them to the front just so that you can
make a quick edit to them, and then send
| | 03:17 | them right back to where they belong.
| | 03:17 | For example, now I'm not using my
white arrow, I'm using the regular black
| | 03:22 | arrow, yet I'm able to move this shape
individually, even though I know that
| | 03:26 | these are all elements of a single group.
The way that that happens is because
| | 03:30 | I have now isolated the group. In fact,
I had this group here, I can double
| | 03:33 | click again, I can isolate the path now.
| | 03:36 | So basically one of the new features
inside of Illustrator CS4 is Isolation
| | 03:40 | mode now works on individual paths.
This means that I could really go into any
| | 03:44 | part of my illustration and work with
it without any issues whatsoever and sort
| | 03:47 | of basically go out of isolation; when
I can either step back by clicking on
| | 03:52 | these breadcrumbs, or I can just
double click on any area outside that object
| | 03:56 | to return me to regular edit mode.
| | 03:57 | For example, if I knew I wanted to
work on, let's say, just this shape right
| | 04:00 | here, using my regular Selection tool,
I'll double click once, double click
| | 04:04 | again. Now I have isolated this entire
group. Double click another time, and
| | 04:09 | now I see that I can isolate this
particular object here within that group,
| | 04:12 | without having to worry about moving
around to different Selection tools, so on
| | 04:16 | and so forth. I can see that I have
that hierarchy right here inside of my file.
| | 04:20 | I'll double click outside
and I'm back to editing this artwork.
| | 04:23 | So as we kind of go through the
entire video title we will continue to come
| | 04:27 | back to Isolation mode to see how
easy it is to basically work with your
| | 04:31 | artwork, even if it may be a very complex file.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Creating Illustrator DocumentsThe Welcome screen| 00:00 | By default, when you launch
Illustrator you are greeted with the welcome
| | 00:03 | screen. The purpose of the welcome
screen is either to help you create new
| | 00:06 | documents or to work with
documents that you have already started on.
| | 00:09 | The left side provides a list of all
the files that you have recently worked on
| | 00:12 | inside of Illustrator. On the
right side you can choose to create new
| | 00:15 | documents. In the next movie we will
talk about exactly what each of these are
| | 00:19 | or what we call New Document Profiles.
| | 00:21 | But if you wanted to create, for
example, a web design document, you would
| | 00:24 | simply click here, you will get this
dialog box here to choose the settings for
| | 00:28 | that document, click OK, and that's
how you get started creating a new file
| | 00:32 | directly inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:33 | If you were to close your file right here,
the welcome screen comes right back.
| | 00:38 | If you don't want to see the welcome
screen you can simply come over here to
| | 00:40 | the Don't show again button and choose
that option. At any time you can always
| | 00:44 | get the welcome screen back by going
to the Help menu and choosing Welcome Screen.
| | 00:48 | There is a section on the bottom here,
which provides links to find out more
| | 00:51 | information about Illustrator, but
it's important to realize also that as we
| | 00:55 | talk about the New Document
Profiles you can of course create your own
| | 00:58 | customized document profile. So while
these are the ones that ship with the
| | 01:01 | Illustrator by default, you can conceivably
have some of your own listed here as well.
| | 01:06 | So let's take a look at exactly what
New Document Profiles are and how they work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| New Document Profiles| 00:00 | As I mentioned in one of the earlier
videos in this title Illustrator itself
| | 00:04 | has kind of an identity crisis,
meaning that there are just so many different
| | 00:07 | uses for Illustrator, there is no
one particular use. Which is one of the
| | 00:11 | reasons why Illustrator ships out of
the box with a variety of new document profiles.
| | 00:16 | As you see here in the welcome screen
you have something here called a Print
| | 00:19 | Document, a Web Document, Mobile and
Devices Document, and the Video and Film
| | 00:24 | Document. Those are the four basic
types of documents that you can create for
| | 00:27 | I guess four different workflows
that Illustrator plays very well in.
| | 00:30 | We will start off with these, but of
course you can also create your own.
| | 00:35 | I'll click on Print Document and that
brings up this New Document dialog box.
| | 00:38 | In fact, if you look here at the bottom
there is a button here called Advanced. By
| | 00:41 | default Illustrator doesn't show you
all the settings, but hey, we are here to
| | 00:45 | learn everything in Illustrator, so
let's look at the Advanced settings as
| | 00:47 | well, and we will go through this very
quickly and we will come back as we need
| | 00:51 | to, to these different concepts.
| | 00:52 | Now, first of all, you have the
ability to name your document right off the bat.
| | 00:55 | We can do this later when you save
your document; just saves yourself a step later.
| | 00:58 | Notice over here that it says New
Document Profile. This is actually quite
| | 01:02 | interesting because if I move this
back over here, remember how we had Print,
| | 01:05 | Web, Mobile Devices, so on and so forth?
Well, really that's just kind of one
| | 01:09 | step but you could change your mind
at this point and really switch to any
| | 01:12 | other profiles as well. This is
important as we will talk about in a minute.
| | 01:15 | I have here the Print New Document
Profile selected. Let's talk about artboards
| | 01:19 | itself. For now this is actually a new
feature inside of Illustrator CS4, the
| | 01:23 | ability to have multiple artboards in
a single document, but for now we are
| | 01:26 | just going to leave it set to one
artboard; in the next movie we will come back
| | 01:28 | to understanding how we
could use multiple artboards.
| | 01:31 | Now, the size of that artboard right
now is set to a Letter size, which is
| | 01:34 | 8.5x11, here in the United States. I
can choose let's say Legal, Tabloid, and
| | 01:38 | there are a few other presets that
are here as well. These are mainly used
| | 01:42 | internationally; A4, A3
sizes, so on and so forth.
| | 01:45 | Now, the reason why I pointed out to
you the fact that you can switch between
| | 01:48 | profiles here is because if I switch to
Web, for example, this same size pop-up
| | 01:53 | menu gets populated by other sizes.
Unfortunately, there is no way to basically
| | 01:58 | customize these pop-up menus.
| | 01:59 | The Illustrator team kind of decided
on their own some of the basic or most
| | 02:03 | used different sizes for each of these
workflows and they have programmed those
| | 02:06 | into Illustrator itself.
| | 02:07 | But for example, if I choose let's
say Video and Film, I'll see how much
| | 02:11 | different film sizes for like high
definition television or film or wide screen
| | 02:16 | and so on and so forth.
| | 02:17 | I'm going to switch back to Print now.
I'll see that I have the ability to
| | 02:20 | change my units, my measurement system.
Points, Picas, Inches, Millimeters,
| | 02:24 | Centimeters, or Pixels. Of course,
this is just the default setting; you can
| | 02:28 | change these inside of Illustrator if
you want to on a per document basis. You
| | 02:33 | also have the ability to really use
any measurement system at all inside of
| | 02:35 | Illustrator in context.
| | 02:37 | I could basically set my document to be
Portrait or Landscape; those are these
| | 02:41 | icons right here. Tall or Wide. Bleed
is actually useful for when I'm actually
| | 02:45 | using Print workflows where I need to
add extra parts to my design so that when
| | 02:49 | my paper is trimmed it actually has the
artwork that prints all the way to the
| | 02:53 | edge of the paper; and again, we will
talk more about that when we discuss more
| | 02:56 | about artboards themselves.
| | 02:58 | The reason why I mentioned the
Advanced section here is because these are
| | 03:00 | actually important settings.
| | 03:02 | The Color mode setting is either a
choice of CMYK or RGB. If you are in a Print
| | 03:06 | workflow you are always going to want
to stay in a CMYK workflow. In you are
| | 03:10 | inside of a document that's basically
going to go to a computer screen or to a
| | 03:14 | television screens, meaning web
design or animation, or if you are doing
| | 03:18 | something let's say for your movies or
for television broadcast TV, you will
| | 03:23 | then choose the RGB Color mode. I
won't get into details of exactly RGB or
| | 03:26 | CMYK; it's a far more detailed
discussion, but basically if you are in Print,
| | 03:30 | CMYK, if you are on a computer screen, RGB.
| | 03:33 | We also have the ability to determine
what your raster Effect Resolution is,
| | 03:36 | and we will talk more about this much
later on in the title when we talk about
| | 03:39 | our Live Effects, which are raster
based effects that you can apply to
| | 03:43 | Illustrator; for example, Drop
Shadows, and what resolution those get
| | 03:46 | rasterized at.
| | 03:47 | You can also choose Default Preview
mode, and you have something called Pixel
| | 03:50 | and Overprint Preview, we will
discuss those later on in the title as well.
| | 03:53 | I just want to point out to you though
that if you switch between let's say,
| | 03:56 | Print and Web, you will see that
some of those change automatically. For
| | 03:59 | example, raster Effects, since most
screens have a resolution of 72 pixels per
| | 04:02 | inch, that changes automatically here
as well, and the Color mode gets changed to RGB.
| | 04:07 | So the nice thing about these profiles
is basically that it's not just choosing
| | 04:10 | Web or Print as just a name, it
actually changes some of the settings for you
| | 04:15 | and your document itself.
| | 04:16 | So that's basically how you create
your new document, and we go ahead and
| | 04:19 | choose, for example, Print right here.
All my Print settings are here, I can
| | 04:23 | specify a setting here. Let's choose
maybe Inches, maybe we are doing something
| | 04:27 | that's like 5"x7", and then we can
choose OK and that creates our new document
| | 04:32 | right here inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using multiple artboards| 00:00 | One of the biggest new features added
to CS4 is the ability to have multiple
| | 00:04 | artboards in a single document. No, it
doesn't mean that you don't need to use
| | 00:08 | InDesign anymore. InDesign is a great
application, which allows you to create
| | 00:11 | long documents or documents that have
multiple pages where text flows from page
| | 00:15 | to page. But what Illustrator does
excel at is the ability to create artboards,
| | 00:20 | and that each of those artboards are
different sizes. This allows you to really
| | 00:24 | combine elements of an entire
campaign all within a single file.
| | 00:27 | For example, here I have a poster, a
letterhead, an envelope, and a label all
| | 00:31 | combined in a single document, which
allows me to share these assets very
| | 00:34 | easily between these elements.
| | 00:36 | First, let's take a look at how we
actually create a multiple artboard
| | 00:39 | document. I'm going to go to the File
menu. I'm going to choose New. In the New
| | 00:43 | Document dialog box I'll choose in
this case here the Print New Document
| | 00:47 | Profile, and I'll specify a number of
artboards. Again, by default that's going
| | 00:51 | to be set to number 1, but I'll go
ahead here and I'll change, let's say,
| | 00:54 | let's specify four artboards.
| | 00:56 | Now, remember, in Illustrator itself
there is no really a concept of a page.
| | 01:00 | In fact, it's just really one big canvas
size that we have, which I'll show you in
| | 01:04 | a moment. But basically I have the
ability to specify different areas, what we
| | 01:08 | call artboards within that overall canvas.
| | 01:11 | So because each of these pages are not
necessarily pages in a brochure, I don't
| | 01:15 | have page numbering features, for
example, inside of Illustrator, but I could
| | 01:18 | define these very easily as a way for
me to get some artwork started in my document.
| | 01:22 | So for example, I'll specify here just
four artboards. I could choose how those
| | 01:26 | artboards are aligned on my overall
canvas, and that could be set by, for
| | 01:31 | example, Grids by Row, by Column, or
maybe just arranged in one row or in one column.
| | 01:37 | In this case here for this one example
I'll choose Arrange by Row. I'll leave
| | 01:40 | the default setting of 20 points; this
is the amount of space that is added in
| | 01:44 | between each of these artboards,
remember again as they are aligned to this
| | 01:48 | overall canvas.
| | 01:49 | I'll let the size be the Letter size
page that I had as before, and I could
| | 01:54 | also choose to assign a Bleed setting.
Now, it's important to realize that in
| | 01:57 | Illustrator, the Bleed setting applies
to all the artboards. I can't have an
| | 02:02 | individual Bleed setting for different
artboards, and I also can't have a Bleed
| | 02:05 | setting on one artboard but not on
another. But for now I'm just going to leave
| | 02:09 | the Bleed setting set to zero; we
will come back to that momentarily.
| | 02:12 | I'll leave all the settings the same
and I'll click on the OK button just so
| | 02:15 | that we get an idea of how these artboards
are created inside of an Illustrator document.
| | 02:19 | Now I have here one page or one
document, and remember I said before there is
| | 02:23 | this concept of a canvas inside of
Illustrator. If I zoom out really far, I'm
| | 02:27 | just holding down the Command+Minus,
or Ctrl+Minus on Windows, you will see
| | 02:31 | that Illustrator has this large file
over here. This is what's called my
| | 02:35 | canvas. This canvas is the maximum
area that I can basically use in any
| | 02:39 | particular document. Within this
overall canvas I now have four artboards that
| | 02:44 | are defined, and I'll
zoom back in again on this.
| | 02:46 | It's important to realize, by the way,
that the artboards themselves, notice
| | 02:49 | how some of them are grayed out; these
three are grayed out, but this one has a
| | 02:52 | little bit of a darker border around
it, that's because Illustrator itself
| | 02:55 | still has this concept of having
really one artboard to work with. So at any
| | 03:00 | one time inside of my document one
artboard is my active artboard and the
| | 03:04 | others are basically not active.
| | 03:06 | Illustrator manages this process for
you automatically. As I click on an
| | 03:09 | artboard that artboard instantly
becomes the active artboard. So it's not
| | 03:13 | something that I have to be conscious
about, just important to realize that
| | 03:16 | there is this concept of Illustrator
having an active artboard. By the way,
| | 03:19 | this means also that when I choose Fit
in Window, different zoom levels, the
| | 03:23 | active artboard is the artboard that
fits in that particular window. Notice
| | 03:26 | again if I choose on the bottom of the
screen over here, a little pop-up I go
| | 03:30 | to, let's say go to artboard number
three, it will automatically choose to move
| | 03:33 | to artboard number three as well. I'll
zoom back down here for a second. You
| | 03:36 | can see that that's changed, that's right there.
| | 03:38 | In fact, to kind of go further over
here, let's imagine if we already have a
| | 03:42 | document setup with these artboards
but I want to somehow modify these
| | 03:45 | artboards, maybe I want to remove.
Let's say I only need three pages, how do I
| | 03:48 | delete one of these artboards in my
file? Or maybe I want to add another
| | 03:52 | artboard, how do I do that?
| | 03:53 | Well, you do that using the Artboard
tool, which is now available here inside
| | 03:57 | of the tools panel. I'll click on the
Artboard tool and you will notice that
| | 04:00 | everything in the document becomes gray
except for the artboards. The artboard
| | 04:04 | that is currently my active artboard
is shown highlighted with a dash line.
| | 04:09 | Now, I can basically turn any other
artboard to be that particular active
| | 04:12 | artboard just by clicking on it.
| | 04:14 | You notice that the artboards are
numbered; this one is called 01, 02, 03, and
| | 04:17 | 04. I have a little box over here,
which if I click on actually deletes that artboard.
| | 04:23 | So for example, if I didn't want this
artboard, I can simply click on that and
| | 04:26 | that artboard disappears.
These get renumbered automatically.
| | 04:30 | Now if I want to add another artboard I
can simply start clicking and dragging
| | 04:34 | to create an artboard. Now remember,
in Illustrator, artboards can be any
| | 04:37 | different size that I want. So I don't
need to have, for example, one type of
| | 04:41 | size. I could have Letter size
artboards, I could have any other kind of size
| | 04:44 | artboard; some could be Portrait, some
could be Landscape. I could really have
| | 04:48 | tall, thin, narrow artboards. It
could be anything that I want to. In fact,
| | 04:53 | there are certain examples that maybe
when I'm doing let's say web ad banners,
| | 04:56 | those may be of a variety different
sizes, I can store all of those very easily
| | 05:00 | within a single document.
| | 05:02 | Now, I'll go over here to the top of
the bar. When you have the Artboard tool
| | 05:05 | active the Control panel shows you some
options. For example, with one click of
| | 05:09 | a button I could change this artboard
from Landscape to Portrait, and I can do
| | 05:12 | that of course by
clicking on any of these as well.
| | 05:15 | I also have the ability to click on
this button here called Artboard Options,
| | 05:20 | and I could specify exact sizes here
for each of those artboards. I can type in
| | 05:25 | their values if I want to numerically.
| | 05:26 | I could also choose to show the Video
Safe Areas, Show Cross Hairs and a Center
| | 05:31 | Mark, just to give me more feedback
about that particular artboard. This is
| | 05:35 | obviously far more useful in video
workflows and in the art print workflows. By
| | 05:39 | the way, I'll turn these off for now.
| | 05:41 | I'm going to click on the OK button
to come out of that particular mode.
| | 05:44 | Anytime I go ahead and I click on any
other tool I'll automatically exit this
| | 05:48 | Artboard Edit mode, also another way to
exit this Artboard Edit mode is simply
| | 05:52 | to tap the Esc key on your keyboard.
| | 05:54 | Now, I'm going to switch over to a file
that already has artwork defined inside
| | 05:59 | of this document. I'm going to use
this file here called multiple_artboards.
| | 06:02 | You had this file available to you if
you have access to the exercise files,
| | 06:05 | you will find it inside of Chapter 02.
| | 06:07 | Now, if I want to move this artwork
around or make some adjustments with these
| | 06:11 | artboards, remember, anytime I click
on any artwork or any piece within a
| | 06:15 | certain area of an artboard that is
the artboard that becomes the active
| | 06:17 | artboard. If I go over here to the
Artboard tool, I can click on that, I now
| | 06:22 | enter this Artboard Edit mode, and now
I have the ability to basically click on
| | 06:26 | this and move this around.
| | 06:27 | Notice by the way that the artwork
that was on that particular artboard moves
| | 06:30 | along together with that particular
artboard, and that happens because there is
| | 06:35 | an option here on the Control panel
called Move or Copy Artwork with the
| | 06:38 | Artboard. I have the ability to uncheck
that option, which basically allows me
| | 06:42 | to move the artboard but
leave the artwork behind.
| | 06:45 | I'm going to press Undo to go back there,
let's turn that option back on. It's
| | 06:48 | important to realize if I want to make
a complete copy, for example this label,
| | 06:51 | I can hold down the Option key as I
drag, and the same things that you will
| | 06:55 | find later on when we start working
with shapes. If you hold down the Shift key
| | 06:57 | it constraints. I have the ability to
make a complete duplicating copy of that
| | 07:01 | particular artboard,
including the artwork that was on it.
| | 07:04 | I'll go ahead and I'll tap the Escape key
to exit Artboard Edit mode. And as you get
| | 07:07 | further into Illustrator we will see
more and more where this comes into play,
| | 07:10 | but basically those are the basics of
getting started using multiple artboards
| | 07:14 | within a single document in Illustrator CS4.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Libraries and content| 00:00 | When you are working in any document
inside of Illustrator, and you look at the
| | 00:03 | Swatches panel, you will see there are
lots of colors that are already there.
| | 00:06 | There are some Gradients, there are
some groups of colors as well, and we will
| | 00:09 | explore how to create all these,
but ever wonder where those come from?
| | 00:12 | Well, each document basically contains
these particular swatches. They are here
| | 00:16 | because inside of the New Document
Profiles, for example the New Document
| | 00:20 | Profile for Print or for Web, there are
already defined some swatches and other
| | 00:25 | content as well. For example,
Illustrator has something called Brushes. There
| | 00:28 | are symbols, which is predefined
artwork as well. So those things already exist
| | 00:32 | inside of the file.
| | 00:33 | You can actually go ahead and you can
load additional content by loading what
| | 00:38 | we call Swatch Libraries. Libraries
are basically collections of Swatches or
| | 00:42 | Brushes or Symbols or even Graphic
Styles that are external from the actual
| | 00:46 | Illustrator file itself. Once those
particular libraries are loaded or this
| | 00:50 | additional content is loaded, you have
the ability on a case-by-case basis to
| | 00:54 | add those to your document. Once you
have added them to your document they now
| | 00:58 | live inside of that document and you
no longer have to add them anymore.
| | 01:02 | Anytime you save that document and
maybe transfer it to another computer or
| | 01:05 | give it to somebody else, that content
then moves along with that particular file.
| | 01:09 | The way that you can access content or
load these libraries is actually very
| | 01:13 | easy; there is a button at the bottom
of each of these panels. For example,
| | 01:16 | where it says Swatches right here, I
can go down to the bottom left hand corner
| | 01:20 | where we have the Swatch Libraries menu.
I can click on that and see a pop-up
| | 01:24 | list of all the additional Swatch
Libraries that Illustrator ships with.
| | 01:27 | For example, there is Art History
Libraries, Celebration, and then Color Books.
| | 01:32 | A lot of times designers will have to
specify colors that exists, that are
| | 01:36 | already predefined based on certain
standard. For example, Pantone is a very
| | 01:40 | popular color system that's used by
both printers and designers. Pantone
| | 01:44 | systems will basically allow
designers to specify a specific shade or color
| | 01:50 | that printers can then reproduce very
consistently, and again, they are all
| | 01:53 | done basically by a book, and
there is usually numbers that are assigned
| | 01:57 | to those colors in that book.
| | 01:58 | Well, this is a library that
contains all those colors and designers can
| | 02:02 | specify those numbers as well. For
example, if I choose now Pantone Solid
| | 02:06 | Coated, which is probably one of the
most popular of the Pantone libraries,
| | 02:10 | that now shows up as a
separate window here or this Library.
| | 02:14 | I could then take any of these colors.
For example, Pantone 123 and simply
| | 02:17 | click on it and drag it into my
Swatches panel, in doing so that color now is
| | 02:22 | part of this document, and anytime I
save this document, it won't have all
| | 02:26 | these colors in it, but it will have
the color that exists right over here.
| | 02:30 | It's good to note also that in the
bottom of the panel itself that has the
| | 02:33 | actual library are these two arrows,
which actually allow me just click and
| | 02:38 | cycle through all the different
libraries that do exist. So this allows me to
| | 02:42 | experiment and see what does ship with
Illustrator, and again, it's a nice way
| | 02:46 | to find the additional
content that's there as well.
| | 02:49 | Just to show you, if I go for example,
to the Symbols panel. I can go over here
| | 02:52 | and I can load for example 3D Symbols,
and here is a whole bunch of artwork
| | 02:56 | that uses the 3D effect. If I ever
wanted to use any of these, simply click for
| | 03:00 | example on this House one, drag it into
my Symbols panel, and it automatically gets added.
| | 03:04 | By the way, if you ever take a
symbol and you drag it directly onto your
| | 03:08 | document, as we will soon see as well,
that automatically adds it to the
| | 03:11 | Symbols panel as well. For example, if
I were to take a Color Swatch and drag
| | 03:15 | it onto a shape to color that
particular shape that way, even though I didn't
| | 03:18 | physically drag it into the Swatches
panel, because I used that color in the
| | 03:22 | document it automatically gets added
to my Swatches panel. Likewise, for
| | 03:26 | example, I take let's say this
Checkmark, I drag it in here. You will see it
| | 03:29 | automatically gets added to
the Symbols panel that way.
| | 03:32 | So as I basically load content in
external libraries and as I use that
| | 03:36 | particular content in my document that
content gets added to my document that
| | 03:40 | this way the next time I open up the
file that content is already there; be it
| | 03:43 | on my own computer or be it
on someone else's computer.
| | 03:46 | As we get further into using
Illustrator we will see how we can create our own
| | 03:49 | customized libraries as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Illustrator templates| 00:00 | One of the hidden gems inside of
Illustrator CS4 are the templates that come
| | 00:04 | free with Illustrator. Now I know what
you're thinking as a designer: you don't
| | 00:07 | need to be using clipart or working
with other people's artwork, which is fine.
| | 00:11 | But Adobe bundled some blank templates,
which can be very useful to use inside
| | 00:14 | of Illustrator. To access these
templates from the Welcome Screen, you can
| | 00:18 | simply choose From Template.
| | 00:20 | Alternatively, you can go the File menu
and choose New from Template. I'm going
| | 00:23 | to go over here, for example, and
click on From Template. You can see that I
| | 00:27 | have Blank Templates and then I have
theme templates, for example, a Club style
| | 00:30 | for Film, FlexSkins, which I'll talk
about in a moment, Japanese Templates and
| | 00:35 | then a Tech theme.
| | 00:36 | Just to show you the Tech theme for
example, I'll choose let's say an Annual
| | 00:39 | Report. Click on the New button and
that shows basically how you might create
| | 00:43 | an annual report inside of Illustrator.
Now I'm not suggesting you go ahead and
| | 00:46 | create a 200 page annual report here
inside of Illustrator. Obviously the point
| | 00:49 | here is if you have certain graphic
intensive pages, this might be a great
| | 00:53 | place for you to design this. What I
love about what Adobe has done now with
| | 00:56 | the templates is they've kind of showed
I could also use multiple artboards to
| | 01:00 | take advantage of these templates as
well. In fact, when you go over here to
| | 01:03 | the File menu and then choose New
from Template, one of the most exciting
| | 01:06 | things that I've seen, for example, is
the Blank Template, for example, Banner Ads.
| | 01:10 | If I click on the New button here, I
see that what Adobe has done is created a
| | 01:13 | single document, that has multiple
artboards that are for all different types
| | 01:17 | of sizes that might be used on an
online ad banner campaign, which is a great
| | 01:21 | way for you to get started by creating
artwork and then basically applying that
| | 01:25 | to all these different popular web banner sizes.
| | 01:27 | I'll go back to one of the sections
for a moment here. If you go to the File
| | 01:30 | menu, choose New from Template, there
is something here called FlexSkins. Now
| | 01:33 | if you're the developer type and you
are using the Flex framework for actually
| | 01:37 | developing applications, Illustrator
has the ability to basically define how
| | 01:42 | the different elements in an application look.
| | 01:44 | By opening up the FlexSkins template
you can define how buttons look, sliders,
| | 01:49 | so on and so forth. Then when
you're building your applications you can
| | 01:51 | customize exactly how that looks. Of
course you would use the FlexBuilder
| | 01:55 | application in order to define
and create those applications.
| | 01:58 | So while at first the concept of
templates themselves may not be that exciting,
| | 02:02 | I do urge you to take a look at
some of the templates that ship with
| | 02:04 | Illustrator to either a) get a head
start in some of the artwork instead of you
| | 02:07 | having to define things from scratch
or b) even using some of those blank
| | 02:11 | templates to really make it easy for
you to create the artwork that you need.
| | 02:14 | As a closing thought you also might
think about creating your own templates.
| | 02:18 | When you work inside of Illustrator you
can always go to the File menu and then
| | 02:21 | instead of choosing Save or Save As,
you can choose Save as Template. This
| | 02:25 | saves your file as an extension
called .ait or Adobe Illustrator Template.
| | 02:30 | Basically, it makes a file with a
certain flag inside of it. So the next time
| | 02:33 | you open up that file, it opens up as
an untitled document and therefore you
| | 02:37 | can never go ahead and
overwrite the original file.
| | 02:39 | This is great if you're working in a
department or -- where you have many
| | 02:42 | designers and you want to create a
certain look and feel for a basic idea for
| | 02:45 | template and then distribute that
template to all of the different people on
| | 02:48 | your team. You can save templates
anywhere in your hard drive, on a server, on
| | 02:52 | even in the same folders that you have
here inside of this Templates folder.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding XMP metadata| 00:00 | In today's digital world our hard
drives are filled with tons of files.
| | 00:04 | Sometimes, it can be very difficult to
find those files. Then when we do find
| | 00:07 | some files, we're not even sure if
those are the right files to work on or not.
| | 00:11 | From a workflow perspective, one of
the most important concepts in design
| | 00:14 | lately has been the use of metadata.
| | 00:16 | Metadata is information that describes
what a file is. The problem though has
| | 00:20 | always been is that where do you
store that metadata. You can now store
| | 00:24 | metadata directly inside of each
document. This metadata conforms to the XMP
| | 00:28 | Standard or Extensible Metadata
Platform and while that all sounds very
| | 00:32 | technical, the reality is that at the
end of the day, you'll be able to find
| | 00:35 | your files faster, and more importantly
be able to identify the author of files
| | 00:39 | and whether or not that file has
Copyright Status or other information as well.
| | 00:43 | I'll just start here by creating a
regular print document and I'll click OK to
| | 00:47 | take the settings that we had before.
| | 00:49 | I'll go to the File menu, and then on
the bottom of the File menu there is
| | 00:52 | something here called File Info. This
dialog box that appears allows me to
| | 00:56 | specify settings for my Illustrator file.
For example, I could specify a title
| | 01:01 | of this particular file and Author
and Author Title if I want to and the
| | 01:05 | Description of this document. I could
also tell you the person who actually
| | 01:09 | defined that particular description
and assign keywords to this document.
| | 01:13 | What's great about this is that all
this information or this metadata can be
| | 01:16 | searched upon. In fact, the way that
XMP works is that -- and again, I don't
| | 01:20 | want to get too technical here, but
it's important to know this, when I have a
| | 01:23 | regular Illustrator file the XMP data
stored in XML format in the header part
| | 01:28 | of the file, which means that I don't
necessarily have to open the file in
| | 01:31 | order to find an information about
that file. Certain databases or even an
| | 01:35 | application called Adobe Bridge has
the ability to go ahead and perform
| | 01:39 | searches on the metadata.
| | 01:40 | So, for example, if my filename was,
Hello, but by keywords has specified Beach
| | 01:46 | ball, if I did a search on Beach Ball
then that Illustrator file would come
| | 01:49 | back in that particular search. I can
also specify copyright status. I can put
| | 01:54 | the copyright notice here and a URL as well.
| | 01:57 | You'll also notice at top of this
dialog box I have different tabs. IPTC is the
| | 02:01 | standard for how metadata is actually
formed. It's what we call a schema and
| | 02:05 | again this little slider here on the
bottom, I can actually go through all
| | 02:08 | these fields. You don't have to enter
information in all these fields, but of
| | 02:12 | course the more information you do put
in here the more easily it will be found.
| | 02:15 | I can even step through some of these
settings over here as well. There is one
| | 02:18 | here called Illustrator. This
basically determines or shows me, which new
| | 02:22 | document profile was used to create
that document. Again, this is helpful for
| | 02:26 | other ways that Illustrator files can be used.
| | 02:28 | In the Advanced section here, I can
actually see some of these particular
| | 02:31 | settings that are here as well. I'm
actually going to go back for a minute over
| | 02:34 | here, all the way to the beginning,
and just click on one setting here called
| | 02:38 | Camera Data. Obviously, in Illustrator
files there is no camera data because
| | 02:42 | you're creating inside of an Illustrator file.
| | 02:43 | However, when you snap a photograph
with a digital camera, there is a lot of
| | 02:47 | settings, for example, the Shutter Speed,
the date and time that photograph was
| | 02:50 | taken, is all automatically added into
your metadata. This is great because as
| | 02:55 | a human being I don't have to
physically go in there and add that information,
| | 02:58 | it's automatically added to the file.
| | 03:00 | There are certain things that are
automatically added to your metadata inside
| | 03:03 | of an Illustrator document even
without you doing anything. For example, if I
| | 03:07 | use several Pantone colors, different
typefaces inside of a particular file, as
| | 03:11 | soon as I save my Illustrator file,
that information, the inks that I've used
| | 03:15 | and the typeface that I've used, are
included in that metadata, which means
| | 03:19 | that in theory it's possible for me
to go through an application like Adobe
| | 03:22 | Bridge, do a search for a typeface
Helvetica and then have all Illustrator
| | 03:26 | files that use Helvetica come up in that search.
| | 03:29 | So, working with metadata is an
incredible way to really make sure that you can
| | 03:32 | find the documents in the right way.
It's important if you are working with a
| | 03:35 | lot of files, if you work in a big
organization or more importantly, if you
| | 03:39 | work in an environment where you're
sharing files tussling with a whole team of
| | 03:42 | designers, the more metadata you add
to a file in this File Info panel, the
| | 03:46 | easy it will be to find that document
and work with those documents moving forward.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. The Illustrator InterfaceExploring panels| 00:00 | Before we start drawing inside of
Illustrator, we first have to learn about
| | 00:03 | Illustrator's user interface. It's
kind of like when you buy a car you first
| | 00:06 | learn about what all the knobs and
all the switches do, then you can start
| | 00:09 | driving. Now Illustrator CS4 and in
fact all the CS4 applications in Adobe
| | 00:14 | Creative Suite have a brand new user interface.
| | 00:17 | As you can see the colors are mainly
muted tones of gray and that's mainly to
| | 00:21 | allow you to focus on the artwork on
your page and not be distracted by other
| | 00:24 | things that appear on the side. I have
just started by just creating a brand
| | 00:27 | new print document, then clicking OK
with whatever those settings are that we last used.
| | 00:31 | We will start on the left side of the
screen here where we have what we call
| | 00:34 | the tools panel. At the top of the
tools panel is a dark gray bar with a double
| | 00:38 | white arrow. By clicking once on that
bar, I can now change the Tool panel to
| | 00:42 | configure into two rows instead of one
long row. Click again, reduces it back
| | 00:47 | to a single row. Likewise if I go to
the right side over here clicking anywhere
| | 00:50 | in the gray bar at the top
reduces all of these two icons.
| | 00:54 | I can simply access any of these by
clicking once and just that individual
| | 00:57 | panel opens up. Clicking again closes
that panel and again clicking anywhere in
| | 01:01 | the top of the gray over here expands
those panels, so I can see them all. Now
| | 01:04 | you may notice that as I'm reducing the
size of these panels to icons, you can
| | 01:09 | see that the document itself
resizes itself all the way to the edge.
| | 01:13 | This is because Illustrator CS4 now has
the concept, there is something called
| | 01:16 | an Application Frame. This is actually
something that was always available on
| | 01:20 | Windows but it's new to Macintosh. In
fact, if you go over to the Window menu,
| | 01:24 | you can choose an option here called
Application Frame. I'll turn that off for
| | 01:28 | now and you see that this is kind of
the way that Illustrator had always worked
| | 01:31 | before. You have your panels where
they can be expanded and collapsed and a
| | 01:35 | document Window kind of floats
in the middle of your screen here.
| | 01:38 | Personally, I like when the
Application Frame is turned on. It allows me to
| | 01:41 | treat Illustrator as one unit and when
my panels collapse my document size is
| | 01:45 | at the maximum viewable range. I'll go
back to the Window menu and I'll turn
| | 01:49 | that Application Frame back on. Now
there is a lot more that you can do with
| | 01:52 | the panels itself.
| | 01:53 | For example, let me go to the Window
menu here and choose, open up the Align
| | 01:56 | panel. Now in this case over here I
have this panel that is not really docked
| | 02:01 | or not attached to any side of the
screen, it's kind of free floating and
| | 02:05 | Illustrator calls it either a
Floating panel or a Flotilla. This basically
| | 02:09 | allows me to really put panels
anywhere on the screen that I deem necessary.
| | 02:13 | I can easily arrange these panels by
clicking on any of the tabs. The tab of
| | 02:17 | the panel is the exact part where the
word of the panel appears and drag that
| | 02:21 | outwards. I can also dock these
panels with each other. For example I could
| | 02:25 | take the Align tab right here and
just touch the bottom. You see how this
| | 02:28 | little kind of blue bar appears, when I
release the mouse these all now move as
| | 02:33 | a single unit.
| | 02:34 | What's great about CS4 is that I can
now simply click on this gray bar and
| | 02:38 | collapse these icons as well. I can
use my mouse on any edge basically to
| | 02:42 | reduce this to either icons or
something as wider for that matter. Again, one
| | 02:46 | single click opens up that panel
temporarily. I click again and that
| | 02:50 | disappears. Let me expand this for a
minute here. I can always basically grab
| | 02:54 | anything over here and just drag it to
the side. Notice how now a little bar
| | 02:58 | shows up on this side here.
| | 02:59 | I have now created a dock basically
where these panels can live in. Now I can
| | 03:04 | go to the Window menu again, open up
something else, for example, maybe I'll
| | 03:06 | open up the Links panels for example.
I can take the Links panel and drag it
| | 03:10 | right in over here as you will see
again a blue bar appears right here and now
| | 03:13 | the Links panel appears down here.
| | 03:15 | Again I can collapse this. I
basically now have two rows or two docks that
| | 03:20 | contain these particular panels here.
I can expand them individually or I can
| | 03:24 | have them both expanded as well.
Notice again how because I have the
| | 03:27 | Application Frame turned on, my
document Window resizes accordingly.
| | 03:31 | I'm going to close the Actions panel
here. I'm going to expand just this dock
| | 03:35 | light here, just to show you as I'm
working, sometimes I don't want to see any
| | 03:38 | panels all at. So I can easily tap the
Tab key on my keyboard. That hides all
| | 03:42 | my panels instantly and now they are
not in the way at all. What's great about
| | 03:46 | that is if I need to quickly grab
something from the panel, if I move my mouse
| | 03:49 | towards the edge of the screen and I
hold for a second, that panel does appear
| | 03:52 | temporarily until I move my mouse away,
in, which time it goes back to being unavailable.
| | 03:56 | Taping the Tab key brings those
panels back again. Holding on the Shift key
| | 04:01 | while I press Tab, so a Shift+Tab
basically hides all my panels except for my
| | 04:05 | Control panel and my Tool panel. So all
the panels that are on the side appear
| | 04:09 | temporarily. Again Shift+
Tab brings those back as well.
| | 04:12 | Speaking of the Control panel on the
top over here, let's take a closer look at
| | 04:15 | what that does.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Control panel| 00:00 | Illustrator's Control panel appears
towards the top of the screen- not the very top.
| | 00:04 | In this case right now I do have the
Application Frame option turned on.
| | 00:08 | So this bar at the very top of the
screen here is what we call the Application Bar.
| | 00:13 | If I go ahead and I click and
I drag you will see that the whole
| | 00:16 | Illustrator application moves as one unit,
the panel, the documents, the bars,
| | 00:20 | so on and so forth.
| | 00:21 | But directly beneath this Application
Bar is what we refer to as the Control
| | 00:25 | panel. Now if you are coming from a
program like maybe Photoshop or you are
| | 00:28 | familiar with InDesign, Photoshop has
something called the tools Options Bar.
| | 00:32 | InDesign has something called the
Control panel as well, which is an area
| | 00:35 | basically that we call context-
sensitive meaning that depending on whatever it
| | 00:38 | is that I have selected in my document,
the options actually change here now.
| | 00:43 | Again to contrast something like
Photoshop for example, it has the tool Options
| | 00:46 | Bar. It's called the tool Options
Bar because as you choose a tool, the
| | 00:51 | settings for that tool show up in that
particular tool Options Bar. But with
| | 00:55 | Illustrator we are far more concerned
about what I have selected in context to
| | 00:58 | my document, than I'm with
the tools that I'm using.
| | 01:01 | So as you will see when I select
different parts of my document, different
| | 01:04 | parts of artwork, different types of
artwork, I'll see different options
| | 01:07 | visible in this Control panel. Now
right now I have absolutely nothing
| | 01:10 | selected. So what I do have is a few
settings here. By the way in far left it
| | 01:14 | tells me that I have no selection.
This is what we call our target or our
| | 01:17 | object type right now and obviously
there is no object at all. It's no selection.
| | 01:22 | That will help us identify when we have
things like groups targeted and so and
| | 01:26 | so forth and we will see that much
later one as we will be able to get more
| | 01:29 | in-depth inside of drawing with
Illustrator. If I go over to the far right over
| | 01:32 | here I see that I have a Document Setup
button and the Preferences button. This
| | 01:35 | gives me quick access to either of
these two settings to basically allow me to
| | 01:39 | make those changes and again I have
that available to me whenever I have
| | 01:42 | nothing at all selected.
| | 01:43 | So now let's go ahead and actually
click on an object. For example this blue
| | 01:46 | background right here. If I wanted to
change its color, I can go over here to
| | 01:50 | the top of the Control panel and then
click on this option, which is the Fill
| | 01:54 | icon. Click on that and I see all the
swatches that I have actually created or
| | 01:58 | had available to be in this particular document.
| | 02:01 | By the way if I go ahead and I hold
down the Shift key when I click on this,
| | 02:03 | that changes to the Color panel,
which allows me to use the CMYK sliders or
| | 02:08 | really I can choose RGB slider or Web
Safe RGB sliders so on and so forth all
| | 02:13 | directly through this. So I can very
easily specify colors directly through the
| | 02:16 | Control panel. The same thing also if
I wanted to apply a Stroke attribute, I
| | 02:20 | can click over here on this option and this
will go ahead and apply the Stroke attribute.
| | 02:24 | Now, remember way back when we
discussed we have these different types of
| | 02:27 | stroke attributes, for example, I
know that I could pick a Stroke Color and
| | 02:31 | Stroke Weight, which is the thickness
of my stroke, but let's say you wanted to
| | 02:34 | have a dashed pattern on that
particular stroke, a dashed stroke. Let's say you
| | 02:37 | wanted to actually have the end caps
to be round instead of square. Well,
| | 02:41 | normally you would need to go to the
Stroke panel to get that information,
| | 02:45 | because the Control panel's job
basically is to offer up settings that you
| | 02:49 | would use most often, but we are not
always turning on the Dash patterns or
| | 02:52 | requesting round end caps
for our particular strokes.
| | 02:55 | So you will notice the word Stroke
right here, is actually in blue with an
| | 02:58 | underline beneath it. Now if you have
ever surfed the web, anytime you see
| | 03:01 | something that's blue with an underline,
it's a hyperlink, and if you click on
| | 03:05 | it, it usually takes you somewhere, maybe to
another page or perform some kind of function.
| | 03:08 | Well, the Stroke panel basically pops
up any time you click on the word Stroke.
| | 03:13 | So I'm going to go ahead and just
click once on that word Stroke right there,
| | 03:16 | and the entire Stroke panel with all
the setting, including the Dash settings
| | 03:19 | and the Cap settings now appear. So the
great thing about the Control panel is
| | 03:23 | that even if I don't see all the
settings necessary, sometimes I have the
| | 03:26 | access to find that information.
| | 03:28 | For example, the Opacity setting right
now, there is just a slider here that
| | 03:32 | will allow me to adjust the Opacity of
a particular object. So instead of 100%
| | 03:35 | Opacity, I can make it 50% opacity.
But if I wanted to change the object's
| | 03:39 | Blend mode, I can go to click on the
word Opacity, it brings up the entire
| | 03:43 | Transparency panel where I can now
access each of the individual Blend modes,
| | 03:47 | and again this is all made possible
through the Control panel. We will actually
| | 03:51 | see that some other places in
Illustrator like the Appearance panel also have
| | 03:55 | this functionality built into it.
| | 03:56 | What's great about this also is that
you will see that the Control panel itself
| | 04:00 | is intelligent based on the resolution
that your monitor is, meaning how wide
| | 04:03 | your screen is, this will have more or
less information and the Control panel
| | 04:08 | makes it's best guess to try to find
what is the most useful when you already
| | 04:11 | have something selected. For example
when I click on Text, I see that I now
| | 04:14 | have the options for Character settings.
| | 04:16 | As far as Paragraph settings, well
there are far too many that I could choose
| | 04:19 | from. So I can just click on the word
paragraph and the entire Paragraph panel
| | 04:23 | with indents, space before so and so
forth, that all comes up as I click on
| | 04:27 | that particular button.
| | 04:28 | Now if you want to go ahead and
choose exactly what does or does not appear
| | 04:32 | inside of the Control panel, go up to
the far right edge up at the Control
| | 04:36 | panel, this little button right here.
If you click on that a little flyout menu
| | 04:39 | basically gives you options of all the
possible settings that could appear in
| | 04:43 | the Control panel.
| | 04:44 | Now if you are a person who only works
in the world of print and you never had
| | 04:47 | the ease of working let's say Flash for
example, well there is a setting inside
| | 04:50 | of Illustrator that when you are
working with text, you can specify certain
| | 04:53 | settings for Flash text and right now
that setting is turned on, which would
| | 04:57 | mean that when you click on text that
option will be available. But if you've
| | 05:00 | never really worked with Flash and that
is no interest to you, you can actually
| | 05:04 | uncheck that option. And now that option
will not show up in the Control panel anymore.
| | 05:08 | Now I'm not suggesting that right
after that you start turning these settings
| | 05:11 | on and off, but as you become more and
more familiar with Illustrator and you
| | 05:14 | start to make the interface more
customized and more your own, you may want to
| | 05:18 | come back to the Control panel and
adjust some of the settings in the Control
| | 05:21 | panel itself to best work for you.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Navigating within a document| 00:00 | Almost as important as drawing inside
of Illustrator is getting around inside
| | 00:03 | of Illustrator. Now navigating within
your document could be done one in several
| | 00:07 | ways but the main tools that you'll
use are these down here: the Hand Grabber
| | 00:11 | tool or the Hand tool and the Zoom tool.
| | 00:13 | Now the thing though is that it
doesn't really ever pay to use the tools
| | 00:16 | themselves because we'll learn that
there are keyboard shortcuts that allow us
| | 00:19 | to access those tools very easily in
any situation. For example, right now I
| | 00:23 | have the Selection tool selected and if
I decide that I wanted to go ahead and
| | 00:27 | zoom in on the word Hawaii right here,
I could simply go to the View menu and
| | 00:31 | choose Zoom In. But then I have to do
that several times if I wanted to get
| | 00:34 | really close to that and well,
that's not really intuitive.
| | 00:38 | So I'm going to use the keyboard
shortcut actually to go back, Command+? or
| | 00:41 | Ctrl+? on Windows. What I can do is I
could access my magnifying glass tool.
| | 00:47 | I'm going to press now my Spacebar and
then also my Command key, and again if
| | 00:51 | you are Windows, you'll hold on your
Spacebar and your Ctrl key. Now you'll see
| | 00:56 | my tool turns to the magnifying glass
with little + sign inside of it, which
| | 01:00 | means zoom in or get closer to my object.
| | 01:03 | Now I still have those two keys held
down on my keyboard and I don't want to
| | 01:05 | release them yet. I'm going to click
and drag to what we call Marquee or join
| | 01:10 | area around where I wanted to zoom in
on. Now when I release the mouse, I can
| | 01:14 | now release the keys on my keyboard
as well. I now have zoomed it on that
| | 01:17 | specific area of my document.
| | 01:19 | Now, let's say I wanted to do with that
word Surf. Well, do I have to zoom out
| | 01:22 | and then zoom back in again? So the
answer is no, I could basically use the
| | 01:26 | Hand tool to move the artwork. So I'm
going to go ahead and I'm going to hold
| | 01:29 | on the Spacebar alone, just a Spacebar.
Notice now my cursor changes to the Hand tool.
| | 01:34 | What I can do is I can simply click
and then drag upwards. That will now move
| | 01:40 | that part of the screen up higher.
That's important to realize what I'm doing
| | 01:43 | right now is I'm not moving the
artwork itself, I'm moving the entire canvas.
| | 01:47 | So imagine you have a really, really
small desk to work on but you have this
| | 01:51 | huge piece of paper.
| | 01:52 | You want to be able to basically work
on different parts of the paper so what
| | 01:56 | you will do is you'll take your hands
and you'll kind of move the paper and
| | 01:58 | shove the paper around over the desk
that you can work on individual parts of
| | 02:02 | it. So the artwork stays obviously in
the same place as it does in the overall
| | 02:05 | canvas or a large sheet of paper.
| | 02:07 | What you're simply doing is you're
making it possible that you can focus on our
| | 02:10 | view, one part of that by moving the
entire paper around. So you could also by
| | 02:15 | the way have revered the zoom. I'm
going to hold on the Spacebar then the
| | 02:19 | Command key and then the Option key
and I'm on Mac; if you're on PC then have
| | 02:23 | your Spacebar, the Ctrl
key and then the Alt key.
| | 02:26 | Notice now I'm still with the
magnifying glass but now instead of a plus sign,
| | 02:29 | it's got a question mark sign inside of
it. Now when I click it actually zooms
| | 02:33 | out. So now I have the ability to use
the Spacebar to move my artwork around,
| | 02:37 | and notice by the way here you can see
that I'm moving the artwork, because the
| | 02:40 | whole artboard is moving as well.
| | 02:41 | I could also hold down the Command+
Spacebar or the Ctrl+Spacebar to access my
| | 02:46 | Zoom tool to zoom in and out. One of
the important thing, which is good to
| | 02:50 | know, especially now in CS4 and then
you use interface has been added, is
| | 02:54 | you'll notice that I now have
something called tabbed panels. Tab basically
| | 02:58 | allows me to have more than one
document open and be able to access those
| | 03:02 | documents far more easily.
| | 03:03 | For example, let's open up another file.
Let me go to the Help menu here and
| | 03:06 | choose Welcome Screen. Now let's open
up that multiple_artboards file that I
| | 03:10 | had opened before. Notice that I don't
get a separate window, because I have
| | 03:14 | the application frame turned on, I now
have two documents I could very easily
| | 03:17 | switch back and forth between. This
control_panel document here and this
| | 03:21 | multiple_artboards file here as well.
| | 03:23 | In fact, the keyboard shortcut that I
can use is Command+~, or Ctrl+~; the ~
| | 03:28 | key by the way is a little squiggly
key that appears right on top of the Tab
| | 03:32 | key, on the upper left portion of
your keyboard. So go ahead and hit the
| | 03:35 | Command+~ key and see when you can
quickly toggle and move between two
| | 03:39 | different documents.
| | 03:40 | What's great about working with these
tabbed layouts also is that Illustrator
| | 03:44 | now has if you go over here to the
Application bar itself, is a button called
| | 03:48 | Arrange Documents. If I click on that,
I see that I can choose between other
| | 03:52 | layouts. For example, if I choose 2-Up
over here, I can see that both documents
| | 03:56 | can be open and visible at the same time.
I have one tab here and one tab here
| | 04:00 | almost as if they are separate windows
and they kind of got split in half here;
| | 04:04 | my one big document window split
between two of them. I can click on this one
| | 04:08 | and move it around. I can click on this
document and then move this one around as well.
| | 04:12 | This is great when you want to compare
documents or even sometimes when you're
| | 04:15 | working inside the same document,
for example, let's say this is a pretty
| | 04:18 | complex file right here. What I could
do is go to the Window menu and choose
| | 04:22 | New Window. I now have two tabs here.
The New Window command basically is exact
| | 04:26 | same document that allows me to see it
through a separate window. In this one I
| | 04:30 | could choose, for example, to turn
off my Preview mode. I'll go to the View
| | 04:33 | mode and choose to view
my artwork in Outline mode.
| | 04:36 | So now what I'll do is I'll go to the
end up over here, this settings over here
| | 04:40 | and choose to view let's say documents
this way. So now I have this document,
| | 04:44 | which I'm dealing in full color. But
this is what it looks like when it's in
| | 04:47 | Outline mode and the beautiful thing
is that they're not separate documents.
| | 04:49 | So, for example, if I make a change, I
select this text and I move this text
| | 04:52 | around, you'll notice that that moves
in both of these windows that are here.
| | 04:56 | So finally, it is possible for you to
rearrange these on your own, simply by
| | 04:59 | positioning your cursor in between
these little bars here and adjust how that looks.
| | 05:04 | So here is a way that you can very
easily work with the layouts that are here
| | 05:08 | inside of Illustrator. In fact, if
you want to go even a step further, you
| | 05:11 | could simply grab any tab, drag it out
and you can turn into its own floating
| | 05:15 | window or simply drag it into another
tab itself and then that becomes a tab.
| | 05:20 | So here I can manually combine all three tabs
back now into one document window in that way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using rulers and guides| 00:00 | One of the benefits about working with
a computer is that you can be precise.
| | 00:04 | Instead of just eyeballing something,
and making sure that something looks
| | 00:06 | okay, you can use certain features
that allow you to make sure that something
| | 00:10 | is perfect and exact. One way to do
that is to use rulers and guides inside of
| | 00:15 | your document. The easiest way to
turn rulers on is to use the keyboard
| | 00:18 | shortcut Command+R or Ctrl+R on Windows.
That activates the rulers. You'll see
| | 00:23 | the rules appear on the top of your
window, and on the left side of your
| | 00:27 | document window as well.
| | 00:29 | Unfortunately, there is no way to
control what you see as far as tick marks,
| | 00:32 | but as you zoom in, or zoom out,
you'll see that the tick marks become more
| | 00:36 | granular. I'll zoom back out again here,
and I want to show you that you could
| | 00:40 | also work with something called guides.
Guides allow you to basically create
| | 00:44 | some kind of an object inside of
Illustrator that you can use to align other
| | 00:48 | objects too, and again, just to use
as a way to make sure that your design
| | 00:51 | conforms or aligned the way that you wanted to.
| | 00:54 | The concept of working with guides
is pretty common amongst the Graphics
| | 00:57 | applications. The way that you create
a guide, you simply go to your ruler
| | 01:00 | itself, click and drag from the ruler,
and drag outwards towards your document.
| | 01:05 | When you release the mouse,
the guide then appears.
| | 01:08 | You can add additional guides by
going back to the ruler and dragging out
| | 01:11 | again. A few keyboard shortcuts that
are helpful when creating guides: holding
| | 01:15 | on the Shift key as you drag out a
guide will cause the guide to snap to the
| | 01:18 | rule of tick marks. That way you're
insured, for example, in this case here,
| | 01:22 | and our ruler snaps exactly to 16 inches.
| | 01:25 | There are two types of guides inside of
Illustrator. There are vertical guides
| | 01:28 | and horizontal guides. When you drag
out a guide from any of the rulers, you
| | 01:32 | can hold down the Option key, to
basically switch the guides from one to the
| | 01:36 | other. In this case now I could
choose a vertical guide. Same thing applies
| | 01:39 | when you drag out a guide from the
vertical ruler. Hold on the Option key
| | 01:42 | allows you to toggle it
to be a horizontal guide.
| | 01:45 | Now let's say you drop a guide and
you want even to move that guide. Well,
| | 01:48 | guides by default are actually locked.
What you can do though, is right click
| | 01:53 | with your mouse to bring up the
contextual menu, just click on any blank area
| | 01:56 | whatsoever. If you are on a Macintosh
and only have a one-button mouse, you can
| | 02:00 | hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard,
and then click with your mouse, that
| | 02:03 | brings up the contextual menu.
| | 02:04 | You'll see that there is an option here
called Lock Guides, with the check mark
| | 02:07 | next to it, it means that you cannot
select those guides. I would now unlock
| | 02:10 | the guides, and now I have the ability
to either reposition those guides I want
| | 02:14 | to, or simply delete them. Guides are
just like objects inside of Illustrator,
| | 02:17 | and in fact, you can turn any object
whatsoever into a guide; we'll learn later
| | 02:21 | how to draw shapes, but I can for
example, take the Ellipse tool, for example,
| | 02:26 | click and drag to create this, and
then go to the View menu, go down to where
| | 02:30 | it says Guides, and choose to make guides.
| | 02:33 | That now converts that artwork into a
guide itself. If I have the Lock Guides
| | 02:37 | selection turned on, that mean I can no
longer select this. What's great about
| | 02:41 | guides itself is that guides act like
magnets. So when I go ahead and I create
| | 02:45 | other shapes, and I want to be able to
move certain shapes around, those shapes
| | 02:49 | snap to those guides.
| | 02:51 | So for example, if I take this little
surfboard that's right here, and I start
| | 02:54 | to move it, as I get closer to guide
here, I see that object kind of snaps to
| | 02:58 | the guide. By the way what I'm showing
you right now is also new behavior in
| | 03:01 | CS4. If you've used Illustrator before,
and this is your first time in CS4, in
| | 03:06 | the past, Illustrator only allowed you
to snap that cursor to the actual guide
| | 03:10 | itself, but now Illustrator also snaps
the object to that particular guide as
| | 03:13 | well. And you see that you can now
align your objects to the guides as well.
| | 03:17 | See how, by the way, my cursor
touches it, it changes color as well. That
| | 03:20 | identifies a snap that's there. I'm
going to press Command+Z just to undo that,
| | 03:24 | or Ctrl+Z to undo that right now.
| | 03:27 | So that's how guides can be helpful
when I'm working with my layouts inside of
| | 03:30 | Illustrator. If I want to
temporarily just turn off my guides, because
| | 03:33 | sometimes they do get in the way as I'm
working with them. I can go to the View
| | 03:36 | menu, go down to where it says Guides
and choose Hide Guides. The guides are
| | 03:40 | still in my document, but they're
temporarily hidden from view. If I want to
| | 03:43 | show them again, I can use the
keyboard shortcut, Command+:. Again, if you're
| | 03:47 | on a PC, that would be Ctrl+:. That
will allow you to simply toggle those
| | 03:51 | guides from being visible or not visible.
| | 03:53 | One of the things that actually applies
to multiple artboards, and again, this
| | 03:56 | wasn't really important in previous
versions of Illustrator, but certainly now
| | 03:59 | you may have a document that contains
many, many different artboards, and when
| | 04:03 | you create these guides, these guides
kind of go across all the artboards.
| | 04:07 | But let's say you want to create a
guide that's only important for some of the
| | 04:10 | artboards. For example, maybe I'm
working on this label right now, and I want
| | 04:13 | to have some kind of alignment set
up for just this label, and not really
| | 04:16 | getting in the way of anything else.
| | 04:17 | Well, Illustrator does allow you to
create guides that are specific for
| | 04:21 | artboards; here's how you do it. You
go basically to the artboard tool, and
| | 04:25 | turn on artboard Edit mode. Then you
specify, which artboard you want to use,
| | 04:30 | or that you want to create a guide
for, by making it the active artboard.
| | 04:34 | Once that's done, whenever you draw a
guide out, that guide will only appear
| | 04:38 | within that particular artboard.
Notice now I can create some horizontal and
| | 04:43 | vertical guides, and they don't go
across the entire document; they're only
| | 04:46 | visible within this active artboard.
Likewise, if I turn this Envelope now to
| | 04:50 | be the active artboard, any guide that
I do create now again only applies to
| | 04:55 | this particular active artboard.
| | 04:57 | When I exit out of artboard Edit mode,
I can see now that those guides are
| | 05:00 | strictly for this artboard, and this
artboard only. So before we move on to
| | 05:04 | Grids, I'll just leave you with one
cute little tip: if you go over to the rule
| | 05:07 | itself, and you right click or Ctrl+
Click, to bring up the contextual menu of
| | 05:11 | the rulers itself, you could quickly
change the rulers to switch between
| | 05:14 | points, picas, inches, millimeters,
centimeters or pixels. This means that you
| | 05:19 | can quickly change the measurements
without having to go into the Preferences panel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using grids| 00:00 | I remember working on my eighth grade
yearbook. We had this huge pad of graph
| | 00:05 | paper. I mean, we cut things out and
then use rubber cement, and then stick
| | 00:08 | them onto the graph paper and make
sure everything was lined up. Ah, the memories!
| | 00:12 | Well, now in a digital world, we do
things much differently. Although I do miss
| | 00:17 | the smell of the rubber cement. And
while we explored using rulers and guides
| | 00:21 | in the previous movie, there are times
when having a grid on your screen can
| | 00:24 | help you work in your design or your layout.
| | 00:27 | Illustrator can help by actually
turning on this Grid feature. Go to the View
| | 00:31 | menu, and scroll down to the bottom
where it says Show Grid, and that turns on
| | 00:36 | this grid. It basically turns your
document into what looks like graph paper.
| | 00:39 | What's great about the grid is two
things. First of all, it's completely
| | 00:42 | customizable. By going to the
Preferences settings inside of Illustrator, and
| | 00:46 | you can do that simply by going to the
Preferences button right here in your
| | 00:49 | Control panel, and clicking on that,
I'll switch right over here to the Actual
| | 00:53 | Guides and Grid Setting.
| | 00:55 | Now, we can specify the colors of the
grid lines themselves, and I could use
| | 00:58 | lines and dots for example, I prefer
the lines. I can also choose exactly how
| | 01:03 | many grid lines appear, and how many
sub-divisions there are. I'll click OK,
| | 01:07 | and you can see that as I zoom-in,
more and more of those boxes will become
| | 01:10 | available that I can see. Again, this
just helps me align things up, and see
| | 01:13 | how things appear in my layout.
| | 01:15 | The second thing that's great about
the Grid itself is that, you could set
| | 01:18 | objects to automatically snap to
that grid, and align to that grid. For
| | 01:22 | example, if I go to the View menu,
there's a setting here called Snap to Grid.
| | 01:27 | It's not on by default, because in
reality if you are not really prepared for
| | 01:30 | it, you will see that your object kind
of snaps things where it doesn't really
| | 01:32 | belong. You can have Snap to Grid
turned on, but also hide the grid. So that
| | 01:37 | means you don't see the grid, but the
objects automatically snap to the grid.
| | 01:41 | Working with the grid can be very
helpful. By setting the grids, it actually
| | 01:44 | have a little square that shows every
pixel available on your file, and you
| | 01:48 | move things around, you can ensure
that artwork snaps directly to the pixel
| | 01:51 | grid. So it doesn't make it useful
for certain types of artwork and again,
| | 01:55 | depending on the kind of design that
you do or the layout, you may find the
| | 01:58 | grid to be very helpful. Again, it's
always easy to toggle that grid on and
| | 02:01 | off. The keyboard shortcut for
turning on the grid is Command+Quote or
| | 02:06 | Ctrl+Quote if you're on a PC. Simply
turn that grid off or turn it back on again.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing the bounding box| 00:00 | By default, Illustrator has a
certain setting turned on, which is called
| | 00:04 | bounding box. The bounding box itself
allows you to perform certain types of
| | 00:08 | transformations in a more easier and
accessible fashion. Let me explain. So I
| | 00:13 | have two surfboards here and let's say
I wanted to maybe rotate one of the surfboards.
| | 00:18 | If I go ahead and I click on that
surfboard, you'll see that while the actual
| | 00:21 | path itself is highlighted along the
edges over here, I also see that a box
| | 00:25 | appears and the box has these
handles that appear on the corner.
| | 00:28 | If you're familiar with applications like
Photoshop and there is a Free Transform kind
| | 00:32 | of command, program like InDesign
that we select something to have these handles,
| | 00:36 | the handles allow you to do certain
things, or different functions.
| | 00:38 | For example, by moving my cursor just
outside the edge over here, it turns into a
| | 00:43 | bent arrow, which indicates rotation.
If I click and drag, I'm able to now
| | 00:47 | rotate that. That rotates exactly from
the center of that particular object.
| | 00:51 | We'll talk more about how to go
through the aspects of doing far more
| | 00:55 | sophisticated transformations.
But that's a basic Rotate command.
| | 00:58 | I'm going to go ahead and press Command+Z
to undo that, and I can also click on
| | 01:03 | the handles themselves and either
choose to scale it this way, or I can hold on
| | 01:07 | the Shift key, and then scale it in
proportion as well that way. I can do so by
| | 01:11 | dragging on these handles.
| | 01:12 | Now the bounding box is great,
although sometimes a bounding box might get in
| | 01:17 | the way. For example, if I have now
let's say just a rectangle, I'll draw
| | 01:21 | quickly on my screen, when the bounding
box is turned on, I can click and drag
| | 01:26 | and resize that rectangle. But there
maybe times when I want to go ahead and
| | 01:29 | just click and drag that particular
object, but grabbing it from the corner,
| | 01:33 | which would allow me to snap it
to particular other part as well.
| | 01:36 | So I would need to switch to the Direct
Selection tool, and then grab it by its
| | 01:40 | corner, and then go ahead and I would
snap to let say an object there. Now
| | 01:43 | notice how my cursor turns white as
soon as that point snaps to another point
| | 01:47 | that's right there. That happens
because in the View menu, my Snap to Point
| | 01:51 | option is turned on inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:53 | Now we'll talk about other ways of
doing that as well, but there are sometimes
| | 01:56 | though that people get confused,
because sometimes they see the bounding box,
| | 01:58 | and sometimes they don't. So here is
basically the rule. The bounding box only
| | 02:01 | shows up when you're using the black
arrow, or the Regular Selection tool. It
| | 02:06 | also only shows up when the
bounding box option is turned on.
| | 02:09 | In the View menu, there is a setting
here called Hide Bounding Box. If I turn
| | 02:13 | off the bounding box right now, I won't
see it. For example, if I click on this
| | 02:17 | surfboard right now, the surfboard
itself gets highlighted. But notice that,
| | 02:21 | that bounding box is no longer here
right now. Let me delete this particular
| | 02:24 | shape right here. If I do want to go
back to that functionality, go to the View
| | 02:28 | menu, and then choose Show Bounding
Box, and now that particular object is there.
| | 02:32 | Again, one of the reasons why that
bounding box exists is that if I have, let's
| | 02:35 | say two objects selected, notice that
my bounding box grows, and now I can
| | 02:40 | rotate both of these objects again
from the center of that rotation.
| | 02:43 | We'll see later that the bounding box
itself is great for making quick edits as
| | 02:47 | we're working inside of a file, but
there maybe times when we need to perform
| | 02:50 | very precise transformations, like
rotation from a certain point, or scaling
| | 02:55 | from a certain point. We will use these
specific rotate and scale tools only to
| | 02:58 | happen, and in that case we
will not be using the bounding box.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Smart Guides| 00:00 | A feature that's been around in
Illustrator for quite some time is called Smart
| | 00:04 | Guides. However, now in Illustrator
CS4 the feature has gotten a pretty
| | 00:08 | significant upgrade. In fact, that's
also prompted the Illustrator team to
| | 00:12 | turn Smart Guides on by default. So
first just take a look at where the setting is
| | 00:16 | and then we will talk about how it's used.
| | 00:18 | Under the View menu there is an option
here called Smart Guides. The keyboard
| | 00:23 | shortcut for that is Command+U, or
Ctrl+U on Windows. With that particular
| | 00:27 | setting turned on, which is the case
by default, as you move around your
| | 00:30 | document and you mouse around objects they
highlight. They are also identified by
| | 00:34 | words. For example, this is a path and
this is anchor point, so and so forth.
| | 00:39 | As if we needed that information. But
it can be helpful when you have very
| | 00:42 | complex documents and you are mousing
around trying to identify certain areas
| | 00:46 | of your file.
| | 00:47 | Now as you master with these
particular areas, you see that they highlight,
| | 00:49 | which makes it easy for you to identify,
which objects will be selected when
| | 00:53 | you click. This prevents the trial
of error for clicking on something and
| | 00:56 | realizing, oh, I didn't mean to click
on that, I meant to click on something else.
| | 00:59 | But Smart Guides also help when you are
working on particular piece of artwork
| | 01:03 | and you want to align objects
together. In fact, there are many different
| | 01:06 | aspects or parts of Smart Guides.
Let's take a look at some of them. For
| | 01:09 | example, I'm going to take this orange
surfboard right here and click on it.
| | 01:12 | I'm going to start to drag it. Notice
that as soon as I drag it over here, a
| | 01:15 | little Smart Guide pops up. That's a
line that connects the middle of this
| | 01:19 | surfboard, with the middle of the
surfboard that had the word GROUNDSWELL on it.
| | 01:23 | That's letting me know that right
now the centers of these objects are
| | 01:26 | currently aligned. As I move this
object around, those guides appear to help me
| | 01:31 | identify where these are aligning up to.
For example, if I go out just right
| | 01:35 | and I drag it here this way, I can see
that they are aligning up in a certain
| | 01:39 | way where they intersect.
| | 01:40 | So now those particular surfboards are
aligned up with each other in that way.
| | 01:44 | You press undo for a second here. I can
take this entire one and move this down
| | 01:48 | as well, and see that right now this
intersects over here this line right now,
| | 01:53 | with the top of that surfboard, and
that way I know they are both aligned.
| | 01:56 | So, I don't need specific alignment or
even Draw Guides, as I'm moving objects
| | 02:00 | and drawing them on my screen in order
to quickly align them. For example, when
| | 02:04 | it comes to drawing, I can see that as
well. I'm going to click on my regular
| | 02:07 | rectangle tool, and I'm going to
start to click, but before I do so, notice
| | 02:10 | that as I move my cursor around, it's
identifying to me where these particular
| | 02:14 | path may intersect. So if I wanted to
draw a rectangle that was lined up at the
| | 02:19 | top of this particular piece of artwork
right here, I know that I can basically
| | 02:23 | click and drag here, an now this
rectangle matches from the top to the bottom
| | 02:27 | of that particular surfboard.
| | 02:29 | So it's very easy for me to do that
without having to worry about measuring it,
| | 02:31 | so on and so forth. So Smart
Guides just help me as I work inside of
| | 02:35 | Illustrator. Now you will also notice
one of the other things, as I'm drawing a
| | 02:38 | rectangle here, you can see that a
little gray box appears with a width and
| | 02:41 | height. Again, that's also a part of
Smart Guides. Smart Guides is again
| | 02:45 | letting me know the dimensions of my
shape as I'm drawing it. I'm going to
| | 02:48 | press Delete here to get rid
of that rectangle for a second.
| | 02:51 | You can control the settings for
what does, or does not appear with Smart
| | 02:54 | Guides in Preferences. Again, I'll go
to the Preferences button here in the
| | 02:57 | Control panel, and I'll go from the pop
up menu to choose Smart Guides. And you
| | 03:02 | have many different options here.
Aligning guides, those are the guides that
| | 03:05 | popped up as I was dragging objects
that help me identify whether objects were
| | 03:09 | in align with each other. The Anchor/
Path Labels are those little words that
| | 03:12 | are called anchor and path had
highlighted, and that appeared as I moved over
| | 03:16 | the anchor points or the paths.
| | 03:17 | Measurement Labels. That's the little
gray box that identifies the size of the
| | 03:21 | rectangle, or other shape as I'm
drawing it. Objects highlighting is basically
| | 03:25 | what allows us path to light up as I
mouse over them. Transform tools allow me
| | 03:29 | to basically as I am, maybe scaling
or rotating an object to identify what
| | 03:33 | angle I'm rotating an object on, or
how big, or the change that has been
| | 03:38 | occurring when I perform
transformation for example.
| | 03:41 | Instruction Guides also identify to
me when objects are within the certain
| | 03:45 | alignment, or a certain plain of other
objects. For examples, 90 and 45 degree
| | 03:49 | angles, or 135 degree angles. I can
either choose from this pop up list a
| | 03:53 | different types of angles, or I can
specify up to six angles that I want, which
| | 03:57 | could be very helpful if you create
artwork that is maybe isometric, or suppose
| | 04:01 | we can dial certain things in,
to make it happen automatically.
| | 04:04 | Most importantly the Snapping
Tolerance setting is what identifies, obviously
| | 04:08 | what defines how close I have to get
to an object in order for me to see that
| | 04:13 | guide. Anything within four points will
now basically allow me to snap to that
| | 04:17 | particular guide, and make that
particular Smart Guide visible.
| | 04:20 | Now you turn some of these off. For
example, I don't find it useful to identify
| | 04:23 | anchor or paths for labels. I think the
object highlighting in my opinion just
| | 04:27 | gives me a little bit of headache,
because things are flashing all over the
| | 04:30 | screen as you are mousing around. The
Transform tools is actually pretty cool.
| | 04:34 | Alignment guides are incredibly
helpful as our Measurement Labels. So that's
| | 04:38 | how I leave things with
Smart Guides my preferences.
| | 04:41 | The beautiful thing is, as I'm
working inside of Illustrator, at any time I
| | 04:44 | could use that keyboard Command+U to
just simply disable the Smart Guides. Now
| | 04:48 | I don't see them at all. Press Command
+U, and now when I drag them I do see
| | 04:52 | them. So it's something that I can
control. It's a great feature when you need
| | 04:55 | it, and it's great that you
can turn it off when you don't.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Hide Edges command| 00:00 | If you have access to the exercise
files, go ahead and open up the hide_edges
| | 00:03 | file found in chapter 3. Now there is
another important feature that comes in
| | 00:08 | the play when working inside of
Illustrator. And basically that is when you
| | 00:11 | click on an object you start to see
all the anchor points and the paths get
| | 00:15 | highlighted as well. This just makes
it easy for me as a user to identify,
| | 00:19 | which paths are selected.
| | 00:21 | Now in this case we have group over
here selected. There's a lot of anchor
| | 00:24 | points here. In fact some times the
visibility of those anchors get in the way
| | 00:28 | of me being able to interface with
my design. It's hard for me maybe to
| | 00:31 | visualize what this design may look like.
For example let's go ahead dive into
| | 00:34 | that actual logo of GROUNDSWELL.
Maybe we want to explore using different
| | 00:38 | color. Maybe instead of using
black we want to try different color.
| | 00:41 | So what will I first do is I'll
isolate the logo. Do you remember how we use
| | 00:44 | isolation mode? I would simply take
my black arrow and double-click on the
| | 00:47 | logo. And now basically if I click on
this, I'm able to isolate this. I'll
| | 00:51 | double-click one more time. Now
everything is grade out. I can't select
| | 00:54 | anything. I just have the groundswell logo here.
| | 00:57 | Let's say right now I wan to choose a
different color. So I can go over here to
| | 01:00 | the little fly out menu and choose a
color for this maybe yellow for example or
| | 01:04 | green. But those little blue anchor
points they really get in the way of how we
| | 01:08 | can see that design. So I'm going to
go back to black for a second here. This
| | 01:11 | is setting inside of Illustrator on to
the view menu called hide edges. If I go
| | 01:16 | over here, I see over here this is
setting here hide edges. Command+A or Ctrl+A
| | 01:20 | is the keyboard shortcut for this.
| | 01:22 | Basically when we want to choose that
option when I click an object, it becomes
| | 01:25 | selected, but it I don't see those
anchors points that are there. In fact if I
| | 01:29 | turn off the bounding boxes as well.
So I'm going to go the View menu and say
| | 01:34 | Hide the bounding box. So now this
object is selected even though I have no
| | 01:37 | visual feedback to know that it's
selected. What I mentioned before that this
| | 01:40 | is a pitfall that many designers some
times fall into. They click on something
| | 01:44 | and they think there is something
wrong with the Illustrator. I'm trying to
| | 01:45 | select this and it's not becoming selected.
| | 01:47 | It is selected. I know that by the way,
because I see over here that I do have
| | 01:51 | a group selected right now, which is
the logo type for Groundswell, and I do
| | 01:55 | see where I'm inside of Isolation mode.
In fact if I click and drag, it moves
| | 01:58 | around. I have the ability to change
its color just as I was doing it before,
| | 02:02 | but those anchor points now don't get
in the way. They don't visually hinder
| | 02:05 | work that I'm trying to get done.
| | 02:07 | So I'm going to go back to Black for a
second here. It's important to know that
| | 02:11 | the keyboard shortcut for this is
Command+H or Ctrl+H. Again if I go the View
| | 02:15 | menu I can choose now to Show Edges
and now when I click on I can see that
| | 02:20 | that's there. What's interesting about
this command about hiding edges is that
| | 02:24 | it's a toggle. I mean once I turn it off,
the Hide Edges command is off until I
| | 02:28 | turn it back on again.
| | 02:29 | This unlike program like Photoshop for
example where there is the ability of
| | 02:33 | hide edges. In other words if you make
a selection in Photoshop, you know you
| | 02:36 | have what they call the marching ants
that borders that identifies with you
| | 02:40 | where that selection border is. Well,
when you press Command+H or you choose
| | 02:44 | hide edges instead of Photoshop then
you don't see those little marching ants.
| | 02:47 | They don't, they don't get in the way
if you are working inside of Photoshop.
| | 02:49 | But then as soon as you go ahead and
you make a new selection, that's setting
| | 02:52 | is turn back on again. However in
Illustrator it's a toggle like I said before.
| | 02:56 | Once I turn it off, it stays off until
I turn it back on again. So some times a
| | 03:00 | designer will go ahead and turn it off,
because I want to focus on something
| | 03:03 | and then they will forget the
turn the setting back on again.
| | 03:05 | And that way maybe ten minutes later
when they go get a phone call, they work
| | 03:08 | away from their desk when they come back,
they click on something they realize
| | 03:11 | hey, nothing is working. It's not
getting selected. Again, it's just the matter
| | 03:14 | of the first in the check. Whenever
that happens in Illustrator, make sure to
| | 03:18 | hide Edges command that is not turned on.
| | 03:20 | So I want you to think about. I'll
hit the Escape key to exit out of the
| | 03:23 | Isolation mode for that typeface. And
again as you are working you may want to
| | 03:26 | decide to turn that Hide
Edges command on or off as needed.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Preview and Outline modes| 00:00 | As you work within documents in
Illustrator you will find yourself moving back
| | 00:03 | and forth between two Preview modes. In
the Illustrator when you are in Preview
| | 00:07 | mode itself, which is the default setting,
you basically see your artwork as it
| | 00:11 | would appear when it prints on a
printed page. Or if you are designing
| | 00:15 | something for the web, the way it
would appear on a computer screen.
| | 00:18 | Again going back to what we said before,
these fill and stroke attributes that
| | 00:21 | we apply to objects are appearances,
and the Preview setting allows us to see
| | 00:26 | what those appearances look like.
However we also know that underlying behind
| | 00:31 | the scene are those vectors, those
anchor points in those paths that make up
| | 00:35 | what a vector graphic is.
| | 00:37 | Illustrator has a separate Preview mode
called the Outline view and the Outline
| | 00:41 | view shows you just the paths without
the appearance. Moving between these
| | 00:45 | different Preview modes can be useful
as you work inside of Illustrator. First
| | 00:49 | notice in the View menu itself you
have a setting here called Outline. If I
| | 00:52 | click on that option I now
see my view in Outline mode.
| | 00:56 | If I go back to the View menu, I
choose Preview that is how I toggle back and
| | 01:00 | forth between this Outline mode and
this Preview mode. Now the keyboard
| | 01:03 | shortcut for this is Command+Y or Ctrl+Y.
It allows me to very quickly see what
| | 01:08 | my paths look like without any
appearances on them and then see what it looks
| | 01:11 | like with the appearances on them. This
could be useful because there are times
| | 01:15 | when it is more advantageous to
select objects in Outline mode.
| | 01:18 | Now as we discussed before we know
that you can go into Isolation mode, for
| | 01:21 | example if I wanted to edit may be one
of these pieces of our work that's right
| | 01:24 | here, even though it's behind the word
surfing, I can come over here and double
| | 01:28 | click, double click again and now I
have isolated that particular path, so it
| | 01:31 | makes it easier to work with. Notice
how it comes to the front. Again I hit the
| | 01:34 | Esc key to exist that isolation
mode and now I'm back to where I was.
| | 01:38 | However there may be times when I
want to make a quick little edit to it
| | 01:40 | without going even to the Isolation mode.
By hitting Command+Y or Ctrl+Y, I can
| | 01:45 | actually come over to it and target
just that one particular part of it. I can
| | 01:48 | use my direct selection tool to select
just that particular path that's there.
| | 01:52 | Now you will also notice that the rays
that appear over here are filter what's
| | 01:56 | called a Gradient but as I go ahead
here and as I take a look I see that those
| | 02:00 | are the paths that are used to
define that particular area as well.
| | 02:04 | As I'm working on Illustrator again I
might jump back and forth between those
| | 02:06 | Preview modes. So it's important to
know that I have those two modes again
| | 02:09 | Preview when I was seeing the
appearance of my art work and then the Outline
| | 02:13 | mode where I see just the paths
but not the appearance itself.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using workspaces| 00:00 | So we are just about there. We are
ready to jump in and start drawing inside of
| | 00:03 | Illustrator. But before we do so, let's
explore one final thing about the user
| | 00:07 | interface. Now in Adobe Illustrator CS4
we have seen how the new user interface
| | 00:11 | really allows us to work with panels
and customize the screen the way that we
| | 00:15 | want it to be.
| | 00:16 | However, we also want to have a way
to memorize the positions of all those
| | 00:20 | particular layouts, so we can
continuously set up our screen the way that we
| | 00:24 | want it to. In fact, there are so
many different possible ways to use
| | 00:28 | Illustrator that there many times you
will be focused on using certain tools
| | 00:32 | sets or certain panels and so and so forth.
| | 00:35 | And there maybe other times when you
will need a completely other set of panels
| | 00:38 | that are inside of Illustrator. In
fact, I find there are times when
| | 00:41 | Illustrator itself serves many
different needs. For example, sometimes maybe
| | 00:44 | just editing color; sometimes maybe
drawing from scratch. Sometimes maybe doing
| | 00:48 | more of a technical type of a drawing.
| | 00:49 | Each of those requires different
types of panels and tools available to me.
| | 00:53 | This is way Adobe created something
called the Workspaces. A workspace is a way
| | 00:56 | that captures the way that your
layout is actually set up. Not your artwork
| | 01:01 | itself or the document itself, but all
the tools and panels around it. In fact,
| | 01:05 | you maybe wondering what this word on
the top of the Application Bar is, where
| | 01:09 | it says Essentials.
| | 01:10 | Well, this is what we call the
workspace switcher. It allows us to switch
| | 01:14 | between preset workspaces. Now the
Illustrator team over at Adobe has done a
| | 01:18 | wonderful job in CS4 by shipping
Illustrator with a variety of already preset
| | 01:23 | workspaces. Not only is this helpful,
because some of the workspaces I think
| | 01:27 | are great, more importantly it shows us
how we could use workspaces to our own advantage.
| | 01:32 | For example I'm going to click on
this word Essentials right now and I see
| | 01:34 | something called Automation. Like
Freehand, Like InDesign, Like Photoshop.
| | 01:38 | Let's for example imagine that we
were a Freehand user and we just started
| | 01:42 | using Illustrator. Or I could choose
the Like Freehand setting and now all the
| | 01:46 | tools and panels are set up in a way
that maybe familiar to me, if I were
| | 01:50 | coming from Freehand.
| | 01:51 | Same thing also for example Like
InDesign. For a person who spends a lot of
| | 01:55 | time in InDesign I may choose to set up
my Illustrator workspace to match that
| | 01:59 | found inside of InDesign, so that's
more comfortable for me to make transitions
| | 02:03 | as I move between these two applications.
| | 02:06 | There are also ways to set up
workspaces for a specific task. For example,
| | 02:08 | there is one here called Typography.
Well, let's say I'm working on some kind
| | 02:13 | of type treatments. All the settings
I would need for texts, characters,
| | 02:16 | styles, layers. All the settings here
for example. The Glyphs panel, all these
| | 02:21 | things are now available to me
directly when I'm breaking on Typography. Now
| | 02:25 | what's great about this is I could
also create my own. There is no reason why
| | 02:28 | you have to use only the ones that
ship with Illustrator. You can create your
| | 02:32 | own workspaces that fit well for you
and again you may have several workspaces,
| | 02:36 | depending on the kind of work you do.
| | 02:37 | I'll give you one example of how I
wanted to set up my screen. Now that we know
| | 02:41 | about how Illustrator works and we
understand the interface, let's build an
| | 02:45 | interface together and save it. I'm
going to switch back to Essentials. This is
| | 02:49 | where hard things start out. I'm a big
fan of the single row tools. I'm going
| | 02:52 | to set this now to use as the single
row tools. Again I like the Application
| | 02:57 | Frame turned on so that's why I have
this particular thing, and again this is
| | 03:00 | as that's all encompassed in
one frame on the Macintosh here.
| | 03:04 | Now I'll tell you that there are
times when I really need to see a lot of
| | 03:07 | information here and this little
collapse bar doesn't really do it for me. But
| | 03:10 | if I go ahead and I expand this, there
are certain settings here that really
| | 03:14 | are not that important to me. Maybe we
can move this over here for a second.
| | 03:17 | Remember how we discussed to have you
have basically the ability to Control
| | 03:20 | panel to choose colors, for Fills and
Strokes right here and I can actually
| | 03:24 | access the Stroke panel, the entire Stroke
panel here and the entire Opacity panel here.
| | 03:29 | Well, because I can access it from there,
I don't need them to be here at all.
| | 03:33 | So I'm going to take that Stroke, just
simply drag it out, and then I can go
| | 03:38 | ahead and I can simply close that if I
want to. Alternatively, a very easy way
| | 03:41 | for you basically get rid of these
here is to take let's say the Transparency
| | 03:45 | panel here, drag that as well
and go ahead and turn that off.
| | 03:49 | Now I'll explain a little bit later why
I don't feel the need for the Gradient
| | 03:52 | panel as well. We will get more into
Gradient, but I want to get rid of the
| | 03:55 | Gradient as well. Here is a little
tip by the way. If you ever want to just
| | 03:58 | pull an entire grouping panel for
example, you can simply hold down the Option
| | 04:02 | key or the Alt key and grab it from any
of these kind of blank grayed area and
| | 04:06 | that moves both of those
Dock panels altogether as one.
| | 04:10 | I'm actually going to move this back
over here, put it right back on top where
| | 04:12 | it was. I don't need the Color panel,
because I can access that right from
| | 04:16 | here. So I'm going to choose to get rid
of this. One of the panels that I like
| | 04:19 | to use a lot is actually the Navigator
panel. Now I'll be honest with you I was
| | 04:24 | never really a big fan of the
Navigator panel in previous versions of
| | 04:27 | Illustrator, but now in Illustrator
where I can have multiple artboards.
| | 04:30 | Let's say I create an additional
artboard here. Note that now when I work with
| | 04:35 | a Navigator I choose Window and then
open up the Navigator panel here. The
| | 04:39 | Navigator panel asks me to quickly
zoom between these particular areas. So it
| | 04:43 | makes it possible for me to quickly
jump and navigate around between multiple
| | 04:46 | artboards as well. So I'm actually
going to go ahead and take this right now
| | 04:49 | and bring this in front in center. I
want that to be the most important part of
| | 04:52 | my particular layout over here.
| | 04:54 | Now next I think right now that the
Swatches, Brushes, and Symbols, those can
| | 04:58 | be kind important as well, but maybe
not in the main focus over here. The Color
| | 05:02 | Guide is something that I see when I'm
doing color explorations, I'll use that,
| | 05:05 | and then we will go through that later
on in the title as well. I'll turn that
| | 05:08 | off right now. I don't need that.
| | 05:09 | So I have these settings right here,
but in my opinion the Appearance panel is
| | 05:13 | extremely important and the Graphics
style is kind of a library, just like
| | 05:17 | Swatches, Brushes and Symbols. So
I'll kind of group those together here as well.
| | 05:20 | So now all those are combined together.
| | 05:23 | Layers have become important to me. So
what I'll do is I'll simply just move my
| | 05:27 | cursor here between them and adjust the
size of these. Just like this. In fact
| | 05:33 | I may take the Layers panel out
completely and snap it to the bottom of this.
| | 05:36 | Then I'll take this and bring it to
the side here. I'll collapse this panel
| | 05:41 | just like this.
| | 05:42 | So now I have my Appearance panel,
my Layers panel here and I bring my
| | 05:46 | Navigator panel actually up on top of
each over here. Now I have a layout that
| | 05:50 | I'm pretty happy with. I have my
Navigator panel, my Appearance panel, which
| | 05:54 | we'll as well soon see inside of
this title is probably one of the most
| | 05:57 | important panel inside of Illustrator.
Then I have my Layers panel I can see on
| | 06:00 | my layers on my objects. I have other
objects, which I can get too quickly if I
| | 06:03 | need them. Brushes, Swatches so on so
and forth. What I'll do now is I'll save
| | 06:09 | this as my own custom workspace. I'll
go over here where it says Essentials,
| | 06:12 | click on that little pop up
and choose Save Workspace.
| | 06:15 | Now what I'll do is I'll give a name.
Say we call it MORDY. I know. How did I
| | 06:20 | come up with that name, right? I'll
click OK, and there you will notice that my
| | 06:23 | name is up here. By the way I love this
feature because it's got my name up in
| | 06:26 | light. It's up in the Application Bar.
It's great. In fact you may want to put
| | 06:29 | some other words in there. That might
make it a little bit interesting as well,
| | 06:32 | but now I'm have that workspace.
| | 06:33 | Very easily I can switch between, for
example, the Essentials workspace. I can
| | 06:37 | go to Automation, which are focused on
like actions, and variables, and using
| | 06:41 | Illustrator at the most convenient
possible way. But then I'll browse this and
| | 06:45 | I'll switch back to my MORDY
workspaces and now I get things set up the way I
| | 06:47 | like them. So very easily I can create
my own workspaces as needed and remember
| | 06:52 | I can easily manage them as well if I
have to decide anytime I want to delete
| | 06:54 | them. I go to Manage Workspaces and I
simply highlight and I click Delete.
| | 06:58 | By the way there is no way to update
a workspace. If you want to modify a
| | 07:02 | workspace, you basically bring up a
workspace make your changes then just save
| | 07:06 | a brand new workspace and you can
Delete the old one. So that's the way that
| | 07:09 | you might want to do that. So
that's the Workspaces feature inside of
| | 07:11 | Illustrator. Now that we know how to
get around and how to work with our
| | 07:14 | interface, let's get started
drawing inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Basic DrawingThe importance of modifier keys| 00:00 | By now you have undoubtedly come to the
realization that Illustrator has got a
| | 00:04 | whole lot of tools. Well nothing to be
scared about, but in reality those who
| | 00:09 | have been using Illustrator for a
long time, those power users, know that
| | 00:12 | using keyboard shortcuts can
dramatically enhance your workflow when using
| | 00:16 | Illustrator. Specifically I'm
referring to keys known as the Modifier keys.
| | 00:21 | Now in Mac OS these keys are the Shift,
Option, Command and Spacebar keys. On
| | 00:26 | Windows, those keys are Shift, Ctrl,
Alt and Space. These keys all appear at
| | 00:31 | the lower left hand corner of the
keyboard. And as you are working, it makes
| | 00:34 | sense to have your right hand on the
mouse and your left hand on that part of
| | 00:37 | the keyboard. The goal of course so
that you can actually apply or use those
| | 00:41 | keys without thinking about them.
| | 00:43 | Unfortunately, the positioning of these
keys does make it somewhat challenging
| | 00:47 | for left handed users. Although
some keyboards do have these exact same
| | 00:51 | duplicate keys on the right side of the
keyboard. As we move forward with using
| | 00:55 | Illustrators, specifically with
enjoying inside of Illustrator, it's going to
| | 00:58 | be important to utilize these commands.
| | 01:00 | So might take a few moments to get
your fingers comfortable on the keyboard
| | 01:03 | near these keys. Think you are
ready? Let's draw some shapes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing closed-path primitives| 00:00 | All right, so we are ready to go ahead
and start drawing some graphics inside
| | 00:03 | of Illustrator. I want to start off
just by creating a regular print document
| | 00:07 | with one artboard, click OK and now
I'll get the screen here. We are going to
| | 00:10 | start off by using the primitive
shape tools inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:13 | Now when I say primitive I don't mean
that they are not modern. I mean that
| | 00:17 | they are creating primitive type shapes
meaning rectangles, squares, circles so
| | 00:20 | on and so forth. Those can act as
the basic building blocks of any
| | 00:24 | illustration. Now once we are
comfortable using those tools, we move on to
| | 00:27 | using some of the tools that allows (ph
) to create freeform graphics. I'm going
| | 00:31 | to start off by creating closed paths.
| | 00:33 | Remember we discussed the ability in
Illustrator to have really two types of
| | 00:36 | paths. Open paths and closed paths.
I'm going to start off by creating closed
| | 00:40 | paths, which are ellipses or circles
and ovals, rectangles. So on and so forth.
| | 00:45 | So I'm going over my toolbar over
here and the first tool that I'm going to
| | 00:49 | choose over here is the Rectangle tool.
| | 00:50 | By the way you will notice that these
tools that appear inside of the toolbar
| | 00:54 | some of them have these little black
triangles in the little right hand corner.
| | 00:57 | That identifies that there are more
tools hidden behind that tool or grouped
| | 01:00 | with that tool. The way to access
those is you click and you hold the mouse
| | 01:04 | button down and then this entire list
shows up of all the different close shape
| | 01:08 | tools that are here.
| | 01:08 | We are going to explore in this
particular movie using the Rectangle tool, the
| | 01:12 | Rounded Rectangle tool, the Ellipse
tool, the Polygon tool and the Star tool.
| | 01:16 | The Flare tool is completely separable.
We will deal with it another time. By
| | 01:19 | the way to make it a little bit easier
to access these tools, you can move your
| | 01:22 | mouse over here to this bar on the
right side, which is called the tear-off
| | 01:25 | panel. When I let go of that, it
turns into this little mini toolbar on its
| | 01:29 | own. So let's start by just drawing a
regular rectangle. Now the way that you
| | 01:32 | create a rectangle is very simple. You
position the cursor where you want to
| | 01:35 | start the rectangle and then
click and drag it to the right.
| | 01:38 | Notice by the way that the Smart Guide
just let me know of the dimensions of my
| | 01:41 | rectangle as I'm drawing it. The
important here this is I'm not letting go with
| | 01:44 | the mouse. This is the key if we began
to draw other graphics as well. Don't
| | 01:48 | let go the mouse because once you do
you now commit that graphic as the way
| | 01:51 | that it is. Of course you can
always change things later on inside of
| | 01:54 | Illustrator, but it's more difficult to do so.
| | 01:56 | For example you will notice now that
I'm drawing this rectangle and it's
| | 01:59 | originating from the upper left hand
corner. Now if I decide that I want to
| | 02:02 | reposition this graphic somewhere else.
I'll hold down the Spacebar key. Again
| | 02:06 | my mouse button is still down. Now I
can freeze the rectangle on its own,
| | 02:11 | reposition it somewhere else at my
document and when I release the Spacebar I
| | 02:15 | can continue join that rectangle.
Again, the key here is not to let go the
| | 02:18 | mouse button as I do that.
| | 02:20 | Now there are certain keyboard
shortcuts that are very important to know when
| | 02:23 | you join graphics. Let me delete this
for one second here. For example as I'm
| | 02:26 | clicking and dragging my rectangle, if
I decide that I want it to be a perfect
| | 02:30 | square, meaning that the width and
height are exactly the same. I'll hold down
| | 02:33 | the Shift key to constrain the proportions.
| | 02:35 | Now you will also notice as I said
before that the rectangle is being drawn
| | 02:38 | from the upper left hand corner. Say
you wanted to draw the rectangle out from
| | 02:41 | its center. Well hold the Option key
down and then when you click and drag, you
| | 02:45 | see that the rectangle is actually
being drawn out from the center point.
| | 02:50 | Finally, if you want to create a
rectangle or a square to an exact dimension
| | 02:53 | rather than draw it out and try to do
it by eye, you could basically specify
| | 02:57 | any shape numerically. Let me show you
how to do that. Simply take your cursor
| | 03:01 | with your Rectangle tool and just click
and release the mouse once anywhere on
| | 03:05 | the artboard. In doing so a dialog
will appear where you can then enter the
| | 03:09 | width and the height.
| | 03:09 | So for example I may want to type in
let's say 2 inches by 3 inches. Again
| | 03:13 | notice that even though a point is
specified now as the measurement system for
| | 03:17 | Illustrator's document right now. I
can still type in either in for inches or
| | 03:21 | just type in the inch mark that way
and Illustrator as I'll hit the Tab key
| | 03:25 | will automatically figure out the
conversion for me. When I click OK,
| | 03:28 | Illustrator now creates the
rectangle at that exact dimension.
| | 03:32 | Let's take a quick look at some of the
other tools that are here as well. I'm
| | 03:34 | going to press Command+A or Ctrl+A to
select everything and press Delete. I'm
| | 03:38 | going to go to the Rectangle tool.
The only difference between the Rounded
| | 03:41 | Rectangle tool and the Rectangle tool
is that the corners are rounded. Now as I
| | 03:44 | click and drag, notice that this
corners are rounded. I can use again with my
| | 03:48 | fingers still pressed down on the
mouse button. I have not released the mouse
| | 03:51 | button yet. I can use the up arrows and
the down arrow on my keyboard to adjust
| | 03:56 | the radius or how round
those particular corners are.
| | 04:00 | Notice right now I'm tapping the up
arrow key in my keyboard that I have very
| | 04:04 | rounded corners and if I used the down
arrow key in my keyboard, I can see that
| | 04:08 | right now the radius is getting smaller.
I released the mouse and now that goes
| | 04:11 | the heading and comes into that
particular shape. Now again if I hit the Delete
| | 04:14 | key now I just click once and
release the mouse right away, I can specify
| | 04:18 | values for the width, height and if
the corner radius directly. Let me click Cancel.
| | 04:22 | Let's go on to the next shape. When
joining ellipses, which are circles or
| | 04:26 | ovals, again I could do the exact same
thing I have been doing before with the
| | 04:30 | Rectangle tool. Click and drag to draw
a circle or an oval from the upper left
| | 04:34 | hand corner. The Shift key constrains
it to a perfect circle. Option key or Alt
| | 04:38 | key on Windows constrains it to
draw out directly from the center.
| | 04:42 | By the way you can hold down the
Option key and the Shift key simultaneously
| | 04:45 | while you are dragging to draw a
perfect circle out from the center. Again,
| | 04:48 | that's the reason why you can't
combine these keys. In fact I even have the
| | 04:51 | Spacebar to move my circle somewhere
else and then continue to drag and draw
| | 04:56 | this way. Again, the key is not
let go the mouse when I do that.
| | 05:00 | Again I can click once anywhere in my
artboard to specify these acts with the
| | 05:04 | height setting for either a circle or
oval just by clicking once on an artboard
| | 05:07 | and releasing the mouse immediately.
Let's take a look at the Polygon tool. The
| | 05:10 | Polygon tool allows me to create a
polygon shape, which means that I can have
| | 05:15 | anything from 3 up to more size than
that, but each of the side are always
| | 05:19 | going to be equal in length.
| | 05:21 | For example right now I could use the
down arrow key again. I'm not letting to
| | 05:24 | the mouse button as I do this. The down
arrow key hit it all the way through as
| | 05:28 | low as it will go three size, which
will give me perfect equilateral triangle.
| | 05:33 | Plus I can go ahead and I can type the
up arrow on my keyboard and add as many
| | 05:37 | sizes as I like to.
| | 05:38 | Let me come back down to just 3 sides
for the triangle for a minute here. I
| | 05:42 | want to show you I can hold the Shift
key down as I do this. The Shift key will
| | 05:44 | make us so that the triangle at
least has the base constrained on that
| | 05:47 | 90-degree angle on the bottom. So
again I can do that very easily. I'm again
| | 05:52 | holding down the Spacebar will
allow me to go ahead and reposition that
| | 05:56 | particular shape as I'm drawing it
again. I'm not letting go the mouse when I
| | 05:59 | do that. As soon as I do release the
mouse, I can no longer change a number of
| | 06:02 | size or anything else for that matter.
| | 06:04 | Again I'll delete that right now on my
keyboard. What I'll do is I'll create a
| | 06:08 | star. Let's see how we create a star
inside of Illustrator. The Star tool is
| | 06:11 | pretty cool. I click and drag outwards.
Again, don't let go the mouse. You can
| | 06:15 | rotate the star as you rotate the
mouse around. Hold down the Shift key, and
| | 06:20 | basically the star is always going to
sit straight. Hold down the Options key
| | 06:24 | and that creates some of, which
we call aligning the shoulders.
| | 06:27 | Those are the two arms I guess you
can say at the star right now are in
| | 06:30 | alignment and now they are not. So I'm
holding down the Option key or the Alt
| | 06:33 | key on Windows to align the shoulders
of the star. Again, I can use the up
| | 06:37 | arrow and the down arrow on my
keyboard to add or remove the number of points
| | 06:41 | on my star. I could also hold down the
Command key to adjust the delta or the
| | 06:46 | difference between the inner radius
of the star and the outer radius of the
| | 06:49 | star, which basically makes either
not a very pointy star or a very pointy star.
| | 06:54 | I can go ahead and I can adjust this as
I'm working at the star. Again, once I
| | 06:57 | let go the mouse that means I have now
committed a shape, I can no longer make
| | 07:00 | changes to it other than the regular
editing tools, which we will deal within
| | 07:03 | the later chapter.
| | 07:04 | So that's how you start creating basic
primitive shapes in Illustrator using
| | 07:08 | these tools. Now in the next movie we will
explore creating open paths in the same method.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing open-path primitives| 00:00 | Now let's take a look at some of the
open path primitive tools found inside of
| | 00:03 | Illustrator. Again, I'm going to start
with just a blank regular document.
| | 00:07 | I'm going to go over here to the Tool
panel and click on the Line Segment tool.
| | 00:10 | I'll actually click and hold my mouse
button down and use a tear-off here to
| | 00:13 | bring these tools up to into focus. And the
Line tool does something very simple. It allows
| | 00:17 | you simple click and drag to draw a
line. The release the mouse and you have
| | 00:22 | created the line.
| | 00:23 | Some of the keyboard shortcuts that we
used for the closed paths tools work the
| | 00:26 | same here. For example the Shift key
allows me to constrain my path to be
| | 00:31 | 45-degree angles. That way I know for
sure I get a straight path. I could also be
| | 00:36 | drawing your path and realizing, oh I
want to move it somewhere else. Hold down
| | 00:40 | the Spacebar, reposition that path.
Again, release the Spacebar and then
| | 00:43 | continue drawing my path there as well.
| | 00:45 | So that's the Line tool. I'm going to
go ahead and delete that for now. Let's
| | 00:49 | create an arc. An arc basically is a
just a section of an oval or circle. If I
| | 00:53 | click and drag, I can see that area.
Now as I move this around you will see I
| | 00:58 | have the arc changes. What I can do is
also use keyboard shortcut. The F key
| | 01:02 | will actually flip that particular
arc to be either convex or concave. Then
| | 01:07 | again I can use the up and the down
arrow keys on my keyboard to adjust the
| | 01:11 | actual angle itself or how fast that
particular angle is actually turning.
| | 01:16 | So now that I have done that, let me go
ahead and delete that particular angle
| | 01:19 | as well. I'm going to now use the
Spiral tool, which is a fun tool to use and
| | 01:23 | there are lots of ways to use spiral
inside of elements of a design. If I click
| | 01:27 | and drag, and again I'm not releasing
the mouse, I now see that I have a spiral.
| | 01:30 | I could use the up arrow keys and the
down arrow keys to either add or remove
| | 01:35 | lines in my particular spiral. I
could use the Command key to adjust how
| | 01:41 | tightly round this particular spiral is.
That basically allows me to control me
| | 01:47 | how I use a spiral. I'm basically
moving the mouse around now to actually
| | 01:52 | rotate where that spiral begins and
ends and like I said before I can use
| | 01:55 | Spacebar to reposition it and I
could also use the Shift key to basically
| | 02:00 | constrain where that
particular spiral begins and ends.
| | 02:03 | So that's how I use the Spiral tool in
Illustrator. Let's take a look at the
| | 02:07 | other two remaining here. These are
kind of special case ones. This one is
| | 02:11 | called the Rectangular Grid tool. I
use this actually often. I just want to
| | 02:15 | draw out a quick little grid to use.
Just click and drag. Again hold the mouse
| | 02:18 | button down as you are doing this, and
you see now that I have a whole bunch of
| | 02:22 | rows of boxes. Basically it's one big
rectangle that has a whole bunch of lines
| | 02:26 | drawn both vertically and
horizontally that kind of chop it up into these
| | 02:30 | particular regions or these
boxes to create this grid.
| | 02:33 | Now of course without letting go the
mouse button, I can do that before I can
| | 02:36 | use the Shift key to constrain this
to be a perfect square. I could use the
| | 02:40 | Option key to draw it out from its
center. I could use the Spacebar to freeze
| | 02:44 | it and then move it around the
screen as I need to. But more importantly,
| | 02:47 | specifically for the grid I can use the
up arrow keys to add more rows. I could
| | 02:52 | easily use the right arrow key to add
more columns. Again the left arrow key
| | 02:56 | reduced the number of column and the
down arrow key reduced the number of rows,
| | 02:59 | which his great as I'm
kind of working to do this.
| | 03:02 | What's also pretty cool? There are
some of other keys that you could use on
| | 03:04 | your keyboard. For example the F key,
the C key, the V key and the X key, all
| | 03:12 | basically control this queue of how
these particular lines are drawn. So you
| | 03:17 | can get some really cool backgrounds
as you work with it. I'm going to press
| | 03:20 | the Delete key now, because we move on
to the Polar Grid tool, which is also
| | 03:23 | pretty cool. As you click and you
drag out, you will see that right now I'm
| | 03:26 | holding the Option keys I'm drawing it
out from the center. I have the ability
| | 03:29 | to create, almost like a radar chart
or a pie graph or something like that.
| | 03:34 | In fact as I go ahead to do this, it
also looks like the grill of a barbecue
| | 03:38 | for that matter. What I can do is
again use the keys of my keyboard here to
| | 03:42 | actually use the up and down arrows to
adjust the number of rings that appear
| | 03:46 | in this particular grid. I could use
the right and left arrows adjust the
| | 03:49 | number of dividers. Maybe I don't want
any of them at all. Maybe I do want a
| | 03:53 | few of them. So on and so forth. I
can go ahead and do that very easily.
| | 03:56 | I again reposition this as I want to
Spacebar lets me move it somewhere else. I
| | 04:00 | also can use again the keys of the V
keys and the F keys to go ahead and adjust
| | 04:04 | this skew of these particular objects,
and of course the C and the X keys to
| | 04:09 | adjust the skews for that as well.
| | 04:11 | So you can get some really cool results
using these tools. I'll leave you with
| | 04:14 | one little cute little tip that
applies and I'm not really sure I know a use
| | 04:18 | for this, but it's interesting
because it's built-in the Illustrator. I'm
| | 04:20 | actually going to use with the
Illustrator. I'm actually going to use this with
| | 04:22 | the Rectangle tool just to show you
as you are clicking and dragging and
| | 04:25 | drawing a box. If you hold down the
Tilde key as you draw to create a whole
| | 04:28 | bunch of them. I'll be honest with you,
I'm not sure if this is a bug inside of
| | 04:31 | Illustrator or was it intended to be
this way, but it's kind of funky. It can
| | 04:35 | create some wacky abstract art.
| | 04:38 | For example I'm going to hold down now
the Option key to draw from the center
| | 04:42 | and also the Spacebar to move this
around. But as I hold down the Tilde key
| | 04:46 | also, as I'm moving the rectangle
that's creating these copies. So that's
| | 04:50 | pretty cool. It's creating all these
multiple copies as I'm drawing it, and
| | 04:53 | again I'm using the Tilde keyboard
shortcut to make that happen. That works
| | 04:57 | with all the drawing tools that we
have covered both in this particular movie
| | 05:00 | and also the previous one when we spoke about
the closed drawing tools inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Simple drawing with the Pen tool| 00:00 | So until now we have been using
shapes such as rectangles and ovals and
| | 00:04 | ellipses those are great, but when it
comes time to using Illustrator for the
| | 00:07 | graphics that you want to create that
may not always cut it. So Illustrator has
| | 00:12 | a tool called the Pen tool and the Pen
tool is basically the defining vector
| | 00:17 | graphics creations tool. As we will
soon see the Pen tool itself allows you to
| | 00:21 | pot anchor points and create the path
that we have been learning about until now.
| | 00:25 | From an Adobe Product prospective,
the Pen tool is not only found inside of
| | 00:29 | Illustrator it is also found inside of
applications like Photoshop, InDesign
| | 00:33 | and Flash. So the great thing about
the Pen tool is that when you learn it in
| | 00:37 | one of those applications it really
works the same way in all the other applications.
| | 00:41 | Now admittedly the Pen tool can be a
little bit difficult to learn how to use.
| | 00:45 | So in this particular movie we are
going to focus on creating very simple
| | 00:48 | shapes using the Pen tool. I'm working
in this file called pen_tool.ai, if you
| | 00:53 | have access to the exercise files you
will find this in Chapter 04. I'm going
| | 00:56 | to go over to the toolbar
and click on the Pen tool.
| | 00:59 | Now you will notice by the way that
there are some other tools hidden behind
| | 01:02 | the Pen tools as well. We will deal
with those later not right now. For now we
| | 01:05 | are just going to focus on using the
Pen tool itself. Now what I have here in
| | 01:09 | this file, if I go to the Layers panel
you will see that I have created some
| | 01:12 | Instructions that are kind of graded
out in the background here and then I have
| | 01:15 | the Drawing layer, which
is now active right now.
| | 01:17 | So that we are going to draw on top of
this, in fact we don't really need to
| | 01:21 | have this Smart Guides turned on right
now. Let's say I should turn that off
| | 01:23 | I'm going to go to the View menu, I'm
going to choose to turn of the Smart
| | 01:27 | Guides for now, just so that we can
focus on seeing exactly what's happening
| | 01:31 | here, I don't want you to get confused.
It actually is a good thing to use
| | 01:33 | Smart Guide, it does help you draw but
for now, right now I want to focus on
| | 01:36 | the basic premise of what the Pen tool is doing.
| | 01:39 | So you will notice by the way that I
have this Pen tool and just to the bottom
| | 01:42 | right of the Pen tool itself is little
x. So as we start drawing with the Pen
| | 01:45 | tool it is going to be important to pay
attention to the cursor itself because
| | 01:50 | the cursor changes base in the
different state what the Pen tool is in.
| | 01:53 | As we will soon see when you start
drawing a graphic when you are in the middle
| | 01:57 | of drawing a graphic, when you are
about the end drawing a graphic, that little
| | 02:01 | icon will change. Sometimes that x
would be an o, sometimes that x would be an
| | 02:04 | inverted v, sometimes it will be
something else, plus sign or a minus sign. As
| | 02:08 | we pay attention to those little icons
those will give us little hints to let
| | 02:11 | us know what Illustrator is about to do.
| | 02:13 | Now admittedly the fist time the
people use the Pen tool, they think about
| | 02:16 | using a regular pen on a paper and
they start to draw with it, so they will
| | 02:20 | click with the mouse and they will kind
of draw out and they get this and then
| | 02:23 | they will click and draw again and they
see these lines, it just drives people
| | 02:26 | crazy what they usually do then is
they just say, I'm never using a Pen tool
| | 02:29 | again, Illustrator is not worth
of use and so on and so forth.
| | 02:32 | I'm just going to tap the Delete key
so I can get rid of those particular
| | 02:34 | anchors right now and let's first
understand what the Pen tool does. The Pen
| | 02:39 | tool itself is really not a tool that
you draw with, it really allows you to
| | 02:43 | create graphics again from a vector
standpoint and allows you do draw shapes
| | 02:48 | that already exists inside of your mind.
It is very hard to sketch or draw in
| | 02:52 | accounts with the Pen tool.
| | 02:53 | You have to know what you want to
create, then what you by knowing what you
| | 02:56 | want to create, what you also want to
be doing is plot anchor points. Remember
| | 02:59 | how we went back to that original
example, the Surfboard with that Graph Paper
| | 03:03 | Grid and what we did was we saw that
well Photoshop just basically colored in
| | 03:06 | the squares, but with Illustrator we
had these anchor points that we plotted in
| | 03:10 | this path that connect the
anchor points to each other.
| | 03:13 | Well what the Pen tool does is it
allows us to plot where those anchor points
| | 03:17 | go and the interesting thing about
the Pen tool is that it creates the path
| | 03:22 | that connect those anchor points by
itself, we don't draw those paths, we just
| | 03:26 | draw the anchor points and then
everything else gets automatically. So the
| | 03:29 | easiest way to show you this, is to
just start of by creating a very simple
| | 03:32 | shape that uses straight lines and what
I have here in this particular example
| | 03:36 | here, which is drawing a rectangle.
| | 03:38 | So we are going to start of for us by
going to where it says, Step1 click here,
| | 03:42 | so I'm going to go right here and
just click once, it is not exactly on it
| | 03:45 | don't worry about it. The concept is
still going to be the same, just wanted to
| | 03:48 | get you to click once and then
immediately release the mouse. So now I'm going
| | 03:52 | to move little Pen tool away, notice
how that x is gone. What we have done is
| | 03:55 | we have created an anchor point that's
right there but if I move my mouse away
| | 03:59 | right now, I have no mouse button down
at all. I have already released my mouse button.
| | 04:03 | You can see that now Illustrator is
ready for the next step, what I basically
| | 04:06 | did right now is I defined the first
anchor point of a path. Remember every
| | 04:11 | path usually has two anchor points at
least at the minimum and I basically
| | 04:15 | click to create one or the starting
point of that particular path. Now wherever
| | 04:20 | I click again it's is going to
define where the endpoint is.
| | 04:23 | Now that Illustrator has the information,
the starting point and the endpoint,
| | 04:26 | it has the information to connect those
two with a path. So let's see how we do
| | 04:30 | that, I'm now going to move my cursor
all the way down to here, because I want
| | 04:33 | to have this be the bottom right end
of the triangle, I'm not going to drag
| | 04:36 | with the mouse I'm just going
to click and release the mouse.
| | 04:39 | Notice now that the path was already
created, here is the key about the Pen
| | 04:42 | tool. You don't draw the paths, again
this isn't mean that a lot of people
| | 04:46 | don't realize but when it comes to
using Illustrator, that is the key thing, I
| | 04:50 | think in a way when using the Pen tool.
The Pen tool allows you to plot the
| | 04:54 | anchor points and it draws
the paths for you automatically.
| | 04:57 | So now I want to create the next part
of my triangle, I'm going to move my
| | 05:00 | cursor again over here remember there
is no mouse button down right now. I'm
| | 05:03 | going to come over here to this part
here and click again. By the way the way
| | 05:06 | it should have work that once you
start drawing a path, it continues to draw
| | 05:09 | that path until you tell it otherwise,
which it will do within a minute.
| | 05:12 | In fact you see that now the line isn't
that straight, well what I could do is
| | 05:15 | press undo. Move my cursor right over
here at this part here, hold down the
| | 05:20 | Shift key and then click with the mouse
and that's going to basically constrain
| | 05:24 | it so that when I go ahead and I draw
my shape right now I know its exactly the
| | 05:27 | same. Now by the way, it's important to
realize that if I have Smart Guides on
| | 05:30 | I would have seen a line to help me
identify that as well but I just wanted to
| | 05:34 | turn it off for now, so we can focus on this.
| | 05:36 | So now I have basically three points
that I have created, and the points are
| | 05:40 | created by path, I still have an open
path though. This whole area is open
| | 05:44 | right now, I need to close this, so
why that you close it, is as I'm going to
| | 05:47 | move my cursor back to the original
point where I started from, what is
| | 05:50 | alright. Notice what happens to my
cursor, as I move my cursor really, really
| | 05:53 | close to that point, a little circle,
a little o appears to the bottom right
| | 05:57 | hand corner of that cursor. That
identifies to me that right now that the Pen
| | 06:01 | tool is about to close the path.
| | 06:02 | Remember before an x means that it's
about to start drawing a new path, if
| | 06:06 | there is nothing on it whatsoever it
means that I'm middle of right now I'm
| | 06:09 | drawing a path and then if I move my
cursor close enough to the start point
| | 06:12 | right now. If I click now Illustrator
is going to end it and I'm going to close
| | 06:16 | that particular path. Remember circle
has no opening so that's just the icon
| | 06:19 | that's being used. And I'll just
click once again right on that particular
| | 06:23 | point that I have now completed my triangle.
| | 06:24 | So now basically I was able to click
once here, click once here, click once
| | 06:29 | here and I click again here and that's
how it created my particular triangle
| | 06:32 | and again I do this using the Pen
tool inside of Illustrator. Now it is
| | 06:35 | important to realize, by the way that
you see now that I close the path, I now
| | 06:39 | have the x again, which indicates
Illustrator is not ready to start drawing a new path.
| | 06:43 | So remember when I click over here and
I hold on the Shift key and click once
| | 06:46 | again to create a line, remember I did
not draw that path. I plotted to anchor
| | 06:51 | points and Illustrator connected
them with the path for me automatically,
| | 06:55 | that's how the Pen tool works. Now that
we have that concept done, we can focus
| | 06:59 | on moving more into more complex pieces of art.
| | 07:02 | For example remember we had discussed
way back that there were two types of
| | 07:06 | anchor points inside of Illustrator,
there is a corner anchor point, which has
| | 07:10 | straight lines that connect them,
but then we had certain shapes that had
| | 07:13 | curved lines connecting them. Well in
anchor point that is connect by curved
| | 07:17 | lines are called Smooth anchor points.
So in the next video we will talk about
| | 07:21 | how to create more of complex shapes
with the Pen tool and we will learn how to
| | 07:24 | create Smooth anchor
points to create those curves.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Advanced drawing with the Pen tool| 00:00 | So now you understand the core concept
of what the Pen tool is, it allows you
| | 00:04 | to plot these points and it connects
them with these particular paths. Now
| | 00:08 | until now, we have defined corner
anchor points, which are connected by
| | 00:11 | straight lines, now let's talk about
using the Pen tool to create smooth anchor
| | 00:15 | points and curve lines. So I'm going
to use the same file, if you have the
| | 00:19 | exercise files, it's called Pen tool
and you will find that in Chapter 04.
| | 00:23 | Once again, we are going to switch to
the Pen tool that's right here, I'm also
| | 00:26 | going to use the space bar to simply
move over here to the next part of a
| | 00:30 | particular file. So this becomes a
little more complex but again the concept
| | 00:34 | here is understanding that we are
plotting anchor points; we are not drawing
| | 00:36 | the paths and the paths would be drawn
automatically by Illustrator. So let's
| | 00:40 | see how this works.
| | 00:41 | Now I have basically the same number
of anchor points that I would have in a
| | 00:45 | rectangle what I'm going to do now is
draw a circle and let's see how that
| | 00:49 | works. Now before we would just click
and releasing the mouse, clicking and
| | 00:53 | releasing the mouse, clicking
releasing the mouse. Those actions created
| | 00:56 | straight lines or just when you click
and release with the mouse with a Pen
| | 00:59 | tool, it creates corner anchor point.
| | 01:01 | But if you click and you drag with the
Pen tool, which is what I'm going to do
| | 01:05 | right now, you drag out these control
handles from that anchor point and then
| | 01:09 | when I release the mouse, and then I
click, that creates the curved path. And
| | 01:14 | remember how we discussed before how
the control handle helps to find what that
| | 01:19 | curve follows.
| | 01:20 | So let's just delete that for now and
let's see how that works here with these
| | 01:24 | simple instructions and then we will
begin to see how this all comes to play
| | 01:28 | and then we will go through the
several examples that we can build up some
| | 01:30 | confidence with using the Pen tool.
| | 01:32 | I'm going to start up with Step One,
where it says, Press Here. I'm not going
| | 01:36 | to let go the mouse. I'm going to click,
hold down the mouse button, drag in
| | 01:40 | this direction and I could use the
Shift key by the way, as I do this, just to
| | 01:43 | make sure that it's straight and I'm
going to release the mouse when I get to
| | 01:46 | this point, right here, so my control
handle is basically going to come out to
| | 01:50 | here and now I'm going to release the mouse.
| | 01:52 | So what I have done is I have defined
an anchor point but remember this is not
| | 01:55 | a corner anchor point, this is a
smooth anchor point, which means that when I
| | 01:59 | define now another anchor point
instead of a straight line I'm going to get a
| | 02:02 | curved line and that curved line is
defined by that control handle that I
| | 02:07 | created. Don't worry about where it's
going to go so on and so forth, we are
| | 02:10 | not up to a point now where we can
anticipate that but as you start to draw a
| | 02:14 | graphic you begin to anticipate
where the curves are going to go.
| | 02:18 | So I'm not going to move my cursor
down over here and I have no mouse button
| | 02:21 | down as I do this. I'm now going to
hold down the mouse button and I'll click
| | 02:26 | and then drag, I'm using the Shift key
down again to drag once again to this
| | 02:29 | point right here. So now look what
happened. By dragging out that control
| | 02:33 | handle on either end of here -- by the
way, it's a symmetrical thing when you
| | 02:36 | draw a control handle form an anchor
point. By default, it's going to do that
| | 02:40 | evenly on both sides of the anchor point.
| | 02:42 | So what I now get is a curved line that
connects these two anchor points. Let's
| | 02:46 | go ahead and continue this, I'm going
to go down over here, click, hold down
| | 02:50 | the Shift key and drag out here to this
point. One more time, move my cursor up
| | 02:54 | over here, click, drag, release.
| | 02:57 | Started from the beginning over here,
where I was, notice now I get that little
| | 03:00 | O that means I'm about to close my path,
click, drag, release. So now what I
| | 03:06 | have done is I have created the circle.
If I move this over here, for example,
| | 03:09 | to see what we are dealing with over
here, remember how we do that circle way
| | 03:12 | back and we saw where the anchor
points and where the handles were.
| | 03:15 | Well now if use my direct selection
tool, my white arrow and I click on just
| | 03:19 | one of these points, I see exactly
where those handles are and by dragging out
| | 03:23 | those handles I can adjust how that
particular path looks. Let's take a look at
| | 03:27 | some other examples and again we will
get more familiar with what's happening
| | 03:30 | here inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:32 | So I'm going to go ahead and use the
Pen tool once again, and let's file these
| | 03:35 | directions. Click here, drag the mouse
what have we done here and then release
| | 03:39 | the mouse once again. Come up over here,
I'm just going to click once and then
| | 03:43 | release the mouse. So you see how that
created kind of like a little scarlet
| | 03:48 | that appears right over here.
| | 03:50 | What I'm now going to do is click
directly on that anchor point by the way see,
| | 03:54 | when I move my cursor away this is
Illustrator letting me know that the Pen
| | 03:58 | tool with no other additional parts
next to it, just tell me I'm currently in
| | 04:02 | the middle of the drawing right now of
path and remember if I move kind of over
| | 04:05 | here and let me close the path, if I
had the 04:07 of drawing a new path.
| | 04:08 | Well right now what I'm going to do is
I'm going to move my cursor right over
| | 04:12 | that existing anchor point I just
created. You see that little inverted V that
| | 04:16 | appears as right there. That allows me
to actually manually pull out a control
| | 04:20 | handle, from a particular shape. So
what I'm going to do right now is I'm going
| | 04:24 | to click and drag, you can hold the
Shift key down as I do this, to drag out
| | 04:28 | here and now I didn't do anything to
the path, what I did was I manually pulled
| | 04:32 | out a control handle and remember
before when I just clicked and dragged, the
| | 04:36 | control handle is appearing on both
end of the anchor point that I created.
| | 04:39 | Well now I only pulled out one
control handle on one side of this.
| | 04:43 | So this is what I call a combination
point. Before we created anchor points,
| | 04:48 | the corner anchor points that we
created actually have the straight lines
| | 04:51 | connecting them, there are no control
handles. A smooth anchor point basically,
| | 04:55 | the path goes right through that
anchor point and the control handles are
| | 05:00 | actually kind of a tangent to that
particular path and they are even on both sides.
| | 05:05 | A combination point is an anchor point
that has the corner anchor point and has
| | 05:10 | the smooth anchor point. It does have
the control handle but only one of that,
| | 05:13 | which means that the path actually
changes directions as it goes through the
| | 05:17 | point. Some of the people do call it a
change direction point. What I'm going
| | 05:21 | to do now is move my cursor
over here and click once again.
| | 05:24 | Notice how the path starts here. It
goes through over here, if this where a
| | 05:28 | smooth anchor point, the path would
run right through the smooth anchor point
| | 05:31 | up this way but instead the path
changes direction and comes back down this way
| | 05:35 | and that happen because I pulled the
control handle out of that point, only one
| | 05:39 | of them on this particular direction.
| | 05:40 | Let's do that again, I'll move my
cursor over here, I see the inverted V, the
| | 05:44 | inverted V is letting me know about to
pull out a control handle, click, drag
| | 05:48 | downwards to here and now release the
mouse. Move my cursor over to this part
| | 05:53 | here, click once again. And now again
I have created that changed direction
| | 05:57 | point to that combination point.
| | 05:59 | So now I'm able to do this, now it's
important to realize by the way, remember
| | 06:02 | as I said before Illustrator will
continue drawing paths until you decide
| | 06:07 | otherwise. So if I click, let's say,
somewhere else over here right now, it's
| | 06:10 | going to continue drawing that path.
| | 06:12 | If I don't want that to happen, what
I'll do is I'll use the keyboard shortcut,
| | 06:15 | the most common keyboard shortcut in
Illustrator is going to be the Command key
| | 06:18 | or the Ctrl key, which takes me back to
the last used selection tool. Now if I
| | 06:22 | press the Command key and I just click
on any blank area on my screen, I have
| | 06:26 | now deselected that shape.
| | 06:28 | So now when I go back to the Pen tool,
I get the little x, which means I'm now
| | 06:31 | able to draw a new path and that's
going to start drawing a new path that way
| | 06:34 | as well. First, move on to some of the
other shapes that I have here in this
| | 06:38 | particular example. Again, the more
that you start to use the Pen tool, the
| | 06:41 | more that you begin to learn what it does.
| | 06:44 | So I'm going to start over here, take
my Pen tool right here, I'm going to
| | 06:48 | click once right over here, drag to
here, click once over here, drag to here.
| | 06:56 | What I end up getting right now is a
curved path like this and this a really
| | 07:00 | great example to see exactly, I'm
going to go ahead and go to my Layers panel
| | 07:04 | here, let's hide the instructions for
a second here. Let's understand what is
| | 07:08 | happening here when I create these paths,
when I clicked and dragged, remember
| | 07:12 | I dragged out this particular control
handle to right here and then when I
| | 07:15 | created this anchor point, and I
clicked and dragged it also created a control
| | 07:19 | handle on to here.
| | 07:20 | Notice how the path, that's over here,
is drawn upwards because the control
| | 07:25 | handle is here. But this part of the
path is drawn downwards because this
| | 07:28 | control handle is here as well. Again
think of the control handle and this is
| | 07:31 | like a magnet, and as I move the
control handle that path is drawn to wherever
| | 07:35 | that magnet goes.
| | 07:36 | Let's turn this Instructions layer
back on again. Let's focus on this
| | 07:40 | particular part here of this art work.
We'll again use the Pen tool, let's
| | 07:45 | start up over here, click over here
and hold them down the mouse button and
| | 07:48 | dragging all the way to here and I
release. That's step two, now let's go to
| | 07:52 | step three over here and click,
drag all the way down here, release.
| | 07:57 | Position over here, click, drag
upwards over here, release the mouse, move my
| | 08:02 | cursor here to the final point, click,
drag and then release. I have created
| | 08:06 | this shape that's right over here.
Now again it's important as you start to
| | 08:09 | work with Illustrators Pen tool. To
start to anticipate, where is the next
| | 08:13 | anchor point going to go. I mean here
it's little bit easy because you have
| | 08:16 | this template in the background,
which is telling you where to click.
| | 08:18 | However, when you start creating
free form paths on your own, the more
| | 08:22 | experience you get the Pen tool,
like for example a friend of mine, Bert
| | 08:25 | Monroy. Fantastic Illustrator user,
great Photoshop user, and what he does
| | 08:30 | inside Photoshop is just unreal. He
creates his wonderful shapes and he just
| | 08:33 | basically picks up the Pen
tool and starts drawing with it.
| | 08:36 | I'm not even on that level he
understands where the anchor points need to go to
| | 08:40 | make the paths go there. It's reverse
psychology. Don't think about the paths,
| | 08:44 | think about where the anchor points need to
go and Illustrator goes ahead and does that.
| | 08:47 | Just do one final example here, again
I'm going to hold down the Command key
| | 08:51 | and I method simply going to click, so
now they are the path is deselected. Now
| | 08:54 | the Pen tool has little x, and x
means that I'm ready to start with the new
| | 08:57 | path. I'm going to click, here drag
down here, release. Click here, drag down
| | 09:04 | here, release. Click here, drag down
here, release. Click here, drag down here,
| | 09:09 | release and again a lovely wave pattern,
which is great because the whole theme
| | 09:13 | of our title throughout today is
groundswell, which is the surfing company. So,
| | 09:16 | great to have some waves in here.
| | 09:18 | But again the more that you start
working with Illustrator, this is actually
| | 09:21 | some really good exercises, I was
suggested maybe you take this file, and just
| | 09:25 | try to anticipate maybe try to create
that exact same wave without using the
| | 09:29 | template in a new file. See if you can
now anticipate where those anchor points
| | 09:33 | are, again the more and more that you
start using the Pen tool the more and
| | 09:36 | more you get used to it, the more easily
you start creating shapes inside of Illustrator.
| | 09:40 | However I want to emphasize one thing
before we kind of work with the Pen tool
| | 09:42 | here. There are plenty for the drawing
tolls inside of Illustrator and if you
| | 09:46 | don't get the Pen tool right away,
that's perfectly fine, you don't need to use
| | 09:50 | the Pen tool in fact, there are many
other features inside of Illustrator
| | 09:53 | besides the primitive drawing tools
that we have already defined, we are
| | 09:56 | talking about a paint brush tool and
a pencil tool and there is even some
| | 09:59 | features called Live Paint in
Illustrator that really make it easy for you to
| | 10:03 | get started with drawing graphics.
| | 10:05 | The pen tool that I have at the very,
very core is probably the tool that
| | 10:09 | allows you to just go crazy and have
the most control over the vectors because
| | 10:13 | remember the pen tool is that
quintessential tool. It allows you to edit and
| | 10:18 | work with anchor points, which is the
base of all vector graphics. Speaking
| | 10:22 | about this tool such as the Pen tool,
in the next movie we will take a look at
| | 10:25 | how you can use the open tool to
create graphics as well, which is somewhat
| | 10:28 | more intuitive but you loose the
control that you have with the Pen tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing with the Pencil tool| 00:00 | Practice makes perfect when using
the Pen tool but don't forget there are
| | 00:03 | plenty of other tools inside of
Illustrator as well. Let's focus on the Pencil
| | 00:06 | tool. Once again we'll start with just
a blank document here. I'm going to go
| | 00:09 | to just the welcome screen here and
choose to create a brand-new print
| | 00:12 | document, one artboard. A nice clean
canvas to use right here. And I'll move
| | 00:16 | over to my my Tools panel here and
choose the Pencil tool. Now the reason why I
| | 00:20 | like to talk about the Pen tool and
the Pencil tool in context is because
| | 00:23 | they're actually exact polar opposites
of each other. Remember, what was the
| | 00:27 | key take away that we spoke about when
we were using the Pen tool? The Pen tool
| | 00:31 | plots anchor points and the paths are
drawn automatically in between them based
| | 00:36 | on where you position those anchor
points and based on the types of anchor
| | 00:40 | points you create, be they corner
anchor points or smooth or combination
| | 00:43 | points. However, with the Pencil tool
you do the exact opposite. The Pencil
| | 00:48 | tool allows you to draw more along the
same lines as you would use a regular
| | 00:51 | pen or pencil on a piece of paper. You
basically click and drag and create the
| | 00:56 | path that you want to create. When you
release the mouse Illustrator goes ahead
| | 01:00 | and figures out where to plot the
anchor points. So you don't have to make the
| | 01:04 | anchor points; you just draw the path
the way that you want it to be. Sounds
| | 01:08 | wonderful, doesn't it? I mean why go
through the whole kind of backwards
| | 01:11 | thinking process of plotting where the
anchor points go and then worrying about
| | 01:15 | what types of anchor points to create,
when hey, Illustrator is a computer. Let
| | 01:19 | it figure all that out. Let me just
drawn the path that I want. Well the
| | 01:22 | difference is that really while that is
true, you don't have the same level of
| | 01:26 | control with the Pencil tool that you
might have with the Pen tool. And that's
| | 01:30 | simply because there's a disconnect
between what you're drawing on a computer
| | 01:33 | screen and the mouse in your hands and
now it happens to be that I'm also using
| | 01:37 | a Wacom tablet at the moment, which
allows me to have more of a fluid kind of
| | 01:41 | drawing where I wanted to actually
draw things in this particular way if I
| | 01:44 | wanted to. I can, let's say, draw a tic-
tac-toe board, so on and so forth. I'll
| | 01:47 | actually go ahead and just hit Command+
A or Ctrl+A and just delete everything
| | 01:51 | for now just so I can clear the
board. And I can draw shapes like this,
| | 01:55 | whatever it is that I'm working on. So
no reason why I couldn't go ahead and
| | 01:57 | create any kind of wonderful things.
The problem though is that when I'm
| | 02:01 | working with the Pencil tool, notice I
have that little X again? The same for
| | 02:04 | the Pen tool. That means I'm ready to
start drawing a new path. But remember,
| | 02:08 | how how that little O identified me
drawing a close path? Well, it's very hard
| | 02:12 | to draw closed paths with Pencil tools
, because it's hard to get back to that
| | 02:16 | exact same spot and if you do so, you
lose a little of that fluid motion that
| | 02:20 | you would normally want have in an
illustration. So for example, if I wanted to
| | 02:23 | draw some kind of closed shape, I
would start by kind of drawing a shape like
| | 02:27 | this and coming back here and having
to really get close and then see where
| | 02:31 | that particular circle was and it
would be hard for me to find that. So it
| | 02:35 | would also be hard to draw maybe
perfect triangles or rectangles or other kind
| | 02:40 | of shapes, because I'm just going by
however my hand is. If you're not using a
| | 02:43 | straight edge and you just have a
regular pencil on a piece of paper I mean,
| | 02:46 | how straight of a line are you going
to draw? So there is a difference or I
| | 02:49 | would say there are benefits and pros
and cons to using the Pen tool versus the
| | 02:53 | Pencil tool. The Pencil tool does has
some really nice things inside of it. Let
| | 02:56 | me show you what I mean. So I'm just
going to select all this and delete this.
| | 02:59 | I'm going to go over to the Pencil tool
right here for a second, select it. I'm
| | 03:02 | going to draw a shape like this. Well,
watch this. I'm going to simply start
| | 03:06 | drawing on top of it and go this way
and you see how it modified that path? I'm
| | 03:10 | using a Wacom tablet right now, but
I'm basically moving my pencil basically
| | 03:15 | over the shape. See how the X
disappears when I get close? And now when I click
| | 03:19 | and I say drag this way, see how it
curves and modifies that path? Well, think
| | 03:23 | about how real artists used pencils on
paper. They start sketching very lightly
| | 03:27 | because they want to get just a
basic idea of a shape. Then they start
| | 03:30 | darkening the lines when they get the
shape that they like. well, in a digital
| | 03:34 | way this is kind of somewhat close
where I draw a shape, maybe I'm not that
| | 03:37 | happy with it. I want to modify it
somewhat. So I could just simply draw again
| | 03:40 | over here and basically kind of make
sure that I'm either smoothing it out or
| | 03:44 | that I'm drawing the shape that I
really wanted that particular shape to be.
| | 03:48 | This is really a nice feature that
exists with the Pencil tool. So you can
| | 03:51 | start drawing a shape and then continue
to draw it until you're happy with what
| | 03:54 | you get. I will say though there's
certain times, let's say I want to create a
| | 03:57 | new path, kind of like a branch of a
tree that branches out this way. Well when
| | 04:01 | I click and I drag, it modifies that
path. I didn't want to do that. So what I
| | 04:05 | would need to do is hold on the
Command key, deselect the path, then click to
| | 04:08 | drag a new past because that feature
only works when you're working with a path
| | 04:12 | that's already selected. Well, if you
double-click on the Pencil tool itself,
| | 04:16 | you'll see that there's some Pencil
Tool Options. Fidelity basically allows you
| | 04:20 | to control how smooth or how well the
anchor points are defined when you're
| | 04:24 | drawing that path. The Smoothness also
allows you to-- let's say you have a a
| | 04:28 | very jittery kind of hand or you're
using a mouse, then as you you draw the
| | 04:31 | path, Illustrator has like this
stabilization kind of feature where it smoothes
| | 04:35 | out the path so it doesn't look as
jittery. But I also have an option here
| | 04:38 | called Keep Selected and Edit Selected
Paths. Now I'll tell you that I liked
| | 04:42 | that feature called Edit Selected
Paths because it allows me to simply redraw
| | 04:47 | or modify a path as I'm drawing it,
but like I said before it does get in the
| | 04:50 | way at times. So what I do is I
uncheck the Keep Selected feature. That way
| | 04:54 | when I draw a new path it's no longer
selected so I can go ahead and draw new
| | 04:58 | shapes out that way. If I decide,
you know, I don't like the way that one
| | 05:01 | looks, I'll hold down the Command key.
Remember the Command key is the keyboard
| | 05:04 | shortcut that temporarily returns me
to the last Selection tool that I was
| | 05:08 | using. I'll now click on that and now
that I've selected it, now I can draw
| | 05:13 | over it and I can modify it. Now I
will just Command-click off of it to
| | 05:16 | continue drawing more again. So how
I'll use the Pen tools. The Pencil tool's
| | 05:20 | great. It's a wonderful feature, but I
wouldn't rely on it as being the tool to
| | 05:24 | use. The Pen tool is still going to be
far more important especially when we
| | 05:27 | talk about editing existing files. So
if you can, if you do have a Wacom pen
| | 05:31 | though, by the way, some kind of
pressure-sensitice tablet, then the Pencil
| | 05:34 | tool does take on a new meaning. It
does become more readily available as a
| | 05:37 | tool for sketching and drawing. But at
the same time, remember if you have a
| | 05:41 | mouse, it could be little bit difficult
to get that translation or that feel of
| | 05:45 | actually drawing on a computer screen.
We will explore later on in our title a
| | 05:49 | feature inside Illustrator called
brushes or the Paintbrush tool, which can
| | 05:53 | allow us to extend this way of drawing
to a whole new level. But for now you
| | 05:57 | have a basic understanding of what the
Pen tool does inside of Illustrator and
| | 06:01 | what the Pencil tool does inside of
Illustrator and again, the main differences
| | 06:05 | between them here is that the Pen tool
allows you to plot anchor points and the
| | 06:09 | Illustrator figures out where the paths
go; the Pencil tool allows you to draw
| | 06:12 | paths and then Illustrator figures out
where the anchor point out. So it's an
| | 06:16 | either/or kind of thing. You give up
some level of power, but you get some
| | 06:20 | level of fluid motion with the Pencil
tool that you don't get with the Pen
| | 06:23 | tool. The beautiful thing is that both
tools are available to you. You don't
| | 06:26 | have to only use one or the other but
choose what times it's best to use the
| | 06:31 | both of them together.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Basic Path EditingEditing anchor points| 00:00 | I have always felt that one of the best
ways to learn just about anything is to
| | 00:03 | reverse engineer something that
already exists. In that way you could really
| | 00:07 | see how something was created, and more
importantly learn from that particular
| | 00:11 | experience. That certainly
applies to editing vector paths.
| | 00:15 | Now what I have done here in this file
it's called Editing Points and you will
| | 00:18 | find it in the Chapter 05 of your
exercise files, is I have taken just a
| | 00:22 | regular letter B from a type face and
I have converted it to outlines or to
| | 00:25 | vectors, and if I go ahead and I select
it right now, you will see that all the
| | 00:29 | anchor points appear here on the path.
| | 00:31 | Well, one of the first things I want
to do is, a. get an idea for where the
| | 00:35 | anchor points are, remember, one of
the challenges of using the Pen tool is
| | 00:38 | just getting that feel or being able
to anticipate where the anchor points
| | 00:42 | belong on a path. So as you can see
over here the anchor points obviously are
| | 00:46 | on the corners here, that
should be easy enough to figure out.
| | 00:48 | But also along the curve, see how
there aren't like millions of anchor points
| | 00:52 | here, they don't need to be. If the
paths are built correctly and you are smart
| | 00:55 | about where you are position your
anchor points, so you can get away with using
| | 00:58 | very few anchor points, and obviously,
the fewer anchor points you have the
| | 01:02 | more easy will be to edit your art.
| | 01:03 | Well, before we start actually editing
this, let's make a few changes in the
| | 01:06 | Preferences that Illustrator has. Now
first of all right now you can see that I
| | 01:10 | have the ability to click on these
paths, but I can only move the path as a
| | 01:14 | whole and that's obviously because I'm
using the regular Selection tool, where
| | 01:17 | to use the Direct Selection tool, I
could now click on let's say one corner and
| | 01:21 | then move that corner individually,
and I press Undo there for a second here.
| | 01:25 | Let's actually change some of the
Preferences for the rest of this particular
| | 01:28 | video itself. We are going to use the
Direct Selection tool because we are
| | 01:31 | going to be dealing with the parts of
the paths itself. Remember, the regular
| | 01:34 | Selection tool with a black arrow
works with the entire path as a whole. We
| | 01:38 | want to focus on the individual parts
or anchor points of the path. So in that
| | 01:42 | regard we are going to be using the
Direct Selection tool and that also means
| | 01:45 | that I don't see the bounding box here,
which makes it easy for me to focus on
| | 01:48 | these individual anchor points.
| | 01:50 | So the first thing I'm going to do
is I'm going to change some of the
| | 01:52 | preferences inside of Illustrator
because the anchor points themselves, I mean,
| | 01:55 | when you mouse over them they kind of
light up a little bit like that. But we
| | 01:57 | want to make them easier for us to
work with these particular elements.
| | 02:01 | So when I go over here, I have nothing
selected, I'm going to go to the Control
| | 02:03 | panel, open up Preferences inside of
Illustrator. I'm going to switch down over
| | 02:06 | here to where it says Selection &
Anchor Display. Illustrator now has an entire
| | 02:11 | Preferences panel that's dedicated to
dealing with just working with these
| | 02:15 | anchor points and working with selections.
| | 02:17 | So by default Illustrator uses very
small kind of out of the way icons to
| | 02:23 | identify these anchor points, and the
Handles are also pretty small as well. If
| | 02:27 | you come from other applications like
may be CorelDraw or Freehand you may be
| | 02:30 | used to anchor points that are much
larger and easier to see and work with.
| | 02:34 | Again, it's just a visual preference
on what you like. If you work with a lot
| | 02:38 | of anchor points you might want to see
a lot of big ones, but if you have a lot
| | 02:40 | of anchor points very close to each
other, they can overlap each other.
| | 02:43 | So again this include your own
preference, but for now I'm going to choose,
| | 02:47 | let's say, this option, which has much
larger anchor points and then for the
| | 02:51 | handles itself I'm going to choose
larger handles. I'm not going to use the
| | 02:54 | hollow diamond shape edges over here.
I'm going to use just the regular round
| | 02:57 | shapes here, but these
circles are bigger than these.
| | 03:00 | I'm also going to make sure that
Highlight anchors on mouse over option is
| | 03:03 | checked and that's when before any
mouse over just the anchor point, the anchor
| | 03:06 | point kind of lit up a little bit,
got bigger, so that's the case there.
| | 03:09 | I'm going to leave the Tolerance also
to 3 pixels that means that obviously as
| | 03:12 | my cursor gets close enough to an
anchor point then I'm able to work with it,
| | 03:16 | depending on how good you are or how
comfortable you are with the mouse and
| | 03:20 | what your position is when you are
working with your artwork, you may want to
| | 03:22 | adjust that as well.
| | 03:24 | For now I'm just going to leave
everything else as it is. I'm going to go ahead
| | 03:26 | and click Okay. Notice now by the way
if I go ahead and I select the artwork
| | 03:30 | here you see that the anchor points
are bigger so that you can see them.
| | 03:32 | So the first thing is note is that,
remember, just by clicking on a path
| | 03:35 | itself, I have selected the path here,
but Illustrator allows me to even select
| | 03:40 | parts of path without touching the
anchor points. For example, I clicked over
| | 03:43 | here, I could actually just drag this
and it moves that segment to the path and
| | 03:47 | the two anchor points that
basically adjoin that particular path.
| | 03:50 | But for now I'm going to be talking
about anchor points itself. If I do click
| | 03:52 | on an individual anchor point, I can
now select that one, notice that this one
| | 03:55 | is dark, but these are hollow, so that
identifies that this is the selected one.
| | 04:00 | If I move over here for example, I see
that these are curved anchor points or
| | 04:04 | smooth anchor points. Remember, we
have different types of anchor points. But
| | 04:07 | the nice thing though about Illustrator
is that, when you have an anchor point,
| | 04:10 | you could easily switch between the
modes of what that anchor point is. For
| | 04:13 | example, if I have a Corner Anchor Point,
I could easily convert it to a Smooth
| | 04:16 | Anchor Point and vice versa.
| | 04:18 | So let's first explore how we do that
inside of Illustrator. If I'm using the
| | 04:21 | Direct Selection tool I can move an
individual anchor point as we just saw it
| | 04:24 | out. And if I want to convert let's
say this Smooth Anchor Point to a Corner
| | 04:27 | Anchor Point how do I do that? Well,
let's go ahead over here to the Pen tool,
| | 04:31 | I'm going to click-and-hold my mouse
button down, I'm going to use this tear
| | 04:34 | off here, just so we can see all the elements
that are kind of group with the Pen tool.
| | 04:37 | Now we have the Pen tool and the Pen
tool allows us to create new paths that we
| | 04:42 | have been doing up until now. Then we
have these two tools, which we will get
| | 04:45 | to in a minute, it's the Add Anchor
Point tool and the Delete Anchor Point
| | 04:48 | tool. But then we have this one over
here called the Convert Anchor Point tool
| | 04:51 | and the Convert Anchor Point tool is
the tool that we are going to use to
| | 04:55 | convert anchor points from one type to
another. For example, we can go from the
| | 05:00 | Corner Anchor Point to Smooth Anchor
Point or Smooth Anchor Point to Corner
| | 05:03 | Anchor Point, or as we will soon see
also to create those combination points
| | 05:07 | that we are talking about as well.
So let's take a look at that.
| | 05:09 | Remember, how we use the Pen tool.
When we started working with the Pen tool,
| | 05:13 | we actually defined what type of anchor
points we are using, by how we used the Pen tool.
| | 05:17 | For example, if I knew I wanted to have
a straight line using corner points, I
| | 05:21 | would click-and-release the mouse, and
that would go ahead and create corner
| | 05:25 | anchor point to the straight line
connecting them. Now if I wanted to create
| | 05:29 | smooth anchor points, hence create a
curve, I would use the Pen tool and rather
| | 05:33 | than just click-and-release, I would
click and drag to pull out those handles,
| | 05:37 | click and drag to pull out the handles
and that would give me the smooth anchor
| | 05:39 | points and the curved line.
| | 05:41 | While using the Convert Anchor Point
tool it's going to basically work in the
| | 05:45 | exact same way. So let's go ahead and
just click anywhere here on this path
| | 05:49 | here, let's say I want to turn like
we said before, this particular anchor
| | 05:52 | point here, right now it's a Smooth
Anchor Point, let's turn into a Corner
| | 05:56 | Anchor Point. I'm going to go to my
Convert Anchor Point tool, select it, move
| | 06:00 | over, just hover right over that
particular anchor point right there and just
| | 06:04 | click once and because this is the same
way the Pen tool work when I just click
| | 06:08 | once it just made a corner anchor point.
| | 06:11 | By clicking once on in the existing
anchor point where you Convert Anchor Point
| | 06:15 | tool it will convert that to a Corner
Anchor Point. We will see that again over
| | 06:19 | here for example, may be this one here.
So now I also have straight lines that
| | 06:23 | connect all these particular anchor
points. And again this just really drives
| | 06:27 | home that concept that I was saying
before about when you are using the Pen
| | 06:30 | tool and you are working with vectors,
you are not really drawing the lines
| | 06:34 | themselves, we didn't adjust or made
the lines straight. We just clicked on the
| | 06:38 | anchor point that by definition by
changing the type of anchor point that it
| | 06:42 | was the paths that connected those two
anchor points changed automatically. So
| | 06:46 | remember, when we are working with
Vector Graphics the all important part of
| | 06:49 | your graphics is the anchor point,
not the path that connects it.
| | 06:52 | So I'm actually going to say, hey, you
know what, let's say, I made a mistake,
| | 06:55 | I really want to turn that back into a
Smooth Anchor Point. Well, remember when
| | 06:58 | we use the Pen tool we click and drag
to pull out those control handles. Well,
| | 07:03 | again I'm going to use my regular
Convert Anchor Point tool, click once on that
| | 07:06 | and drag out, and then that turns it
now back into a curve. So for example,
| | 07:10 | this is a corner right now, click
and drag, that now becomes a curve.
| | 07:14 | Now let's say I want to create a
Combination Point. Combination Point basically
| | 07:18 | just to give you an example, if I go
ahead and I adjust this particular Control
| | 07:21 | Handle with my Direct Selection tool,
you see how both sides of the path are affected.
| | 07:26 | Well, if I take my Convert Anchor Point
tool and I click on the Control Handle
| | 07:31 | not the Anchor Point, just the
Control Handle I'm able to make a Change
| | 07:35 | Direction Point or a Combination Point
like we have been discussing until now.
| | 07:39 | So now my path changes direction as it
goes through that anchor point. Once I
| | 07:43 | have done that by the way, I can add,
use my regular Direct Selection tool to
| | 07:45 | make that adjustment and now the other
size no longer are part of each other.
| | 07:50 | Now when you are working inside of
Illustrator it's not easy to just keep
| | 07:52 | dancing all these different tools, the
Pen tool, the Convert Anchor Point tool,
| | 07:56 | so on and so forth. So again, it's
important to understand the keyboard
| | 07:59 | shortcuts that you have. When you are
using the Pen tool and you are working
| | 08:02 | with a particular path, let's say for
example, remember, if I hold down the
| | 08:05 | Command key now, I'll go to the last
used Selection tool. Let's go ahead and
| | 08:09 | use my Direct Selection tool, click on
the path, and I'm working, let's say I
| | 08:12 | have my Pen tool, I'm drawing some
paths here. If I hold down the Option key,
| | 08:16 | the Option key basically toggles to
the Convert Anchor Point tool. So as I'm
| | 08:20 | working with the Pen tool for example,
I could decide to be drawing shapes and
| | 08:24 | then realize, oh, I want to actually
change that to something else, I could
| | 08:27 | very easily just click and drag to
basically pull out another point and then
| | 08:31 | continue joining in that way. In that
way what I have done now is, while I'm
| | 08:35 | drawing in the context of myself
drawing I'm able to actually create a
| | 08:39 | Combination Point or the Change
Direction Point right here as well. So remember
| | 08:44 | that's an important keyboard shortcut.
| | 08:45 | Let's go back to this B right here,
which is kind of looking little deflated at
| | 08:48 | the moment, but that's okay, we are
learning how to edit anchor points here
| | 08:50 | inside of Illustrator. So it has a few
other things as far as like adding or
| | 08:54 | deleting anchor points to paths,
let's say you decide you wanted to add a
| | 08:56 | little kind of part that kind of
sticks out let's say right here on this part
| | 09:00 | of the path here, how would you do that?
| | 09:01 | Well, you would have to add another
anchor point here. Now if I take my Pen
| | 09:05 | tool, remember the Pen tool is great
for working with new paths, but if you
| | 09:09 | have an existing path, you
want to add an anchor point here.
| | 09:11 | Well, normally you would not be able
to use the Pen tool here, but you'll
| | 09:14 | notice though if I move my Pen tool
over the path that little x right now
| | 09:18 | changes to a plus (+) sign and it does
let me add another anchor point there.
| | 09:22 | That's actually a great feature
that Illustrator has. It's a preference
| | 09:25 | actually, if you go over here, I'm
going to choose Illustrator Preferences, I'm
| | 09:28 | going to go to General and this is
setting here called Disable Auto Add/Delete,
| | 09:33 | and that's setting called Auto Add/
Delete, which is right now is off by default
| | 09:37 | is what basically tells the Pen tool
that as your mouse over an existing path,
| | 09:42 | may be I want to add a particular
anchor point to that particular path. So that
| | 09:46 | setting is on by default so it
automatically kind of figures out what I want to
| | 09:49 | do and then if I mouse over an
existing anchor point as well, that plus sign
| | 09:52 | changes to a minus sign, which means
remove that particular anchor point. Now
| | 09:56 | that anchor point gets removed from
the path, and that again, saves me from
| | 09:59 | having to physically use the Add
Anchor or the Delete Anchor Point tool, and
| | 10:03 | let me explain to you why
this is important by the way.
| | 10:05 | Let's say I want to delete an anchor
point from a particular path. So let's say
| | 10:08 | I don't like this one that's right here.
Well, if I click on this and I press
| | 10:12 | the Delete key on my keyboard, it
actually deletes the path's segment, it
| | 10:15 | doesn't delete just the
anchor point there, and press Undo.
| | 10:18 | If you want to keep the path, but you
just want to remove the anchor point
| | 10:21 | itself, you would need to use the
Delete Anchor Point tool or in this case here
| | 10:25 | just use the regular Pen tool, mouse
over that point till we see it turn into
| | 10:28 | minus sign, click and then that
gets removed that way. You want to add
| | 10:31 | additional points, let's press Undo,
let's add a point here, may be add a point
| | 10:35 | here, let's add one more point let's
say right over here as well. You want to
| | 10:39 | make sure you see that plus sign,
click right there. Now switch to my Direct
| | 10:44 | Selection tool and I'll pull just that
particular path out and that's to make
| | 10:49 | that somewhat different.
| | 10:50 | So those are the ways that you can
actually work with paths itself. There are
| | 10:53 | some tools available in the Control
panel as you are working with paths to help
| | 10:57 | you. For example, again I'm going to
using the Direction Selection tool, I'll
| | 10:59 | highlight parts of the path here, let's
say these three anchor points that are
| | 11:02 | here. If I want to remove just all of
those three and go back to a straight
| | 11:05 | line rather than I have to click on
each of these individually, I could go over
| | 11:08 | here into the Control panel, there
is an option here called Cut path at
| | 11:12 | selected anchor points, or
remove selected anchor points.
| | 11:14 | Now obviously cutting the path would
be the same thing as if I had hit the
| | 11:18 | Delete button. Actually it would turn
them into separate paths at that way to
| | 11:21 | kind of break apart the path, but here
what I can do is I can click on Remove
| | 11:24 | selected anchor points, those get
deleted and then the path just simply remains
| | 11:28 | intact in that way.
| | 11:29 | I also have a way you noticed when I
click on a path itself, Illustrator only
| | 11:32 | displays the control handles to the
point that I'm working on or the path that
| | 11:36 | I'm working on. Obviously
Illustrator only allows you to edit one Control
| | 11:41 | Handle at a time, so it is of no use
for me to see the Control Handle here when
| | 11:45 | I'm working over here.
| | 11:46 | However, there may times just to be
able to observe and see where these control
| | 11:49 | handles lie, I could just marquee
select the whole bunch of anchor points here
| | 11:53 | and then over here, this option where
it says Handles I could say Show handles
| | 11:57 | for all those, now we can see all the
handles that appear for those particular ones.
| | 12:01 | One of the little tip before we close
out on this particular here, is that I
| | 12:04 | mentioned before how you could use the
Convert Anchor Point tool to actually
| | 12:08 | convert anchor points from Corner
Anchor Point to Smooth Anchor Point and vice
| | 12:10 | versa, there is also a way to do that
right in the Control panel with these
| | 12:14 | buttons right here.
| | 12:15 | So this one is obviously a curve, I
can click on that and convert it to a
| | 12:18 | Corner Anchor Point if I want to, and
then go back to a Curve Anchor Point as
| | 12:21 | well, but I showed you before how you
can do that manually using the Convert
| | 12:24 | Anchor Point tool as well.
| | 12:25 | So that's just a nice little overview
of how you edit all these anchor points
| | 12:29 | and vector objects, and again this is
the knowledge you don't need to have at a
| | 12:32 | very core level when you start to get
in and make little tweaks and changes to
| | 12:35 | your adjustments. But as we will soon
see now to the rest of this chapter we
| | 12:39 | are going to talk about working and
editing with vectors that don't require
| | 12:42 | this level of granularity, we don't
need to go into the actual anchor points
| | 12:45 | because we are able to start editing
and working with paths from more of an
| | 12:50 | object-based perspective, that is a lot
easier to basically get a grasp of, but
| | 12:53 | when you do have time, I do suggest
you to again open up existing files, see
| | 12:57 | where those anchor points are, play
around with them, as you begin to get more
| | 13:01 | experienced with using them, you will
feel far more comfortable in editing
| | 13:04 | these anchor points and break your paths.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating compound shapes| 00:00 | Admittedly, if you are new to
Illustrator, the whole premise of using the Pen
| | 00:04 | tool and editing those anchor points
can be somewhat daunting. The good news is
| | 00:08 | just that, when you're using Illustrator,
you don't need to go there at all. In
| | 00:11 | fact, there are plenty of tools that
will allow you to edit and create shapes,
| | 00:14 | even customize shapes with just a few
steps and it's actually pretty easy to do
| | 00:18 | that. So why did I take you through
the steps of actually learning all those
| | 00:21 | things about anchor points and working
with the Pen tool and to convert anchor
| | 00:25 | points tools so on and so forth.
| | 00:26 | That's because these are the core
concepts of understanding exactly what's
| | 00:30 | happening behind the scenes when
you create graphics with the help of
| | 00:32 | Illustrator. Now that we even have
that basic knowledge, when we start to do
| | 00:36 | other things inside of Illustrator,
you want to use some of the more advanced
| | 00:38 | tools and some of the editing
tools that we'll get used to using.
| | 00:41 | Well have a much better understanding
of exactly what can and can't be done.
| | 00:45 | More importantly, when we then need to
make small or a minor tweaks and edits
| | 00:48 | to those shapes that we create, we
have a much easier time doing so.
| | 00:52 | So let's get started with showing you
how do you take primitive shapes that
| | 00:54 | you've created such as shapes with
the close primitive shape tools like
| | 00:58 | rectangles and ovals and so on and so
forth and see how you can create some
| | 01:02 | complex shapes without a lot of effort.
And what helps you do that is an entire
| | 01:06 | panel inside of Illustrator called the
Path Finder panel. It basically allows
| | 01:09 | you to manipulate or work with paths.
| | 01:11 | To show you how easy it is to get
started with that, I'm going to open up a
| | 01:14 | file here called the compound_shapes.
ai and you'll find it in your exercise
| | 01:18 | folders for Chapter 5. I'm also going
to go through the Window menu here, and
| | 01:22 | I'm going to choose to open up the Path
Finder panel, which comes up right over
| | 01:25 | here. Let's put it right over here so
it's not in our way of the graphics that
| | 01:28 | we have here.
| | 01:29 | And what I basically have in this
document is four shapes, that's all that I
| | 01:33 | have created and these are shapes that
you already know how to create because
| | 01:36 | we've used these tools before. I have
one circle here or actually it's an oval.
| | 01:39 | I have another oval here, so these two
ovals basically overlap each other. And
| | 01:44 | then I have two squares that I have
created and I have rotated them somewhat.
| | 01:47 | And that's basically all that I have
and my goal is to create the outline or
| | 01:51 | the shape of a surfboard. You might
think oh man, a surfboard is like some of
| | 01:55 | the shapes we've created. I have to use
the Pen tool, I have to use a -- we're
| | 01:58 | not going to that right now.
| | 01:58 | So we are basically starting off with
very simple basic primitive shapes and
| | 02:03 | we're going to build complex shapes
using them. And that's because we could
| | 02:06 | always basically use parts. Think of
it as one big junkyard that's out there and
| | 02:10 | you have all these big circles and
ovals and rectangles in the junkyard. And
| | 02:14 | now you want to be able to create
something and I'm going to be like the
| | 02:16 | MacGyver where you're going to go
ahead and you're going to say, give me
| | 02:18 | two ovals, give me two squares and
we'll end up in a surfboard. That's really
| | 02:21 | what it is when you start working
with Illustrator and Path Finder.
| | 02:24 | So what Path Finder does? It allows
you to take at the minimum two paths and
| | 02:29 | perform some kind of operation to
those two paths to come up with a new path.
| | 02:35 | Now there are different kinds of
those and we're going to deal with them in
| | 02:37 | this particular video. In the Path
Finder panel, there's a top part of it here
| | 02:41 | called Shape modes. And we're going to
deal with these four shape modes, this
| | 02:44 | one is here called Unite, this one
is called Subtract, this one is called
| | 02:47 | Intersect and Exclude and they have
different things that are able to be done
| | 02:50 | with them, and let's explore just a few of them.
| | 02:53 | What the first one does? Add or Unite
what it does is, it basically allows you
| | 02:56 | to take two shapes and combine them as
if they were one shape. So let's see how
| | 03:01 | that works. If I would have been here,
I'll take my regular selection tool. I'm
| | 03:03 | going to click and drag to marquee,
select both of these circles right here and
| | 03:07 | these ovals that I have created. Now if
I were to go ahead now I click on this
| | 03:10 | button right here called Unite or Add,
it now combines those two into one big
| | 03:15 | shape. Now before you might think I
would need to know how to use the Pen tool
| | 03:18 | to create some of the anchor points and
then how to change direction -- no, no
| | 03:21 | we're not even thinking about that
because all we've done is created two shapes
| | 03:24 | and combined them to one. Press Command
+Z to Undo that or Ctrl+Z on Windows.
| | 03:29 | If I take the exact same two ovals
again and I go to this one we have here,
| | 03:33 | which is Subtract. If I click on that
one, I see that basically it took the
| | 03:37 | topmost oval, that one was on top in
the stacking order of my document and it
| | 03:41 | subtracted it from this shape of yours,
which kind of look like some kind of a
| | 03:45 | bowl. So again there are many different
kind of shapes, and I'm going to press
| | 03:47 | Command+Z, that's there.
| | 03:49 | I'm going to skip to this one over here,
which is called Exclude. If I click on
| | 03:52 | that, it basically combines them
except for the parts it overlaps. So if I
| | 03:55 | would give it a fill color right now,
there's a fill of none, but I give it a
| | 03:58 | fill and you see what it did was, it
created one big shape but that part over
| | 04:02 | here of the shape that was kind of
overlapping is actually transparent, it's
| | 04:06 | hollow. It is actually nothing that's
here at all. So the path is at the top
| | 04:09 | and the bottom but nothing here in the middle.
| | 04:11 | Once again I'll press Undo and I'll
press Undo again to go back to the original
| | 04:15 | shape here. So now I have two
separate circles, what I really want that was
| | 04:18 | just this middle section here,
which would act as the main part of my
| | 04:22 | surfboard. So by selecting these two
ovals right here, I'm going to choose this
| | 04:26 | option here, which is called Intersect.
Intersect means keep the parts of the
| | 04:30 | object that overlap each other but
remove everything else. And by doing that
| | 04:33 | I'm now left with just a shape that
looks like this. Here is the basic part of
| | 04:37 | my surfboard.
| | 04:38 | Now I'm going to go to these two
squares that I have created. I'm going to hold
| | 04:40 | down the Shift key and select both of
them. Now I have both of them selected,
| | 04:43 | just another way to select the objects.
And in this case here I want to combine
| | 04:47 | them into one shape. So what I'll do
here is I'll go to the Unite option and
| | 04:50 | click that and now that gets
converted into one shape, that's right there.
| | 04:55 | If I now take this particular object
and I choose Object, Arrange and I'm going
| | 05:00 | to say, Bring to Front, right! So now
that one's sitting at the top of the
| | 05:03 | stacking order. By selecting both this
shape and this shape, I can now choose
| | 05:08 | this one called Subtract or Minus
Front and now I'm left with the shape of a
| | 05:12 | surfboard. So what I did was I
created a more complex shape, one of a
| | 05:16 | surfboard. But all I did to create
that was two ovals and two squares, that's
| | 05:21 | really a better way to do it.
| | 05:23 | So when you work with Path Finder,
you really find that you can create more
| | 05:26 | complex shapes without a lot of work.
Again, the key here though is your
| | 05:30 | ability to be able to look at a graphic
or look at something that you're trying
| | 05:32 | to create and try to break it down
into its basic core primitive elements.
| | 05:36 | If you have -- a basic example would be a
snowman. Create three circles, have them all
| | 05:40 | overlap a little bit and then unite them all
together. Then you have one shape as that way.
| | 05:43 | But as you create any logos, any
artwork so on and so forth, see where those
| | 05:47 | particular parts of the graphic might
be made out of very simple primitive
| | 05:51 | objects, then use Path Finder
tools to make all that happen.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing Pathfinder functions| 00:00 | While the Shape modes in the Path
Finder panel are the functions that you use
| | 00:03 | most often, there's also a second
row that appears beneath it called Path
| | 00:06 | Finders. In fact, this one on the far
left over here called Divide is used many
| | 00:11 | times inside of Illustrator. So let's
explore what some of these particular
| | 00:14 | functions do.
| | 00:14 | I'm actually going to go ahead and
select all these right now and you'll see
| | 00:17 | that these are four distinct shapes
that we've created, think of them as four
| | 00:21 | surfboard stuck in this end. So I have
them here and maybe I want to be able to
| | 00:25 | apply colors to the inside parts where
they overlap. But of course right now I
| | 00:29 | only have four distinct shapes, you
cannot fill these areas that are here.
| | 00:33 | So what you can do is, basically, use
this Path Finder Divide function that
| | 00:38 | basically splits up all objects,
however they overlap, into their own separate
| | 00:41 | distinct shapes. So when I click on
this right now, you'll see basically that I
| | 00:44 | end up with a shape like this, and a
shape like this so on and so forth for all
| | 00:49 | these shapes. And because now these
shapes are all distinct objects, I have the
| | 00:53 | ability to go ahead and fill these
areas differently then some of the other
| | 00:57 | areas as well. And again, depending on
what my design needs' are and how I'm
| | 01:00 | working, basically the thing is divide
filters away that, just chops up all the
| | 01:04 | overlapping pieces that they all
become their own pieces of their own and you
| | 01:07 | could fill them and treat them as such.
| | 01:09 | I'm going to press Undo a few times to
get back to my original here. Now let's
| | 01:12 | explore the next option here. This one
here is called Trim. What Trim does when
| | 01:16 | I click on this, is that, you'll see
that basically all of the overlapping
| | 01:19 | areas are removed completely. As you
can see now the parts that were behind of
| | 01:24 | this other surfboard here are now no
longer here. Then press Undo to get all
| | 01:28 | those back again, and you also notice
that when I use the Trim command, the
| | 01:31 | stroke disappears on the particular object.
| | 01:33 | The other function here called Merge,
basically, puts them all together into
| | 01:37 | one shape. It's very similar in some
levels to the Path Finder Unite command
| | 01:41 | over here. However, it also kind of
trashes the stroke command here as well. So
| | 01:45 | that's another difference that you
have there. Then you are going to see this
| | 01:48 | one over here called Crop. What Crop
does, it allows you to define any other
| | 01:52 | shape and then have all these shapes
basically fit in within that shape.
| | 01:56 | So just as an example, if I were to
take, let's say, this Rectangle tool and
| | 01:59 | draw a shape, just like this. Since
that's not the topmost object, if I would
| | 02:03 | now select all these and then choose
the Crop command, I'm basically only left
| | 02:07 | with the shapes that would appear
inside of that particular rectangle. Anything
| | 02:11 | on the outside is gone and the shapes
that are here are the same thing that I
| | 02:17 | would get if I had done the same
command over here, which is the Trim command.
| | 02:21 | So I'm going to go ahead here and
press undo one more time just to get rid of
| | 02:23 | that rectangle.
| | 02:24 | There's another function here if I
choose to select all of these here, which is
| | 02:27 | called the Outline command. When I
choose Outline, it's actually pretty
| | 02:30 | interesting. Right now, I'm going to
have to press the D key for Default. It's
| | 02:34 | actually a pretty important key inside
of Illustrator, to know. It sets you all
| | 02:37 | of your objects through a
white fill and a black fill.
| | 02:38 | But take a look what happened here? It
looks like that it does something almost
| | 02:42 | similar to what I had before, when I
used the Divide command. When I click on
| | 02:45 | these, you'll see that these are
actually all now just strokes themselves and
| | 02:48 | you see how it kind of did more than
just divide, it actually kind of broke
| | 02:52 | them all to distinct paths on their
own. It does add a lot of anchor points
| | 02:56 | that are there, which I think are
little bit too much that -- although we'll
| | 02:59 | see later on, in this chapter, how to
actually reduce the number of points on a path.
| | 03:03 | I'm going to press Undo to go back
again to my original. I love the fact, we
| | 03:06 | have unlimited Undo's inside of
Illustrator. Just keep stepping back as you
| | 03:09 | need to. So the last one over here is
called Minus Back, so remember this one
| | 03:12 | over here with the Minus Front. So if
I took these two shapes right now, so
| | 03:16 | what happen is, is that the front one,
would get subtracted from that, well it
| | 03:20 | did the add one. I would do the Minus
Front there and then the front object
| | 03:23 | disappears and it basically
chops away the one behind it.
| | 03:26 | But if I wanted that this piece now
should remove this part from over here from
| | 03:30 | this particular overlapping area,
doing Minus Back would have that particular
| | 03:34 | function. So I mean, it just says we
start normally. If I wanted that, I'll
| | 03:37 | have to take this object, bring that
to the front and I use the keyboard
| | 03:40 | shortcut for that, by the way it's
Command+Shift, and then use the Open or
| | 03:43 | Close bracket keys into the back or the
front. If you're on a PC, that will be
| | 03:47 | Ctrl+Shift and again you can bring
objects to the front and back that way.
| | 03:51 | So instead of you having to manually
bring it to the front and then do the
| | 03:53 | subtract or a Minus Front, that you
simply chose to do Minus Back, and again
| | 03:57 | that's another function that's there.
So just one thing to point out as you are
| | 04:00 | using Path Finder. This is more of an
advanced kind of thing, but you may chip
| | 04:03 | upon this at sometime. If you go to the
flyout menu over the Path Finder panel,
| | 04:07 | there's a setting here called Path
Finder Options and there's a value for
| | 04:10 | precision. Imagine you have very,
very complex artwork with lots of points.
| | 04:14 | Well, Path Finder commands could
actually result in taking a long time to
| | 04:19 | figure that out. So, what Illustrator
does, it has a little precision level and
| | 04:22 | if you find sometimes where you're
using Path Finder for some commands and you
| | 04:26 | are not really happy with the results
of the past, don't look as perfect or as
| | 04:28 | clean, maybe come here and adjust the
precision a little bit and you may near a
| | 04:32 | little bit of hit in performance but at
least you will get better result but I
| | 04:35 | find for the most part though, you can
leave this alone by just pointing out in
| | 04:38 | case anything like that happens.
| | 04:39 | By the way, I mentioned before that
there were some extra points. There is a
| | 04:42 | setting here called Remove Redundant
Points. It doesn't actually reduce the
| | 04:46 | number of points that Path Finder uses.
Only if for some reason there are two
| | 04:50 | shapes that overlap and those shapes
have paths that overlap each other or
| | 04:53 | anchor points that overlap each other,
it will remove those redundant points
| | 04:55 | because obviously you don't need two
anchor points stacked on top of each
| | 04:58 | other. So it will do that. So say,
you are not going to save even extra few
| | 05:01 | steps if you wanted to do that. Other
than that, that is basically the level of
| | 05:06 | functionality you have for the Path
Finders that appear inside of the Path
| | 05:09 | Finder panel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Joining and averaging paths| 00:00 | You'll find that Illustrator has lots
of useful little functions to be able to
| | 00:03 | work with and edit your paths. For
example, on this document right here, it's
| | 00:07 | called joining and averaging, which
you'll find in Chapter 05 of the exercise files.
| | 00:12 | I'm going to go ahead and use my direct
selection tool to show you that when I
| | 00:15 | click on let's say this path right here,
even though this looks like they're
| | 00:18 | all connected, they are really not.
These are separate individual path elements
| | 00:21 | that are not connected at all. So how
do I actually join these together? So
| | 00:25 | there is a way to basically take two
paths and join them so that they become
| | 00:29 | one path and there are
several options for doing that.
| | 00:32 | For example if I were to, let's say,
go to this open area right here, I could
| | 00:35 | use my regular direct selection tool
to click once on that anchor point,
| | 00:39 | Shift+Click on this anchor point. So
now these two anchor points are selected
| | 00:43 | and then I can go to the Object menu
and I could choose Path and then choose
| | 00:47 | Join. And that will join those together,
it will find basically the shortest
| | 00:51 | point between them and it will always
use a straight line to basically draw a
| | 00:54 | joining line between those two points.
| | 00:56 | And now by the way if I go ahead and I
basically click on this path, you'll see
| | 00:59 | that the path is not all connected on
this side. These are still two separate
| | 01:02 | elements but that is connected. In fact,
I'm going to now go ahead and let's
| | 01:06 | say focus on let's say these two right
here. And now it's hard for me to just
| | 01:09 | simply Shift+Click to select both of
the anchor points as they're right on top
| | 01:11 | of each other. So what I'll do is, I'll
marquee select these two. I'll take my
| | 01:15 | direct selection tool, click over here,
drag to encompass that area and release
| | 01:19 | the mouse and now both of
those anchor points are selected.
| | 01:22 | Now if I go to the Object menu, I
could choose again Path and then Join. But
| | 01:26 | I'm going to get a dialog box because
I have these two overlapping points and
| | 01:31 | whenever you have two overlapping points,
Illustrator is going to ask me well,
| | 01:34 | do you wanted to be a smooth anchor
point or a corner anchor point. So in this
| | 01:37 | case here, I wanted to be a corner
anchor point, I don't wanted to be any
| | 01:40 | curves involved. So I'll leave it as
a corner anchor point. By the way, you
| | 01:43 | never get that when you have two
separate anchor points because they'll always
| | 01:46 | be at corner. Basically, a straight
line being created between those two anchor
| | 01:50 | points. We'll never create a curve because
how would Illustrator know where you
| | 01:53 | want to place the control handles.
| | 01:53 | Whenever you do have two overlapping
ones, it will ask you if you wanted to be
| | 01:57 | a smooth or a corner anchor point. And
notice I have two more that I select to
| | 02:00 | connect. I have these two, which I have
to connect, and then I have these two,
| | 02:03 | which I have to connect. So I'll
start for this one right over here.
| | 02:05 | Unfortunately, there's just no way
that I can select everything and then tell
| | 02:08 | Illustrator, "Connect all of those
overlapping paths that you find." There is a
| | 02:12 | plug-in, by the way. It's available
for Illustrator. It's called Concatenate.
| | 02:16 | If you do a Google search for
Concatenate, the guy who wrote it, his name is
| | 02:19 | Rick Johnson, a fantastic guy,
wrote a couple of plug-ins for Illustrator.
| | 02:23 | It share like some 10 or 15 bucks to
use it, but it's worth every penny because
| | 02:27 | what it allows you to do is just select
a whole bunch of disconnected paths and
| | 02:30 | just say, connect them all with one
function as opposed to what we have to do
| | 02:33 | right now, which is actually select
each of these paths on its own and go ahead
| | 02:37 | and connect them.
| | 02:37 | So again, I'm going to marquee select
these two here. The keyboard shortcut for
| | 02:41 | joining is Command+J or Ctrl+J. Again I
want it to be a corner point and click
| | 02:45 | OK. Now here's the one thing that I
can't do. Even though that right now these
| | 02:49 | areas are split open, they're not
connected whatsoever at all. What I can do is
| | 02:52 | select all the anchor points of the shape.
| | 02:55 | For example, right now, the shape is
physically an open shape because it's not
| | 02:59 | close but those two areas on the upper
left hand corner right over here, they
| | 03:02 | do overlap. And in this particular
example when you only have two anchor points
| | 03:07 | that overlap and that's all that there
is. Basically, everything else is all
| | 03:10 | connected. You can go to the Object
command, choose Path and then join those
| | 03:14 | and it will automatically join those
using the same as case here, a corner point.
| | 03:18 | So that's the only case you can
select a whole range of objects. Normally
| | 03:21 | though, you would have to only select
two anchor points and then perform the
| | 03:25 | joint command. Sometimes you get an
error if you try selecting more than two
| | 03:28 | anchor points. You receive an error
that says you need to have only two anchor
| | 03:32 | points selected in order to use a
Join command. So that's how you would use
| | 03:35 | that particular setting. I'm actually
going to undo this for a second so we see
| | 03:37 | the back out so I have
these is also for paths before.
| | 03:41 | In fact, the easiest way was simply
just go to the File menu here and choose
| | 03:44 | Revert and that will bring us back to
the state here in case you want to do it
| | 03:47 | that way. So I have now these as
again also for paths that are right here.
| | 03:50 | Let's say I want this to become a
square, how would I do that? Right now I
| | 03:54 | don't want just to connect the line;
I actually wanted to square itself up.
| | 03:57 | So what I can do is besides the Join
command, there's also another command
| | 04:01 | inside of Illustrator called the
Average command. And the Average command can
| | 04:05 | actually take two points that are not
exactly sitting on top of each other and
| | 04:09 | then perform an Average command then
combine them on top of each other using
| | 04:12 | that particular setting. Let me show
you what I mean. If I take these two right
| | 04:15 | now and I go to the Object menu, I
choose Path and rather than choosing Join, I
| | 04:21 | choose Average and when I choose
Average here, I'm going to choose, not
| | 04:26 | necessarily Horizontal or Vertical.
I'll give you examples of why I chose both
| | 04:30 | of these, in a minute.
| | 04:30 | I'm going to choose both. I want
you to find basically average of the
| | 04:34 | horizontal and the vertical together
and when I click OK, you can now see that
| | 04:38 | those are all together that's it,
right there. Now I can go ahead and I can
| | 04:41 | take those too, and I can join them,
Command+J, make a corner point and then I'm done.
| | 04:45 | So that's one easy way that I can
simply perform an Average command to help me
| | 04:49 | find that point and then simply join
them in that way. So to take the averaging
| | 04:52 | half a step further, what I can do is
again marquee select with the direct
| | 04:56 | selection tool, all of the anchor
points on the far ends of these lines. Now,
| | 05:00 | these were all lined up very nicely but
these are not necessarily lined up very
| | 05:03 | nicely. I can choose Object, Path,
Average and if I choose both, look what
| | 05:08 | happens here, they all both get
averaged on both the vertical and the
| | 05:12 | horizontal in the same time as well.
| | 05:14 | So, that is basically the commands of
using, joining and averaging. As you will
| | 05:18 | see later, there is the capability
inside of Illustrator. These anchor points
| | 05:21 | to stay selected, you can use some of
the Align functions for that as well. And
| | 05:25 | when we talk about the whole entire way
of working with aligning objects, we'll
| | 05:29 | get into detail about that as well. But
here's just a basic simple way of just
| | 05:32 | averaging or joining
individual anchor points in this way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Outlining strokes| 00:00 | So we know that in Illustrator there
are two possible attributes that you can
| | 00:03 | apply to any vector path. One of them
is a Fill and then as we discussed one of
| | 00:08 | them is also a Stroke.
| | 00:10 | Now we didn't go into detail about each
setting of the stroke itself, but we do
| | 00:14 | know that there were certain
basic settings for strokes.
| | 00:16 | For example, if I were to click on this
particular stroke right here and select
| | 00:19 | it. If I look at my Stroke panel, I see
that the stroke Weight of the thickness
| | 00:22 | of that is 1 point and I have no other
fancy settings here. I just have regular
| | 00:26 | plain, Butt Cap settings. Miter Joint
is set for corners here and there is no
| | 00:29 | Dashed setting whatsoever.
| | 00:31 | If I click on this one though, this
is the same exact path but it has a
| | 00:35 | different appearance because I set the
stroke weight to 20 point, which is much
| | 00:38 | thicker. In fact, all these are the
exact same paths. If I go into Outline mode
| | 00:42 | by pressing Command+Y or Ctrl+Y on
Windows, I'll see that they are all just
| | 00:46 | regular plain paths, each to have
anchor points on either end of it and that's
| | 00:49 | all that it is, but the appearance
is very different based on the Stroke
| | 00:53 | settings that I have applied to them.
| | 00:54 | For example, this one right over here
as a stroke weight of 10, which means
| | 00:58 | that the weight or the thickness of
the stroke is 10 points, but then I also
| | 01:02 | have a Dash Line setting and I
basically have a Dashed setting of 10, which
| | 01:05 | means that the stroke is on for 10
points, and then it has a Gap setting of 4,
| | 01:10 | which means that the stroke is turned
off for 4 points, and then it goes back
| | 01:14 | to 10 point dash again. If you don't
specify any other settings here, it just
| | 01:18 | simply repeats itself as if you had
done 10-4, 10-4, 10-4. Got it? 10-4.
| | 01:23 | So what I have over here is a stroke
that I have applied to those particular
| | 01:26 | settings too, but maybe times when I
actually want to physically go ahead and
| | 01:30 | maybe delete one of these particular
shapes or these rectangles. I can't really
| | 01:33 | access them. They are not regular
physical shapes that I could click on; they
| | 01:36 | are just Stroke Attributes, they are a
type of a stroke. Let me show you some
| | 01:40 | of these others that I
have created here as well.
| | 01:41 | This one here is a little dot pattern.
Again it's a regular stroke that I have
| | 01:44 | applied, if I click on it. But the
difference is that it has 10-point weight,
| | 01:48 | but rather than a Butt Cap it has a
Round Cap. It also has a Dashed setting of
| | 01:52 | zeros. It's a nice little tip by the
way. If you want to create a perfect
| | 01:55 | circle for a dash, set your settings
to have a Round Cap, but have a Dashed
| | 01:59 | setting of 0, and that basically
creates a perfect circle, then I have a gap of
| | 02:03 | 20 points at the center in the next
particular one that's here as well.
| | 02:06 | Then I have let's say this one over here,
which just has a longer Dash and Gap
| | 02:10 | setting that's here and this one over
here actually has alternating dashes and
| | 02:13 | gaps, so it has 5, there is a little
short Dash and then 10 point Gap. Then it
| | 02:18 | has 20-point Dash and then 10 point
Gap so on and so forth. Then that way it
| | 02:20 | repeats itself over-and-over again as well.
| | 02:23 | But let's say, like I said before I
won't be able to access or work with these
| | 02:27 | as if they were actually regular objects,
not just the attributes from a stroke
| | 02:30 | per se. So the way that I can do
that is I can use a command inside of
| | 02:33 | Illustrator called Outline Stroke. I'll
say select this one right here for now.
| | 02:37 | I'll go to the Object menu, I'll
choose Path and then I'll choose Outline
| | 02:41 | Stroke. In doing so you see that I no
longer have a stroke anymore, but I have
| | 02:44 | actually created a whole bunch of
rectangles. This is similar to as if I had
| | 02:48 | drawn one little rectangle that's 10
point? 10 point and then duplicated it and
| | 02:52 | made copies of it, basically over and
over and over again. I can do the same
| | 02:56 | thing for each of these. I can go to
this one over here and choose Object,
| | 02:59 | choose Path and then choose Outline
Stroke, and again get individual ones.
| | 03:02 | Let's say I decide that I want to
delete every other one for example or every
| | 03:06 | once in a while I just want to have
one that I can just delete and work with.
| | 03:09 | So in this way I could really go
ahead and treat things as I need to, and
| | 03:12 | that's the way that I can turn the
Stroke Attribute, which is normally just
| | 03:16 | something that you can't really
physically work with inside of Illustrator, but
| | 03:19 | now you can simply go ahead and convert them
to outlines and then use them as you wish.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Simplifying paths| 00:00 | So as we've learned, Illustrator's
vector graphics are really made up of a
| | 00:04 | whole bunch of anchor points. We know
that those anchor points can be one of
| | 00:07 | several different types, for example,
corner anchor points or smooth anchor
| | 00:10 | points or combination anchor points.
| | 00:12 | However, we also know that the
number of anchor points that you have is
| | 00:16 | directly related to the complexity of
your file. So the more anchor points that
| | 00:20 | you have for a piece of artwork, the
longer it takes to print, the larger your
| | 00:23 | file size gets and, of course, the
more difficult or unwieldy it is to edit
| | 00:27 | that particular file.
| | 00:28 | Let's take these two pieces of artwork,
for example. I have this file called
| | 00:32 | simplifying_paths open inside of
Illustrator and if you have the sample files
| | 00:36 | or the exercise files available to
you, you can go ahead and find that in
| | 00:39 | Chapter 05. I'm going to use my
Regular Selection tool to just click on let's
| | 00:42 | say this emblem right here. Take a
look at the number of anchor points that
| | 00:45 | there are. Let's zoom in a little bit closer.
| | 00:47 | I'm going to use the Command+Spacebar
or Ctrl+Spacebar keys to get my Zoom tool
| | 00:52 | and I marquee select around this
particular emblem so I want to zoom in on that
| | 00:56 | and you could see how many anchor
points there are. In fact, if I get just a
| | 00:58 | little bit closer let's say on the claw,
take a look at how many anchor points
| | 01:02 | there are, lots and lots of anchor
points. Not only does that make it difficult
| | 01:05 | to edit, it will make this file take a
lot longer to print as well. Let me zoom
| | 01:09 | out just a bit over here. Let's take a
look at a feature inside of Illustrator
| | 01:13 | called Simplify.
| | 01:14 | Simplify basically allows me to analyze
a path and reduce the number of points
| | 01:19 | on a path, because in reality the
number of anchor points on a path don't
| | 01:23 | necessarily make that into a better
path, meaning a better looking path. If
| | 01:27 | you're smart about where you place
your anchor points, you can get the same
| | 01:29 | piece of artwork with far fewer anchor points.
So let's take a look at how that's done.
| | 01:34 | By the way, this Simplify feature I'm
about to show you makes a lot of sense
| | 01:37 | when you're getting artwork from
outside sources. It's rare that you're
| | 01:40 | actually going to go ahead and use
the Pen tool to create artwork with this
| | 01:43 | many anchor points. But when you do
things like tracing or get artwork that
| | 01:47 | maybe has come from another source or
another application, it is possible that
| | 01:50 | it has lots of anchor points. Your job
is going to be to basically reduce those
| | 01:54 | anchor points down to a manageable
amount, but without sacrificing any quality
| | 01:59 | in the image itself.
| | 02:00 | So I'm going to go now with this
particular piece of artwork selected. I'm
| | 02:03 | going to go over to the Object menu.
I'm going to choose Path and then I'm
| | 02:07 | going to choose Simply. That's going
to bring up a dialog box. The Simplify
| | 02:10 | dialog box will give me options on
how I want to go ahead and simplify that
| | 02:14 | path and here's basically the key. I
want to be able to reduce the number of
| | 02:18 | anchor points, but I don't want to give
up the quality or the actual definition
| | 02:23 | of the artwork that I have created.
| | 02:25 | So the first thing I'll do is I'll
click on the Preview button. Preview button
| | 02:28 | will give me basically an idea of
what's happening to my artwork as the number
| | 02:32 | of points are reduced. So as we can see
right now, I do get a very interesting
| | 02:35 | stylized kind of look, and maybe this
would even be a nice effect that I would
| | 02:39 | be looking for.
| | 02:39 | Although right now, my goal would be
to simplify the number of anchor points
| | 02:43 | without adjusting the overall
appearance of that particular piece of artwork.
| | 02:47 | So I'm going to go ahead here and by
the Curve Precision, I'm going to start to
| | 02:51 | bring that up much higher. That
means that I want Illustrator to keep the
| | 02:54 | curves and the look of that graphic
as close to the original as possible.
| | 02:58 | By the way just to show you if I kind
of bring that slider far down to the
| | 03:01 | left, I get a very, very stylized
looking piece, but that also means that
| | 03:05 | Illustrator doesn't have to follow the
actual path that were in the original
| | 03:08 | piece of artwork. Just to give you an
idea though, take a look at the values.
| | 03:12 | Illustrator is very nice; it gives you
some feedback here. The original piece
| | 03:15 | of artwork had 3784 anchor points
inside of it and now that I have applied the
| | 03:20 | Simply command and I have this Curve
Precision set to 5%, it reduced that down
| | 03:25 | to 362 points, wow!
| | 03:28 | So it's great that you can do that,
but as we said before, I don't want it to
| | 03:31 | look like this. I want it to look
close to the original. What I'm going to do
| | 03:34 | is I'm going to bring that Curve
Precision up all the way to where I just stop.
| | 03:36 | Now, it's important, by the way, you
don't want to go to 100. Sometimes when
| | 03:39 | you do that, you end up with actually
more anchor points than you do. It's
| | 03:43 | absolutely kind of like reverse Simplify.
| | 03:45 | So we don't want to go there, but I'll
say there is a huge difference when you
| | 03:47 | start going to like 99. Take a look
at that, I'm at 98 right now and I just
| | 03:51 | dropped down from 3784 to 2239. Not too
bad, but of course, I can do better. So
| | 03:56 | I'm going to go down here and here is
the key. If you look over here where it
| | 03:59 | says Options, I could choose Show
Original and what it does, it gives me a red
| | 04:03 | outline of where that original path is.
| | 04:05 | Just to show you if I reduce my Curve
Precision down a lot here, you can see
| | 04:09 | that the red path is where that
original anchor point was, and here is what the
| | 04:12 | new path is. Yes it's smooth around
the fewer anchor points, but it doesn't
| | 04:15 | really match where I was before.
Anyway, I want to zoom in closer to your
| | 04:19 | graphic here. I just want to be able to
see the whole piece of artwork here as
| | 04:21 | it is. But as you're working with this,
you might want to zoom in closer and
| | 04:24 | really see the differences between the
previous path that had lots of anchor
| | 04:28 | points and what the Simplify command is
going to do with it. But basically the
| | 04:31 | new path is in blue; the
old path here is in the red.
| | 04:34 | I could also use the Straight Lines
option, which prevents Illustrator from
| | 04:37 | using curves at all. Notice the Curve
Precision is completely out now and now
| | 04:40 | simply using basically an angle
threshold to see what I ended up getting, I get
| | 04:44 | all these wacky straight lines. Again,
if you like doing some kind of Picasso
| | 04:47 | thing, maybe that would make some
kind of sense. But I'm going to uncheck
| | 04:50 | Straight Lines. I do want to show the original.
| | 04:51 | I'm going to leave the Curve Precision
set to around 98%. Maybe I'll come down
| | 04:55 | to make 96% or 95%. Again I'm paying
attention to where the red and the blue
| | 05:00 | are and make sure they are not out of
whack; they all look -- and they are
| | 05:02 | lining up pretty well over here and I
see that I have just reduced this from
| | 05:05 | 3,700 points to just a little over 1,
000 points. I could also adjust the Angle
| | 05:10 | Threshold to basically control how
Illustrator can go ahead and smooth out
| | 05:14 | those little sharp angles so on and so forth.
| | 05:16 | I find that if I bring something here
towards the middle I usually get a pretty
| | 05:19 | good result. Then what I'll do is
I'll just simply click OK and now I have
| | 05:22 | reduced the number of anchor points.
Now again a much smoother path, it prints
| | 05:26 | faster, it's easier to work with and
to edit and that is far better as well.
| | 05:30 | So you may want to go ahead. I would
provide another example on this file. This
| | 05:33 | is nice little trace of a nice little
palm tree and you might want to go ahead
| | 05:36 | and reduce the number of points on this
and see what kind of results you get as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Offset Path| 00:00 | There are certain times in working with
paths that you need to create an offset
| | 00:03 | of that path. Let me explain exactly
what I mean. I'm actually working with a
| | 00:07 | file here, if you do have access to
the exercise files, go ahead and open up
| | 00:10 | from Chapter 05 the offset_path file.
| | 00:13 | So what I'm doing now is I have this
surfboard that I have created and may be I
| | 00:16 | also want to may be on the inside over
here create some kind of a design with
| | 00:21 | like a border around it, to kind of
comes out to the border just a little bit.
| | 00:24 | So what I really need to do is kind of
make a smaller version of the surfboard.
| | 00:27 | However, you may know that when
you chart a scale object that is not
| | 00:30 | necessarily uniform in shape, the scale
attributes are different from width and height.
| | 00:35 | So what do I mean by that? Well, if I
want to make let's say a smaller version,
| | 00:37 | the surfboard, and we will talk more
about how I'm going to do this later on.
| | 00:40 | We are going to learn about the
Transformation tools. I'm actually going to use
| | 00:43 | the Scale tool inside of Illustrator to
make this a smaller version. I'll make
| | 00:47 | a copy of it as I do that.
| | 00:47 | So notice that I have not the same
amount of space between here as I do on the
| | 00:53 | ends. So because again, the surfboard
itself is not at uniform kind of shape.
| | 00:57 | Like for example, it started out, it's
kind of close to an oval. So as I scale
| | 01:01 | it, the scale is actually in proportion.
But I don't necessarily get that exact
| | 01:06 | same dimension that I might want in a
particular design case. What I really
| | 01:10 | want is I want the same amount of space
to appear all the way around the inside
| | 01:14 | of this and I can do the same thing may
be if I wanted to have something along
| | 01:17 | the outside as far as I border that way.
| | 01:19 | So I'm going to press Command+Z or Ctrl+
Z just to undo that. What I'm going to
| | 01:23 | do right now is I'm going to take
this, I'm going to use the Offset Path
| | 01:26 | command to get the exact result that I
want. I'm going to go over here to the
| | 01:30 | Object menu, I'm going to choose Path
and then I'm going to choose Offset Path,
| | 01:34 | I'm going to get a dialog box,
because Illustrator needs to know how much I
| | 01:37 | want to offset by what amount.
| | 01:39 | And what's great is this little
Preview button. So for example I type-in
| | 01:42 | preview, see how now I get basically
the path itself is offset, I'm not getting
| | 01:47 | an enlargement to that, it's not
doing some kind of a scale, proportional
| | 01:50 | scale. It's actually offsetting the
path so that it's completely even on all
| | 01:55 | sides around that. And for example
right now it's at the 10 point, but I can do
| | 01:59 | that may be 20 point, if I wanted a
bigger one. But I actually want it to be on
| | 02:02 | the inside, and the way that I can do
that is basically specifying negative
| | 02:06 | numbers. Let's say I do -10 and I
hit the Tab key, I can see now that the
| | 02:11 | Preview shows that I can now offset
that path towards the inside of the path
| | 02:15 | again because I use a negative number.
When I click OK, I now have that shape
| | 02:18 | that I'm working with. Now I can maybe
fill this with a color and I'm good to go.
| | 02:23 | So that way I get the exact look that
I'm looking for, and again I can do this
| | 02:26 | as many times I want to. Offset Path is
also-- I mean it's great to work on in
| | 02:30 | outline type. Basically it gives you
the ability to create these outlines that
| | 02:33 | are perfect on all edges of the
particular path and it's not the same as if you
| | 02:37 | had scaled it.
| | 02:38 | So whenever you need it,
Offset Path is there for you.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Dividing an object into a grid| 00:00 | Back in the previous chapter, we
explored a tool called the Rectangular Grid
| | 00:04 | tool. You will find it here underneath
the Line Segment tool, it's called the
| | 00:07 | Rectangular Grid tool and it also
has a way for you to actually create
| | 00:10 | numerical grids. For example I can just
click once and release the mouse and I
| | 00:13 | get a dialog box that allows me to
specify exactly the Width and Height or what
| | 00:18 | I want the overall grid to be; how
many Horizontal and Vertical Dividers I
| | 00:22 | want; if I want a Skew to be there;
the grid should actually be filled with
| | 00:26 | color so on and so forth?
| | 00:27 | So these are all settings that I can do,
which is great. But there are times
| | 00:30 | when I create some kind of a shape.
Just on the fly as I'm working, I don't
| | 00:34 | really want to create a grid per se,
but I want to split it up into individual
| | 00:37 | parts. Well, there is a way that you
can do that inside of Illustrator very
| | 00:40 | easily, I'm just going to take my
regular Rectangle tool. Click and drag and
| | 00:44 | just draw any shape at all, and then go
to the Object menu here and then choose
| | 00:48 | Path and then choose this
option here called Split Into Grid.
| | 00:52 | Now when I do that, I get a dialog box
here and what's really cool about this
| | 00:56 | is that there is also a setting here
called Add Guides. This is great if you
| | 00:59 | are actually working with some kind of
a layout. You want to quickly determine
| | 01:03 | how some of these should be laid out.
You choose Add Guides. You choose the
| | 01:06 | number of rows that you want and the
number of columns. Let's say we choose, 3
| | 01:09 | Columns x 2 Rows, and you see how it
automatically splits that object for you.
| | 01:13 | It's a great way to just go ahead and
start creating a grid, and what's great
| | 01:17 | about it is that you can also specify
values for the Height or if you want the
| | 01:20 | Gutter to be somewhat uneven, you could
easily do that as well by putting these
| | 01:24 | particular values in there.
| | 01:25 | It's really a nice way that you can
start working with just taking any object
| | 01:28 | and just literally once that turned
into a grid, again, you can either use the
| | 01:32 | Guides or not, that's completely up to
you. Click OK and that's a quick way to
| | 01:36 | turn just about any object at all
into a grid and you are ready to go.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cleaning up errant paths| 00:00 | One of the functions that we discussed
earlier in this chapter something called
| | 00:03 | Simplify. That command allowed you to
take the number of anchor points and
| | 00:07 | reduce them along a path. But there is
also another thing you need to look out
| | 00:10 | for when working with vector graphics
and because the nature of object-base
| | 00:13 | graphics it's possible that your file
can get littered with other little pieces
| | 00:17 | kind of lying around.
| | 00:18 | You know very often you are chopping
apart paths, you are cutting and pasting,
| | 00:22 | you are moving things around, you are
coloring things with some colors, then
| | 00:25 | you are setting the color to None or
to White or so on and so forth. So for
| | 00:28 | example, if I look at this file
right here and if you have access to the
| | 00:31 | exercise files go ahead and open up the
file called path_cleanup in Chapter 05.
| | 00:34 | It looks like I just have four elements
here inside of my file, the surfboard,
| | 00:39 | the bikini, the body suit and the
little flip-flops, but there is really other
| | 00:43 | artwork in here. In fact, the easiest
way to see that is to change your Preview
| | 00:47 | mode into Outline. I'm going to press
Command+Y or Ctrl+Y on a Windows machine
| | 00:52 | and you will see that I also have
some other elements, let's say right over
| | 00:55 | here and I have these kind of little
Xs, which are actually just individual
| | 00:59 | anchor points. If you just have a
single anchor point Illustrator identifies
| | 01:02 | that in Outline mode, it's just
little x. So it is kind of sitting there.
| | 01:06 | Now they are not harming anybody right
now, but as I work in my file, I'm going
| | 01:09 | to go back into Preview mode, these
are no longer here. I could accidentally
| | 01:13 | click on it and select it not even
knowing it; it has no Fill and no Stroke. It
| | 01:17 | won't show up on a print out, but
anytime you have these little things, they
| | 01:20 | always find a way to kind of crop-up
and just kind of get in the way and it can
| | 01:24 | cause problems later on in your work-flow.
| | 01:26 | So it's always best for you to
basically keep a clean file. Don't have extra
| | 01:30 | things lying around if you don't need
them, and definitely don't have these
| | 01:33 | little extra anchor points floating
around, because sometimes they can cause
| | 01:37 | problems as well. This is one example.
We will talk a bit later in the next
| | 01:40 | chapter about working with text, and
sometimes you just have a regular text
| | 01:44 | with one anchor point,
but there is no text there.
| | 01:46 | Well, that typeface may still be
referenced inside of that file. Even though
| | 01:50 | there is actually no text that appears
there, just that single anchor point may
| | 01:53 | have a type face attributed to it and
you get missing frontiers for example,
| | 01:56 | things like that.
| | 01:57 | So there are always things that it
can crop-up, it's always best to keep a
| | 02:00 | clean file whenever you can. So it's
great about Illustrator that there is
| | 02:04 | actually a function that can help you
do that. So rather than you have to hunt
| | 02:07 | down and search and see where all these
things are because in reality sometimes
| | 02:11 | your files are so complex, how do you
know when you start going through them,
| | 02:15 | what is and what is not
important so on and so forth.
| | 02:17 | So there is a function inside of the
Object menu, let's go to the Object menu
| | 02:21 | here. Let's choose Path here and
choose an option here called Clean Up, and
| | 02:25 | that basically will go to my
document and will allow me to identify stray
| | 02:29 | points. Again, those are just anchor
points that have nothing on them except
| | 02:32 | just one anchor point and like we
discussed before paths usually have a minimum
| | 02:35 | of at least two.
| | 02:37 | So Stray Points are single anchor points,
Unpainted Objects, objects that have
| | 02:40 | no Fill and no Stroke attributes on
them, and Empty Text Paths, like I just
| | 02:44 | discussed before.
| | 02:45 | So if I click OK right now, it doesn't
look like anything happen, but if I go
| | 02:48 | into Outline mode, I see all of those
other elements that were there in the
| | 02:51 | document and now gone. So I basically
have cleaned up my document of all these
| | 02:54 | little things that could
possibly make things go wrong.
| | 02:57 | So as mom always used to say to you,
keep your room clean. We always used to
| | 03:01 | say back, yeah, but I'm just going to
be playing in the room again later. But
| | 03:05 | you don't want to trip on stories and
so on and so forth. Same thing really
| | 03:08 | applies to Illustrator on that same
conceptual level. You want to have a clean
| | 03:12 | document, that way you always know
where things are and you avoid any issues
| | 03:15 | down the line.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Basic Text EditingCreating point text| 00:00 | Illustrator, there is more than just
graphics; it does text too. In fact,
| | 00:04 | sometimes text can be the most
important part of the design you are working on.
| | 00:07 | When it comes to creating and
managing text in Illustrator, there are two
| | 00:10 | important concepts or two different
types of text that you could work with.
| | 00:14 | There is something called point text
and then there is something called area
| | 00:18 | text and we will deal with those two separately.
| | 00:20 | For this movie, we are going to focus
on using point text. Now I have this file
| | 00:24 | open. It's called basic_text. You
will find in Chapter 06 of your exercise
| | 00:27 | files. Well, I have actually used this
file for the remaining chapter. I'll go
| | 00:31 | over to my Tool panel and
I'll choose here the Type tool.
| | 00:33 | The way that you create point text in
Illustrator is you simply click and then
| | 00:37 | release the mouse right away. Don't
click and drag or anything else for that
| | 00:40 | matter and you will see a blinking
cursor on the screen. Now if you are coming
| | 00:43 | from an application like InDesign,
for example, or QuarkXPress, you may be
| | 00:48 | familiar with the concepts of
creating a frame. You click and drag out to
| | 00:51 | create a frame and your
text is inside of a frame.
| | 00:52 | Well, here my point text is not bound
by anything. In reality, Illustrator does
| | 00:57 | have the concept of a frame that's
what we will talk about in the next movie
| | 00:59 | when we learn about area text. But
point text is not bound by anything except
| | 01:03 | for the single point that you just
created now wherever you clicked and I'll
| | 01:07 | show you where that exists as well.
| | 01:09 | But for now, I just simply have this
blinking cursor that I can put anywhere on
| | 01:12 | my page. I'm going to start typing.
Let's say I type in, let's say in all caps
| | 01:16 | here, SAFETY RULES. Let's say, we do
that, some surfing safety rules. So now I
| | 01:20 | have this text, let's talk about some
basic settings over here just to make a
| | 01:23 | little bit more apparent and working with it.
| | 01:25 | If I go ahead and I press Ctrl+A or
Command+A, it will select all my text that
| | 01:29 | I have right there. Alternatively, I
can just use my regular Arrow tool here
| | 01:33 | and click on it to select it. I'm
going to do a few things. First of all, I'm
| | 01:37 | going to go to the View menu and I'm
going to basically Hide Bounding Box,
| | 01:41 | because I want you to focus on exactly
what's happening here with text and that
| | 01:44 | way we become readily apparent in a moment.
| | 01:46 | I'm also going to change the point size,
let's make this x a bit bigger so we
| | 01:48 | could see it maybe around 60 points.
So there we go, now it says SAFETY RULES
| | 01:52 | nice and clear. Let's take a look over
here. I have this underline that appears
| | 01:56 | underneath the words. SAFETY RULES and
then on the far left I have this anchor
| | 02:00 | points. Everything always comes down
to these anchor points in Illustrator.
| | 02:03 | Well, that anchor point is what defines
this text and that's really why this is
| | 02:07 | called point text, is because that
anchor point is where that text basically
| | 02:11 | emanates from.
| | 02:12 | It's important to realize that
because should I decide that I want to align
| | 02:15 | that text differently again that point
is going to be the main -- yes, you can
| | 02:19 | say point of contact with that text.
For example, right now, if I look at my
| | 02:22 | paragraph setting here in my Control
panel, I see that my text is aligned left.
| | 02:26 | If I were to choose align center,
watch what happens. The point where -- the
| | 02:30 | anchor point where I created the text
remains stationary but the text becomes
| | 02:35 | centered on that point and if I align
my text to the right, then you will see
| | 02:39 | that again the point remains
stationary but the text now aligns itself to the
| | 02:43 | right and basically that's why I
have the alignment set that way.
| | 02:46 | Lets go back to align left for a
minute here and that's just the important
| | 02:48 | thing about understanding what point
text is, because there is no frame or
| | 02:52 | there is nothing that encompasses
this particular text. The text goes on
| | 02:55 | forever. So, for example, if I just
type in SAFETY RULES FOR A WONDERFUL, and
| | 03:00 | notice that as I'm typing my text just
keeps going, it doesn't wrap at the end
| | 03:03 | of the page. It keeps going on and on
that's because there is no balance for
| | 03:07 | this particular object, it will
keep going until I type a return.
| | 03:10 | For example, if I hit the Return key
or the Enter key on my keyboard, I then
| | 03:13 | get a second line. SUMMERTIME FUN,
I'm not making any sense with what I'm
| | 03:18 | typing over here. But basically I can
go ahead and just add as many lines as I
| | 03:21 | want to. We will talk more about the
settings for these in a moment, but that's
| | 03:25 | how you create point text inside of
Illustrator. I'll tell you. Let me actually
| | 03:28 | delete this here, so we can
go back to SAFETY RULES here.
| | 03:31 | Usually in Illustrator, the type of
text that you will create most often will
| | 03:34 | be point text. If you are creating like
a diagram and you wan to have a little
| | 03:38 | caption or a little bit of a call out.
You probably use point text for that,
| | 03:41 | it's easy to align them.
| | 03:42 | For example, I know that my text is
right now aligned to the left; I can grab
| | 03:46 | that anchor point and snap it to
anything else. If I want it to center, I can
| | 03:49 | do it that way. Point text is probably
used the most often. It's also the most
| | 03:52 | simple to create. You just
click anywhere and you start going.
| | 03:54 | So that's how you create point text
inside of Illustrator. Now that we
| | 03:57 | understand that basic premise, let's
move on to the other kind of text that
| | 04:00 | exists inside of Illustrator,
which is called area text.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating area text| 00:00 | The concept of area text closely
matches that found in applications like
| | 00:04 | PageMaker or InDesign or QuarkXPress
for that matter. Rather than text just
| | 00:09 | free flowing on its own, text conforms
to the shape of an overall frame. Let's
| | 00:13 | take a look. In this file specifically,
this body text that I have over here,
| | 00:17 | if I click on it, it is actually
created as area text. Notice, overall I have a
| | 00:21 | frame that appears around all this
text and the text is contained within it.
| | 00:25 | Let's scroll down somewhat. You will
see that I also have these boxes that
| | 00:29 | appear in the upper left-hand corner
and the lower right-hand corner and that
| | 00:32 | also identifies this as being area text.
| | 00:34 | Let's first see how we create area
text and then we will see some of the
| | 00:37 | benefits that are involved with using
area text. I'll come here to the side of
| | 00:40 | the screen. I'll take the same Text
tool that I was using before. But rather
| | 00:44 | than just clicking once, I'll click
and drag to draw a rectangle or in this
| | 00:49 | case a frame.
| | 00:50 | When I release the mouse, I'll get a
blinking cursor inside of that frame and
| | 00:53 | now I could start typing. Notice,
that as soon as I type the word there, it
| | 00:58 | automatically re-flows to the next line.
That's because the frame determines
| | 01:02 | the balance for where the text can go.
As I type more for example, I'll see
| | 01:06 | that a little red plus sign appears
meaning that there is more text, that no
| | 01:09 | longer fits inside of that frame and
I could either delete text, resize the
| | 01:13 | text to make it smaller or
enlarge the size of the frame.
| | 01:16 | Let me delete this object from in here,
since we have this area text we have
| | 01:19 | created in this part of the file. We
will focus on looking at some of the
| | 01:22 | benefits of using area text with this
one. For example, when I click on this
| | 01:26 | right now, I'm actually going to go
back to the View menu. I'm going to turn my
| | 01:29 | bounding box back on again.
| | 01:31 | Now, I have the handles that appear
all the way around here to resize the
| | 01:34 | frame. Notice that when, now let's say,
I click over here and I resize this,
| | 01:38 | Illustrator automatically re-flows all
the copy to now fit within the new width
| | 01:42 | of that frame. If I want more text to
appear for example, I can click and drag
| | 01:46 | and see how that a preview appears
when I do that, when I release the mouse,
| | 01:50 | that's how the new text
reflows within that frame.
| | 01:52 | It's important to realize by the way
that area text can be of any shape. I
| | 01:56 | could take a circle or a star shape
for example and put text inside of it as
| | 02:00 | well. A way to turn an existing shape
into area text is again using the Text
| | 02:04 | tool. Let me show you how that works.
I'm going to take my Regular Shape tool,
| | 02:07 | for example my Ellipse tool, click
and drag. I'm now going to go to my Type
| | 02:11 | tool here and you notice that if I
click and I hold my mouse button down, there
| | 02:14 | is something called the Area Type tool.
When I choose that text option, I mouse
| | 02:18 | over an object, I can click on it and
now when I type the type falls into that
| | 02:22 | particular object. That is another way
to create an area text object out of an
| | 02:26 | object that already exists.
| | 02:28 | Once again, let me delete this object
and we will focus once more on some of
| | 02:31 | the other benefits of working with
area text. I'm going to click on this to
| | 02:34 | select it. I know that I can resize the
re-flow my text. But maybe I want this
| | 02:38 | to flow in may be two or three columns of text.
| | 02:41 | I'll go up to the Type menu and I'll
choose this called Area Type Options. Here
| | 02:45 | I'll get a dialog box that allows me
to turn on a preview and specify the
| | 02:50 | number of columns that exists inside
of my text. Now, I have three columns of
| | 02:54 | text; notice that the text
automatically re-flows in that particular area.
| | 02:58 | I could also change number of rows,
which almost creates little bit of a table,
| | 03:02 | although it's not really a table that
you might find inside of InDesign for
| | 03:05 | example, like a Table Editor there. But
it does allow you to put text basically
| | 03:08 | using rows and columns. I'll go ahead
and set this back to 1 row over here and
| | 03:12 | 3 columns.
| | 03:13 | I could also choose Inset Spacing,
which would basically indent the text to
| | 03:17 | kind of be a little bit of a border,
its inset from the actual edge of the
| | 03:22 | frame itself. So for example, if I
choose let's say an eighth of an inch there,
| | 03:25 | I see that now the text doesn't touch
the exact edge of the frame. This allows
| | 03:29 | me to either maybe apply a stroke to
the actual text frame itself or maybe to
| | 03:33 | align it to other objects so on and so forth.
| | 03:36 | I can choose where I want the first
Baseline to start and I also have the
| | 03:39 | ability to choose how my text flows
when I'm using rows and columns. So for
| | 03:43 | example, if I add a few rows here, does
the text flow from here to here to here
| | 03:48 | then to the next one, the next one,
the next one or if I choose this option,
| | 03:52 | the text flows from this to this one,
to this one, down here and up in here, so
| | 03:56 | on and so forth.
| | 03:56 | So those are some of the additional
benefits you get of working with area text.
| | 04:00 | You have the ability to of course
create columns; you cannot create automatic
| | 04:03 | columns using just regular point text.
Again, based on your design needs you
| | 04:07 | would choose between using either
point text or area text. Now that we
| | 04:11 | understand the different types of text
objects that exist inside of Illustrator
| | 04:15 | let's learn how to make that text
look the way that we want it to look.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying basic character settings| 00:00 | So now we know how to create text.
Let's talk about styling the text to make it
| | 00:03 | look the way that we want it to
look. As you know when you click on a
| | 00:06 | particular text object, the Control
panel updates to show you the settings for
| | 00:10 | that text. But since we are going to
get deep into the actual settings for the
| | 00:13 | characters here, I'm going to go the
Window menu, choose Type and open up the
| | 00:18 | Character panel.
| | 00:19 | This way we can focus on all the
settings right here. It's important to know
| | 00:23 | that when you have the Character panel
open, if you click on the flyout menu
| | 00:26 | here, there is something called Show
Options and that gives us a whole lot more
| | 00:30 | settings here. So let's take a look at what
we have available to us for styling characters.
| | 00:34 | Now I'm also going to share with you a
couple of tips and tricks as well as we
| | 00:39 | start working with text just to make it
a little bit easier to do so. So first
| | 00:41 | of all what I'm going to do is I'm
going to take my Type tool here. Just switch
| | 00:45 | to my regular Type tool and highlight
my text here. By the way the text that
| | 00:48 | you have highlighted is what gets
changed. So here if I were to make a change,
| | 00:52 | now let's say to the point size for
example, let's go a little bit smaller, it
| | 00:55 | only happens to that word that's
selected. I'm going to press Undo. I'm going
| | 00:58 | to select everything here.
| | 00:59 | By the way you don't need to select
your text with a Type tool. You could, of
| | 01:02 | course, use the Arrow tool, but I'm
doing this because I'm going to show you
| | 01:04 | that, well it applies certain settings
just to certain characters on its own.
| | 01:07 | First of all the basic settings. If
I go into the Character panel, I have
| | 01:10 | basically the font family. When I go
ahead and I scroll down the list, here you
| | 01:14 | can see that the fonts actually
appear in the typeface, so that you get a
| | 01:18 | better idea of what they look like. It
doesn't really work out that well for
| | 01:21 | typefaces that are actually more on
the graphical side than they are on the
| | 01:26 | typographical side.
| | 01:27 | For example, we've got Zapf Dingbats
and things like that. You will see that
| | 01:30 | there is a whole bunch little icons
here. So unfortunately that would be a
| | 01:34 | little bit more difficult to see. But
there are ways to turn that off. Now most
| | 01:37 | important thing I think of all these
is that if you look to the far left, you
| | 01:41 | will see that there are different
icons here. There are TT and an O. In some
| | 01:44 | cases you have a red a, that just
identifies the different types of fonts that
| | 01:48 | are being used. For example red A's are
PostScript Type 1 fonts. The green O's
| | 01:52 | are OpenType fonts and
the TT's are TrueType fonts.
| | 01:55 | Let me get into more detail from this
video title where we talk about Advanced
| | 01:59 | Text Options. We will learn about the
differences between those, but that helps
| | 02:01 | to identify them as well. I'm just going
to leave it set to where it is right now.
| | 02:05 | Once you set a family you can then
choose, which face specifically, different
| | 02:09 | typefaces and fonts will have different
options that are listed here. We could
| | 02:12 | choose the point size, then you can
also choose here kerning. So by default
| | 02:16 | Kerning is set to Auto. If you are not
familiar with typography and you don't
| | 02:20 | know what Kerning is. Kerning is
basically the amount of space that you can
| | 02:23 | either add or remove between the actual
characters that appear inside of a text string.
| | 02:29 | Now I'm not talking about adding
spaces and so on and so forth, because you
| | 02:32 | don't want to have spaces. Space
identifies new word. So when spell-check kicks
| | 02:36 | in you don't want it to have a new
word that way. But if you feel for example
| | 02:39 | that -- let me go back over here where
you see maybe the S and because of the
| | 02:42 | way the A is shaped where it kind of
slants upwards and away from the S, it
| | 02:46 | might appear if there is too much space
between the S and the A, you can't come
| | 02:49 | here basically and choose to have a
negative value for example -5 and see how
| | 02:54 | the A kind of scooches closer towards
the S just to show you I'm going to do
| | 02:59 | -50 to make it a little bit more
apparent to what's happening. You can see how
| | 03:01 | now there is less space between the S and the A.
| | 03:03 | So that's what Kerning does. The
keyboard shortcut for Kerning is hold down the
| | 03:07 | Option key on your keyboard or if you
are on a Windows machine, hold down the
| | 03:10 | Alt key and then use the left and
right arrows in the keyboard and that
| | 03:13 | basically goes ahead and adjust the
amount of Kerning, 20 settings at a time
| | 03:16 | and you can go ahead and you do that.
| | 03:18 | We can change it whole back here to 0
as well. One thing I just want to point
| | 03:21 | out is if you choose your text over
here, there is an option here other than
| | 03:25 | Auto. Something called Optical.
Optical is actually a really cool setting. It
| | 03:29 | is a technology that exists inside
of Illustrator. It actually came from
| | 03:32 | InDesign. This is very powerful text
engine. The Optical setting basically
| | 03:36 | looks at the letterforms and the shapes
of the letters based on every font, and
| | 03:39 | automatically adjusts to even out the
space between each of the characters. So
| | 03:43 | it's actually really cool setting, I
use it often. I think of it as a powerful
| | 03:47 | automatic Kerning that does
a really good job on that.
| | 03:49 | What's great about Optical Kerning
is that as you change a typeface, the
| | 03:52 | Kerning values will update as necessary.
By the way just pointing out, if I put
| | 03:56 | my cursor now between the S and the A,
I see the value -36 that appears in
| | 04:00 | parenthesis. So if the value is in
parenthesis that means that's a setting that
| | 04:04 | Illustrator defined not me as a user.
So when I did basically choose the
| | 04:08 | Optical Kerning Adobe Illustrator
decided that based on the way that the
| | 04:12 | characters were set and the font that
was used that will be best if we do -36
| | 04:16 | for Kerning at that particular point.
| | 04:18 | So again let me switch this through.
You can of course overwrite it by simply
| | 04:20 | now by typing a new value if you wanted
to, but that's a setting that's there.
| | 04:24 | This setting over here is leading.
Leading is the amount of space that appears
| | 04:27 | between one line to the next. So the
amount of space, the distance between the
| | 04:31 | baselines of each line of text. Now
in this case here we only have only one
| | 04:34 | line of text, so the Leading setting
won't mean much, but if you have let's say
| | 04:37 | paragraph text like I have over here
by adjusting, let's say I select this
| | 04:42 | entire paragraph here. I just triple-
clicked in the paragraph to select it. If
| | 04:45 | I increase the Leading, you can see
that the amount of spacing between those
| | 04:48 | lines has increased as well.
| | 04:50 | So that's one thing. It is also by the
way in Auto Setting, which automatically
| | 04:53 | figures out what the leading or the
amount of space between those lines should
| | 04:56 | be. You have the ability to use
the Scaling options; you can either
| | 04:59 | horizontally or vertically scale your
text if you wanted to do that. I don't
| | 05:02 | suggest it unless you really need to
squash text for a certain way. By the way
| | 05:06 | to do that we just simply to stretch it
this way if you want it to. Not much of
| | 05:09 | a difference in how that works.
| | 05:11 | Baseline Shift is useful for many
different things. You basically have the
| | 05:14 | ability to select any character and
then adjust the Baseline Shift either above
| | 05:17 | the Baseline or beneath the Baseline.
That could be helpful when you have any
| | 05:21 | superscripts or subscripts so on and
so forth. Many different types of type
| | 05:24 | treatments that you could use.
| | 05:26 | There is also a cool little feature
inside of Illustrator and it allows you to
| | 05:29 | rotate a single character within a text
string. It's useful sometimes when you
| | 05:33 | want to have something sideways. I
can't imagine something just being
| | 05:36 | arbitrarily rotated, but one thing
that's readily apparent when you use this
| | 05:39 | setting is that you need to really
think about the Kerning of how the other
| | 05:42 | letters play into that when that happens.
| | 05:44 | Illustrator also has an underlying
feature as well. A really cool feature here,
| | 05:48 | which I'll point, before we close out
on working with the Character Settings is
| | 05:51 | the Language Settings. So I could
actually specify that this particular text is
| | 05:54 | a certain language.
Illustrator's Spell check feature is actually
| | 05:58 | multi-lingual. So what I could do is I
could run a single spell check and if I
| | 06:02 | told Illustrator, hey, this text is
Spanish, it will actually spell check this
| | 06:05 | word in Spanish. So that's really great
though, because you can actually select
| | 06:09 | an individual word in a paragraph,
and say to Illustrator, that word is a
| | 06:13 | different language.
| | 06:13 | If you are doing let's say a
children's book and Casa means house, you can
| | 06:17 | actually hide the word Casa and change
that to Spanish and then when you run a
| | 06:20 | spell check, you don't get a spell
check error on the word Casa, because it's
| | 06:23 | spell checking the word Casa in
Spanish, but everything else in English.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying basic paragraph settings| 00:00 | Now that we understand the character
settings, let's take a look at some of the
| | 00:02 | paragraph settings offered inside of
Illustrator. Again I'm going to go the
| | 00:06 | Window menu here, I'm going to go
down to where it says, Type. I'm going to
| | 00:08 | open up my Paragraph panel, not the
Paragraph Styles. We will do that later. We
| | 00:12 | will talk about paragraph right now.
| | 00:14 | So these are the paragraph settings.
Once again there are many options here. I
| | 00:17 | can either choose this setting up here
for Hide Options as we work or whenever
| | 00:21 | you see this little up and down arrows
inside of the title of any particular
| | 00:24 | tab here. When you click on that
that can simply go ahead and turn those
| | 00:27 | settings or toggle between them as well.
| | 00:29 | So I'm just going to make sure that
all the settings here are visible. So I'm
| | 00:32 | going to go ahead and click on this
paragraph right here. You can see that this
| | 00:35 | allows me to determine how my
paragraph is aligned left, center, right.
| | 00:41 | Justified settings mean that that left
and the right are all going to be the
| | 00:44 | same in a straight line. We will talk
more about some of the nuances of those
| | 00:48 | settings as well.
| | 00:49 | This basically determines what the
last line of the paragraph would be, so
| | 00:52 | these are all justified settings. By
this we mean justified last line is
| | 00:55 | aligned left, this one a justified
last line is centered, last line is right
| | 00:59 | and here all lines are justified as
well. Now we notice over here that these
| | 01:03 | paragraphs all run into each other.
Many times in a book when you have lots of
| | 01:06 | paragraphs, each paragraph has a
little indent, right the first line is indented.
| | 01:10 | So if you look over here I see that
this setting over here is called First-line
| | 01:13 | indent by adjusting this particular
setting here, you can see that the
| | 01:17 | beginning of all the particular
paragraphs are now indented, which makes it a
| | 01:20 | little bit easier on the eye to
identify where those paragraphs begin.
| | 01:23 | I also have a setting here called
Space before. Space before basically
| | 01:28 | automatically adds spaces before the
beginning of each paragraph and again
| | 01:32 | Illustrator identifies a paragraph as a
hard Return. So if you have a Return or
| | 01:36 | you press the Enter on a particular keyboard,
that means, okay start with a new paragraph.
| | 01:40 | There is also a setting for a Space
after paragraph, you may want to be able to
| | 01:44 | have some paragraphs that have Space
before, some of them may have Space after,
| | 01:47 | so on and so forth. Let me get into
more complex usage for topography we will
| | 01:51 | see where those would make sense to do so.
| | 01:53 | There is also by the way the ability
to just have left and right indents for
| | 01:56 | your particular text as well. So for
example, if I thought this was some kind
| | 01:59 | of a quote, I could take this
paragraph and maybe have an indent in this
| | 02:03 | particular paragraph here this way
and we will also do, let's say a right
| | 02:06 | indent this way as well. Of course the
text because this area text will just
| | 02:10 | simply re-flow in that particular area.
| | 02:12 | So those are few of the settings that
are available here. I'm going to point
| | 02:15 | out -- by the way if you look to the
far right here you see how the text even
| | 02:18 | though it's set to be justified,
doesn't really look like it's that straight
| | 02:21 | and that's because there are commas
and hyphens and so on and so forth. Well
| | 02:25 | there is a setting inside of
Illustrator, if you go to the fly out menu over
| | 02:27 | here, over the Paragraph panel,
something called a Roman Hanging Punctuation.
| | 02:31 | When you choose that particular setting,
it will basically align your text so
| | 02:34 | that the punctuation actually hangs
out beyond the margin. So the optical
| | 02:38 | illusion basically is that you have a
visual straight line as opposed to before
| | 02:42 | where we really justified but
didn't look that way. So that might be an
| | 02:45 | interesting setting that you might
want to use for some of your paragraphs.
| | 02:47 | Another important paragraph setting
that's here, if you go to that fly out menu
| | 02:50 | once again, is something called the
Adobe Single-line Composer versus the Adobe
| | 02:55 | Every-line Composer. This is
important to know. The Single-line Composer
| | 02:58 | basically looks at each line as it sets
the type, tries to figure out how many
| | 03:02 | words are in that line, how many words
fit in that line, where the hyphenation
| | 03:05 | might fall and then it puts the
words on each line after that.
| | 03:08 | However, if you use the Adobe Every-
line Composer, what Illustrator tries to do
| | 03:12 | is that even after it flowed entire
paragraph of text, if it sees there are
| | 03:16 | some things that, like for example,
this line here let's say its a very loose
| | 03:19 | line, it has lots of space in between
each of the words. So if there maybe
| | 03:22 | better ways to attribute that, the Every
-line Composer will do a better job of
| | 03:25 | avoiding those loose lines. So I can
do that simply by clicking on this and
| | 03:29 | choosing the Every-line Composer and
the text now re-flows and I don't see that
| | 03:32 | loose line anymore.
| | 03:33 | It does a nice job and I'm making it
happen but it also means that text would
| | 03:36 | re-flow as you are typing, which can be
disconcerting to some people as you are
| | 03:39 | working. It's something to know,
you might want to test it out for the
| | 03:42 | different paragraphs you are working on.
| | 03:43 | So now you know how to apply
settings to the character level and to the
| | 03:46 | paragraph level inside of Illustrator,
let's talk a little bit more though
| | 03:50 | about working with area text, because
as we see over here, the area text itself
| | 03:54 | is basically encompassed within a
certain frame and there maybe times when you
| | 03:57 | want the text to flow from one frame
into another frame. In the next movie we
| | 04:01 | will discuss how that's
done inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating text threads| 00:00 | So we know that area text lives
inside of some kind of a frame. The text
| | 00:04 | basically flows to fill the shape of
that frame. Now sometimes you may have a
| | 00:08 | lot of text and you want to have that
text flow, not just inside of one frame
| | 00:11 | but maybe along several frames. In an
application like Quark for example, you
| | 00:15 | have a concept of a text box and you
can link several text box together to have
| | 00:20 | one story flow across those text boxes.
| | 00:23 | In InDesign, the same concept applies
using multiple text frames. When you have
| | 00:27 | a single story and you then flow that
story across multiple text frames that is
| | 00:32 | referred to as a thread of text. So
let's explore how we create text threads
| | 00:36 | here inside of Illustrator. We are
going to start off simply by talking about
| | 00:40 | creating an empty text thread and then
what we will do is we will deal with the
| | 00:43 | actual text that we have in this
particular document right here.
| | 00:45 | I'm just going to move over here, use
the Hand Grabber tool to just basically
| | 00:49 | move to this side of the screen here.
Let's start with just some blank area
| | 00:51 | here. I'm going to take this regular
Type tool and click and drag to create a
| | 00:56 | text frame like we have done in the
past before I get the blinking cursor,
| | 00:59 | that's fine.
| | 01:00 | If I switched to my regular Selection
tool, I see that I have the handles on
| | 01:04 | the corners, which is something that
I see because I had the bounding box
| | 01:06 | turned on. But I also have a box on
the upper left hand corner here and a box
| | 01:10 | in the lower right hand corner. I
would like to call these things little big
| | 01:13 | boxes because they are bigger than the
corner handles that you would find on
| | 01:17 | the bounding box. But there are
still little and that's where they are.
| | 01:20 | So what are the uses for these boxes?
Well, the real names for these boxes here
| | 01:24 | are Ports. In fact, this one is called
the In Port; this one is called the Out
| | 01:28 | Port. Text flows into a frame,
through its In Port and then flows out of a
| | 01:32 | frame through its Out Port. Now just
to show you how you can manage a text
| | 01:36 | thread, I can take my regular
Selection tool and click on that particular Out
| | 01:40 | Port, that's right here. You
see this loaded gun icon appears.
| | 01:44 | If I click and drag now to draw a
second text frame, my result is a thread of
| | 01:49 | text. So if I now select both of
these here, you will see that I have two
| | 01:52 | frames and the two frames are connected
here and this is what I call a thread.
| | 01:57 | So let's talk about now how you apply
that with text itself inside of it and
| | 02:01 | then we will see how that works. We
will also take a little closer look at the
| | 02:03 | icons that appear in this particular
corner. So we don't want to get in any
| | 02:07 | situation where we have just empty
objects lying around our screen. I'll go
| | 02:10 | ahead and I'll delete those. I move
it back to this part over here and I'm
| | 02:13 | going to let's say, decide that I want
to maybe have two columns of text here
| | 02:17 | and I don't want to use the Column
feature that you have for area text because
| | 02:19 | maybe I want the columns to be uneven in width.
| | 02:22 | So, for example, I have one column
here like this. Now if I look over here in
| | 02:25 | the top left I have that In Port, but
that In Port itself right now has no fill
| | 02:30 | inside of it. In fact, just to make
things little bit easier to see, I'm going
| | 02:32 | to go to the View menu and Hide the
bounding box. This really can focus on just
| | 02:36 | the actual ports that appear here.
| | 02:38 | So notice that there is no icon here,
it's empty, it's hollow. Whenever you see
| | 02:42 | an empty In Port, that is indicative
to you that my text thread, or where my
| | 02:46 | story begins, starts right here. There
is no text that comes before this. This
| | 02:50 | is where the text actually starts in
my thread. Now if I go to the Out Port
| | 02:54 | here, I see there is a red plus sign.
The red plus sign indicates to me that
| | 02:57 | there is over set text or right now
there is more text that belongs to this
| | 03:01 | story but the text frame itself is not
big enough to hold it so right now that
| | 03:04 | text is not visible anywhere.
| | 03:06 | So what I can do is create now another
frame and then flow the text now from
| | 03:10 | this frame into that frame and I'll do
that by just taking my regular Selection
| | 03:12 | tool. I'll click on that Out Port,
which currently has a red plus sign, I get
| | 03:17 | this loaded gun icon, I click and
drag to draw a new frame and my text now
| | 03:20 | flows from this frame into this frame.
| | 03:22 | Now let's take a look at the In Port on
this frame. Notice that it's not empty
| | 03:25 | anymore, it has an arrow. That arrow
means to me that this text doesn't start
| | 03:29 | here, it actually flows in from another
source, that other source as I see from
| | 03:33 | the connecting line is this Out Port
and before there is a red plus sign, now
| | 03:37 | there is an arrow here, which means
that there is text now flowing out of this
| | 03:40 | frame, and going to this one.
| | 03:42 | If I go ahead now and I click on this
plus sign, I draw yet now another one; I
| | 03:45 | have created now yet another thread. In
fact, what I'm going to do is I'm going
| | 03:48 | to move over just a little bit more, I
want to make sure that all the text is
| | 03:50 | placed there. So notice now as I draw
my frame that the Out Port that's over
| | 03:55 | here is now empty. That means that
there is no more text involved at all in
| | 03:58 | this particular story. So using the
icons here that appear inside of the ports,
| | 04:03 | you can very quickly identify where
your particular thread begins, where it
| | 04:07 | ends and how it moves.
| | 04:08 | What's great about the way that
Illustrator works with threads though is that I
| | 04:11 | can easily manipulate these threads.
If I decide that this frame over here, I
| | 04:14 | want to get rid of it, I could simply
select it and hit the Delete key on my
| | 04:17 | keyboard and the text automatically
reconnects itself over here as if that
| | 04:21 | never existed. If I decide that I want
to now add a new frame right over here
| | 04:25 | as well, I could click over here on
the Out Port, even though it's currently
| | 04:28 | connected to this frame here, I can
click here, get that same loaded gun, click
| | 04:32 | out and that gets inserted inside of that
text thread as if I just inserted it there.
| | 04:37 | I'm just going to go ahead and delete
these particular frames here and move
| | 04:41 | back to what we had over here in this
particular document. It's important to
| | 04:43 | realize that I could also go to the
first In Port to the start of my story,
| | 04:47 | click on that and then create a frame
and then start my story one frame earlier.
| | 04:52 | So there is really no limit to how you
can work with these threads inside of
| | 04:54 | Illustrator, in fact, I just clicked
with the loaded gun and made another frame
| | 04:57 | there. But you can see very easily that
working with threads, you can take one
| | 05:01 | story and then have it
flow across multiple frames.
| | 05:04 | What's great about Illustrator also is
that in this particular case, I can also
| | 05:08 | have text that flows between different
shapes of frames. So I could have text
| | 05:11 | that goes from a rectangular frame
into a circular frame and elsewhere. In
| | 05:16 | fact, I'll show you now that inside of
Illustrator there is really one other
| | 05:19 | type of text object, which we haven't
discussed yet, and that's the ability to
| | 05:23 | actually put text along the path. So
in the next movie we will see how that works.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating text on open paths| 00:00 | Many designs call for placing text
along a path. So let's explore how that's
| | 00:04 | done inside of Illustrator and I want
to point out that one of the reasons why
| | 00:07 | we first explored the different
types of text inside of Illustrator, for
| | 00:10 | example, Point Text and Area Text, is
because of the way that Path Text works
| | 00:15 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:17 | So I'm going to start off just by
creating a regular print blank document.
| | 00:20 | I'm going to leave this one be Landscape
instead of Portrait. What I'm going to start
| | 00:24 | off by doing is just create a
path first. I'm going to use my Pen tool
| | 00:27 | here, say where we kind of did before,
I'll just click and drag let's say I
| | 00:29 | want to create some kind of a curved
path, click and drag, and now I have this
| | 00:33 | path that I've created.
| | 00:34 | I'm now going to go take my Type tool
that's right here and click on it. If you
| | 00:38 | click and you hold your mouse button
down, there is something here called the
| | 00:41 | Type on a Path tool, but I'm not
going to actually choose that tool, I just
| | 00:44 | want to show you there is a keyboard
shortcut that I could use to access text
| | 00:48 | on a path just by using the Type tool itself.
| | 00:50 | So I have my Type tool selected, as I
move over this path itself, notice that
| | 00:54 | as soon as I kind of touch that Open
Path, Illustrator automatically identifies
| | 00:58 | the fact that it's a path and it will
let me put the text directly on a path
| | 01:01 | that way. So I'm just going to click
right about over here. And I'll get a
| | 01:05 | blinking cursor and now I can start
putting typing there. Let's say I do,
| | 01:09 | SURFING IS FUN!
| | 01:11 | So now what I'm going to do is I'm
going to take my text. I'm going to scale
| | 01:14 | that text to be a little bit bigger. By
the way instead of having to go to the
| | 01:18 | menu over here and change the font size
I'll use a keyboard shortcut. I'm going
| | 01:21 | to hold down the Command+Shift+>. It's
actually the period but I like to look
| | 01:27 | it as a greater than sign, because it's easier.
That means that I'm making my type bigger.
| | 01:31 | If you're on a Windows computer it
will be Ctrl+Shift+> and each time you tap
| | 01:35 | that key, it enlarges your text two
points at a time. Just to let you know if
| | 01:39 | you want to make your text smaller,
again the same keyboard shortcut,
| | 01:42 | Command+Shift or Ctrl+Shift, and
then use the < sign or the comma on your
| | 01:46 | keyboard and that goes ahead to make
your text size smaller, two points at a time.
| | 01:50 | So I'm just going to make a little
bit bigger so that we can see the text
| | 01:51 | there, and let's explore exactly what
text in a path really is. I'm going to
| | 01:56 | switch over to my Direct Selection
tool and you'll note that there are these
| | 02:00 | interesting little user interface
elements that now appear on this particular path.
| | 02:03 | Now the path itself by the way has
lost its appearance. Whenever you take a
| | 02:07 | regular path and you put text on it
and then turn that into a Path Text
| | 02:10 | element. The Stroke Attribute that was
on it before, which is a regular 1-point
| | 02:14 | Black Stroke. Now the Stroke is set to None.
| | 02:17 | I could by the way just click on that
path now and manually add a Stroke to it
| | 02:20 | again if I wanted to. By just letting
you know that's what happens and you
| | 02:23 | automatically put that particular setting on it.
| | 02:25 | So I have this element here if I click
on my text over here, I see there are a
| | 02:29 | couple of elements here. Let's explore
them. So first of all I see a vertical
| | 02:32 | line here. I see one over here and I
see one here as well. Then as you'll see
| | 02:37 | the boxes that appear here. Remember
those boxes, we saw them in Area Text.
| | 02:41 | Well, here's a little pointer to
understand exactly what's happening when you
| | 02:45 | create text in a path inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:47 | We discussed before that when you
have just regular Point Text, there is
| | 02:51 | nothing that contains or holds that
text. It's simply a regular anchor point
| | 02:55 | that has text, think of it like
attached to it, and then as you continue to
| | 02:58 | type that texturing just keeps running
and running and running until you press Enter.
| | 03:02 | There is nothing that constrains or
holds that particular content. However,
| | 03:06 | when you create Area Text you'll have
a shape, which contains that particular
| | 03:09 | text inside of it and the text re-
flows inside of that shape. Well, this
| | 03:14 | vertical line over here and this one
that's also here represent the start and
| | 03:19 | end points of where the text on a path goes.
| | 03:21 | In reality, Path Text is really close
to what Area Text is. Even though my path
| | 03:27 | begins here and ends here, depending on
where my start and end points are, are
| | 03:32 | basically the frame that holds that
particular text. So just to show you by the
| | 03:35 | way, if I were to take let's say my
cursor, just click on this end point and
| | 03:39 | drag it so that it's around over here.
| | 03:41 | I'm telling Illustrator that I only
want text to appear on the path and start
| | 03:45 | it over here at the start point and
end it over here. Even though my path
| | 03:49 | itself is longer and can contain all
the text, I'm basically allowing the text
| | 03:53 | to only live within a certain area on
that particular text path. So again it's
| | 03:58 | just closer to the way that the
Area Text object kind of works.
| | 04:01 | So I'll go ahead and I'll just expand
this way here. Let's say I want my text
| | 04:05 | to end here and maybe I wanted to
start say back over here. Now right now my
| | 04:10 | text is actually aligned left, but if
I were to go to my Paragraph Setting I
| | 04:13 | align it to the center, it would now
be centered not on the path but between
| | 04:18 | the start point and the end point,
and if I do align right, it basically
| | 04:22 | aligned to the right where that
point is. So again, it's something to pay
| | 04:24 | attention to when you think
about how you align your text there.
| | 04:27 | Now if you look over here there is one
more align here and it's kind of like a
| | 04:30 | little inverted T icon. When you click
on that that allows you to actually move
| | 04:34 | the entire text element including where
the start and the end points are. When
| | 04:38 | I click on this over here, the start
point and the end point are moving all the
| | 04:42 | text along that particular path.
| | 04:45 | Now right now my text is on the top of
the path, but watch what happens when I
| | 04:47 | move my cursor and I drag that icon
down, down, down to the other side of the
| | 04:51 | path. See, now my text flips to the
other side of the path, and again I could
| | 04:56 | move it along this way. So here's
how to control my text in a path.
| | 04:59 | The reason why I'm showing this to
you right now is this is the way that
| | 05:02 | Illustrator works with type on a path
on open paths. But when we start dealing
| | 05:06 | with closed paths, like for example,
ovals or rectangles, there are a few other
| | 05:10 | things we need to watch out for.
| | 05:12 | So now that we have this in place,
let's take a look at what text on paths look
| | 05:15 | like when dealing with closed paths.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating text on closed paths| 00:00 | So let's take the same concept that
we've learned for text in a path with open
| | 00:03 | paths, and now apply to close
paths and in a minute you'll what's the
| | 00:06 | difference is. I'm going to start off
again on a blank document. I'm just going
| | 00:09 | to draw out a circle. So we want to put
text on a circle. So I'm going to take
| | 00:13 | my Type tool here. Now here's the difference
where I need to use a keyboard shortcut.
| | 00:16 | As I move my Type tool closer to this
object, see I get this little parentheses
| | 00:21 | that appear around it. Well, that means
that if I click now it will convert the
| | 00:24 | shape to a frame for area text and the
text will now flow inside a particular
| | 00:29 | shape. I don't want that. I want a
text to basically travel along the path,
| | 00:34 | outside of the circle.
| | 00:35 | So to do them I'm going to hold down my
Option key or my Alt key. See that now
| | 00:38 | the icon changes to the Path Text tool.
Now when I go ahead and I click, of
| | 00:42 | course, that's happened. When I clicked
over here, my cursor is all the way on
| | 00:46 | the other side. Why did that happen?
Well, let's take a look for a minute.
| | 00:49 | I'm actually going to press Undo for a
second and maybe we want our text to be
| | 00:52 | at the top of the circle. So I hold
down the Option key and I'll click once
| | 00:55 | over here and now I see my cursor is
on the bottom. We'll just type in for a
| | 00:58 | second here, same thing like before,
Surfing is Fun! Why is it down here on the
| | 01:04 | bottom? Well, my paragraph text right
now is aligned towards the center and
| | 01:08 | remember what happened, went ahead and
I clicked on the path text with an open
| | 01:11 | path, I have basically a start and the
end point. Let's see where those start
| | 01:15 | and end points are now.
| | 01:17 | I'm going to use my Direct Selection
tool and take a look at that where I
| | 01:20 | clicked is where I basically define
where my start point is, and because a
| | 01:24 | circle is a closed path, there is no
end; the end basically is back wherever
| | 01:29 | the start is, right. So where is the
exact center between the start point and
| | 01:33 | the end point all the way down here?
| | 01:35 | So this is the reason why
Illustrator puts the text here on the bottom. I
| | 01:39 | wanted to make sure that we first talk
about how we put text on open path first
| | 01:42 | to get that concept down. Now
basically we can go ahead and we could see why
| | 01:46 | Illustrator is putting it down here. I
could use this inverted T icon over here
| | 01:50 | to click and drag and reposition this
at the top of the circle if I wanted to.
| | 01:54 | But now again it's important to
realize the start and the end point is down
| | 01:57 | here. I could, of course, also just
adjust the starting and the end points
| | 02:00 | itself and adjust it that way.
| | 02:02 | So, for example, let's highlight the
text here. It's kind of addressed just one
| | 02:06 | of these here, for example, and say
the start point is here and the end point
| | 02:10 | is here. That way the text will be
centered over the top here. So that's one
| | 02:14 | thing that I could do. I could also by
the way flip my text to the inside of my
| | 02:18 | circle here just by dragging
underneath and moving it that way. So that's how
| | 02:21 | you would basically move a text
along the path in this regard.
| | 02:26 | So let's just leave it as it is right
now. Let me press Undo to go back to
| | 02:28 | where it was. Let's scroll back over
here. I want to cover one other thing,
| | 02:32 | which people do often, they want to be
able to put text on the outside and also
| | 02:36 | on the bottom of a particular circle
to the top and the bottom of the circle.
| | 02:39 | In Illustrator there is no one way to
do that. You need to actually create a
| | 02:43 | copy of this. What I'm going to do is
I'm going to take my regular Selection
| | 02:46 | tool, take this, choose Edit and then
choose Copy. Then I'll choose another
| | 02:51 | setting here called Paste in Front. If
I would just choose Paste, it would make
| | 02:54 | it duplicate but it wouldn't
put in the exact same place.
| | 02:57 | Paste in Front means it's actually
pasting a copy or creating a clone like this
| | 03:00 | as you can say this particular object
right in front of it. So now I have two
| | 03:03 | of them. On the second one I could
actually take this, maybe move it down here
| | 03:08 | to the bottom, flip it to the inside
of the path and then type, maybe here,
| | 03:14 | Hawaii USA. So maybe I
can do something that way.
| | 03:18 | If I wanted to actually extend it out
beyond the edge of the circle though, how
| | 03:21 | would I do that? Well, I would change
the baseline shifts. What I'll do is I'll
| | 03:24 | actually take my Type tool, select a
text here, and then I could either go to
| | 03:28 | the Character panel and adjust my
baseline shift here or instead I'm going to
| | 03:32 | use the keyboard shortcut for
adjusting the baseline shift of text. That's
| | 03:36 | going to be the Option+Shift+Down
Arrow; if you're on a PC, that will be
| | 03:40 | Alt+Shift+Down Arrow.
| | 03:42 | That will now adjust the baseline
shift to extend that towards the outside of
| | 03:46 | the circle. So now I've created the
effect and the look that I wanted. I have
| | 03:49 | now Surfing is Fun! on top, Hawaii USA
in the bottom, but remember I need two
| | 03:53 | shapes to make that happen
here inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting text to outlines| 00:00 | Back in the previous chapter, you
saw that I had the letter B that was
| | 00:03 | converted to outlines, how did I do
that? Well, it's very simple. Anytime you
| | 00:07 | have any text object whatsoever inside
of Illustrator, you can convert it into
| | 00:11 | just regular editable anchor points
that you can work with. This is perfect if
| | 00:15 | you want to make small modifications
to text or create logos and so on and so
| | 00:19 | forth. Let me show you how that's done.
| | 00:20 | I'll start off just by creating a
regular Point Text Object. Let me type-in,
| | 00:24 | for example, the name of the company
here called GROUNDSWELL. What I'll do is
| | 00:29 | I'll simply bring this into the middle
of the page; maybe I'll make it a bit
| | 00:31 | bigger. Again, I'm using Command+Shift+>
or Ctrl+Shift+> to do that. Maybe I'll
| | 00:36 | choose the typeface little bit more
bold. Let's say something like that.
| | 00:40 | Maybe now I want to make some kind of
change to this particular text. I want to
| | 00:43 | make some kind of modifications to it.
Well, what I can do is I can go over to
| | 00:47 | the Type menu and choose this setting
here called Create Outlines. When I do
| | 00:51 | that, notice that I now see anchor
points, it's no longer a text object.
| | 00:54 | I can't even spell-check on it. It's as
if I had drawn these with the Pen tool, or
| | 00:57 | it's regular objects there. They are
pictures; they are not text anymore.
| | 01:01 | So if I use my Direct Selection tool,
for example, and I go here and I just
| | 01:05 | highlight maybe the few anchor points
at the top of this U, I could extend it
| | 01:08 | that way, for example. Maybe I'll
come over here and I'll take this L, for
| | 01:12 | example, both of these shapes here;
move them up just a little bit like this
| | 01:16 | and I'll take the edges of this E here
and I'll drag it out this way. And maybe
| | 01:23 | I'll go ahead and make some other
changes, for example, this N can kind of be
| | 01:26 | extended down this way.
| | 01:28 | If I wanted to get more involved, we
already now know how to use the Editing
| | 01:31 | tools inside of Illustrator to add
anchor points and modify the anchor points
| | 01:34 | and convert anchor points from one to
another so on and so forth. Now that you
| | 01:38 | have that capability you can really
take any shape at all or any text object
| | 01:42 | for that matter, convert it to
Outlines and do as you wish with them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Making SelectionsUsing the basic selection tools| 00:00 | Back in Chapter 01 where we discussed
key Illustrator concepts, we covered
| | 00:04 | something called Selections. Now
let's focus on exactly how Selections work
| | 00:09 | when you're using Illustrator.
| | 00:10 | For this chapter, I'm actually going to
use this file called making_selections.
| | 00:14 | So if you have access to the
exercise files, go ahead and open that file.
| | 00:17 | Selecting things inside of
Illustrator is probably more important than even
| | 00:20 | using any of the Drawing tools. Without
knowing how to select things, it's very
| | 00:24 | difficult for you to edit just
about any piece of artwork inside of
| | 00:27 | Illustrator. Day in and day out inside
of Illustrator you'll be using the two
| | 00:31 | main selection tools, the regular
Selection tool or the Black Arrow and Direct
| | 00:35 | Selection tool or the White Arrow.
| | 00:37 | In reality, there is a third Selection
tool here, if I press and hold down the
| | 00:40 | mouse button on the Direct Selection
tool I'll see this something here called
| | 00:44 | the Group Selection tool. We'll talk
about that in a moment and we'll see that
| | 00:47 | really it's not necessary to
actually physically choose that tool.
| | 00:50 | So first let's do a quick review of
exactly differences between the Selection
| | 00:54 | tool and Direct Selection tool. The
Selection tool allows me to select entire
| | 00:58 | objects and move them around as a
whole. As you can see over here, this is
| | 01:02 | actually a group of several different
shapes. If I use the Direct Selection
| | 01:06 | tool, I can click on parts of an
object, notice here that the line that's
| | 01:09 | staying behind that allows me to dive
into parts of an object or I can click on
| | 01:14 | individual anchor points with Direct
Selection tool and move around the anchor
| | 01:17 | point itself or the Control
Handle for that anchor point.
| | 01:21 | Additionally, if I do have the bounding
box turned on and I go to the View menu
| | 01:25 | here, and I'll choose Show Bounding
Box, then when you're using the regular
| | 01:29 | Selection tool you will always see the
bounding box when you select objects.
| | 01:34 | However, on using the Direct Selection
tool you will not see the bounding box.
| | 01:38 | When you're using Illustrator, the
Command key under keyboard or if you are on
| | 01:41 | a PC, the Ctrl key basically allows
you to toggle between these two selection
| | 01:46 | tools. So for example, right now I
have the Direct Selection tool Active,
| | 01:50 | simply by holding down the Command key,
it switches to the Selection tool.
| | 01:53 | Notice now the bounding box appears.
As soon as I release the Command key or
| | 01:56 | the Ctrl key then the bounding box disappears.
| | 01:59 | As you're working in Illustrator
you're constantly moving back and forth
| | 02:02 | between the Selection tools. So it's
important to know the keyboard shortcuts.
| | 02:06 | As I said, if you are using either the
Selection tools, simply hold down the
| | 02:10 | Command key to toggle between the two.
However, if you have another tool, for
| | 02:13 | example, maybe drawing a rectangle
and you realize you want to select
| | 02:16 | something, again, the Command key
brings your back to the last Selection tool
| | 02:19 | that you've used. In this case here,
the last one was the Direct Selection
| | 02:23 | tool. As soon as you release the
Command key or the Ctrl key on Windows, you're
| | 02:26 | back to drawing a rectangle.
| | 02:28 | Alternatively, you can jump direct to
these tools by pressing the V or the A
| | 02:32 | keys on your keyboard. A cute way to
remember that those are the keyboard
| | 02:35 | shortcuts is that the V is like an
inverted arrow, and the A is also like an
| | 02:40 | arrow pointing upwards.
| | 02:42 | In fact, the A is the shortcut for
the White Arrow or the Direct Selection
| | 02:46 | tool, why? Because the A has a little
hollow center inside of it, which again
| | 02:50 | some people refer to the White Arrow
as the Hollow Arrow, again it's a way to
| | 02:54 | remember that the A key is the keyboard
shortcut for Direct Selection tool and
| | 02:58 | the V key is the keyboard shortcut for
the Selection tool. So now let's take a
| | 03:01 | look at this other tool here
called the Group Selection tool.
| | 03:04 | If I go ahead now and I switch to the
Group Selection tool, and I now click on
| | 03:08 | let's say this surfboard that we
identified before that each of these
| | 03:10 | surfboards are grouped, it's actually
the shape and then the line that goes
| | 03:13 | down the middle. If I click on it,
notice that the shape itself has been
| | 03:18 | selected. If I click it second time now,
then the other objects inside of that
| | 03:22 | group are selected, and now I
can move the entire object around.
| | 03:25 | So what the Group Selection tool
allows me to do is basically target either a
| | 03:29 | part of a group, but then without
having to switch to anything else, click once
| | 03:33 | again and then simply select more
objects or items in that particular group. In
| | 03:37 | fact, it basically works according
to the hierarchy of that group. Let me explain.
| | 03:42 | Let's go back to the regular Selection
tool here for a moment and we're going
| | 03:45 | to change this file somewhat. I'm
going to basically go ahead and click and
| | 03:49 | drag to marquee select all these
surfboards. I'm not going to go to the Object
| | 03:53 | menu; I'm going to choose Group.
We'll discuss more about groups later in
| | 03:56 | Chapter 09, but for now let's just
go ahead and make a group out of this.
| | 04:00 | I'll also go ahead here and select all
these bodysuits and group them as well.
| | 04:03 | I'll use the keyboard shortcut here,
Command+G or Ctrl+G. I'll do the same
| | 04:08 | thing for all the flip-flops down here
on the bottom, group those as well. Now
| | 04:13 | what I'll do is I'll select all of
these objects and I'll group them, again,
| | 04:17 | pressing the keyboard
shortcut Command+G or Ctrl+G.
| | 04:20 | So now if I use my regular Selection
tool and I click on even this-this one
| | 04:24 | surfboard, this surfboard is not only
within a group on its own, but it also is
| | 04:29 | part of an overall group here, and
additionally belongs inside of group with
| | 04:33 | all these objects together. Remember
that the Selection tool itself does not
| | 04:36 | really have the ability to go into a
group, so it automatically selects the
| | 04:40 | topmost group, which is all these objects.
| | 04:43 | So if I wanted to just adjust something
within this surfboard alone, using the
| | 04:47 | Selection tool that would not be
possible. I'm going to go ahead and de-select
| | 04:50 | by clicking elsewhere. I'm now going to
use the regular Direct Selection tool.
| | 04:54 | I can click and I can go ahead and I
can move this-this part of the group
| | 04:57 | itself of that particular surfboard,
but I can't really move the entire
| | 05:00 | surfboard on its own.
| | 05:01 | So here's where the Group Selection
tool comes into play. When I use the Group
| | 05:05 | Selection tool, and I'll de-select
over here, I can click once to select that
| | 05:08 | piece of surfboard inside of that
group, click again and it now selects the
| | 05:13 | group that that belongs into. If I look
over here I see that I've now selected
| | 05:16 | or targeted that group.
| | 05:18 | Click now another time, and now all
the surfboards in that first level with
| | 05:22 | that group becomes selected. Click
now again and now all the other objects
| | 05:26 | become selected. So each successive
click with the Group Selection tool selects
| | 05:30 | one group higher in my
hierarchy, in my particular file.
| | 05:34 | In reality, there is no need to
actually use the Group Selection tool. Because
| | 05:39 | there is a keyboard shortcut that
allows us to access that. I'll switch back to
| | 05:42 | the regular Direct Selection tool. I'll
de-select everything. If I decide that
| | 05:46 | I want to click the surfboard here,
and I want to adjust the surfboard but I
| | 05:50 | really now need to select the group
because I need to have the line moving that
| | 05:53 | as well, I'll hold down the Option
key on my keyboard; I'm on a Mac but if
| | 05:57 | you're on a PC, hold down the Alt key,
and then click again. This is the same
| | 06:00 | thing right now. You can see that when
I hold down the Option key or the Alt
| | 06:03 | key, then a plus (+) sign appears,
which means that now Illustrator is toggling
| | 06:07 | to the Group Selection tool.
| | 06:08 | So it has the behavior of the Group
Selection tool, basically, that's now
| | 06:11 | built-in to this Direct Selection
tool itself. If I Option+Click again, now
| | 06:17 | this entire group becomes selected. I
can move these around individually. I'll
| | 06:21 | press Undo. Again, Option+Click one
more time and now all of them become selected.
| | 06:25 | So now basically when I'm working
inside of Illustrator, I'll be using a
| | 06:28 | combination of the regular Selection
tool to select entire groups or if I want
| | 06:32 | to select parts of the group, I'll use
a Direct Selection tool. There is the
| | 06:35 | keyboard shortcut here, simply go ahead
and click on this object if I wanted to
| | 06:39 | select the entire group, I would Option+
Click with that particular tool to make
| | 06:42 | that particular thing happen.
| | 06:43 | One great thing also about Isolation
mode is that there are certain things you
| | 06:46 | might be able to do directly with the
regular Selection tool at all times. For
| | 06:50 | example, in this case if I did want to
edit just the surfboard itself, I can
| | 06:55 | kind of go the exact reverse. If I
basically click right now, I'm selecting
| | 06:59 | everything. I want to work with just
the surfboards, I double-click on the
| | 07:02 | surfboards and now I notice over here
I'm able to isolate just this group.
| | 07:07 | Click again, now this group becomes
isolated; click again, this group becomes
| | 07:11 | isolated; click again, now I've gotten
directly into this group itself and I
| | 07:15 | can't move this shape around without
moving this particular line around as
| | 07:19 | well. I'm now inside of that group. I
haven't left that particular Selection
| | 07:23 | tool, but I basically have done the reverse.
| | 07:25 | If I were to use a Direct Selection
tool, I can just click once and grab that
| | 07:28 | surfboard and move it. With the
Selection tool, I can use Isolation mode to
| | 07:32 | start off with selecting everything
and then drill down directly into that
| | 07:35 | particular group. So I'm just going to
go ahead and press Undo. I'm going to
| | 07:38 | double-click here outside of the
group. Now I have exited Isolation mode.
| | 07:42 | That's a basic understanding of
Selection tools inside of Illustrator.
| | 07:45 | Now let's focus on using some of the
other ways that you can select objects,
| | 07:49 | besides these particular Selection tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Magic Wand and Lasso tools| 00:00 | If you look a closer look at the
toolbar inside of Illustrator, you will notice
| | 00:03 | that the tools are put together in
these groups, like these four tools are
| | 00:06 | grouped together, then you have these
eight tools grouped together. Those aren't
| | 00:10 | arbitrary groups. The User Interface
team at Adobe tries to put the tools that
| | 00:15 | are basically related to each
other together in the same grouping.
| | 00:17 | Now until this point we have discussed
these selection tools here, which are
| | 00:21 | the Regular Selection tool and the
Direct Selection tool and also its little
| | 00:24 | sibling, the Group Selection tool.
But now let's talk about these other two
| | 00:27 | remaining selection tools, the Magic
Wand tool and also the Lasso tool. In
| | 00:31 | fact, I'm going to use the same file
that I was working on before, which is
| | 00:35 | basically this making_selections file,
and this is the one where we actually
| | 00:38 | created this overall group that's right here.
| | 00:39 | I'm going to come here to my Regular
Lasso tool here. If you wanted to select
| | 00:44 | just individual objects, for example,
I wanted to select maybe this surfboard
| | 00:47 | here and this particular body shape
right over here. I would have a difficult
| | 00:51 | time in a group doing that because I
have to use my Regular Group Selection
| | 00:55 | tool to first, basically, select this
group, and using the Option key to select
| | 00:58 | this group. Hold down the Shift key
and I'm also holding down the Option and
| | 01:01 | the Shift keys together; on
PC that will be Alt and Shift.
| | 01:04 | Then I'm adding now an additional
object to my selection as well. But there are
| | 01:08 | times when you want to select things
that are not necessarily in the same area.
| | 01:12 | Remember that there is a method of
selecting called Marquee Selecting. That
| | 01:15 | basically allows to click and drag,
draw a rectangle, and then anything in that
| | 01:18 | area becomes selected. But now if I
do that, yes I get this shape and this
| | 01:22 | shape selected, but I also get shapes
that I don't want selected as part of my selection.
| | 01:26 | Basically, what a Lasso tool allows
you to do is it allows you to create a
| | 01:29 | Marquee Selection, but using a non-
rectangular form. So I could simply click
| | 01:33 | and drag around in area of what I
want to have selected. Then when I do so,
| | 01:41 | anything within that area becomes
selected and now I have those two shapes
| | 01:44 | selected. When you are working with
objects, it's important to realize that the
| | 01:48 | Lasso tool works very much like the
Direct Selection tool, which means that I
| | 01:52 | do have the ability to use
it on parts of an object.
| | 01:53 | For example, if I wanted to select
maybe just the arms of a particular shape
| | 01:57 | over here, I could simply go over
here like this, select just the part here
| | 02:01 | like this, the arms, and the top half
of let's say this bodysuit. When I let go
| | 02:05 | with the mouse, notice that the
anchor points here I selected from the top
| | 02:09 | half, but the bottom half of the anchor
points here are not selected. So I have
| | 02:13 | the ability to use the Lasso tool not
only on entire objects, but also as I'm
| | 02:16 | working within individual shapes.
| | 02:18 | This actually becomes very useful
when selecting things that have a lots of
| | 02:21 | anchor points like Gradient Mesh so on
and so forth. You have the ability to
| | 02:24 | really go in and just select parts of
the anchor points that you want, but
| | 02:28 | using that Marquee method. So that's
one thing that's there. There is another
| | 02:31 | tool here called the Magic Wand tool,
which is related to its sibling in
| | 02:35 | Photoshop. Photoshop, if you maybe
familiar with, has also this tool called the
| | 02:39 | Magic Wand tool. The reason why it's
important inside a Photoshop to have this
| | 02:43 | tool is, as we discussed, Photoshop
does not have the concept of objects.
| | 02:46 | Everything is pixel-based.
| | 02:46 | So if you wanted let's say, for example,
select the entire sky of a nice little
| | 02:53 | sunset image and you had a sky, and
the whole sky was like this beautiful
| | 02:56 | orange color. So, the problem
though is that there are probably lots of
| | 02:59 | different shades of oranges. Each
pixel in that particular photograph has
| | 03:03 | different shades of orange. So if you
would use let's say a selection tool and
| | 03:06 | click on one pixel and say select all
the orange pixels, it would only select
| | 03:10 | very few pixels because there aren't
that many pixels that are all of the exact
| | 03:13 | same shade of orange. What the Magic
Wand tool does, is it has something called
| | 03:17 | a Tolerance setting built into it.
That allows you to give Photoshop the
| | 03:21 | ability to choose a range of different
shades of orange that are maybe similar
| | 03:26 | or close enough to orange that you click on.
| | 03:28 | Now in Illustrator this concept can
also be applied as well when we refer to
| | 03:31 | this Tolerance setting. For example,
let's say I wanted to select all the
| | 03:35 | yellow objects of my file. For example,
if click let's say over here with my
| | 03:38 | Magic Wand tool, I would be able to do
that, but right now my Tolerance setting
| | 03:43 | is very high and that's usually the
default setting inside of Illustrator. So
| | 03:46 | before we actually use the Magic Wand tool,
let's go ahead and change its setting.
| | 03:49 | So I'm going to go the Magic Wand
tool itself and double click on it. That
| | 03:52 | brings up the Magic Wand panel, which
by default has a Tolerance setting set to
| | 03:55 | 20. You will also notice that there is
checkbox here called Fill Color. This
| | 03:59 | basically is telling us that the
criteria that the Magic Wand tool is going to
| | 04:03 | use for selections is the Fill Color.
We will see why this is significant,
| | 04:06 | because there are lots of other ways
that we can use this Magic Wand tool as well.
| | 04:10 | I'm going to change the Tolerance
setting down to 2 instead of 20. I'll hit the
| | 04:14 | Tab key to just accept that
particular value. Now I come over here and I'll
| | 04:17 | just click once on the surfboard.
Notice that the surfboard becomes selected as
| | 04:23 | does this bodysuit that's yellow.
Both of these are the exact same shade of
| | 04:26 | yellow. By using a very low Tolerance,
I'm telling Illustrator I want you to
| | 04:29 | select all yellow objects in my file.
| | 04:32 | What's really cool about the Magic
Wand tool here is that these are living in
| | 04:36 | two separate groups. In fact, there
are groups within other groups; they are
| | 04:40 | nested within each other, yet I'm
still able to select all the parts even
| | 04:44 | though they live in separate groups. So
the Magic Wand tool ignores groups. It
| | 04:48 | looks at the actual attributes of the
shapes, and because it has a Tolerance
| | 04:52 | setting I can now choose to open up
that Tolerance setting, for example, 15.
| | 04:57 | Now when I click on the yellow
surfboard notice that some of the green elements
| | 05:00 | in my file also become selected.
That's because Illustrator now has a higher
| | 05:05 | Tolerance, so it's selecting other
objects that fall close enough to that
| | 05:08 | range. The higher that I move that
particular Tolerance level, for example, if
| | 05:12 | I now go to the Tolerance and I change
it maybe to 70, clicking on that exact
| | 05:16 | same yellow now it selects even more
objects. For example, now I get some of
| | 05:20 | these objects and some of
these objects selected as well.
| | 05:23 | What's great about the Magic Wand tool
is that there are other options that you
| | 05:26 | can search on. For example, right now
I'm using Fill Color, but I could also
| | 05:30 | highlight the word Stroke Color.
Let's turn off our Fill Color for a second
| | 05:32 | now. Now if I use the Magic Wand tool,
it will select by Stroke Color. Even
| | 05:36 | more importantly I can choose Stroke Weight
with a Tolerance of a particular value.
| | 05:40 | For example, right now if I use the
Tolerance setting of 1 point, then I now
| | 05:45 | have the ability to click on Objects
and all objects that have a Stroke Weight
| | 05:50 | of anywhere from 0-2, remember,
right now if I click on let's say one
| | 05:53 | particular Stroke Weight or anything
within one point of the Stroke Weight that
| | 05:56 | I click on, those strokes become
selected. If you go to the flyout menu of this
| | 06:00 | Magic Wand panel, you could also choose
Show Transparency Options, which allows
| | 06:05 | me to select objects based on
Opacity and also Blend mode.
| | 06:08 | Again, I have the ability to choose a
Tolerance for those settings as well. But
| | 06:12 | it probably makes most sense to use a
Fill Color here. At least, that's the one
| | 06:15 | that I use most often, because it
allows you to again select a range of objects
| | 06:20 | that are not necessarily the exact
same color, but that are similar enough.
| | 06:23 | Again, that's important to remember.
That you should use the Tolerance setting
| | 06:27 | as you need it to identify exactly
how large a range of selections you are
| | 06:32 | willing to work with.
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| Selecting objects by attribute| 00:00 | So while most often we think about
selecting objects themselves, we have seen
| | 00:04 | in the past movie that it's possible to
use tools such as the Magic Wand tool
| | 00:07 | to select objects by their attributes
without focusing on the object itself.
| | 00:12 | In reality, that becomes a very powerful
way to make your selections inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:16 | You will notice that Illustrator
itself has a Select menu and inside of that
| | 00:19 | Select menu there is something here
called Same and Object. So let's take
| | 00:23 | a look at what that means. First of
all, it's possible to make certain
| | 00:26 | selections without having to select
anything. I'm using the same file that I
| | 00:29 | have been using so far for the
selections movies here called making_selections.
| | 00:33 | If I decide, for example, that I want
to select all the text in my file, no
| | 00:36 | matter what font it is, no matter
where it appears, I can just simply choose
| | 00:40 | Select Object and then choose Text
Objects and now it will automatically select
| | 00:44 | all the text in my particular file.
| | 00:46 | There are other options for selecting
objects as well. For example, going to
| | 00:49 | the Select menu, I could choose Object
and choose to select all Brush Strokes
| | 00:53 | or all Masks. If I'm working with Flash,
for example, and I defining certain
| | 00:57 | text for Flash, I could choose to
select all Dynamic Text or all Input Text,
| | 01:01 | again used for Flash.
| | 01:03 | Let's take a look at this other menu
here though called Same. This will allow
| | 01:06 | us to choose objects based on a same
color or other attribute as well. The way
| | 01:11 | that this works is that you simply
click on one particular object to make a
| | 01:14 | selection and that tells Illustrator
how you want to select other objects. For
| | 01:18 | example, I'll use my other Direct
Selection tool and I'll click on let's say
| | 01:22 | this shape right here, which is filled red.
| | 01:24 | If I want to have other red objects
selected in my file, I can go ahead to the
| | 01:27 | Select menu, I could choose Select,
Same and I could choose, select all other
| | 01:32 | objects that have the exact same Fill
Color as the objects that I currently
| | 01:35 | have selected. When I choose that
option, notice that that's what becomes
| | 01:39 | selected. If I click on this green
bodysuit here, for example, and I choose
| | 01:43 | Select and I choose Same, I can again
choose Fill Color and I see that the
| | 01:47 | other objects become selected.
| | 01:49 | What's nice about this feature is that
it's also built in the Control panel,
| | 01:52 | which means that I could click on
let's say a green shape here and then go up
| | 01:56 | over here to this icon where it says
Select Similar Objects. If I click on the
| | 01:59 | pop-up here, I could say, I want you
to make sure that it has the exact same
| | 02:03 | Fill Color and now simply by clicking
on that option all other green objects
| | 02:07 | get selected as well.
| | 02:09 | Now if you choose all settings here,
let me go back over here and choose All.
| | 02:12 | That means that when I click on this
right now, it will only select other
| | 02:16 | objects that have all the same
attributes. So for example, if this particular
| | 02:19 | green shape also had a black stroke
on it, then it would only select other
| | 02:23 | green filled objects with black strokes on it.
| | 02:25 | You could also choose to select other
objects with the same Opacity or the same
| | 02:28 | Appearance or the same Stroke Weight
so on and so forth. So these are all
| | 02:32 | settings that you could choose to make
sure that when you make a selection, you
| | 02:35 | can get exactly what you need.
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| Saving and reusing selections| 00:00 | There are a few things as annoying as
constantly redoing the same work over and
| | 00:04 | over again. I have always been
frustrated inside of Illustrator when I went
| | 00:07 | ahead and I had a very complex
selection, I made that selection only to find
| | 00:11 | out that later on I had to make that
same selection again and again and again.
| | 00:14 | So it's great that Illustrator has
the ability to actually save your
| | 00:17 | selections. Few people are aware of
this particular feature but it can be a
| | 00:20 | great time saver.
| | 00:21 | For example, let's say, I go ahead and
choose, select this shape here and I'll
| | 00:26 | select this shape right here and maybe
I'll also select this shape and let's do
| | 00:30 | this shape and I also select this text.
I can now go to the Select menu and
| | 00:34 | choose Save Selection and I'll call
this one my favorite selection, click OK.
| | 00:42 | Now if I deselect those shapes and I
decide later on, oh, I need to select
| | 00:45 | those objects again, maybe I want to add
Drop Shadows to them or something for that matter.
| | 00:48 | I could go over here to the Select
menu and choose my favorite selection and
| | 00:52 | now those become selected. What
Illustrator is memorizing or remembering are,
| | 00:56 | which objects themselves are selected.
This is actually great because it can be
| | 01:00 | used in tandem or in combination with
some of the other selection techniques
| | 01:04 | that we have already learned.
| | 01:05 | For example, if I go ahead now and I
choose let's say this yellow and I go
| | 01:08 | ahead now and I choose Select and I
choose Same and I choose Fill Color. So now
| | 01:14 | I have all my yellow shapes. Now in
all honesty my favorite selection is not
| | 01:17 | very descriptive or may not be very
helpful but here it would be a good example
| | 01:20 | of where this might help. I can now
go to the Select menu and choose Save
| | 01:24 | Selection and call this one yellow objects.
| | 01:28 | So now at any time I'm working and
let's say I want to change this shade or I
| | 01:31 | want to change that yellow or I want
to do something with those particular
| | 01:34 | yellow objects. I can go to the Select
menu and choose yellow objects and now
| | 01:37 | those objects become selected. Now
like I said since it memorizes the objects
| | 01:41 | themselves and not anything else, I
can move this object here and I can scale
| | 01:45 | to be bigger, it doesn't make a
difference. So the next time that I choose
| | 01:49 | Select and I choose yellow objects,
those two objects become selected.
| | 01:52 | Again it's simply because the objects
themselves are memorized not anything
| | 01:57 | else as far as their position on the
page, so on and so forth. I'll press Undo
| | 02:00 | just a few times to go back to where
I was before. Like I said, you can use
| | 02:03 | this ability to save your selections
at any time. When you go to the Select
| | 02:07 | menu here you can choose Edit Selection
and then you could choose, let's say, I
| | 02:11 | don't need my favorite selection anymore.
I choose to delete that one, I won't
| | 02:14 | get in the way, click OK and I'm done.
| | 02:16 | The beautiful thing about saving
selections inside of Illustrator is that they
| | 02:19 | get saved into your file. So for
example if you are working on a file whether
| | 02:23 | it's a template or whether it's some
other kind of file that you know you are
| | 02:27 | going to be reusing over and over again,
it may make a lot of sense for you to
| | 02:30 | save a whole bunch of selections
inside of that file and then each time that
| | 02:33 | you open up that file to edit it you
have those selections available to you.
| | 02:37 | So they don't get thrown away when
you close your file. They actually live
| | 02:40 | inside the file and if you now
transfer that file to somebody else, they will
| | 02:44 | have the ability to make those
selections as well. So you can do that, for
| | 02:47 | example, you have objects that are for
a specific type of style number or so on
| | 02:52 | and so forth or for a specific use, if
you have certain text that maybe belongs
| | 02:57 | somewhere, while you can always
specify things and put things on their own
| | 03:00 | layers, it's also possible to very
easily create your saved selections. And
| | 03:04 | that way they will always available inside of
the file and you could use them as you need.
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|
|
8. Understanding AppearancesUsing the Appearance panel| 00:00 | So at this point right now you have
a pretty good understanding of how to
| | 00:03 | create graphics inside of Illustrator,
although at a very simple level, how to
| | 00:07 | make selections and how to basically
work your way around the interface.
| | 00:10 | Now let's get a better understanding of
the drawing model inside of Illustrator
| | 00:14 | and at the very core of that, there is
something called the Appearance panel.
| | 00:17 | In fact inside of Illustrator itself I
figured the Appearance panel is probably
| | 00:21 | one of most important parts of
understanding how Illustrator works. And I
| | 00:24 | believe that the more that you
understand about how appearances work, the
| | 00:27 | easier of the time you
will have using Illustrator.
| | 00:30 | So I have this file open on my screen,
it's called appearances, you will find
| | 00:33 | it inside of Chapter 08 of the
exercise files and I'm also going to go over
| | 00:37 | here to the Appearance panel, I'm
actually just going to pull out the
| | 00:39 | Appearance panel so we can take a
closer look at it. Let's close the Graphics
| | 00:42 | Styles here, let's move this down just
to the side here and focus on exactly
| | 00:46 | what this means here inside of the
Appearance panel. In fact one of the great
| | 00:49 | things about Illustrator CS4 is this
improved Appearance panel, which gives you
| | 00:53 | four more options to work with.
| | 00:55 | So first let's understand exactly what
an appearance is. As we had discussed
| | 00:59 | way back in the beginning of this
video title we understand the concept of
| | 01:02 | there being a path inside of
Illustrator and that path is made up of anchor
| | 01:06 | points. Now the path itself is
something that's there for us to see, it defines
| | 01:10 | the shape itself but if you don't
have any stroke or fills applied to that
| | 01:14 | particular path and the path itself is
invisible, it's only for us to see on a
| | 01:18 | computer screen but on a paper when it
gets printed out it does not appear at
| | 01:21 | all. That path or that fill attribute
that you apply to a particular shape is
| | 01:26 | called its appearance. However as
we will see there are many different
| | 01:29 | attributes or things that we
can do with these appearances.
| | 01:32 | So let's take a closer look. I'm going
to select this particular shape right
| | 01:35 | here, it's just the outline of a
surfboard and I want to start to colorize this
| | 01:38 | and work with this. So first of all
you don't even need to go to the Control
| | 01:41 | panel anymore, a lot of the settings
for how you control the appearance of an
| | 01:45 | object can be done directly through
the Appearance panel. This is great, now
| | 01:48 | inside of Illustrator CS4. In previous
versions of Illustrator, the Appearance
| | 01:52 | panel showed me the settings for the
appearances but wouldn't actually allow me
| | 01:57 | to edit those particular settings or
make change to them. I would need to go elsewhere.
| | 02:00 | Now I can really go ahead and make all
the changes right through the Appearance
| | 02:03 | panel. For example, I see right now
that I have a black 1 pt Stroke in my
| | 02:07 | object and I have a white Fill. Let's
go ahead and change that white fill to
| | 02:10 | yellow. I can click right over here on
this little square and get the pop up
| | 02:13 | right here and change it to yellow.
This is something that I would previously
| | 02:16 | have had to gone over here in the
Control panel or into the Swatches panel or
| | 02:19 | in the Color panel. Now I can do
it right from the Appearance panel.
| | 02:21 | I also want to change my Stroke Weight.
I'll click over here on this number
| | 02:25 | over here and I'll change it to about
20 pt. So now what I have is basically a
| | 02:30 | stroke that I have applied to this
particular shape right here and I also have
| | 02:34 | a yellow fill. Now we know that
inside of Adobe Illustrator, there is this
| | 02:37 | concept, which we call a stacking order.
Stacking order means that objects are
| | 02:42 | built in some kind of a hierarchy, things
always appear either above or beneath
| | 02:45 | other objects.
| | 02:47 | For example, if I were to take this,
right now this shape, hold down my Option
| | 02:50 | key -- by the way one of the nice
things about Illustrator the keyboard
| | 02:53 | shortcuts, if you hold down the Option
key or the Alt key on Windows and you
| | 02:56 | click and drag any particular object
that actually makes a copy of that object.
| | 03:00 | Now I have two surfboards. Now this
surfboard is sitting on top of the one that
| | 03:05 | was there before. I could go to the
Object menu and choose Arrange > Send to
| | 03:09 | Back and now that particular surfboard
is behind it, right. I can always move
| | 03:12 | objects either to the front or behind
other objects. I'm actually just going to
| | 03:15 | go ahead and delete that.
| | 03:17 | One really important thing about the
Appearance panel is that Illustrator is
| | 03:20 | showing me not just the fact that it
has a black 20 pt stroke and also a yellow
| | 03:24 | fill, it's telling me settings about
that particular object, or how Illustrator
| | 03:28 | created that particular graphic. We
don't really think about it in this way but
| | 03:32 | each object on its own also has a
stacking order. By default, Illustrator
| | 03:37 | always draws the fill first and then it
draws the stroke on top of that. Let me
| | 03:42 | explain why it does that by default.
| | 03:44 | Notice that when I apply this 20 pt
stroke the actual weight of the stroke or
| | 03:47 | the thickness of the stroke is
distributed evenly on either side of the stroke.
| | 03:51 | On the inside is 10 points and on the
outside is 10 points, all together that
| | 03:56 | makes up 20 pt for the Stroke Weight
here. If I were to change my stroke weight
| | 03:59 | for example to 5 pt I would have 2.5
points of the stroke on the outside of the
| | 04:03 | path and then 2.5 points of the stroke
on the inside of the path. Illustrator
| | 04:08 | calls putting that on
the centerline of the path.
| | 04:10 | There is this setting inside of the
Stroke panel specifically that allows it to
| | 04:14 | align your stroke to all to the inside
or all to the outside. But again we will
| | 04:17 | not talk about that now, by default
and this is something that you should
| | 04:20 | really keep in mind; the stroke
inside of Illustrator is always distributed
| | 04:24 | evenly along the centerline of the path.
| | 04:27 | The reason why Illustrator does that
its because if you would then go ahead and
| | 04:30 | have your fill be painted on top of the
stroke then your fill, which comes all
| | 04:36 | the way up to the edge of the path
itself would cover over the inside part of
| | 04:40 | your stroke over here. So you wouldn't
see the full weight of the stroke. So
| | 04:44 | what Illustrator does, it paints the
fill first and then it paints the stroke
| | 04:47 | on top of that so that way none of
the stroke is hidden beneath the fill itself.
| | 04:51 | However, with the Appearance panel
we see that information right here.
| | 04:55 | Illustrator is not just go ahead
and letting me know that it has these
| | 04:58 | attributes for the fills and the
strokes, it's actually telling us how that
| | 05:02 | particular object was created because
the order in, which the way that things
| | 05:06 | appear inside of the Appearance panel
are extremely important, they let you
| | 05:09 | know how Illustrator created that
graphic. Just like as we will see about the
| | 05:12 | Layers panel inside of Illustrator.
Everything inside of Illustrator is drawn
| | 05:15 | from the bottom up, as you keep
drawing new graphic each thing that you draw
| | 05:19 | that's new is basically placed
at the top of the stacking order.
| | 05:22 | So in Illustrator this particular
graphic was created by first applying default
| | 05:25 | opacity then Illustrator painted the
yellow fill and then Illustrator painted
| | 05:30 | the 20 pt black stroke. The great
thing about the Appearance panel though is
| | 05:33 | that you have control over that and if
you don't like that particular setting
| | 05:36 | you can change it. You can do that by
simply taking the stroke right here,
| | 05:40 | clicking on that particular stroke
and dragging it now beneath the fill. By
| | 05:44 | doing so now I have changed the
stacking order of the object itself; take a
| | 05:48 | look at my appearance right now. I
can no longer see that 10 points of the
| | 05:51 | stroke on the inside because
my fill is covering that up.
| | 05:55 | So the Appearance panel gives me the
control basically to not only see and
| | 05:59 | adjust the settings for my particular
appearance in my object. But I could also
| | 06:03 | adjust where they sit in the stacking
order for each individual object and it's
| | 06:07 | important to realize, as I press Undo
for a second here, that the Appearance
| | 06:11 | panel also has an area in the top here,
which we call our target. The word path
| | 06:15 | now is highlighted kind of listed here
in bold and I see a thumbnail basically
| | 06:19 | the attributes of that particular path,
the yellow fill and the black stroke.
| | 06:22 | You will notice that the target
itself also appears in the upper left hand
| | 06:25 | corner and as we go through the rest
of the chapter here we will talk more
| | 06:28 | about what targeting means. But
basically as I'm working you will start seeing
| | 06:32 | and understanding more about
targeting, more understanding about what
| | 06:36 | appearances are and now that we have
just an understanding at a very basic
| | 06:40 | level of why the Appearance panel is
important. In the next movie we will learn
| | 06:43 | about how targeting takes us to that next level.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Targeting object attributes| 00:00 | So now from the Appearance panel's
perspective, we understand that objects
| | 00:03 | themselves have different appearances,
such as, fills and strokes. We know that
| | 00:07 | there is a stacking order even
inherently within a single object itself and
| | 00:11 | that we could adjust or change that
stacking order using the Appearance panel.
| | 00:15 | We also briefly discussed this concept
that's something called a target, like
| | 00:19 | we discussed before, the word Path
over here refers to the fact that this is
| | 00:23 | now the target; the path is the target.
| | 00:25 | So let's discuss exactly what the word
Targeting means. As we actually start to
| | 00:30 | learn about groups and layers, the
word Targeting becomes far more important.
| | 00:34 | Even on an individual level here, I'm
working with a single object because of
| | 00:37 | the targeting is important.
| | 00:39 | Let's take a basic example. I have
this overall shape and maybe I want to
| | 00:42 | change its opacity. So, for example, I
can come over here to the Opacity over
| | 00:46 | here in the Control panel and maybe I
could change the opacity of the overall
| | 00:50 | object to maybe 50%.
| | 00:52 | So that means now that I can see
through that whole shape, if I were to put
| | 00:55 | another shape behind this or better yet.
If I go to the View menu, I could turn
| | 00:58 | on something called the
Transparency Grid. That allows me to select a
| | 01:01 | checkerboard pattern, almost like
Photoshop has, and you could see that I could
| | 01:04 | really see through the object itself;
the object is now truly transparent.
| | 01:08 | Let's say, however, I want only the
Fill to be transparent but not the Stroke
| | 01:12 | to be transparent. Maybe I want a full-
strength stroke, but I want the Fill to
| | 01:16 | be somewhat transparent. So in the past,
you may have thought that you would
| | 01:19 | have to create two shapes, right now
we create a shape that has a transparent
| | 01:22 | fill. Then I would create a second
shape that has a non-transparent stroke with
| | 01:26 | no fill on top of that.
| | 01:27 | Well, now in Illustrator, using the
Appearance panel and this concept called
| | 01:31 | Targeting, I don't need to do that. So
I'm going to press Undo, so I'm going to
| | 01:35 | come back now to my full-strength of
the whole object. The object itself has no
| | 01:37 | opacity. What I'm going to do though
right now is I'm going to click on just
| | 01:41 | the Fill itself or I'm going to
target just my fill. Now I'll change the
| | 01:46 | Opacity to 50%. When I do so, you
will see that the stroke stays at full
| | 01:51 | strength, but only the
Fill change is in opacity.
| | 01:54 | In fact, if you look over here in the
Fill itself, it's a little twirl down,
| | 01:58 | right little triangle. If I click on
that, I see that the fill itself has a
| | 02:02 | separate opacity setting of 50%, while
the overall opacity of the path itself
| | 02:08 | has default opacity setting. So when
you think about it right now, the shape
| | 02:12 | itself has two opacity settings. The
overall shape has default opacity but the
| | 02:17 | fill has its own opacity setting.
| | 02:19 | In reality, if you click on this little
twirl down here next to the stroke, you
| | 02:23 | will see that the stroke also has a
default opacity. In fact, to make things
| | 02:27 | more complicated, every object really
at a very basic level has three opacity
| | 02:32 | settings: an opacity setting for the
overall object as a whole, an opacity
| | 02:37 | setting for the fill and an opacity
setting for the stroke as well, and each of
| | 02:41 | those are different.
| | 02:42 | So just because I make some opacity
across the whole object, does not actually
| | 02:45 | mean that I can have something
different also within that object there as well.
| | 02:49 | But that's why this whole concept of
targeting becomes even more important as
| | 02:53 | we start to learn more about doing
more complex things inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:58 | I'll find that I can apply certain
attributes or certain things to a target;
| | 03:02 | that target could not only be a single
object in a group, it could be a single
| | 03:07 | attribute like a fill or a stroke
inside of a single object. That really
| | 03:11 | becomes significant when you think
about the fact that, well objects can really
| | 03:15 | have more than just a single fill
and a single stroke, objects can have
| | 03:18 | multiple fills and multiple strokes.
| | 03:21 | So now in the next movie, we will
discuss what that concept brings to the table.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding multiple attributes| 00:00 | Picking up where we left off in the
last movie, we now know that it's possible
| | 00:03 | for if I have a single object to have
multiple fills and multiple strokes. So
| | 00:07 | let's see how that applies again or
using the Appearance panel. I'm going to
| | 00:11 | start off by first reducing this
object back to a regular state. I'm going to
| | 00:15 | press the D key on my keyboard. D
stands for default that's a keyboard shortcut
| | 00:19 | probably that I use very often that
basically sets your object back to a
| | 00:23 | default white fill and black one point
stroke. Notice over here all my opacity
| | 00:27 | settings are set back to normal.
| | 00:28 | Let's change the twirl down over here
to just regular. Let's go back to maybe
| | 00:32 | where we had before the yellow fill and
a black 20-point stroke. So now I have
| | 00:39 | the shape that I had created right here.
So remember this object right now has
| | 00:42 | a single yellow fill and a single
black stroke that set at 20 point. Let's go
| | 00:46 | down here to the Appearance panel, see
that there are two icons here. This is
| | 00:49 | also new to CS4. It has the ability
to add multiple strokes and fills right
| | 00:53 | from the panel itself. In the past you
would have to dig deep into the flyout
| | 00:57 | menu to choose Add New Fill or New Stroke.
| | 00:59 | I now can come right here to the panel
and make a setting right here. First go
| | 01:02 | ahead and maybe add a second stroke.
So now my object has two strokes applied
| | 01:07 | to it. Notice again, the Appearance
panel shows me the stacking order.
| | 01:10 | Illustrator first apply default opacity,
then it painted a yellow fill, then it
| | 01:15 | painted a 20 point black stroke and
then on top of that, it painted another 20
| | 01:18 | point black stroke.
| | 01:19 | Now my object itself does not look any
different, because the two strokes are
| | 01:23 | stacked directly on top of each other.
However, now that I now that I could
| | 01:27 | target individual attributes inside
of my Appearance panel for the object
| | 01:31 | itself, I know that I can now
change some of the settings.
| | 01:34 | So let's target the topmost stroke.
Let's change its color to something maybe
| | 01:38 | like a cyan and change its stroke
weight to maybe five point. So now you will
| | 01:43 | see that I have a single object that I
have created. If I click on it and move
| | 01:46 | it around at just one object and may it
look like that it's made up of several
| | 01:49 | object stacked on top of each other,
but in reality it's one path that has an
| | 01:54 | appearance of one fill and two strokes
and those two strokes obviously have two
| | 02:00 | different appearances.
| | 02:02 | Now it's important to realize that as
I'm working with my particular artwork
| | 02:05 | here, even if I don't create multiple
strokes, I maybe working with files that
| | 02:09 | other people have created and maybe
they have added multiple strokes or
| | 02:12 | multiple attributes. So that's why
again the Appearance panel is so important.
| | 02:16 | If you don't have the Appearance panel
open then it can make for some difficult editing.
| | 02:20 | For example let's go ahead and just
temporarily close the Appearance panel
| | 02:23 | right here. Let's just simply double
click over here on the Appearance panel,
| | 02:26 | on the tab right here. So basically
close it up, so that I don't see any of the
| | 02:30 | information here.
| | 02:31 | Now if I click on this object right
now and I decide that that black stroke
| | 02:34 | over here, that's in the background to
be a different color. Maybe I want it to
| | 02:37 | be red instead of black, how would I go
about changing that. I don't know about
| | 02:41 | the Appearance panel.
| | 02:42 | I look at the shape right now and
then just because I have been using
| | 02:45 | Illustrator for quite some time or
maybe I'm new to Illustrator, I look over
| | 02:49 | here at the Color panel and I see that
I have a cyan stroke and I have a yellow
| | 02:53 | fill, but I don't see that black shape
anywhere and if I look at my Swatches
| | 02:57 | for example, again there is no
information that's here, there is no useful way
| | 03:01 | for me to find out where
that black stroke came from.
| | 03:03 | Now I may think that, oh, you know what,
maybe the person stack two objects on
| | 03:07 | top of each other and you try to move
one away, but there is nothing that's
| | 03:10 | here and you figure maybe that both
moving because they are grouped together.
| | 03:13 | So you go to the Object menu and
when you see that they are not grouped
| | 03:15 | together because Ungroup is grayed out.
There is no group that exists. In fact,
| | 03:19 | if you look over here it's a single
path. The only way to access that black
| | 03:22 | stroke is through the Appearance panel itself.
| | 03:25 | So I'm going to double click on the
Appearance panel here. You must first
| | 03:28 | target the black stroke and now if I
go ahead and I change the color to red,
| | 03:32 | that's only way if you want to make
that change. There is no way to change that
| | 03:35 | in any other way except through the
Appearance panel itself. What's also new
| | 03:39 | and exciting about the Appearance panel
and how Adobe is kind of thought about
| | 03:42 | appearances now inside of Illustrator,
is that if I do have the black stroke
| | 03:46 | targeted I'm working on the shape right
now and I decided I want to change the
| | 03:49 | color and I come over here, I see that
there is little icon, a warning icon and
| | 03:53 | this indicates that right now the
topmost fill or the stroke is not active.
| | 03:57 | Remember, it's the second stroke down
that's currently active. So I might get
| | 04:00 | messed up. For example, I might
choose this color and say, hey! How come my
| | 04:04 | object over here, if I look at it
right now, it has a blue stroke on it, but
| | 04:07 | the Control panel reads that it being
black? Well that's because right now the
| | 04:12 | black stroke, which is the second
stroke down is currently targeted. So this
| | 04:15 | icon is letting me know that if I click
on the icon, it basically automatically
| | 04:19 | selects the topmost attribute and now
this indicator now shows me the color for
| | 04:23 | the topmost stroke and then we
will apply for the fill as well.
| | 04:26 | Now you might ask, hey, you know I
could understand why maybe it make sense for
| | 04:29 | you to have two strokes in a single
object. In fact, we know from just regular
| | 04:33 | editing paths, that you cannot edit
the control handles of two paths at the
| | 04:38 | same time. So if I have to create
this particular shape right now using two
| | 04:42 | overlapping shapes and then I wanted a
change maybe the curve or the control
| | 04:45 | handle of this, I can do this now in
one motion, whereas before inside of
| | 04:49 | Illustrator we would have to do that
first for the blue path and then for the
| | 04:52 | black path and there would be no way
for me to match it correctly, it will be
| | 04:55 | very difficult for me to
make it look exactly the same.
| | 04:57 | So from my perspective of creating art
in a much more efficient manner, adding
| | 05:00 | multiple fills and strokes in single
object just make a lot of sense and we
| | 05:04 | will see also maybe in more advanced
discussions of working with appearances. I
| | 05:08 | could capture all this appearances and
create what Illustrator calls a graphic
| | 05:11 | style and that means with the single
click of my button, I can add, I don't
| | 05:14 | know 15 to 20 strokes to a single
object. Makes it much easier to create the
| | 05:18 | kind of artwork that you might
needs here for complex designs.
| | 05:21 | So I'll select this shape again and
like I said before you might ask yourself I
| | 05:24 | understand why I might be able to
apply multiple strokes to single object but
| | 05:28 | why multiple fills. Remember that will
be useful. Now remember that we could
| | 05:32 | always target individual attributes and
apply different opacity values to them
| | 05:35 | as well. So for example, on this
particular shape right here, which is a yellow
| | 05:38 | fill I could change that maybe to a
pattern fill. Notice I have a nice little
| | 05:43 | fish pattern here for my surfboard.
| | 05:44 | Then what I might do is add a
second fill. When I come down here to the
| | 05:47 | Appearance panel, say Add another fill
but this particular fill, I'm going to
| | 05:52 | go ahead now and specify a different
color, may be a gradient even. So I'll
| | 05:55 | choose say a gradient here, that's
black to white and maybe I'll set this
| | 05:59 | particular fill to have an opacity
value or a blend mode of Multiply and that
| | 06:04 | one now add that particular gradient
or multiply that gradient or basically
| | 06:08 | it's now multiplying the two fills.
| | 06:10 | Now remember we could also adjust the
stacking order of our objects. So I could
| | 06:12 | take this fill and drag it down over
here as well. So now I get beautiful
| | 06:16 | design that I have created and it's
all one single shape. So there are many
| | 06:20 | different possibilities that you can create.
| | 06:21 | In fact, if you are on packaging you
might have consider mixing a regular color
| | 06:25 | that maybe spark color like a Pantone
color on one layer, take a second spark
| | 06:30 | color as a second fill and then set
the opacity value of that spark color on
| | 06:34 | top, also to multiply and what you
end up creating basically as a mixed ink
| | 06:39 | value of a single object. So that one
object separates using two different inks.
| | 06:43 | But again, at this level right now
we now had this understanding that
| | 06:46 | appearances are far more than just
showing us what a fill and a stroke are.
| | 06:50 | Appearances allows us to target
individual attributes and that also helps us
| | 06:54 | when we start adding multiple fills and
multiples strokes to single object and
| | 06:59 | by targeting them individually, we can
have some really cool appearances for
| | 07:02 | single object inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying Live Effects| 00:00 | It's obvious until this point that the
Appearance panel holds a certain amount
| | 00:03 | of power inside of Illustrator,
especially when it comes to working with
| | 00:06 | attributes of each of your objects,
but hold down your seats, the real power
| | 00:11 | comes through another feature inside
of Illustrator called Live Effects. Live
| | 00:14 | Effects are accessible directly through
the Appearance panel, which again, make
| | 00:18 | it that much more important for you
to understand what the Appearance panel
| | 00:21 | means and how it works.
| | 00:23 | A Live effect is something that
basically changes the appearance of a
| | 00:26 | particular path but does not change
the underlying structure of the path
| | 00:29 | itself. Let's start off with a very
basic example and then we will began to see
| | 00:33 | where this goes. I'm working with
this regular appearances file; I have
| | 00:36 | actually reverted back to the original
state of this file. I'm actually going
| | 00:39 | to select this object right here. This
has a white fill and a black stroke and
| | 00:43 | maybe I want to add a soft drop shadow
effect to this particular shape. In the
| | 00:47 | past, I can go over to the Effect menu
and I could choose to apply a particular effect.
| | 00:51 | By the way, we also notice that the
Filter menu no longer exist here inside of
| | 00:54 | Illustrator. Right now the Effect menu
has all the settings necessary inside of
| | 00:58 | that, but you can also access all the
effects directly to the Appearance panel
| | 01:01 | now. From the bottom here where
I can choose to add a new effect.
| | 01:05 | So when I click over here, I'm going
to go ahead and choose Stylize and then
| | 01:10 | I'm going to choose Drop Shadow. So now
when I get this dialog box, I'll choose
| | 01:13 | the regular settings. I'll click on the
Preview button, so I could actually see
| | 01:16 | a preview of that drop shadow.
| | 01:18 | I'll keep the settings as same right
now and I'll click OK. The important thing
| | 01:22 | to realize here is that now in the
Appearance panel, besides my Stroke
| | 01:25 | attribute and my Fill attribute, I
also have a Drop Shadow attribute. Again,
| | 01:29 | this is because that Illustrator is
now showing to me that I have added this
| | 01:32 | additional appearance to my object itself.
| | 01:35 | The reason why it's important to
understand that a drop shadow was added in
| | 01:38 | this case as an appearance is that if
I were to change my shape or move it or
| | 01:42 | adjust it or resize it in any way, the
drop shadow was simply update itself.
| | 01:46 | It's not necessarily an effect that
once I apply it I have to then reapply if I
| | 01:50 | make changes.
| | 01:51 | Anything that I now do to the shape--
For example, if I were to go ahead and
| | 01:54 | grab the edge here and adjust the
scale of it, notice the drop shadow
| | 01:57 | automatically updates. I'm going to
press undo to go back to where I was
| | 02:00 | before. If I want to now change that
Drop Shadow effect, I also have the
| | 02:05 | ability again to go the Appearance
panel in the same way that I was able to
| | 02:08 | adjust fills and strokes by clicking on
them, I can now click on the word Drop
| | 02:11 | Shadow, which brings up the dialog box
and here I could adjust the setting. For
| | 02:15 | example, maybe I want the
opacity little bit lighter maybe 30%.
| | 02:17 | So now I have gone ahead and I have
updated that particular drop shadow. Again,
| | 02:22 | I do that all through the Appearance
panel. If I wanted to remove the drop
| | 02:25 | shadow from this particular object I
could simply take it and drag it to the
| | 02:29 | trashcan. I'm going to go ahead and
press undo for a second because Illustrator
| | 02:32 | CS4 now also has the ability to
simply turn on and off effects that have
| | 02:37 | already been applied to an object.
For example, if you look on the far left
| | 02:40 | over here at the Appearance panel,
you will see these little eyeballs here.
| | 02:42 | These eyeballs control the visibility
of the effects that are being applied or
| | 02:46 | the attributes that are
being applied to that object.
| | 02:49 | For example, right now my path is my
target and I now I have a fill, a stroke
| | 02:54 | and also my drop shadow, which are all
visible. If I go ahead and I decide to
| | 02:58 | hide the visibility of the drop shadow,
notice that I don't see the drop shadow
| | 03:01 | here and maybe I just want to
experiment with this. I don't want to throw out
| | 03:04 | the drop shadow or lose it settings but
maybe temporarily or maybe just for one
| | 03:07 | object I just want to turn off the
drop shadow. I can hide its visibility
| | 03:11 | without having to lose it because at
any time I can now bring that drop shadow
| | 03:14 | back by clicking on this icon
and bring back its visibility.
| | 03:17 | Whereas if I had basically deleted that
drop shadow, there is no way for me to
| | 03:21 | easily bring that back and this is
important especially when you are dealing
| | 03:23 | with finicky clients or managers or
creative directors and they want to see
| | 03:27 | something one way and they constantly
saying, oh you know, maybe go back to the
| | 03:30 | old way of seeing it or show me what it
look like with it or without it instead
| | 03:33 | of having multiple copies, you can have
one object and we will simply click on
| | 03:37 | the eyeballs to hide or show those
particular attributes within the Appearance panel.
| | 03:42 | Let me give you another example of
really what I mean when I say that the
| | 03:45 | effects that are applied to a
particular object, affect the appearance of the
| | 03:49 | object but not the underlying
structure of the object and we will see why
| | 03:52 | that's important as well. I'm actually
going to take this Drop Shadow and throw
| | 03:55 | it in the garbage for now. I have a
regular shape now that has again a white
| | 03:58 | fill and a black one-point stroke and
if we want to change this surfboard and
| | 04:02 | make it look more realistic. Let's go
and make a 3D surfboard. It's actually
| | 04:05 | not that difficult at all and we will
talk more about 3D later on, but for now
| | 04:09 | let's just get a quick idea on
how to apply that kind of effect.
| | 04:11 | I'm going to change my fill to
something different. Let's go ahead and maybe
| | 04:14 | choose an orange color and now what
all I have to do is I'll take my stroke
| | 04:18 | actually and set my stroke to none.
Let's go ahead and say we don't want to
| | 04:21 | stroke on the object at all. We just
want to have a pure orange surfboard here.
| | 04:24 | I have it selected and again,
my path right now is targeted.
| | 04:27 | I'm going to go over here to the effect
over here and choose add a new effect.
| | 04:30 | We will choose 3D and I'll also choose
Extrude and Bevel. I'm going to click on
| | 04:34 | the Preview button so I could what
this looks like. Notice that I have now an
| | 04:37 | extruded surfboard here. I want to
make this look more realistic. I can go
| | 04:40 | ahead and I can click on this cube to
rotate how that sets in 3D space. So for
| | 04:44 | example, let's say we do something like
this. I'm going to change the depth to
| | 04:47 | that extrusion to maybe 30 points and
I'm also going to apply a bevel, choose a
| | 04:52 | rounded bevel to make it look like
this surfboard has a little bit of rounded
| | 04:55 | edge, maybe we will change to
height to that bevel to six point.
| | 04:58 | So now I get basically something
that looks far more realistic, looks not
| | 05:02 | unlike a real surfboard here. Let's go
ahead and choose nice little angle like
| | 05:05 | that, beautiful. We get some nice
sliding and shading on it. I'll click OK and
| | 05:08 | that's my 3D surfboard. But let's go
into Outline mode for a second. If I go
| | 05:12 | into the View menu and I choose to
view this in outline. I don't see a 3D
| | 05:17 | shape. I see the same path itself. So
what happen here is I have my regular
| | 05:22 | vector path with all anchor points in
the path that basically make up that
| | 05:26 | shape in general inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:29 | But what I have done is I have applied
a 3D appearance to what I have changed
| | 05:32 | the way that that path looks, but it
didn't change to make up of the path
| | 05:35 | itself and if I now go back to my
Preview mode, I'll see what that path looks
| | 05:39 | like now with the appearance on it.
So the appearance effects how that path
| | 05:43 | looks, remember but I have not
changed underlying path and the reason why
| | 05:47 | that's important is because I decide
that I want to do something different to
| | 05:50 | this surfboard.
| | 05:51 | For example, may be I want to make it
look like a shark took a bite out of this
| | 05:54 | particular surfboard. Well, I know
that I have certain commands such as the
| | 05:57 | Pathfinder commands that I could use.
So I'm actually going to go ahead here
| | 06:01 | and just draw a range of shapes here.
Why don't we go into Outline mode just to
| | 06:04 | show you how I'm doing this. I'm
take let's say the Ellipse tool and just
| | 06:08 | create a whole bunch of circles here.
I'm going to use my Option key or if you
| | 06:12 | are on the PC, hold the Alt key, this
is something create a whole bunch of
| | 06:14 | circles just like this.
| | 06:16 | Now I'll go ahead and just kind of drag
all this together. I'll select them all
| | 06:22 | and I'll go to the Window menu, I'll
choose Pathfinder and I'll add them all to
| | 06:27 | one particular shape. Now what I'll do
is I'll take this exact shape right here
| | 06:31 | that I created and kind of bring it
over here just like this, select both items
| | 06:36 | and now choose to subtract.
| | 06:38 | So what I have done is I basically made
it look like a shark took a bite out of
| | 06:41 | that surfboard there. If I go into
Preview mode right now, what do you think
| | 06:45 | what happened to that 3D, look at that
surfboard. That's right, what's going to
| | 06:48 | happen is that, that's now going to
look like, it was taken right out of that
| | 06:51 | particular surfboard.
| | 06:52 | So the benefit of an appearance is
that by not affecting the underlying path
| | 06:56 | itself, if I ever made changes to that
path that updates in the appearance as
| | 07:00 | well. Imagine if I created a 3D shape
and then I want to take the bite out of
| | 07:04 | the 3D shape well, that
would have been far more complex.
| | 07:08 | So this is a key thing to
understand with appearances. Remember that
| | 07:10 | appearances affect the overall look
of the path, but they do not affect the
| | 07:14 | underlying structure of that
particular path. At the end of the day what that
| | 07:17 | means is that the artwork that you
create now inside of Illustrator when you
| | 07:19 | are using appearances, is far more
editable than anything else and that's the
| | 07:24 | key to the game.
| | 07:24 | If you want to be efficient, if you
want to be able to create your graphics
| | 07:26 | inside of Illustrator, what you end up
doing is creating a path structure and
| | 07:30 | then you are applying appearances
to everything and that's where the
| | 07:32 | Illustrator works. So it's very simple
from that perspective. Hopefully, this
| | 07:36 | gives you more of an idea or
understanding of what the appearances are, how
| | 07:40 | effects are applied to these particular
shape, why they are called Live Effects
| | 07:44 | inside of Illustrator. We now know also
how to change to 3D. If you want to go
| | 07:48 | ahead and edit the 3D, that's right
you just come to the Appearance panel
| | 07:51 | select the art work go ahead and click
on 3D Extrude and Bevel and you get the
| | 07:55 | 3D dialog box and maybe
change its rotation a little bit.
| | 07:58 | Click on the Preview and I could very
easily change how that looks, which is a
| | 08:01 | few clicks in the mouse. That would
have been very difficult for me to do if I
| | 08:04 | had changed the underlying
structure or the vector shape.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Expanding appearances| 00:00 | So now we understand why Live Effects
are called Live Effects, because they
| | 00:04 | don't affect the underlying path
structure. They only affect the appearance of
| | 00:08 | a particular object, which means that
as you make changes to that underlying
| | 00:11 | structure, those changes now are
reflected in the actual final appearance of
| | 00:16 | that object. However, there maybe
times when we actually want to see the path
| | 00:20 | structure changing based on the
appearance that you have made. Let's take a
| | 00:23 | look at one example of
where that would be important.
| | 00:26 | I'm working at the same appearances
file. I just reopen the file again. I'm
| | 00:30 | going to select that object right now
and let's go ahead and leave the regular
| | 00:32 | fill and stroke that set right now and
let's apply a different type of effect
| | 00:36 | to this object. For example, when we
go over here and choose to add a new
| | 00:39 | effect and rather than choose 3D,
let's go ahead and choose Distort and
| | 00:44 | Transform and maybe I'll
choose one here called Twist.
| | 00:47 | Twist basically allows me -- I'll
choose a Preview here, to specify an angle
| | 00:52 | say 45 degrees for example and makes
it look like that object was twisted on
| | 00:56 | this 45 degree angle. It's kind of
like a tornado, which is kind of like
| | 00:59 | spinning around that it kind of distorted
or twisted that particular shape there.
| | 01:02 | If I want to say for example, to 90
degrees, see how it kind of flips it to
| | 01:05 | that particular way it kind of goes
that little twist to it. So I now have
| | 01:08 | created that, if I click OK remember
that what I have just done now as I have
| | 01:11 | changed the appearance, so it look as
if it's twisted, however, if I look at
| | 01:15 | the actual underlying path I'll see
that it's not. If I go to the View menu and
| | 01:20 | I choose Outline, I see the path
that's here. In fact, I'm going to choose
| | 01:24 | Preview for a minute here. You
don't have to go to Preview mode.
| | 01:26 | If you do have smart guides turned on.
For example, I'll go to View and choose
| | 01:30 | Show Smart Guides here then as you
mouse over the shape, you will see that the
| | 01:34 | actual path itself is what highlights,
but not the appearance itself. So that
| | 01:38 | helps to identify that this particular
effect is the appearance is applied to
| | 01:42 | it but the underlying path is right over here.
| | 01:43 | But let's say you are working in a
particular situation or you want to make
| | 01:47 | some kind of modification to this to
this path itself. You want to may be tweak
| | 01:49 | it just a little bit, but because this
is an appearance you can't select this
| | 01:53 | part of the path, you can only work
with the actual vector path that's here.
| | 01:57 | In this case what you want to do is you
want to basically take that Live Effect
| | 02:01 | and expand it so that you have the
ability to edit the path itself. Doing so
| | 02:06 | makes the effect no longer a live
effect but you can almost think of it as it
| | 02:09 | is making it a dead effect, meaning
that you want to take the physical
| | 02:12 | appearance of the object and use
that as the path and not the underlying
| | 02:16 | original path structure. To do that,
simply select the object itself, go to the
| | 02:20 | Object menu and choose this
option here called Expand Appearance.
| | 02:24 | When you do so, you will notice that
right now-- take a look at my Appearance
| | 02:27 | panel. I have a group, which I'll talk
more about groups in the next chapter,
| | 02:31 | but what I had now is a single shape
inside of that group, but now I have a
| | 02:35 | anchor point in the path itself on that
twisted object and that Twist effect is
| | 02:39 | no longer available to me inside of
the Appearance panel because the Twist
| | 02:42 | effect is no longer here. It's not in
the appearance that's been changed
| | 02:45 | any more; the actual appearance has been
converted to and modified the underlying path.
| | 02:50 | Should I now go into the Outline mode,
you will see that the path itself exists
| | 02:53 | in this twisted state. So I'll go back
to Preview mode and now you have this
| | 02:57 | understanding of where appearances fit
now inside of your workflow. As you are
| | 03:01 | working by default and you are adding
effects, the effects are live, they don't
| | 03:04 | affect the underlying shape of the
object but they do affect the overall
| | 03:07 | appearance of that object. However, in
times when you do want your particular
| | 03:11 | effects to be applied to the object
itself, you go ahead and you expand them.
| | 03:15 | Let me give you a practical example of
where this makes sense. I'll delete the
| | 03:18 | shape overall completely and I'll
take a regular rectangle and I'll draw a
| | 03:22 | rectangle on my screen, this doesn't
make a difference what size you created,
| | 03:24 | just want to create a rectangle here.
I'll use the default one point stroke and
| | 03:28 | a white fill here and when I go to the
Effect menu here, and when I go ahead
| | 03:32 | and choose Stylize. I'm going to apply
this setting here called Round Corners,
| | 03:36 | this one actually -- if I click on
the Preview button here, apply rounded
| | 03:39 | corners to this rectangle.
| | 03:41 | Maybe just make a little bit bigger so
we can see what it looks like. Let's say
| | 03:43 | 25 right here. So you see now that I
have had these rounded corners here. But
| | 03:47 | these rounded corners are applied as
an effect. I can't actually select a
| | 03:50 | rounded corner and make a change to
one of them. For example, maybe I wanted
| | 03:54 | one of these corners not to be rounded
corner, but I can't do that because the
| | 03:57 | rounded corner effect just applies to
the shape overall. If I go into Outline
| | 04:01 | mode, I'm going to press Command+Y on
my Mac or Ctrl+Y on the PC, to see that
| | 04:05 | the actual path itself has not been
effected as live effects do and I had the
| | 04:10 | regular original rectangle here.
| | 04:11 | But the appearance of it, it looks like
it has rounded corners. But like I said
| | 04:15 | before if I want to access that I would
need to now expand that appearance. I'm
| | 04:19 | going to go the Object menu with
that object selected, choose Expand
| | 04:23 | Appearance. Now, I have the actual
anchor points here and if I wanted to make
| | 04:26 | an adjustment to the way that these
particular anchor points were, I can adjust
| | 04:30 | these particular points as I want to.
In this particular way making some
| | 04:34 | adjustments as I want to here.
| | 04:36 | So in order for me to make that
change though, I need to first expand my
| | 04:39 | appearance, so that I can get at those
underlying vectors that way. Remember I
| | 04:43 | have to now change the
underlying structure of that path.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Appearance panel settings| 00:00 | So we have an understanding of what
appearances are, and we understand why the
| | 00:03 | Appearance panel itself is important,
there are three settings inside of the
| | 00:07 | Appearance panel that are important
to know about. You might not use them
| | 00:10 | everyday, but they can come in handy.
| | 00:12 | So let's take a quick look at them. I'm
going to start off by showing this on a
| | 00:15 | just a regular blank document, I have
no sample file opened right now, just a
| | 00:19 | regular plain file that I've created.
I'm going to create a shape, let's start
| | 00:22 | off by just taking the Rectangle tool,
clicking and drawing a shape over here,
| | 00:25 | and we'll add some
appearances really quickly to this.
| | 00:28 | I want to choose Fill. Let's change
the Fill color here, well, yellow is my
| | 00:31 | favorite color, so we'll choose yellow.
For the Stroke here, let's go in and
| | 00:35 | crank up the stroke to maybe around 10
point. Let's specify a Dashed Line for
| | 00:39 | this as well. I'm going to use maybe a
24-point dash, but maybe a 10-point gap,
| | 00:44 | something like that.
| | 00:45 | So we have a lovely little dashed line
that we've created for that rectangle.
| | 00:48 | We have a yellow fill that's here.
Let's go ahead and add additional attributes
| | 00:52 | as well. Le's go ahead and choose from
the Effect menu, let's choose Stylize,
| | 00:56 | Add a Drop Shadow. You got add a Drop
Shadow. I'm going to click OK just to
| | 01:00 | have that one there.
| | 01:00 | By the way, I could simply go ahead
down here and apply the effect, but you can
| | 01:03 | do that from here as well. In fact, I
want to show you something really cool, I
| | 01:06 | adjusted here, because my stroke
itself was one that was active, I clicked on
| | 01:10 | it. When I apply the Drop Shadow, the
Drop Shadow applied only to the Stroke,
| | 01:15 | and not to the entire object. Remember,
we can apply objects to independent attributes.
| | 01:19 | If I click on the twirl down of the
Stroke, I can see the Drop Shadows there.
| | 01:22 | If I decide now that I really want the
Drop Shadow to be applied to the entire
| | 01:25 | object, I can take the Drop Shadow,
drag it, and then bring it outside to apply
| | 01:31 | to the over object.
| | 01:32 | Now I can see the Drop Shadow applies
to the entire object, not just to the
| | 01:35 | Stroke itself. So even though you've
applied appearances to a particular shape
| | 01:38 | or an attribute, they can easily be
moved to different parts of an object. For
| | 01:42 | example, I could take the Drop Shadow
dragging in just to the Fill. Notice when
| | 01:45 | I do so, you see like these little
arrows appear on the left and right. That
| | 01:48 | indicates that I would now be
moving the Drop Shadow into just the Fill.
| | 01:51 | But I'm going to leave it here for now.
| | 01:52 | Again, that just allows me to work with
the shape in this way. I'm now going to
| | 01:55 | take this shape, and let's add a few
more things to it as well. By the way, if
| | 01:58 | you want to now target the entire path,
and not just right now the Drop Shadow
| | 02:02 | each Fill or Stroke attribute, click
on any blank area down here, or click
| | 02:06 | where it says Path up over here.
| | 02:07 | That will target the path as a whole,
not just individual strokes or fills. So
| | 02:11 | we won't have that problem again. Let
me go to the Effect menu here, let's do
| | 02:14 | Distort & Transform, and let's do a
Twist again like we did before. Lovely
| | 02:21 | little shape that we created there, and
we are doing this, just because I want
| | 02:24 | to show you that when you work with
these particular effects, we already know
| | 02:27 | that we can expand them. But there may
be times when you want to do something
| | 02:29 | else as well.
| | 02:30 | For example, if I realize you know
something -- I just want to get back to a
| | 02:34 | regular basic thing, so there is
something inside of Illustrator, when we deal
| | 02:37 | with Appearances called a basic
appearance. In fact, there are two types of
| | 02:41 | appearances inside of Illustrator:
a basic appearance, and a complex
| | 02:44 | appearance. We'll talk more about
this later when we start learning about
| | 02:46 | layers in the Layers panel. But here
is understanding of a difference between the two.
| | 02:51 | A basic appearance is an object that
has a single fill and a single stroke.
| | 02:55 | Whereas a complex appearance has
multiple fills and multiple strokes, or it has
| | 02:59 | effects applied to it. So at a very
basic level, if you think about all the
| | 03:03 | versions of Illustrator, like maybe
Illustrator 8, Illustrator 8 does not have
| | 03:06 | an Appearance panel. In fact, the
Appearance panel first appeared inside of
| | 03:09 | Illustrator 9.
| | 03:09 | So if you back to the old days when you
had Illustrator 8, all you were able to
| | 03:13 | do was apply basic appearances to
objects. You can apply single fill and a
| | 03:17 | single stroke, and you had no such
thing as Live Effects. As of Illustrator 9,
| | 03:21 | though you had Live Effects and you had
the Appearance panel, you were able to
| | 03:24 | apply multiple fills and multiple
strokes, and also these live effects. Those
| | 03:28 | are called complex appearances.
| | 03:30 | So when you go over here to the
Appearance panel, you'll see that in the flyout
| | 03:33 | menu there is an option here called,
Reduce to Basic Appearance. So when I do
| | 03:38 | that, what's going to happen is that,
all the effects that I apply to this
| | 03:41 | particular shape, plus any
additional fills if I would have any would get
| | 03:44 | removed, and I would be left with
the bottommost fill, and the bottommost
| | 03:48 | stroke of my objects.
| | 03:49 | I'm going to choose Reduce to Basic
Appearance, and now you see what happened
| | 03:52 | to my shapes. So very quickly I clear
all that information. It's really simple
| | 03:56 | way to just get my shape back to a
state where I can work with it again. I'm
| | 03:59 | going to press Undo for a second here.
I want to go back to where I was before.
| | 04:02 | Because there is another option in
the Appearance panel here, right above
| | 04:05 | Reduce to Basic Appearance,
it's called Clear Appearance.
| | 04:08 | Clearing your appearance, clears
everything, even the bottommost fill and the
| | 04:12 | bottommost stroke, my result is going
to be my underlying path with a stroke of
| | 04:16 | none, a fill of none, and all the
effects, and everything removed from it. So I
| | 04:21 | could choose one of those two options.
If I'm working with a particular shape
| | 04:23 | and it's got all these effects
and everything applied to it.
| | 04:25 | I can either reduce the basic
appearance, which again, reduces it down to a
| | 04:29 | bottommost fill, and a bottommost stroke,
and that's it, or I can choose Clear
| | 04:33 | Appearance, which by the way is also
accessible here from the bottom of the
| | 04:36 | Appearance panel, called Clear
Appearance right here, which basically reduces
| | 04:41 | my object to have a regular path with
no fill, and no stroke attribute, no
| | 04:45 | effects right if you're on it whatsoever.
| | 04:47 | So finally, I'm going to press Undo
one more time. I want to go back to my
| | 04:49 | original shape here. There is
something else that's here as well. This one is
| | 04:53 | called New Art Has Basic Appearance.
So now we understand what a basic
| | 04:58 | appearance is. Illustrator has a way
of working basically that whenever you
| | 05:02 | have a particular shape selected, and
let's say it's filled with a certain
| | 05:05 | color and a certain attribute, the
next shape that you create is now filled
| | 05:09 | with that same attribute
that you last had selected.
| | 05:11 | So let me give you an understanding of
what I mean. So by default over here I'm
| | 05:15 | going to choose let's say, a new
rectangle. This was the last rectangle that I
| | 05:18 | worked with, that I had selected. It
has a yellow fill, and a black stroke
| | 05:21 | applied to it as a dashed line. When I
click and drag right now, I see that I'm
| | 05:25 | now creating a rectangle that has the
yellow fill, and a black dashed line.
| | 05:28 | If I created let's say another shape,
for example, maybe I use an Ellipse tool,
| | 05:32 | and I click and drag to draw a
particular circle here, again, it picks up on
| | 05:36 | those particular attributes that I have.
That's the behavior of Illustrator,
| | 05:40 | but you'll notice that when I started
drawing, this particular shape does not
| | 05:43 | have a Twist applied to it. It does
not have a Drop Shadow applied to it
| | 05:46 | either, neither does this shape, and
that's because the Appearance panel has
| | 05:50 | this setting turned on.
| | 05:51 | Whenever I create new art, the new art
will only pick up the basic appearance
| | 05:55 | of that selected object, not the
complex appearance, which would include the
| | 05:59 | effects, and additional fills and
strokes that might be applied to it. However,
| | 06:03 | I just want to show you, if I go
ahead and I uncheck this option, and I now
| | 06:07 | simply click on this shape right now,
so this is the last shape that I have selected.
| | 06:11 | When I draw now a new shape, let's go
ahead and maybe draw a star. When I click
| | 06:14 | and drag to draw a star, I'll see now
that the new star does have the Twist and
| | 06:18 | the Drop Shadow applied to it, and
that's because the Appearance panel has that
| | 06:22 | setting turned off, which means that
new art has complex appearance turned on.
| | 06:27 | So I'm going to reduce this back to
basic appearance, because usually that's
| | 06:29 | the case. You don't necessarily want to
add Drop Shadows to everything. I mean,
| | 06:33 | some designers do, nut it doesn't mean
that you should. So now that I have that
| | 06:36 | particular setting, that's the
default setting, when I create new shapes
| | 06:39 | they'll have just the basic appearance
of the previous objects, but they won't
| | 06:42 | pick up on the complex appearance
that are of that particular object.
| | 06:46 | So those are just a few settings in
the Appearance panel when working with Appearances.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Copying appearances| 00:00 | As you begin to use appearances more
and more in your work, you will find it
| | 00:03 | necessary to copy appearances from one
shape to another. For example, over here
| | 00:08 | I have this file called copying
appearances. You'll find that in Chapter08 of
| | 00:12 | your exercise files, and maybe what I
would like to do is take the appearances
| | 00:15 | that apply to these wet suits that
apply at the top of my file, and also copy
| | 00:20 | them to these wet suits that apply
here on the bottom. These all have just a
| | 00:23 | regular white fill/black
stroke attributes applied to them.
| | 00:26 | The easiest way to do this is to use
the Eyedropper tool inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:30 | The way that it works is that I'll first
go ahead and I'll select the shape that
| | 00:32 | I want to have changed. I'll then use
the Eyedropper tool, and I'll click on
| | 00:37 | the shape where I want to copy the
attributes from. So again, the first step is
| | 00:40 | to select the shape that I want to
have the change applied to, and then I use
| | 00:44 | the Eyedropper tool to click on the shape
that I want to have the attributes copied from.
| | 00:48 | So in this case now with a single
click on the Eyedropper tool, copies the
| | 00:51 | attributes from this shape, into the
shape that I currently have selected. If
| | 00:55 | we pay attention to some of the
keyboard shortcuts that we've already learned,
| | 00:58 | we can actually make this process a
little bit more intuitive. With the
| | 01:01 | Eyedropper tool selected, I'll simply
hold down the Command key or the Ctrl key
| | 01:05 | on Windows, to access my Selection tool.
| | 01:07 | I could then select the next object
right here, release the Command key, move
| | 01:11 | to this shape, click once, and I'll
copy the attributes from this shape to this
| | 01:15 | particular shape. Now you'll notice
that I have a fill and a stroke applied to
| | 01:18 | this shape in the bottom as well.
Let's go a step further here.
| | 01:21 | I'm going to click on this shape right
here, and I'll go ahead and I'll click
| | 01:24 | here and here something interesting
happened. Notice that the color didn't come
| | 01:28 | through, but this particular shape
had a Drop Shadow applied to it. But the
| | 01:32 | Drop Shadow was not picked up by the
Eyedropper tool. Well, why did that happen?
| | 01:35 | So remember that we discussed this
concept that's something called a basic
| | 01:38 | appearance, and a complex appearance.
A basic appearance is, the just single
| | 01:43 | fill and single stroke that exist in
an object, but no live effects and no
| | 01:46 | additional fills and strokes.
| | 01:48 | Here you have particular object that
has a complex appearance. This particular
| | 01:52 | object here has a 3D effect, and a
Drop Shadow effect. This one had also
| | 01:56 | accomplished appearance as a Drop
Shadow, so likewise if I would go ahead and
| | 01:59 | select his particular object and use
the Eyedropper tool, only the color comes
| | 02:03 | through, but not the 3D
effect or the Drop Shadow effect.
| | 02:06 | The reason why this happens is,
because by default the Eyedropper tool only
| | 02:09 | works with basic appearances. But we
can change that. So I'm just going to
| | 02:13 | press Undo twice to go back to what I
had here before. Let's travel over to the
| | 02:17 | actual toolbar here and double-
click on the Eyedropper tool.
| | 02:20 | That brings up the Eyedropper
Options dialog box, and you'll see that the
| | 02:23 | Eyedropper tool picks up by default
the Transparency settings, Focal Fill and
| | 02:27 | Focal Strokes settings. Again, those
are the topmost fill, and topmost stroke
| | 02:31 | settings, and of course,
Character Style and Paragraph Styles.
| | 02:35 | But you'll see that the actual
Appearance checkbox is not turned on by default.
| | 02:39 | If I go ahead and I check Appearance,
in both of these cases, I wanted to pick
| | 02:42 | and also apply Appearances, now if I
go ahead and select this shape in the
| | 02:45 | bottom, and click on this shape with
the Eyedropper tool, it does correctly
| | 02:49 | pick up the color and also the effect.
Same thing also over here, if I go ahead
| | 02:52 | and I click on this object, it now
transfers not only the color, but also the
| | 02:57 | 3D effect and the Drop Shadow.
| | 02:58 | So I have complete control over what
I do want to copy when I start working
| | 03:02 | with objects. If I want just the basic
appearance, I'll use the Eyedropper tool
| | 03:06 | with its default settings, but it's
important to know that I can simply
| | 03:09 | double-click in the Eyedropper tool,
and really control almost any of its
| | 03:13 | appearance settings at all, what it
picks up, and what it applies, so that as I
| | 03:16 | use it, I could very intuitively copy
attributes from one object, or one group,
| | 03:21 | or one other particular element inside
of my illustration, and apply it quickly to another.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Working with Groups and LayersDefining groups| 00:00 | As you begin working with more complex
artwork inside of Illustrator you will
| | 00:03 | find it necessary to work with groups.
On a superficial level it makes sense to
| | 00:08 | work with groups because it makes it
easy to edit your artwork. However in this
| | 00:11 | video I want to focus on some of the
core concepts of what a group is, because
| | 00:15 | when we start to understand that we see
that there is a far more deeper meaning
| | 00:19 | in using groups. In fact, we will
find that we will create groups to help
| | 00:22 | create the kind of artwork that we need.
| | 00:24 | Let's take a closer look. I have this
file open here called defining_groups;
| | 00:28 | you can find it inside of
Chapter 09 of your exercise files.
| | 00:31 | I basically have this background that
I created, which is locked, so we can't
| | 00:34 | select it. Then I have these two
local elements. They are all made up of
| | 00:38 | individual elements. For example, some
text, some copy that's been outlined, a
| | 00:42 | couple of shapes here, and an
overall white shape in the background.
| | 00:45 | If I go ahead and I click on them to
select them, let's say marquee select them
| | 00:49 | to select them all, I see that it can
move them around as all as one element.
| | 00:52 | Then I would just press Undo for that.
| | 00:54 | However, I can't just click and drag
to move, because then only one of the
| | 00:57 | elements go, so that means that I have
to make sure that I select each of the
| | 01:01 | elements when I move this. If I
accidentally leave one of the elements behind,
| | 01:04 | that may be of course
problematic when I'm working my design.
| | 01:07 | While it's easy in this case here,
where I have locked my background to simply
| | 01:10 | marquee select all these elements, this
is a really small design element and in
| | 01:14 | an overall design it may be difficult
for me to easily select it; surely to
| | 01:18 | select all the individual
elements for that matter.
| | 01:20 | So what we do is we create a group to
make it easy to have all elements that
| | 01:24 | are within the same design that
work together to be part of one group.
| | 01:27 | For example, in this case here where
the constructs are all the same, I'll
| | 01:31 | simply select all these, go to the
Object menu and choose Group. Now when I go
| | 01:36 | ahead and I just click once and drag
it they all move as an individual unit.
| | 01:39 | I'll press Undo over here because I
want to show you now that there is really a
| | 01:42 | deeper meaning to what a group is.
| | 01:44 | From a purely conceptual standpoint
a group is actually a container that
| | 01:49 | contains the pieces of artwork
inside of them. To better illustrate this
| | 01:52 | concept, imagine if you had a meal that
you were serving at a particular table,
| | 01:57 | and you didn't have any plates. So
you took all the elements of your meal;
| | 02:00 | maybe the steak and the vegetables and
the fries, and just had them all sitting
| | 02:04 | on the table itself.
| | 02:05 | Now, besides the fact that this would
be somewhat messy, imagine if you now
| | 02:09 | decide that you want to sit on the
other side of the table and eat your meal.
| | 02:12 | You couldn't simply pick up your meal
itself, you would have to pick up each
| | 02:14 | individual element, as messy as it were,
and move them to the other side of the table.
| | 02:19 | Now imagine you had a plate. If you
had your entire meal sitting on one
| | 02:22 | individual plate, if you wanted to
move from one side of the table to the
| | 02:25 | other, you simply pick up your plate,
where all the elements of the meal are on
| | 02:28 | the plate, and move that across the table.
| | 02:31 | Well, when you create a group inside of
Illustrator it's a same thing as taking
| | 02:34 | all the elements in your design. In
this case here the blue and the red shape
| | 02:38 | and the text that you have here on the
white background, and putting them all
| | 02:41 | onto a plate. While this is all very
nice from a conceptual standpoint, the
| | 02:45 | reality is that inside of Illustrator
when you do create a group you are also
| | 02:49 | creating a physical entity, you are
actually creating that plate where all
| | 02:52 | these elements sit on top of. The only
thing is though we don't see it. But let
| | 02:56 | me show you an example of how you
could easily understand this concept right
| | 02:59 | here inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:01 | We now have since we have created a
group here with the exact same design
| | 03:04 | elements, although the ones on the
left here are not grouped, but the ones on
| | 03:07 | the right here are grouped together.
Let's apply an effect like maybe, for
| | 03:11 | example, a Drop Shadow to these and see
how that particular effect could give a
| | 03:15 | very different appearance based on the
way that these graphics are structured.
| | 03:19 | For example, I go ahead and I'll
choose to select all these elements here.
| | 03:22 | Remember, these are individual
elements. In fact, let's take a look at my
| | 03:25 | Appearance panel. Open up the
Appearance panel. It says here right now my
| | 03:29 | selection or my target actually
consists of mixed objects. I'll go ahead now
| | 03:35 | and I'll choose Effect, Stylize, and
I'll add a Drop Shadow. I'll just use the
| | 03:39 | default setting. You could see now
that each individual element that I had
| | 03:42 | selected got its own Drop Shadow.
| | 03:44 | Now, that may be the effect that I
might want to look for but most likely it
| | 03:47 | isn't. I probably wanted a Drop
Shadow to apply to the entire element as a
| | 03:50 | whole. Well, let's focus on the group right now.
| | 03:53 | If I go ahead and I click on the group,
take a look now what the Appearance
| | 03:56 | panel shows as my target. My target
is now my group, not mixed objects.
| | 04:01 | The real meaning of a target is, when
I apply any kind of an appearance, the
| | 04:05 | appearance goes onto the target, not
to the individual objects that I have
| | 04:08 | selected. Kind of take that out of
your mind for a second here. Whenever you
| | 04:12 | create something inside of Illustrator
you want to add an effect, like a Drop
| | 04:14 | Shadow for example, or a 3D effect,
or so on and so forth. Those are always
| | 04:18 | applied to your target, not to the
objects, not to what you have "selected",
| | 04:23 | but to what you have targeted at the moment.
| | 04:25 | Now remember, before when I had all
these elements selected, my target was
| | 04:29 | mixed objects or all individual pieces,
however now my target is simply my
| | 04:34 | group or going back to the example we
used before, its the plate that all these
| | 04:38 | particular elements are currently sitting on.
| | 04:40 | So now if I go to the Effect menu and
I choose to apply that exact same Drop
| | 04:44 | Shadow, the shadow applies to the
overall group, or in this particular case
| | 04:48 | here its being applied to that plate.
So the plate itself has the Drop Shadow,
| | 04:53 | but not the elements inside of it.
That's the beauty of working with groups
| | 04:56 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:57 | To further illustrate this concept
let's again take another look at these
| | 05:00 | elements. If I go ahead now and I use
my Direct Selection tool to select just
| | 05:04 | this shape right here, this blue shape.
Notice that my Appearance panel says my
| | 05:08 | target is my Path, and currently that
particular Path has a blue fill, it has
| | 05:13 | no stroke, but it also has
a Drop Shadow applied to it.
| | 05:16 | Using the same Direct Selection tool I
now click on this particular shape. This
| | 05:19 | again is my Path is my target, I have
the same fill and stroke, but there is no
| | 05:24 | Drop Shadow on this object. I never
applied a Drop Shadow to this object,
| | 05:27 | however this object is currently
sitting on a plate or within a group that has
| | 05:32 | a Drop Shadow on it. In fact,
Illustrator is helping me out by letting me know
| | 05:35 | that this path right now, which is
my target, is currently sitting within
| | 05:39 | another group that is sitting on
top of it in the object hierarchy.
| | 05:42 | To further illustrate this point, if I
take this exact same shape right now and
| | 05:46 | I copy it and I go through a new
document and I paste it, there is no Drop
| | 05:50 | Shadow on this particular shape at all.
This shape was simply living inside of
| | 05:53 | a group before that had a Drop Shadow.
By pulling it out of the group and
| | 05:56 | putting it somewhere else there is no
Drop Shadow that's applied to it because
| | 05:59 | the Drop Shadow only belonged to the group.
| | 06:01 | Let me close this document here; I'm
not going to cut and save it. Go back to
| | 06:05 | where we were before, and I want to show you
one more important concept of how this works.
| | 06:09 | I'll use my Selection tool to once
again select this entire group. Now you can
| | 06:14 | see that my target is my group and
here I do see that the Drop Shadow is
| | 06:17 | applied to it.
| | 06:18 | Let's say I decide now that I want to
ungroup this particular shape because
| | 06:20 | maybe I want to pull some parts out of
it. I'll go ahead to the Object menu and
| | 06:24 | I'll choose Ungroup; the keyboard
shortcut is Command+Shift+G or Ctrl+Alt+G on
| | 06:28 | Windows. But now look what happened, my
Drop Shadow went away. That's because I
| | 06:33 | threw away the plate that had the Drop
Shadow on it, so now the Drop Shadow is
| | 06:36 | gone. Again, further illustrating
that the object itself don't get the Drop
| | 06:40 | Shadow, the target gets the Drop Shadow.
| | 06:42 | While in this case over here on the
left the target was the mixed objects,
| | 06:45 | meaning that the Drop Shadow on the
objects themselves, in this case on the
| | 06:49 | right we apply the Drop Shadow to the
group. When we got rid of the group the
| | 06:52 | Drop Shadow went along with it.
| | 06:54 | So now that we have this core
understanding of what a group is inside of
| | 06:56 | Illustrator let's learn a little bit
more about how we edit these particular
| | 06:59 | groups, which we will
talk about in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing groups| 00:00 | So we know that groups are different.
Different meaning that they become an
| | 00:03 | important part of the way that you
build your files inside of Illustrator,
| | 00:07 | but that they are different because
they also have the ability to take on
| | 00:09 | attributes. The same way that I can
apply a Drop Shadow for example to a shape
| | 00:13 | inside of Illustrator, I can also
apply a Drop Shadow to a group inside of
| | 00:17 | Illustrator. So you have to think of a
group inside of Illustrator as an actual
| | 00:21 | object itself. However we start to see
some problems with regards to workflow.
| | 00:26 | For example, in the previous movie we
showed how you can basically apply a Drop
| | 00:30 | Shadow to a group, but then if you
were to ungroup that particular group
| | 00:33 | the Drop Shadow disappears. So let's see
how we can start editing groups once
| | 00:37 | we have them created.
| | 00:38 | I'm working in a file here called
editing_groups, which you will find inside of
| | 00:41 | Chapter 09 in the exercise files. I have
one logo element here, and if I click on it
| | 00:46 | you will see that I have
already created a group.
| | 00:48 | I'm going to go to the Effect menu and
I'm going to choose Stylize and we are
| | 00:51 | going to add a Drop Shadow to this. Click OK.
I now have a Drop Shadow applied to the group.
| | 00:56 | Remember that we know that if I click
on this I can see that my target is my group,
| | 01:00 | but if I go to my Appearance
panel I see very clearly that the Drop
| | 01:03 | Shadow belongs to the group, not to
the contents of the group on its own.
| | 01:07 | For example by the way, I can double
click on the word Contents here.
| | 01:11 | Now I have changed my target; my target is
the bold word here. Notice that my targets
| | 01:15 | are now mixed objects. By the way,
should I apply Drop Shadow now
| | 01:19 | all the individual elements will get a Drop
Shadow just as it did when we applied it to
| | 01:22 | individual objects in the previous
movie. So you can change the target very
| | 01:26 | easily by doing that, but I'm going to
go ahead and double click on the Group
| | 01:29 | and now I'm back to the
Group as being my target.
| | 01:32 | Now, when I mentioned before that we
have a problem in a workflow perspective,
| | 01:35 | let's explore a possible design related
issue. Say this comes back from the client.
| | 01:39 | They love the design but they
need to add a trademark symbol to this
| | 01:42 | particular logo. Now obviously, you want
the trademark to be part of the group as well.
| | 01:46 | Now, in the past if you had certain
elements that already existed inside of a group,
| | 01:50 | and then you wanted to add
additional elements to that group,
| | 01:53 | you probably created the shape, then went
ahead and ungrouped all the elements in
| | 01:57 | your group, selected everything
altogether now including the new elements, and
| | 02:00 | then regrouped them, which may have
worked fine then but if you have an
| | 02:04 | attribute applied to the group, when
you go ahead and you ungroup your object
| | 02:08 | you will lose those attributes as well.
| | 02:10 | Let me illustrate this by giving you an
example. We are going to go ahead over here.
| | 02:13 | I'm going to deselect my shape.
I'll go to my Type tool here and
| | 02:16 | I'll create a Point Text object
and I'll type Option+R to
| | 02:19 | create a registered trademark symbol
on my keyboard. I'll go ahead and I'll
| | 02:22 | just change the size here. I'm going
to go ahead and scale this up to make it
| | 02:25 | just a little bit bigger so we could
see it. Maybe we will go ahead and we will
| | 02:28 | fill this white, so we will go ahead and
we will change our Fill color here to white.
| | 02:32 | I'll drag this registered trademark
symbol let's say right about over
| | 02:35 | here. Let's just put it somewhere where
we all know that we can see it. Now, if
| | 02:38 | I go ahead and I move this design
element elsewhere that registered trademark
| | 02:41 | symbol is not part of the group. So as
I mentioned before in the past I might
| | 02:45 | go ahead and I might choose Object >
Ungroup to ungroup all my elements,
| | 02:49 | but notice now that my Drop Shadow
disappears. Even if I now go ahead and I choose
| | 02:53 | all the elements and I choose to
regroup them now into one group,
| | 02:56 | the Drop Shadow doesn't come back. Once
I got rid of the group the Drop Shadow
| | 02:59 | disappeared. So what we want to do
is we want to find a way to add that
| | 03:02 | registered trademark symbol to our
artwork without having to destroy the group.
| | 03:07 | So I'm going to press Command+Z or
Ctrl+Z just to go back to where I had
| | 03:12 | the Drop Shadow applied to the group.
I'm now going to take this registered
| | 03:14 | trademark symbol and I'm going to copy
it or actually cut it to my clipboard;
| | 03:18 | I'm going to hold down Command+X or
Ctrl+X on PC. Now what I'm going to do is
| | 03:23 | I'm going to use something called the
Isolation mode feature to get into the
| | 03:27 | group. So I'm now simply going to go
ahead and double click on the group
| | 03:29 | itself. Notice the background now, its
dimmed but its no longer selectable.
| | 03:33 | I have now isolated my group here. I can
see over here this gray bar. I'm now in
| | 03:37 | Layer 1 and I'm now inside of this
group here that I created inside of Layer 1.
| | 03:41 | Now if I choose Edit and I choose
Paste in Front, that shape now is being
| | 03:47 | isolated currently inside of my group,
so I'm in my group, now that particular
| | 03:51 | shape belongs to this group. If I now
double click outside this area to return
| | 03:55 | to regular editing this shape is now
part of that group. In this way I don't
| | 04:00 | lose my Drop Shadow at all. So when
I'm working with particular groups and
| | 04:04 | I want to either add or delete elements
from a particular group, rather than
| | 04:07 | ungroup and then regroup my objects,
which will then go ahead and blow away any
| | 04:11 | appearances I may have applied to that
group, I'll now use Isolation mode to
| | 04:15 | dive into a particular group, make
whatever changes that I want to there, and
| | 04:19 | then exit Isolation mode when I'm ready
to move forward. Now again, here on the
| | 04:23 | case of the registered trademark symbol,
rather than copying and pasting inside
| | 04:26 | of that particular group, I could
simply just double click on the group to
| | 04:29 | enter Isolation mode and now type it
from scratch in this particular location.
| | 04:33 | Now, in my object hierarchy I'm now
creating artwork; I'm basically inserting
| | 04:38 | this artwork into the correct
location in the hierarchy. Any shape that I
| | 04:42 | create now automatically belongs to
this group. In fact, to illustrate that
| | 04:45 | point, watch what happens if I go ahead
and I take let's say an Ellipse, and I
| | 04:49 | click and drag to draw just about over
here like this. When I release the mouse
| | 04:53 | you can see that now the Drop Shadow
automatically is applied and these are all
| | 04:57 | combined into one shape, because this
now belongs to the group and the group
| | 05:00 | has a Drop Shadow on it. If I exit
Isolation mode, these objects are all
| | 05:04 | grouped together and they all have the
Drop Shadow on it. Now, while Isolation
| | 05:08 | mode does make it a little bit easier
to work with groups itself while you are
| | 05:11 | editing them, there is another way
that you could also work with groups and
| | 05:14 | even see objects on an object-by-
object basis in a list that can be found
| | 05:19 | inside the Layers panel. So next,
let's explore how working with Layers works
| | 05:23 | inside of Illustrator as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with layers| 00:00 | Groups and layers are somewhat related
to each other, because from a conceptual
| | 00:03 | point of view they help us organize our
documents. As we have seen so far with
| | 00:07 | groups there is the added benefit of
helping us control how our artwork looks
| | 00:11 | in our file, and in reality
there is more to layers as well.
| | 00:15 | For this movie I'm going to use this
file called working_layers; you can find
| | 00:18 | it in Chapter 09 of the exercise files.
I'm also going to go ahead and open up
| | 00:22 | my Layers panel. In fact, I'll bring it
up over here to the top of the screen,
| | 00:25 | again, so you could just focus on
what we are seeing inside of it.
| | 00:27 | Before we get into actually using
layers it's important to realize that, in my
| | 00:32 | honest opinion, you don't have to use
layers inside of any document. I think
| | 00:36 | it's very difficult to get by without
using groups, mainly because of how you
| | 00:39 | use groups to affect your appearances,
for example, when applying overall
| | 00:43 | effects like Drop Shadows
to entire logo elements.
| | 00:46 | However the reality is, if you are
creating artwork that, A, is going to either
| | 00:49 | be used by other people, that maybe
used outside of Illustrator, for example,
| | 00:53 | when going into applications like Flash,
or when you are trying to build more
| | 00:56 | complex things, like maps and charts,
working with layers becomes extremely important.
| | 01:01 | The great thing about Illustrator is
you don't need to start thinking about
| | 01:04 | layers when you first create
your artwork, if you are really that
| | 01:07 | well-organized you can first create a
document with all of your layers inside
| | 01:10 | of it and then add artwork later.
| | 01:12 | But what I often find myself doing is
taking some artwork at some point and
| | 01:15 | realizing, boy, I should really start
to create some layers here. Which is the
| | 01:19 | case here in this particular file.
Maybe I got to a point here when I realized
| | 01:22 | I should start working with some layers.
In fact, what we will do in this case
| | 01:25 | here is we will actually create
three layers in our document, one for the
| | 01:28 | background, one for this element on the
left side, and one for this element on
| | 01:32 | the right side.
| | 01:33 | So let's begin first by creating a
background layer for this nice little blue
| | 01:37 | sky. I'll go to the Layers panel
here and I'll click on this icon here to
| | 01:40 | create a new layer. I'll double click
on the name Layer 2 here to give it a
| | 01:44 | name. Let's go ahead and call this one
Background. We will discuss the options
| | 01:50 | in the Layer Options dialog box momentarily,
but for now I'm just going to click OK.
| | 01:54 | Here's what I'm going to do, I'm going
to click on the background itself; and
| | 01:57 | you see that on the far right over here
this little color dot; let's ignore the
| | 02:00 | circles here for a moment, we will get
to that shortly, but for right over here
| | 02:03 | this little dot here, this dot indicates
that I currently have artwork selected
| | 02:07 | on that layer.
| | 02:08 | What's interesting about
Illustrator is that it gives me this little
| | 02:11 | notification that says, help me
understand what is going on in my file. Right
| | 02:14 | now I have one element of many that
are selected on that layer, so I get a
| | 02:18 | small dot, but if I were to select all
the elements in my layer; for example,
| | 02:22 | right now I'll just press Command+A to
select everything. You see how that dot
| | 02:25 | now becomes a big square. That tells
me that I currently have everything
| | 02:28 | selected on the layer. If I only have a
small box there that means that I only
| | 02:32 | have some elements in that layer
selected. Again, it's just a little old thing
| | 02:35 | that's there.
| | 02:36 | But that little box has more
importance than just a visual representation of
| | 02:39 | what I have selected. It also allows
me to make certain changes. For example,
| | 02:43 | with this particular background now
selected I can go ahead and take this
| | 02:47 | particular square and drag it into
another layer. For example, right now I'm
| | 02:52 | dragging it to the Background layer.
| | 02:54 | Now, the way that my hierarchy is
inside of Illustrator, remember everything is
| | 02:57 | always built from the bottom up, so
in this case I currently have Layer 1,
| | 03:00 | which has all the artwork on it, but I
just moved that background up into this
| | 03:03 | layer, which is the Background layer,
which means that its now covering over
| | 03:07 | all the other elements beneath it.
| | 03:08 | So while I have successfully moved the
background into its correct layer the
| | 03:12 | layer itself is in the wrong position.
So what I'll do here is I'll actually
| | 03:15 | take the Background layer and I'll
drag that entire layer to be beneath Layer
| | 03:19 | 1, so that allows me to
change the Stacking Order.
| | 03:23 | Again, this is important to realize
when you have objects that are either above
| | 03:26 | or below other objects, those only
exist within a single layer. So just to give
| | 03:30 | you an example, I'm going to undo this
for a second here. I have the Background
| | 03:33 | layer and currently the background is
in that layer, and I realize, oh, you
| | 03:36 | know something, this is covering that
artwork, so maybe I'll think, oh, I'll
| | 03:39 | just go to the Object menu, I'll choose
Arrange, and I'll choose Send to Back.
| | 03:44 | Well, doing that simply sends it to
the back of this Background layer, it
| | 03:48 | doesn't send it beneath this layer here.
So it's important to realize that the
| | 03:52 | Stacking Order that we see here in
the Object menu over here where it says
| | 03:54 | Arrange, is all within one layer, but
as soon as I start to work with multiple
| | 03:58 | layers, then I have to realize that
each layer on its own has its own Stacking
| | 04:03 | Order. We will see more of this
shortly, but for now I'm going to take this
| | 04:06 | entire Background layer and in the
Layers panel drag it beneath the Layer 1
| | 04:10 | layer, and now I see that I have the
correct Stacking Order for my particular file.
| | 04:15 | Let's go ahead now and create two more
layers. So I go ahead here and I'll say
| | 04:18 | 1, 2; now I have Layer 3 and Layer 4.
I'm going to call this one over here,
| | 04:23 | Grouped Element, because this object in
the right here is actually a group, and
| | 04:28 | this one is not grouped, so we will
call this one here -- double click on this
| | 04:31 | Layer 3 here, I'm going to
call this one Separate Objects.
| | 04:36 | I'm just naming the layers right now,
but now if I want to move the elements
| | 04:39 | into there I can use the exact same
method as before. I want to marquee select
| | 04:42 | this area to select all these objects
here, but if I were to click and drag
| | 04:46 | right now I'm going to select that
background. Instead of me having to lock the
| | 04:49 | background object itself I can now
simply go to the layer itself and click
| | 04:53 | right over here. In doing so I now have
locked that particular layer, so now I
| | 04:57 | can no longer select that, so it
makes it easy for me now to go ahead and
| | 05:00 | marquee select that shape.
| | 05:02 | Working with layers, as you will find,
also makes it far more easy to work
| | 05:05 | within your file. By organizing things
in this way you could very quickly lock
| | 05:09 | down certain parts of the file that
are not necessary to either be able to
| | 05:12 | select or I could use this little
eyeball to hide that layer completely.
| | 05:16 | But I'm going to go ahead now and
select all these elements right here. I now
| | 05:19 | have this little dot right here. I can
click and drag that into the Separate
| | 05:23 | Objects layer. I'll now take these
elements right here and I'll move those into
| | 05:28 | the Grouped Element layer.
| | 05:29 | Now, I can simply take Layer 1 and drag
it right to the trashcan, because there
| | 05:32 | is nothing in that particular layer right now.
| | 05:34 | So now I have the layers set up as I
need to. If I were to use the eyeballs to
| | 05:37 | toggle this right now I could see that
I have a Background layer, I have that
| | 05:41 | layer that contains all the Separated
Objects, and I have the Grouped Element
| | 05:44 | in that one as well.
| | 05:45 | Now, if you notice I can click on
this right now and you see how all the
| | 05:47 | elements are highlighted in this blue
color. But if I click on this one the
| | 05:51 | elements are highlighted in this other
color, this green color. That's because
| | 05:55 | I have the ability to choose what color
my layer's selection show in, and that
| | 06:00 | helps me identify the layers as I
select objects on the page itself.
| | 06:04 | You can easily change these colors by
simply double clicking on any layer. For
| | 06:07 | example, let's go ahead and double
click on the Separate Objects layer, and I
| | 06:10 | see that I have a color specified here.
No, this doesn't mean that the objects
| | 06:13 | in my file are colored green or the
objects in this layer are colored green,
| | 06:16 | rather it's the selection color;
whenever I have something selected the little
| | 06:20 | lines that show up to highlight that
particular object is being selected are green.
| | 06:24 | I can go ahead and I can choose any
color that's here. I can even choose Other
| | 06:27 | and choose from the Color Picker
exactly what color I want that particular
| | 06:30 | layer to be. I would suggest staying
away from the color black or white.
| | 06:34 | Obviously it makes it very difficult
for you to see those selections when that happens.
| | 06:37 | While we are here let's take a quick
look at some of the options here in this
| | 06:40 | particular dialog box. We will
discuss the Template layer shortly.
| | 06:43 | Lock obviously is the same thing as me
choosing the Lock icon right here. Show
| | 06:47 | is the same thing as me clicking on the
eyeball that's in the left side here as well.
| | 06:51 | Print allows me to actually tell
Illustrator to not print an entire layer. For
| | 06:55 | example, right now this by default is
turned on so this layer will print, but
| | 07:00 | if for example, I want to put some
instructions in a file that I want someone
| | 07:02 | else to see but I don't want to show up on
a printout, I could simply uncheck this option.
| | 07:07 | Just to show you what it looks like. If
I click OK, you will see that the word
| | 07:09 | Separate Objects right now, the name in
the layers appears in italics. Whenever
| | 07:13 | you see a layer that appears in italics
that means that that is a non-printing
| | 07:17 | layer and that layer will
not show up on a printout.
| | 07:20 | Let me go ahead and turn that back on
again. I also have the Preview option
| | 07:23 | here. It is possible inside of
Illustrator to have one layer be seen in Outline
| | 07:28 | mode while the rest of your
document is shown in Preview mode.
| | 07:31 | So we showed you before in the past,
where if you go to the View menu you could
| | 07:34 | toggle between Outline and Preview,
but that was the entire document in a
| | 07:38 | whole. However, when you look over
here and now you can see that there are
| | 07:40 | certain layers that are inside of
Preview mode and certain are in Outline mode.
| | 07:45 | I'll go ahead and double click on that
layer again to turn the Preview back on.
| | 07:48 | I also have the ability to dim any
images on this layer to 50%. When we talk
| | 07:51 | about Template layers in a few
movies from now we will get a better
| | 07:55 | understanding of what
that particular feature is.
| | 07:56 | So for now though, we have a better
understanding of what our layers are here
| | 08:00 | inside of Illustrator, and we can
easily see how they can help us organize our
| | 08:03 | artwork in our file.
| | 08:05 | In the next movie we will see what the real
power of layers are inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Layer and object hierarchy| 00:00 | At a very basic level, the Layers panel
in Illustrator allows us to divide our
| | 00:04 | artwork up in two sections that way
we can more easily work within a more
| | 00:07 | complicated file. However, there is a
tremendous amount of hidden power inside
| | 00:12 | the Layers panel that really helps us
work with just about any file whatsoever
| | 00:15 | and no additional work is necessary.
| | 00:18 | In this example here we do have three
layers. These are the exact same three
| | 00:21 | layers that we created in the
previous movie. The document that I'm working
| | 00:24 | with here, if you want to follow
along is called object_hierarchy; you will
| | 00:28 | find that inside of Chapter 09 of the
exercise files. Let me go ahead and move
| | 00:31 | this just a little bit over here to the
right here so we can get a better idea
| | 00:34 | of what's happening. I'm going to
expand this particular Layers panel so that
| | 00:38 | we can see a lot more of it;
in a minute you will see why.
| | 00:41 | Notice that each of the layers
themselves have a little triangle what we call
| | 00:44 | disclosure triangle or some people
refer to them as twirleys or twirl downs.
| | 00:49 | Let's start off here on the bottom
with a background layer. We know that the
| | 00:52 | background layer, as we saw before it
consist of one particular rectangle or
| | 00:56 | one path that we created,
that's filled with a gradient.
| | 00:59 | If I go ahead in the Layers panel
right here and I click on that little twirl
| | 01:03 | down, I'll see that the path exists here.
Now, even though this path is listed
| | 01:07 | here in the Layers panel, this itself
is not a layer. Take a look at how the
| | 01:11 | background layer itself over here that
I have has a great background, but the
| | 01:15 | path is sitting on a while background.
| | 01:17 | Well, basically the Layers panel
itself has the ability to show me not just
| | 01:21 | layers but also objects or in fact all
the objects that exist inside of a file
| | 01:27 | and I can distinguish the difference
between paths or objects and layers by
| | 01:31 | seeing what color the
background is inside of the Layers panel.
| | 01:34 | In fact, let's go ahead and click on
the twirl downs for the Separate Objects
| | 01:37 | layer and also for the Grouped Element
layer. I'll click down over here in the
| | 01:41 | blank areas that I have no layer
selected. As in quick overall view I can see
| | 01:45 | right away that I have three layers in
my document. I have the Grouped Element
| | 01:49 | layer, the Separate Objects layer, and
the background layer again identified
| | 01:53 | each by gray backgrounds.
| | 01:55 | The white backgrounds here indicate
objects that exist inside of those layers.
| | 02:00 | The importance of this is twofold.
First of all, I have the ability now to see
| | 02:04 | every single object that exists
inside of my file right here under Layers
| | 02:07 | panel. And in addition, I also have
the ability to visually see the hierarchy
| | 02:12 | or the way that the objects are
built inside of my file. Remember that
| | 02:15 | everything inside of
Illustrator is build from the bottom-up.
| | 02:17 | So I see that in this document, this
path comes first on the bottom as the
| | 02:21 | background. Then I have this
particular path here, then this path and this
| | 02:25 | path. There is a group, this path, for
example, and then moving forward. Now
| | 02:31 | that we understand that, let's take
another look over here. I see that in my
| | 02:33 | Separate Objects layer, which is
this element here that's made of many
| | 02:36 | different objects, there is a group
that exists there. If I click on the twirl
| | 02:40 | down for that group, I see the
elements that exist inside of that group.
| | 02:43 | In fact, that group right here is the
word Surf, but it's a different compound
| | 02:48 | shape that exists right there for the
letter S, U, R and F. Let me go ahead and
| | 02:53 | close that for a second here. Take a
look at the Grouped Element. I now see
| | 02:57 | that there is a group. These elements
now live inside of a single group. If I
| | 03:01 | click on the twirl down I'll see
that the same elements that make up the
| | 03:04 | Separate Objects are now put inside of
this overall group. We discussed before
| | 03:07 | I could use Isolation mode to
basically jump into a group and edit objects
| | 03:12 | within that group. We also know that
we can bring objects to the front or to
| | 03:15 | the back of other objects
again within a single layer.
| | 03:18 | Well, rather than always have to
travel up to the Object menu to change the
| | 03:21 | stacking order of objects you can do
things directly through the Layers panel.
| | 03:24 | For example, right now this word
Hawaii is sitting above this particular red
| | 03:28 | path, which is this word right here
Hawaii over this red path right here.
| | 03:32 | However, if I take this layer right
here or this object within the Layers panel
| | 03:36 | and drag it beneath that red path, we
will see that I now changed the stacking
| | 03:39 | order. It's still there, but I just
sent it behind that particular object. I
| | 03:43 | can Undo that or change it by simply
taking that and dragging it above as well.
| | 03:47 | But perhaps most important of all is
how you can work with appearances and
| | 03:50 | layers together. I explained before
that when we had this particular element
| | 03:55 | here that we have grouped together
and we applied the Drop Shadow, the Drop
| | 03:58 | Shadow now is applied to the Grouped
Element, which means that if I were to
| | 04:01 | selected this group right now and choose
to un-group it, the Drop Shadow would disappear.
| | 04:05 | Now the reality is that when you are
working inside of a graphic and you select
| | 04:08 | a particular object, you see it has a
Drop Shadow. How do you know if that Drop
| | 04:12 | Shadow belongs to the group or not? Well,
when you use the Layers panel, it's a
| | 04:15 | really easy way to tell. Take a look
over here. I'm going to deselect this
| | 04:19 | piece of artwork right now. Take a
look on the far right on the Layers panel
| | 04:22 | and you will notice that each layer or
an object has a little circle here. Some
| | 04:26 | of these circles are hollow while
some of them are filled with a gradient.
| | 04:29 | These circles are called target
circles and depending on the way that they
| | 04:32 | look, they identify to us as
designers, whether or not those particular
| | 04:37 | elements have appearances or I would
say complex appearances applied to them.
| | 04:42 | Let's explain; I'll bring up the
Appearance panel here because these things go
| | 04:46 | hand in hand. Let's close the Graphic
Styles here. So I have the Appearance
| | 04:50 | panel and I have the Layers panel here
side by side. Let's move this over just
| | 04:55 | a little bit so we can see a little bit
more, what we are dealing with. We know
| | 04:58 | that the path itself that exists
right here is a regular path that's filled
| | 05:01 | with a gradient. Since it has a
single Fill and a single Stroke, that
| | 05:05 | particular element has a basic
appearance. Any object or a layer that appears
| | 05:09 | in the Layers panel with a hollow
circle identifies that object or layer as
| | 05:14 | having a basic appearance.
| | 05:15 | However, any time you see a shaded
target circle, that means that, that
| | 05:19 | particular object or layer has a
complex appearance applied to it and in fact
| | 05:23 | with that having to do too much
detective work. We can easily take a look at
| | 05:27 | this file right now and see what is
going on. This group right here has the
| | 05:32 | Drop Shadow on it because if I look
right over here at the group, I see that
| | 05:35 | the group has a target circle that has
that shaded, meaning that this group has
| | 05:39 | some complex appearance on it.
| | 05:41 | However, each of the objects inside of
that group, all have basic appearances,
| | 05:45 | which means that they obviously can
have Drop Shadows on them. In comparison,
| | 05:49 | take a look at the Separate Objects
layer. The layer itself has a regular
| | 05:53 | target circle, meaning that the layer
itself has a basic appearance. However,
| | 05:57 | each of the individual objects
within that layer obviously have complex
| | 06:00 | appearances, meaning that I might
assume that they all have Drop Shadows on
| | 06:04 | them. You can see this very clearly
simply by clicking on the target circle
| | 06:07 | itself. If I go here to the group
and I click on the target circle, I'm
| | 06:12 | manually targeting that particular group.
| | 06:15 | Now, Illustrator employs something
called Smart Targeting, which means if I
| | 06:17 | click on a group, Illustrator
automatically targets the group for me, thinking
| | 06:21 | that if I want to apply an effect, I
want it to be applied to the overall
| | 06:24 | group. However, I can manually
target anything inside of Illustrator by
| | 06:28 | clicking on its target circle. For
example, clicking on this word Hawaii right
| | 06:32 | here, on the target circle here,
identifies that this text is now selected and
| | 06:36 | targeted and that particular
object has a Drop Shadow applied to it.
| | 06:40 | So it's obvious that the Layers
panel contains a tremendous amount of
| | 06:43 | information about how my file is
actually built and even if you don't actually
| | 06:47 | use layers in your artwork. The
ability to see the object hierarchy in your
| | 06:51 | file and the appearances that are
applied to them make the Layers palette a
| | 06:54 | very valuable tool.
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| Creating template layers| 00:00 | In the previous movie we were
exploring the different settings for layers and
| | 00:03 | there was a setting there called
template. Let's take a look at what that means
| | 00:07 | here inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:08 | I'm using a file from the
example files from Chapter09 called the
| | 00:12 | template_layers, and I'm go ahead to
the Layers panel and just choose to open
| | 00:15 | that up here, so you can take a look at it.
| | 00:17 | On this particular layer, you will
notice that I have an image. This image is
| | 00:21 | embedded, and I have boarded now into
Illustrator, and I might want to use this
| | 00:24 | as a base for me to create a design. I
don't want to trace it using the Live
| | 00:28 | Trace feature inside of Illustrator;
we will talk about later on this
| | 00:31 | particular title. However, for now, I
might want to use my Pen tool or some of
| | 00:34 | the Drawing tools, to kind of draw my
own shapes, but base it somewhat on this,
| | 00:39 | to map it more towards a more
traditional way of drawing. You know, there is
| | 00:43 | some designers who would take a piece
of artwork, and put a piece of tracing
| | 00:46 | paper on top of it, or maybe put that
over a light box and they can use that as
| | 00:50 | a base for their drawings. Well, I
won't to be able to actually turn this into
| | 00:53 | that same kind of metaphor where I
want to be able to use this as a base for
| | 00:56 | particular design, but I want to
just draw completely on top of it.
| | 00:59 | So what can I do is, I can create
what's called the template layer. I'm going
| | 01:02 | to take layer one right here, which is
where that image resides on. I'm going
| | 01:06 | to double click on layer once to bring
up the Layer Options dialog box. I'll
| | 01:09 | click on this option here, I'll call
Template. When I do so, it automatically
| | 01:13 | locks the layer, it sets it to be a
non-printing layer, and it says to Dim
| | 01:18 | Images to 50% right here. I'm going to
go ahead and click OK, and you will see
| | 01:22 | that right now the image itself is dim.
It's locked. In fact, that entire layer
| | 01:26 | is locked, and what I'll do now, is
I'll create a brand new layer to use for
| | 01:30 | drawing. I can now use the Pencil
tool, for example, to maybe trace over
| | 01:34 | certain parts of this if I wanted to
create something like that, as I kind of
| | 01:37 | work. Again, it's up to me to decide
how I want to use this template layer, but
| | 01:41 | in this way I'm basically locking down
the image, and setting it to a lighter
| | 01:44 | opacities that I can now draw on top
of it without that image getting in the way.
| | 01:49 | I in fact, sometimes find that that
50% opacity setting is some times too
| | 01:52 | strong, so I'll go to that particular
template layer, double-click on it and
| | 01:57 | set the Dim Images to around 30%. In that
way I have an easy way of drawing on top of that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Object, group, and layer attributes| 00:00 | So we have a very basic understanding
of what appearances are, what groups and
| | 00:04 | layers are, and how they all
interact with each other, and it's really
| | 00:07 | important to kind of, bring them all
together and understand how, when you
| | 00:11 | create a document, each of these can
offer individual benefits, especially when
| | 00:14 | they are all used together. It's
extremely important, when working with artwork
| | 00:17 | that other people have created, to
understand how those documents were created.
| | 00:21 | And in fact, the Layers panel can
help you reverse engineer better than any
| | 00:25 | other file. This becomes extremely
important when people start applying
| | 00:28 | appearances at the object, group, and
even layer level. Let's take a closer look.
| | 00:33 | I have three surfboards here in
this particular file, the file called
| | 00:36 | object_group_layer, and you can find
this in Chapter 09 of the exercise files.
| | 00:40 | I'm going to go to this first
particular shape right here and click on it. In
| | 00:43 | fact, I make sure that I have my
Appearance panel open, and let's bring that up
| | 00:47 | to the top of the screen here. I'm also
going to go ahead and open up my Layers
| | 00:50 | panel, so that we can see that as
well. In fact, I'll attach them both
| | 00:53 | together, so that we can get a really
good idea of how both of these particular
| | 00:57 | panels look, and how we can use them
when we start exploring our particular files.
| | 01:02 | Again I'll select the first surfboard
on the left here. What's my target here?
| | 01:06 | My target is my Path. So I'm going
to go ahead right now, and take the
| | 01:09 | particular path and apply a color.
Let's go ahead and say for the Fill color,
| | 01:13 | we are going to use -- oh yeah, you
guessed it, yellow. So now I'm going to
| | 01:16 | take the second one that's right here,
and I'm actually going to take a single
| | 01:19 | shape, go to the Object menu, and
choose Group. You can actually create a group
| | 01:23 | inside of Illustrator even with one
object. Remember that a group itself, even
| | 01:27 | though it's a concept of basically
putting objects together, but remember that
| | 01:30 | a group is very much like a plate. So
I can create a plate, and only put one
| | 01:33 | element on top of it. So what I have
done right now, is I have created a group
| | 01:37 | that contains only one element. If you
look at the Layers panel right here, I
| | 01:40 | see that created group, and there is
only one path inside of that group. In
| | 01:43 | fact, you can either take this
particular group and drag stuff right out of it,
| | 01:47 | and now the group disappears. Let me
go ahead and press Command+Z right now,
| | 01:51 | but I now have my group with my path
inside of it, and rather than actually
| | 01:54 | click on this particular right now,
take a look at my Appearance panel.
| | 01:58 | I don't have my path targeted. I
actually have the group targeted. Remember
| | 02:02 | Illustrator uses something called Smart
Targeting. Whenever you select a group,
| | 02:06 | Illustrator targets the group thinking
that whatever you want to apply to that
| | 02:08 | group, should get applied to the
group overall, and not to the actual
| | 02:12 | individual objects within that group.
| | 02:14 | So now if I go ahead, and I choose from
the Appearance panel to add a new Fill,
| | 02:18 | I can choose that that particular fill
should be yellow. Now even though these
| | 02:22 | visually look like they are the same,
this particular object has a single path
| | 02:26 | that has a fill in it. This one has
now a group, and that group has an
| | 02:31 | appearance, the object inside of the
group does not have one. In fact, if I go
| | 02:35 | ahead and I just target the group
specifically, you can see that the fill here
| | 02:39 | is actually white with a black stroke.
We can actually clear the appearance
| | 02:42 | completely of that object, and then
we see now that particular group itself
| | 02:45 | over here, now has just filled yellow
on its own. We can even click on this
| | 02:49 | right now, again, Illustrator smart
targets the group automatically, and change
| | 02:54 | the stroke of this to be black if we wanted to.
| | 02:56 | So now we have two objects that look
visually the same. This one is a path that
| | 03:00 | has a yellow fill and a black stroke.
This is a path that lives inside of a
| | 03:04 | group that has a yellow fill and a
black stroke. I can even go one step
| | 03:08 | further. Let's go and create a brand
new layer; layer 2. Take this object and
| | 03:12 | drag it into that particular layer. Now
that particular object is living inside
| | 03:17 | of layer 2. I can now take my Layers
panel and click on the little targets over
| | 03:23 | right here, and target the layer
manually. I'm going to open up the Layer panel
| | 03:26 | here. You see the path? The path is
not targeted right now. Even though it
| | 03:30 | looks like I have the path selected on
my screen, my target, which is the word
| | 03:34 | in bold here, is my layer. Yes, inside
of Illustrator, it's possible to apply
| | 03:38 | attributes, not only to individual
objects and groups, but also to overall
| | 03:43 | layers. So I can now, for example,
choose to add a new fill or a new stroke to
| | 03:48 | the actual layer itself. So now
the layer has a fill of yellow.
| | 03:51 | Now why would I want to do this? There
are certain, maybe attributes that I can
| | 03:54 | apply at the layer level. For example,
a stroke, which should mean that all
| | 03:57 | objects that I put on the layer have a
stroke, or maybe for example, I want to
| | 04:00 | add drop shadows to everything on a
certain layer. For example, I'll press Undo
| | 04:04 | right now, twice, just to go back to my
layer being targeted, and what I'll do
| | 04:08 | now, is I'll go to the Effect menu and
choose to apply Drop Shadow, but because
| | 04:12 | my layer is my target right now, the
drop shadow goes on the layer. This is
| | 04:17 | actually pretty cool, because it means
that I can take this shape, which is a
| | 04:20 | regular plain path, which is now living
inside of layer 1 and I could drag that
| | 04:24 | particular path into layer 2. In
doing so, it now takes on the drop shadow
| | 04:29 | because it now is living inside of a
layer where all objects on that layer has
| | 04:33 | got a drop shadow, and by dragging that
particular object back into layer 1, it
| | 04:37 | now loses that particular drop shadow,
because it's no longer in that layer.
| | 04:41 | I can now individually apply objects to
paths, to groups and even to layers as
| | 04:46 | well. In fact, let me show you how
Illustrator helps you out here, because in
| | 04:50 | some cases you can really get
yourself into some trouble. For example, I'm
| | 04:53 | going to go ahead over here, and create
a brand new layer in my document. I now
| | 04:57 | have layer 3, which I'll bring to the
top of my hierarchy. Let's go ahead and
| | 05:00 | collapse these layers here, and I'm
actually going to hide these layers. So now
| | 05:04 | I have layer 3.
| | 05:05 | I'm going to create just a regular
rectangle here. This rectangle right now has
| | 05:09 | a yellow fill, and a black stroke.
I'm going to go ahead in this particular
| | 05:12 | Appearance panel right now, and for the
Fill, set my Opacity to 50%. So we know
| | 05:18 | that right now the actual yellow that
I'm seeing here, even though in my Color
| | 05:22 | panel if I were to choose this object,
looks like it's going to be a solid
| | 05:26 | yellow. If I come here and I print
this right now, this is going to be 50%,
| | 05:28 | tinted yellow. Actually it's just
transparency, it's 50% of that full strength
| | 05:34 | yellow. But now I'm going to go to
the overall Opacity setting of my entire
| | 05:37 | object, and set the object's Opacity
to 50%. So what's my result right now?
| | 05:42 | Even though I'm seeing 50% of the fill
right now, and 50% of the Opacity for
| | 05:46 | entire object, my result really is 25%
Opacity, because I have 50%, over the
| | 05:52 | 50% fill.
| | 05:53 | What would happen now if I would to go
ahead and create a group? So now this
| | 05:57 | object is living inside of a group,
and I go ahead and I take the Opacity
| | 06:01 | setting of the group, and I change its
Opacity setting to 50%. Well, now I'm
| | 06:05 | down to about 12.5% Opacity, because I
now have a square, basically that has
| | 06:11 | it's own fill set to an Opacity,
plus the object overall has an Opacity
| | 06:16 | setting, plus the group that it lives
in has an Opacity setting. Well take a
| | 06:19 | look at this, I'm now going to manually
target the layer, and I'm now going to
| | 06:23 | set the layer's Opacity to 50%. So
that means I have so many now built in
| | 06:29 | layers of Opacity in this particular shape.
| | 06:32 | Illustrator helps me, by the way by
first identifying each of these shapes now
| | 06:35 | have complex appearance, because I have
added those Opacity settings here, but
| | 06:39 | when I go ahead now, and I click on
this particular items inside of my Layers
| | 06:43 | panel, for example, if I click on
the path itself, and I target the path,
| | 06:47 | Illustrator let me know that right now
this path happens to be living inside of
| | 06:50 | a group, which has a transparency
setting on it and that group happens to be
| | 06:54 | living inside of a layer that has a
transparency setting on it as well.
| | 06:57 | So I'll always see, not only the
target itself, but if the target belongs to
| | 07:01 | other groups of layers that have
appearance applied to them as well,
| | 07:04 | Illustrator will identify those, and
show me to them above the particular
| | 07:08 | target in the Appearance panel.
| | 07:10 | So that's just one way that Illustrator
helps to identify this, again, without
| | 07:13 | the Appearance panel, it's like flying
an airplane in the clouds without any
| | 07:16 | instruments. You are flying blind. So
I do suggest that when you're working
| | 07:20 | inside of Illustrator, that you pay
close attention to what the Appearance
| | 07:23 | panel is telling you, because from a
very basic level, almost any time that you
| | 07:27 | get confused about where objects are,
or where certain effects are being
| | 07:30 | applied, you can easily find that
information directly in the Appearance panel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Working with ColorApplying colors| 00:00 | Some times the artwork that you create
can be black and white, but more often
| | 00:04 | you will need to add color when
working with graphics inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:07 | Now until this point, we have taken a
very simple method of applying colors to
| | 00:11 | objects. We've either have selected an
object first, and then changed its fill
| | 00:15 | color by going over here to the Control
panel, clicking on the Fill indicator,
| | 00:19 | and choosing a color here, or we have
been using Appearance panel directly by
| | 00:23 | clicking on any particular object, and
then directly from the Appearance panel
| | 00:26 | clicking on the Fill and choosing the
fill from here as well. But where do
| | 00:29 | these colors come from? These colors
come from the Swatches panel. You will see
| | 00:33 | that the identical colors that are here
also appear here as well. Let's say you
| | 00:37 | want to create a color, or you want to
add a color that does not exist in the
| | 00:40 | Swatches panel. So let's take a
look at how we actually create our own
| | 00:43 | customized colors inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:46 | I'm using this file here called
applying_colors. You will find it inside of
| | 00:49 | Chapter 10 in the Exercise files. Let's
actually pull out the Color panel so we
| | 00:53 | can focus on a little bit more. I have
setup this file using the Print Profile,
| | 00:57 | and it's currently using the CMYK
workspace, so I have chosen, for now, the
| | 01:01 | Color panel to display the colors using
CMYK. If I want to mix or create my own
| | 01:05 | colors, I can simply select any object
on my artboard, and then come over to
| | 01:09 | the sliders, and either adjust the
sliders manually, or if I know the values,
| | 01:13 | I can simply go ahead and type in the
values directly. So for example, I'm going
| | 01:15 | to have 10, tab, maybe 30, tab, maybe
no yellow. Let's add about 5% black,
| | 01:22 | for a color like that.
| | 01:23 | Alternatively, if I move cursor over
this slider on the bottom over here, I can
| | 01:27 | see that these gradient colors are
basically all the colors in spectrum. I can
| | 01:31 | click with the Eyedropper tool, and
choose any color directly from here as well.
| | 01:36 | There are shortcuts to the non-attribute,
the white fill and the black fill as
| | 01:40 | well. Now you are not forced to use
CMYK when working with a Color panel. For
| | 01:44 | example, if you might be working for
Web design, you might be using RGB colors.
| | 01:48 | You could change between different
color sliders by going to the flyout menu in
| | 01:52 | the Color panel, and choosing either
Gray scale slider, RGB, HSB, which stands
| | 01:57 | for Hue Saturation and Brightness or
you could also choose Web Safe RGB colors.
| | 02:02 | A shortcut for cycling through these
is simply to come out over here to this
| | 02:05 | particular slider bar that you see here,
and instead of clicking once to choose
| | 02:09 | a color, hold down the Shift key, and
when you Shift click on this, it will
| | 02:13 | actually cycle through the different
ways that the Color panel can work. For
| | 02:17 | example, CMYK, RGB, the regular
Gray scale slider, RGB and HSB as well.
| | 02:24 | Let me go back here to the CMYK slider.
One of little tip that as you are kind
| | 02:28 | of working with these particular
sliders, if you did choose some kind of a
| | 02:31 | color here, and you want to adjust
maybe a tint value, or a little bit of
| | 02:34 | lighter shade, you can hold down the
Shift key, and then adjust one of the
| | 02:37 | sliders, and then you will notice that
all of them kind of scale together and
| | 02:40 | move in that particular way as well.
| | 02:42 | Now while the Color panel is great for
choosing colors, it's not so great when
| | 02:46 | you want to start using that color
throughout your file, because the Color
| | 02:49 | panel doesn't save, or create a swatch
that you can easily reuse over and over
| | 02:52 | again. It allows you to basically,
experiment with color. For example, if you
| | 02:55 | want to work in a particular design,
and you want to click on object and say,
| | 02:58 | hum well, we would look that with
this color, with that color, so on and so
| | 03:01 | forth. It's great for experimenting or
for finding particular color that you
| | 03:04 | like, but you once you are ready to
use a color, you are going to want to
| | 03:07 | create a swatch for that particular
color. So in the next movie, we will
| | 03:10 | discuss how you can create swatches
inside of Illustrator that allow you to
| | 03:14 | easily save and retrieve colors as necessary.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating solid color swatches| 00:00 | When you create a brand new document
you may notice that the Swatches panel
| | 00:03 | already contains a range of colors.
How did those color get there? Well, the
| | 00:08 | swatches themselves are there
because they are present inside of the New
| | 00:11 | Document Profiles. Remember that when
you create a brand new document you can
| | 00:14 | choose between the Print New Document
Profile or the Web New Document Profile
| | 00:19 | or Video and Films, so on and so
forth. Those are actually Illustrator
| | 00:23 | documents that have been saved in a
certain location that act as profiles.
| | 00:26 | Whenever you create a brand new
document all the contents from that document,
| | 00:30 | including the swatches that exist in
that document, are basically used to
| | 00:34 | create a brand new file, that's why
they appear here in this particular
| | 00:37 | Swatches panel.
| | 00:38 | Well, let's say you want to create your
own. So there are a few things you can
| | 00:41 | do. First of all, let's go to the
Swatches panel directly here. I'm going to go
| | 00:44 | to the flyout menu. I'm going to
choose something here called Select All
| | 00:47 | Unused. That's going to select all the
unused swatches in my particular file,
| | 00:50 | and now if I click on this button here
to delete the swatches, I'll say yes, I
| | 00:54 | want to delete the swatch selection,
I'm left with the colors over here that
| | 00:57 | are not used in the file.
| | 00:58 | Now you may ask, hey, there are some
black and red colors that appear here, why
| | 01:02 | are they still here? Well, that is
simply because they may be used inside of
| | 01:06 | symbols or graphic styles that
may also exist inside of the file.
| | 01:10 | But for now I removed most of the
swatches that are here. You could of course
| | 01:12 | manually delete a swatch by
clicking on it and dragging it right to the
| | 01:16 | trashcan directly. In fact, I'm going
to go ahead and remove these other extra
| | 01:19 | ones that are here as well. I can
actually take this entire folder icon and
| | 01:23 | drag it right to the garbage as well.
Those are something called color groups,
| | 01:26 | and we can discuss that little
bit later on inside of this chapter.
| | 01:29 | But for now I have a Swatches panel
that only contains a black swatch and a
| | 01:32 | white swatch. There is also a swatch
here called Registration. Registration
| | 01:36 | means that that particular color will
print on every color plate that prints
| | 01:40 | when separations are made. Then you
have the None attribute as well. In any
| | 01:44 | Illustrator document these two
swatches, the None attribute and the
| | 01:47 | Registration attribute, are protected,
meaning that they cannot be deleted;
| | 01:51 | they will always be inside of a document.
| | 01:53 | So let's talk about creating our own
swatches. The reason why you would want to
| | 01:55 | create a swatch is because maybe you
want to use the same color over and over
| | 01:59 | again. Rather than have to constantly
specify colors inside of the Color panel,
| | 02:03 | you want to be able to quickly
just click on a color and choose that.
| | 02:05 | By the way, you will notice that now
since I have cleaned out the Swatches
| | 02:08 | panel, should you come here to this
little Fill Indicator to try to colorize
| | 02:11 | any particular object; for example, I
select this object, you notice that right
| | 02:15 | now there are no colors here. So the
colors that I see here are not just
| | 02:18 | arbitrary colors made up, they are the
same colors that are picked up directly
| | 02:21 | from the Swatches panel here.
| | 02:22 | So let's go ahead and create a few new
colors. The easiest way to do that is to
| | 02:26 | actually come over here to the Color
panel, choose any color. For example,
| | 02:29 | let's say I like this yellow color,
surprise, surprise, and simply go ahead and
| | 02:33 | click on this little icon right here
and drag it right into the Swatches panel.
| | 02:37 | When I release the mouse that now adds
that particular color as a swatch. Now
| | 02:41 | if I choose any particular object, I
can colorize it directly with that color.
| | 02:44 | You can edit that particular color
swatch by double clicking on it. That brings
| | 02:48 | up something called the Swatch Options
dialog box, where I can give it a name.
| | 02:51 | By default Illustrator calls it by its
own values that created it, and I can
| | 02:55 | either change the values directly here,
or if I was using things other than
| | 02:58 | CMYK, for example, I can choose
between the other methods of choosing color
| | 03:03 | that we discussed before.
| | 03:05 | One item that you will find here that
you won't find inside the Color panel is
| | 03:08 | something called Lab. We won't go
into any discussions about the Lab format
| | 03:11 | now, although if you really want to
find out more information about it I do
| | 03:14 | suggest that you head over to Deke
McClelland's Excellent Photoshop Series,
| | 03:18 | where he goes into detail about the Lab
Color mode. But for now I'll switch us
| | 03:22 | right back to CMYK, and I'll
go ahead and I'll click OK.
| | 03:25 | Another way to create a swatch is to
simply go ahead over here on the bottom of
| | 03:28 | the Swatches panel and click on this
icon called New Swatch. When you do so, it
| | 03:33 | simply picks up the last swatch that
you had selected, but here you can go
| | 03:36 | ahead and make some changes. For example,
I'll type in another value, may be we
| | 03:39 | will do like a bright green color. So
we do about 100% Cyan, 0 Magenta, and
| | 03:44 | about 85% Yellow. I click OK and
now I have just created a swatch here.
| | 03:49 | By the way, I can double click on
that and give this one a name; let's call
| | 03:51 | this one Bright Green, for example.
| | 03:54 | Again, to use that color, I can simply
select any object, go ahead and click on
| | 03:58 | that Bright Green color,
and now I have applied it.
| | 04:00 | It's important to note that anytime
that you save swatches to a document those
| | 04:03 | swatches are now saved within that
document. So if I now create a brand new
| | 04:07 | document. For example, let's go to the
File menu here and choose New to create
| | 04:11 | a new document. I'll just choose the
regular profile; for example, maybe the
| | 04:14 | Web Profile, click OK. I'll see that
the swatches that appear here are the
| | 04:19 | swatches that were copied from the Web
New Document Profile, the colors that I
| | 04:23 | have created in the other
document belong only to that document.
| | 04:26 | Let's switch back to the applying_
colors document here, and it's important to
| | 04:29 | note that there are different types
of color swatches that exist inside of
| | 04:32 | Illustrator. Not all swatches are
created equal. So what we have done now so
| | 04:36 | far is created what I call a regular
plain color swatch, however in the next
| | 04:41 | movie we will discuss something called
a global color swatch, and global color
| | 04:44 | swatches have additional functionality.
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| Creating global process swatches| 00:00 | When you are working with swatches
it's important to know that there are
| | 00:02 | different types of swatches. Let's take
a look at some of the swatches that we
| | 00:06 | have created until this point. There
is a little bit of a workflow issue when
| | 00:10 | you start to use them.
| | 00:11 | For example, I'm using this document
called global_swatches; you can find it
| | 00:14 | inside of Chapter 10 of your exercise
files. I have several pieces of artwork
| | 00:18 | in my document and I also have several
swatches that I have already created. So
| | 00:22 | I'm going to go ahead and color some
of these objects with these particular colors.
| | 00:25 | I'll select these first two wetsuits
and color them blue, then I go ahead and
| | 00:29 | I'll select these two over here; may
be we will color those red, my favorite
| | 00:35 | color yellow, and then I'll go ahead
and select all these here and choose the green color.
| | 00:41 | So now I have gone ahead and I have
changed these colors. Now, let's say I
| | 00:43 | decide at some point that I want
those green to be a darker shade of green,
| | 00:48 | maybe I want to create more of a deeper
kind of green color. So what I might do
| | 00:52 | is go over to the Swatches panel;
and if you are familiar with other
| | 00:54 | applications, like for example, Adobe
InDesign or maybe Quark Express, or other
| | 00:59 | drawing applications, you might
understand the fact that you can actually edit
| | 01:03 | a swatch and then see those
colors change in your file.
| | 01:06 | Well, again, it depends on the kind
of swatches that you create inside of
| | 01:09 | Illustrator. Let's take a look. I'm
going to double click here on this green
| | 01:13 | swatch; it's called Green, and I'm
going to change some of the values here. For
| | 01:18 | example, I'm going to bump up the Cyan
to about 95, and what I'll do is I'll
| | 01:22 | add some black in here as well, maybe
around 25% black. So now we get a much
| | 01:26 | deeper kind of green. I'm
going to go ahead and click OK.
| | 01:28 | Now, notice that the swatch itself
changed in colors, however the artwork that
| | 01:33 | I have on my artboard, that I have
colored with that particular swatch, did not
| | 01:37 | update, this is still the brighter
green color not the darker green that I have
| | 01:41 | just created here in the Swatches panel.
In order for me to actually update the
| | 01:44 | artwork I need to now select those
pieces of artwork and reapply the color once
| | 01:48 | again using the swatch.
| | 01:50 | That's why swatches work inside of
Illustrator with the default swatch setting.
| | 01:54 | Basically, you have to think of the
swatches that exist over here as cans of
| | 01:59 | paint. When you are working with
regular traditional paint, you take your
| | 02:02 | paintbrush, you dip that paintbrush
into the can of paint and then you paint
| | 02:06 | the object. However, if you were to go
ahead now and add some more color and
| | 02:10 | mix a new color in that paint can, that
doesn't affect the color of the object
| | 02:13 | that you have painted with it, it
only change the color of the paint that's
| | 02:16 | currently inside of the paint can.
| | 02:18 | So you have to think of swatches
basically as these individual cans of paint,
| | 02:22 | but there is no connection between what
you have here in the Swatches panel and
| | 02:25 | the artwork that you have already
colored on your artboard. So how can you tell
| | 02:28 | Illustrator to actually update the
artwork as you update the swatches? Well,
| | 02:32 | that's where a different type of
swatch comes into play, something called a
| | 02:35 | global swatch.
| | 02:36 | So I'm going to press Undo twice to
return the swatch back to its original
| | 02:40 | bright green color. Now what I'm going
to do is I'm going to double click over
| | 02:43 | here on the green color, and I'm going
to check this button here called Global.
| | 02:47 | I'm going to click OK.
| | 02:48 | I'm also going to go ahead and do the
same thing for the remaining swatches
| | 02:51 | here; open up the yellow swatch, check
that one to be Global. Let's go ahead to
| | 02:55 | the red swatch, make that one Global,
and again, the blue swatch here, and make
| | 02:59 | that one Global.
| | 03:00 | The first thing that you notice when I
go ahead and I check that button that
| | 03:03 | the swatches now look little bit
different. Before they were just a solid
| | 03:06 | square of color, now they have like a
little white triangle in the lower right
| | 03:09 | hand corner. That identifies these
swatches as global process swatches.
| | 03:14 | Let's now reapply the color. I'm
going to select these two shapes here and
| | 03:18 | choose that particular swatch. I'm now
going to go ahead and choose these two
| | 03:22 | and apply the red swatch. Let's go
ahead and select these, apply the yellow
| | 03:26 | one, and here finally apply the green swatch.
| | 03:29 | So now what I have done is I have
created global color swatches inside of
| | 03:33 | Illustrator, and I have now applied the
global swatch to these objects. So now
| | 03:38 | without me having to select any objects,
if I want to change the shade of green
| | 03:42 | now inside of Illustrator, I could
simply come over here and double click on
| | 03:45 | the green swatch, make that same
change here; say 95% Cyan, tab down to the
| | 03:51 | black section here and type in 25,
click OK, and now you will notice that that
| | 03:55 | change did happen on the artboard.
| | 03:57 | When you create a global swatch inside
of Illustrator what you are doing is you
| | 04:01 | are telling Illustrator that there
should now be some kind of memorization or
| | 04:04 | link that's been created now between
the artwork on your artboard and the
| | 04:09 | swatch in the Swatches panel. Basically
now a global swatch allows me to make a
| | 04:13 | change here in the Swatches panel and
wherever that color is used inside of
| | 04:16 | your document it gets updated as well.
This closely matches the behaviors of
| | 04:20 | seeing Ph) (I've seen in) an
applications like InDesign, for example.
| | 04:22 | From a pure workflow perspective
you do want to go ahead and use global
| | 04:26 | swatches throughout a document because
that allows you to make changes all at
| | 04:29 | once throughout an entire document.
Otherwise you would need to go in and
| | 04:32 | select every object and then you would
have to take advantage of some of the
| | 04:35 | selection capabilities inside of
Illustrator; for example, Select Same Color or
| | 04:39 | use the Magic Wand tool, so on and so
forth, to get at those colors, whereas in
| | 04:43 | Illustrator when you use global
swatches, you don't even have to select any
| | 04:46 | artwork at all, simply go ahead and update
the swatch and the artwork adjust accordingly.
| | 04:50 | People who are in pre-press production
or art production really like the fact
| | 04:54 | of using these global swatches,
because it allows them to make changes
| | 04:57 | throughout an entire
file with just a few clicks.
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| Using spot color swatches| 00:00 | Until now the colors that we were
using inside of Illustrator are defined as
| | 00:04 | process colors. That means that when
they print, they're actually split up on
| | 00:07 | to different printing plates. For
example, if you were to go ahead and choose a
| | 00:11 | blue color, for example, like these
items that I have right over here. The name
| | 00:15 | of this file is called spot_colors,
which you will find in the Chapter 10 of
| | 00:18 | the exercise files.
| | 00:19 | If I were to print this out now on a
printing press, not on a color printer
| | 00:22 | that I have in my office. That's
what we call a composite proof. When I
| | 00:25 | actually print this on a printing
press, this gets separated into four
| | 00:29 | different plates. That's what we call
standard process color printing. There
| | 00:32 | are four plates, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow
and Black. Those are the primary colors
| | 00:37 | used in process color printing.
| | 00:39 | A combination of those colors
altogether can represent many viewable colors.
| | 00:43 | For example, if the artwork in my
document uses many different colors,
| | 00:46 | I couldn't actually have all those
colors existing inside of a printing press.
| | 00:50 | Rather, all those colors get broken
down into these four colors. Cyan, which is
| | 00:54 | just kind of light blue. Magenta,
which is kind of pink or red kind of color,
| | 00:58 | and then Yellow, and then Black, and in
theory combining different mixtures, or
| | 01:02 | percentages of those colors together
can help me represent other colors as well.
| | 01:07 | However, there maybe times when you
want a very specific color, or there are
| | 01:11 | certain times when the color that you
are trying to achieve cannot be created
| | 01:14 | using the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and
Black combinations. It's those times that
| | 01:18 | you create will be called a Spot Color.
A Spot Color is when a printer actually
| | 01:22 | goes ahead and mixes a custom ink, and
actually loads that particular ink on to
| | 01:26 | the printing press.
| | 01:27 | Spot Colors are used in a wide variety
of workflows, and more over they are not
| | 01:32 | -- designers will specify Spot Colors
for company logos, or other corporate
| | 01:35 | identity pieces, to ensure that the
company's color is consistent throughout
| | 01:39 | all the printing processes. To give you
a better idea of really how Spot Colors
| | 01:42 | work, we will use the new feature
inside of Illustrator CS4 called Separations
| | 01:47 | Preview. Go to the Window menu here,
and I'll choose over here Separations
| | 01:51 | Preview. I'll bring it up over here,
and you can see that the artwork that I
| | 01:54 | have created inside of this particular
file, the wet suits that appear across
| | 01:57 | the top here, use regular processed
color swatch, which would separate into the
| | 02:01 | primary colors.
| | 02:02 | The ones on the bottom though, I
have actually call it using a Spot Color
| | 02:06 | swatch called Pantone Reflex Blue. We
will talk more about Pantone and Color
| | 02:09 | Libraries in the next movie. But let
me give you a better idea of what I mean
| | 02:12 | when I say that this color separate
on to separate plates. I'm going to go
| | 02:15 | ahead over here in the Separation
Preview panel, and click on the Overprint
| | 02:18 | Preview button. That turns on the
Separation Preview feature. Now you will
| | 02:21 | notice that over here I have Cyan,
Magenta, Yellow and Black, and if I expand
| | 02:25 | this just a little bit more, you will also
see that I have the Pantone Reflex Blue color.
| | 02:28 | If I go ahead now, and I turn this off,
I'm now previewing the Spot Color plate
| | 02:33 | that will print, called Pantone Reflex
Blue, which is this artwork down here.
| | 02:37 | If I go ahead here, and I turn on the
CYMK composite, when I turn it to Reflex
| | 02:41 | Blue, these are the colors that will
print as process. But what I could also do
| | 02:44 | is, show you how they breakdown per
plate. For example, we know over here if I
| | 02:48 | go to the SWATCHES, and I go ahead and
double-click on this particular Swatch,
| | 02:51 | this Swatch is made of 90% Cyan, 50%
Magenta, and 25% Black. I'll go ahead and
| | 02:57 | I'll click Cancel here, and let's go
ahead and show only the Cyan channel.
| | 03:02 | So now I see that on the printing press,
when this runs through the printing
| | 03:06 | press itself, this is the Cyan plate
that's going to print. I'm going to go
| | 03:10 | ahead and turn on the Magenta plate.
This is the Magenta plate it's going to
| | 03:12 | print. I'll go ahead and turn on the
Yellow plate. There is no yellow in this
| | 03:16 | color right now, so the Yellow plate is
actually blank and then I also have the
| | 03:19 | Black plate itself. This Separation
Preview panel does allow me to ensure that
| | 03:24 | my color separations are going to
be correct when I print my file.
| | 03:27 | But for now, let's just go and take a
look at how we create Spot Colors here
| | 03:30 | inside of Illustrator. I close the
Separation Preview panel. I'll go here to
| | 03:33 | this particular color swatch, and I'll
double-click on it. And I'll see that
| | 03:36 | over here where it says Color Type, I
can choose between Process Color or Spot
| | 03:40 | Color. If I choose a Spot Color, what
will happen is that, when I create color
| | 03:44 | separations out of Illustrator, any
objects that using that color will get
| | 03:48 | separated on to it's own plate. I'll
click Cancel here, you can see that this
| | 03:52 | Pantone color if I double-click on it,
it's specified as a Spot Color. In fact,
| | 03:56 | that you simply call the Book Color,
which is -- because I have loaded this
| | 03:58 | color directly from the Pantone color
library. Let me click Cancel here, you
| | 04:02 | will see over here that the icon
itself has a real dot inside of that white
| | 04:06 | triangle, which identifies this
color is being a spot color swatch.
| | 04:09 | So now we understand that there are
several types of swatches inside of
| | 04:12 | Illustrator. Regular Color Swatches,
Global Color Swatches, and now Spot Color
| | 04:16 | Swatches. By the way, if you are
unsure about whether to use Process or Spot
| | 04:20 | Color Swatches in your artwork, it's
best to speak directly to your printer,
| | 04:24 | who will be happy to help you.
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| Creating swatch groups and libraries| 00:00 | When you are working with Swatches
inside of Illustrator, you may have noticed
| | 00:03 | that there are these folder icons that
appear inside of the Swatches panel. In
| | 00:07 | fact, let me go ahead and just
create a brand new document, I'll press
| | 00:09 | Command+N or Ctrl+N, and just click OK
and you notice that inside the Swatches
| | 00:14 | panel again I just used the Web New
Document Profile for this particular document.
| | 00:18 | I see that I have this little folder
here and there is a whole bunch of colors.
| | 00:21 | These gray colors that appear inside of
this folder and there is another folder
| | 00:24 | here with a whole bunch of these
bright colors. These folders refer to these
| | 00:28 | colors all being inside of a single
colored group and this is actually
| | 00:32 | important. When you start working with
colors you may find it important for you
| | 00:35 | to organize your colors into groups so
that you can more easily work with them.
| | 00:38 | It's very easy to create your own
groups and there are several ways to do that,
| | 00:41 | I'm going to go back to the file I was
working on before. I'm just going to go
| | 00:44 | ahead and close that document. I'm
using a file called swatch_groups, which you
| | 00:47 | will find inside of Chapter 10 of the
exercise files, and I have used already
| | 00:51 | several colors in this document, but
I don't have any swatches that I have
| | 00:53 | created. In order to create this
document I simply went ahead and selected
| | 00:56 | objects and gave them colors
right from the Color panel directly.
| | 00:59 | But let's say I realize you know what?
That was kind of a silly thing, I really
| | 01:02 | want there to be some kind of swatches
in my document. Well, here's one of the
| | 01:05 | things that you can do. Illustrator
has the ability to automatically create
| | 01:09 | Swatches from all the colors that
already exist in your file. This is extremely
| | 01:12 | useful so that for example, let's say
you are working with a file that someone
| | 01:15 | else created, they haven't created
the color swatches, you don't have to go
| | 01:19 | punting through a document to try to
find all the colors and manually create
| | 01:21 | the Swatches. You can have
Illustrator create these Swatches fro you
| | 01:24 | automatically, and Illustrator
does this through the Group command.
| | 01:28 | So what I'll do is I'll select all the
artwork that exists inside of my file
| | 01:31 | and I can either marquee select like I
just did there or just press Command+A
| | 01:35 | or Ctrl+A on Windows to select all,
and again it's important to realize if I
| | 01:39 | want to do this I have to make sure that
there are no locked objects in my file.
| | 01:42 | I'll go with this Swatches panel
here and on the bottom there is a button
| | 01:45 | called this little New Color Group
option, and if I click on that I'll create a
| | 01:51 | New Color Group, because I already had
colors selected Illustrator is asking
| | 01:55 | me, hey, do you want to create a color
group from the selected artwork? And I
| | 01:59 | can of course choose Yes.
| | 02:00 | Let me give this one a name instead of
calling a Color Group 1, which is not a
| | 02:03 | very interesting name, I want to call
this one surfing, and what I can do is I
| | 02:09 | can automatically convert all my
process colors that's going to be created to
| | 02:13 | global process colors, which will allow
me to update my colors more easily, so
| | 02:16 | I'll go ahead and I'll choose that and
I'll click OK, and now you will see that
| | 02:20 | instantly in Swatches panel I now have
a folder, which contains all the colors
| | 02:24 | used inside of my file and because I
specified them to be global colors, if I
| | 02:29 | want to now change one of the colors
inside of my file I don't have to select
| | 02:32 | it here in my document, I can simply
double-click on a Swatch and move ahead with it.
| | 02:36 | Now I could also go ahead and just go
to this little icon here and choose New
| | 02:39 | Color Group, because I have nothing
selected right now I don't get all those
| | 02:42 | options and I call this one, I don't
know, favorites for example. And now I
| | 02:48 | just have a folder that sits on its
own, there were no colors inside of it.
| | 02:51 | It's very easy to move colors into a
color group. It's simply like clicking on
| | 02:54 | it and dragging it right into a color
group. I could also click drag colors
| | 02:58 | outside of a color group. You can
easily create groups that way with your
| | 03:02 | colors if you want to.
| | 03:03 | Now another way to also work with
colors and working with groups here is to use
| | 03:07 | the Library feature inside of
Illustrator. Now Illustrator shifts with many
| | 03:11 | predefined libraries of color. So you
don't have to go ahead and start creating
| | 03:14 | colors on your own, you could use some
of the Swatch libraries that Illustrator ships with.
| | 03:18 | To access those libraries come to the
Swatches panel on the bottom left-hand
| | 03:21 | corner where it says Swatch Libraries
menu, click and then you will see that
| | 03:26 | there are many different types of
Swatch colors. For example, Art History,
| | 03:29 | Celebration, Earthtones, Foods. Well,
I'm a big fan of the food. Let's go ahead
| | 03:34 | and choose maybe Ice Cream, and we
will see that adobe actually created many
| | 03:38 | different color groups here of
different flavors of Ice Cream, Chocolate
| | 03:41 | Chocolate Chip, yummy, and if I want
to use that for my particular document I
| | 03:45 | can click on that entire folder there
and drag it over, and now I have moved
| | 03:48 | that entire Color Group into my document.
I can now access and work with these
| | 03:51 | Swatches right inside of my document.
| | 03:53 | You can also toggle to different
libraries by clicking on the Forward and
| | 03:57 | Backward buttons here as well. For
example, the Fruit Library contains many
| | 04:01 | interesting groups of
colors that I can use as well.
| | 04:04 | However, some of the libraries that you
might use most often especially if you
| | 04:07 | are working with spa colors are Pantone colors.
| | 04:10 | Again you can come down here to this
icon where it says Swatch Libraries menu
| | 04:13 | and choose Color Books and here you
will actually see many different libraries.
| | 04:17 | The most popular ones here are
probably the Pantone solid coated library. The
| | 04:22 | solid coated library contains all the
main colors that appear inside of the
| | 04:25 | Pantone Color Library. It can be
difficult to find a specific color. So what
| | 04:29 | you can do is go over here to the
flyout menu and choose Show Find Field. In
| | 04:35 | the particular Find Field here you
could type-in a value, for example, if you
| | 04:38 | wanted to find Pantone number 216, type-
in 216, hit the Return key and you will
| | 04:43 | find that color right here.
| | 04:45 | To add that particular to your
Swatches panel simply click on it and drag it
| | 04:49 | right into the panel. But don't think
that Swatch libraries only exist for
| | 04:53 | these existing colors; you can create
your own custom Swatch libraries as well.
| | 04:57 | Let me close this for a minute here.
We discussed earlier on, when I create
| | 05:00 | Swatches inside of a document those
Swatches belong to this document, and this
| | 05:04 | document only. When I create a brand
new document, the new document does not
| | 05:08 | have these swatches that I created.
| | 05:10 | So what happens when I want to create
some swatches that I do want to share
| | 05:13 | amongst several documents? Well, I
can create my own Swatch Library.
| | 05:17 | For example, in this document here I
have some colors that I have already
| | 05:20 | created, I have this Pantone 216, I
have this color group called surfing and I
| | 05:24 | have also added the Chocolate
Chocolate Chip library as well.
| | 05:28 | I can go to the flyout menu here in
the Swatches panel, scroll to the bottom
| | 05:31 | and choose Save Swatch Library as ASE,
which stands for Adobe Swatch Exchange.
| | 05:36 | This will allow me to actually share
these colors with other Adobe applications
| | 05:40 | including Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign.
| | 05:43 | However, if I'm just using the
colors with other documents inside of
| | 05:45 | Illustrator I can choose to save my
Swatch Library as AI or as an Adobe
| | 05:50 | Illustrator Swatch Library. Let me go
ahead and do that. If I choose to say
| | 05:53 | that, let me call it my
surfing library for example.
| | 05:58 | It saves it automatically in a
special folder. So that when I now go to the
| | 06:02 | little pop-up menu over here I can see
if I scroll down to the bottom there is
| | 06:06 | now a new option here called User
Defined and it's something called surfing. So
| | 06:10 | now the colors that I have defined
here inside of my Swatches panel for this
| | 06:13 | document are now available inside of
an external library called surfing.
| | 06:17 | Now if I go to any other new document
I see that I now have the ability to
| | 06:22 | specify those colors and I could very
easily drag to add those colors to this
| | 06:26 | document if I want to use them here as
well. In this way I can now share colors
| | 06:30 | amongst many different documents, and I
might want to do this, for example, if
| | 06:33 | my company has some corporate colors
that are used often or if I have clients
| | 06:37 | that have colors that they use quite
often, or maybe colors that I use for a
| | 06:40 | specific campaign or project I can
crate a user defined library that I can
| | 06:45 | access from any other Illustrator file as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with linear gradient fills| 00:00 | Way back in the beginning of this
video title we discussed in the key
| | 00:03 | Illustrator concepts chapter about the
different types of Fill properties you
| | 00:07 | can apply to an object. We discuss that
there were Solid Color Fills, something
| | 00:11 | called the Gradient Fills and then
Pattern Fills. Well, until now all we are
| | 00:15 | going to applying so far through all
these particular chapters have been solid
| | 00:19 | colors, each of the objects have a
flat level of color that's been applied.
| | 00:23 | However, now we will take a look at the
Gradient feature inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:26 | In fact, there are two types of
gradients. Gradients can either go in a
| | 00:30 | left-to-right type of paradigm, which
are called the Linear Gradients, and
| | 00:35 | Gradients can also go from the
center and then radiate outwards that are
| | 00:38 | referred to as Radial Gradients. A
Gradient basically allows you to fill a
| | 00:41 | particular object not with just one
flat color over the color that's smoothly
| | 00:45 | blends into another color.
| | 00:47 | Let's start by applying just a regular
plain Gradient to this object. I'll go
| | 00:50 | ahead and I'll select this file, by
the way it's called Gradient Fills, you
| | 00:54 | will find in the Chapter 10 of your
exercise files. I come over to my panel
| | 00:57 | here and expand this just so we can
see the Gradient panel right here, and I
| | 01:01 | can go ahead and let's say click right
here and apply that particular Gradient.
| | 01:04 | There is actually a little pop-up
menu that displays all the gradients that
| | 01:06 | currently are available inside of
your file. These are gradients that also
| | 01:10 | appear, directed over
inside of your Swatches panel.
| | 01:12 | So let's start off first by quickly
looking at the Gradient panel itself, but
| | 01:15 | as we'll soon see now inside of
Illustrator CS4 I have the ability to make edit
| | 01:20 | to my gradients directly in context on
my screen, which is what we are going to
| | 01:23 | focus on. But for now I basically see
that here I can switch between the Linear
| | 01:27 | and Radial Gradient types. Again,
here we'll focus on Linear. I have the
| | 01:30 | ability to choose an angle of what that
line should go on. So obviously you can
| | 01:33 | see that my Gradient starts in the
left and goes to the right. But you can
| | 01:36 | specify that it starts in the bottom
and it goes to the top or it starts from
| | 01:39 | one corner and it has an angle up
towards the upper right-hand corner.
| | 01:43 | A Gradient is basically made up of
what we call Color Stops. This is a Color
| | 01:47 | Stop over here and this is a Color Stop
over here. They look like little boxes
| | 01:51 | with little triangle on top and this
is referred to as our Gradient Slider.
| | 01:54 | Every particular Gradient is made up of
at least two color stops, if they have
| | 01:58 | one color where it starts with and
then one color that it ends with.
| | 02:01 | Over here on the top of the Slider
there is little diamond, this is what we
| | 02:03 | call the Mid Point Indicator. It
identifies the exact location of where each of
| | 02:08 | the colors are exactly half way. By
adjusting these particular sliders and
| | 02:12 | color stops you have the ability to
adjust how your Gradient is going to look
| | 02:15 | in your document. There is no limit to
how many colors you could actually have
| | 02:18 | on a Gradient, for example, simply by
putting your cursor underneath the Slider
| | 02:22 | here a little arrow with a plus (+)
sign appears. If you click a new Color Stop
| | 02:26 | is added, of course you now
have two Mid Point Indicators.
| | 02:29 | There will always be a Mid Point
Indicator for each color combination, and one
| | 02:33 | way to simply change the colors of
these colors stops is to go to your Swatches
| | 02:36 | panel, click-and-drag a swatch
right onto the Color Stop itself.
| | 02:40 | But let's take a look at where the
power really lies inside of Illustrator when
| | 02:43 | editing gradients using the Gradient
tool. I go up here to the Tool panel and
| | 02:47 | I'll choose the Gradient tool.
| | 02:48 | Notice that right away a line appears
right inside of this surfboard here. It's
| | 02:53 | over here, and it's over here, in fact
there is a circle on this end over here,
| | 02:56 | which identifies where the Gradient
begins and then there is over here a little
| | 03:00 | diamond shape, which in the case where
the Gradient ends. Just as I saw in the
| | 03:04 | Gradient panel itself there are these
icons that appear towards the bottom of
| | 03:08 | this particular line here
and those are the color stops.
| | 03:12 | The Mid Point Indicators are also
here as well. In fact, this little User
| | 03:17 | Interface element, which is new to
Illustrator CS4 is what is referred to as
| | 03:21 | the Gradient Widget. It basically
allows you to edit your Gradient in context.
| | 03:25 | Let's see how it works.
| | 03:26 | First of all the Gradient tool can be
used to simply click on any location to
| | 03:30 | define where the beginning of that
Gradient is. For example, if you wanted a
| | 03:33 | Gradient to start about over here, you
can click once here and then drag, and
| | 03:37 | now I'm defining the direction of
that Gradient. The Gradient, remember is
| | 03:40 | linear. So it starts here and I
can stretch it to go about over here.
| | 03:44 | It's important to note that I don't
need to have the Gradient take up the exact
| | 03:47 | width of that particular object. For
example, if I release the mouse now then
| | 03:51 | my Gradient starts here. So I have
Solid White basically up until this point,
| | 03:55 | then here is my Gradient, my Gradient
ends in a black swatch. So I have now
| | 03:59 | solid black for the rest of my shape.
Likewise, I don't need to click inside of
| | 04:02 | a shape for Gradient either. I could
start my Gradient here, stretch all the
| | 04:06 | way down to over here and then only the
middle part of the Gradient is visible
| | 04:10 | inside of my particular shape, but I
can start it from anywhere outside the
| | 04:13 | shape as well. Let's go ahead and just
have the Gradient actually start from
| | 04:16 | here and then kind of
straight to here till the end.
| | 04:18 | When working inside of Illustrator I
could use this Gradient Widget to edit my
| | 04:21 | gradients. For example, as I mouse over
it again I'm using the Gradient tool to
| | 04:26 | make this happen, if you are using
the Selection tool you won't see the
| | 04:28 | Gradient Widget appear at all in your
artwork. In order to see that you need to
| | 04:32 | have the Gradient tool active. As I
mouse over it you will see that I now have
| | 04:36 | the sliders that are here.
| | 04:37 | Notice if I position my cursor over
here I see that icon with a plus sign,
| | 04:41 | which allows me to add a Color Stop.
For example, if I wanted to add now a new
| | 04:44 | color here to this Gradient I could
simply click and add that color. To change
| | 04:48 | the color of any Color Stop using
this particular Gradient Widget you just
| | 04:52 | simply double-click on the Color Stop.
| | 04:54 | A dialog box pops-up, which looks just
like the Color panel that we see inside
| | 04:57 | of Illustrator. I can adjust the
sliders that choose things from this
| | 05:00 | particular Gradient as well, or I can
click on this button to access all of my
| | 05:04 | swatches that I currently have saved
in my document. For example, I go ahead
| | 05:07 | and I'll choose this color, and now
that color has been assigned to that Color Stop.
| | 05:11 | One of the coolest things now about
gradients inside Illustrator is I also have
| | 05:15 | the ability to assign an Opacity Value
to each Color Stop. For example, I could
| | 05:20 | even make this Color Stop completely
transparent, and doing so my Gradient now
| | 05:24 | goes from white to blue but then to
completely transparent, and then back to
| | 05:28 | other colors as well.
| | 05:29 | You can actually see the transparency
over here inside the Gradient panel where
| | 05:33 | you can see that we have that
checkerboard pattern behind that particular area.
| | 05:35 | Let's come back for a moment here to
the Gradient Widget. Notice by the way
| | 05:39 | that anytime that you have an Opacity
Value applied to Color Stop a little
| | 05:42 | button appears in the bottom of that
Color Stop. See how it's got a little
| | 05:45 | added part over here that you don't see
in the other ones that identifies that
| | 05:48 | Color Stop is having an Opacity Value,
again, just a way to help you see where
| | 05:51 | that Opacity setting might
exist inside of your file.
| | 05:54 | You can of course click-and-drag on the
Mid Point Indicators as well to adjust
| | 05:58 | to how that Gradient blends from one
color into the next, and alternatively, I
| | 06:03 | can come just to the end over here of
this Gradient, I see a little Rotation
| | 06:05 | icon up here. Clicking-and-dragging
allows me to rotate that particular
| | 06:09 | Gradient as well.
| | 06:10 | Once I'm done editing a Gradient I
really want to capture that Gradient so that
| | 06:13 | I can use it again, I could simply come
here and click on this swatch, drag it
| | 06:17 | into the Swatches panel and now I have
saved that as particular Gradient. It's
| | 06:20 | probably a good idea to name a
Gradient otherwise you'd have things like New
| | 06:23 | Gradient Swatch 1, New Gradient
Swatch 2, which aren't very descriptive.
| | 06:27 | So now that we have an idea of what a
Linear Gradient is, let's take a look at
| | 06:30 | the other type of Gradient
something called a Radial Gradient.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with radial gradient fills| 00:00 | Unlike Linear gradients, Radial
gradients start at the center of an object and
| | 00:03 | then radiate to another color
outwards. Let's take a look.
| | 00:07 | I'm working in the same gradient_fills
file that I was working in the previous
| | 00:09 | movie, which you could find in the
Exercise files in chapter10. I'll go ahead
| | 00:13 | and I'll select the surfboard. I apply
this regular Linear gradient but here in
| | 00:18 | the Gradient panel, I'll change the
type from Linear to Radial. You could see
| | 00:21 | over here that the actual gradient
itself looks pretty much the same as it did
| | 00:24 | when it was Linear. I have two
colors stops; one that's white, one that
| | 00:28 | gradually moves towards black and I
have the mid point indicator here.
| | 00:31 | However, you will notice that the
center of the gradient is now in the middle
| | 00:33 | of the object and it radiates outwards
towards the other color here and just I
| | 00:38 | was able to edit the Linear gradients
using that Gradient widget in context, I
| | 00:41 | can do the same thing for Radial gradients,
although now, with a few extra options.
| | 00:45 | I'll go to the Gradient tool inside of
the Tool panel, click on it and now see
| | 00:48 | that Gradient widget here. When I mouse
over the gradient, I also see a dotted
| | 00:52 | line, which identifies the circle for
where that particular gradient goes. As I
| | 00:56 | did before, I can click anywhere
beneath the slider over here to add additional
| | 00:59 | colors. If I want to change its color,
I can double click on that and bring up
| | 01:03 | my Swatches or my Color panel
to choose any color that I like.
| | 01:06 | Likewise, I can also change the
Opacity value for any selected color stop. I
| | 01:10 | can either move the entire circle
around by clicking on this circle right here
| | 01:13 | and changing the position of this
gradient. So now the gradient starts to, say
| | 01:17 | from over here or over here, so on
and so forth. I also have the ability to
| | 01:21 | click on this little circle here to
adjust exactly where the center point of
| | 01:25 | that gradient is but by keeping the
circle the same. So this allows me to think
| | 01:29 | about my ability to really offset
that center to not be directly from the
| | 01:34 | center of the Radial part or the
gradient but towards one end of the gradient here.
| | 01:37 | I can also come over here towards the
end and rotate the gradient this way and
| | 01:41 | you will notice that if I mouse over
the gradient itself, that dotted line has
| | 01:44 | a few extra icons on it. For example,
if I come over here to this and then I
| | 01:48 | click on this, this allows me to
scale the overall size of that particular
| | 01:51 | Radial gradient. Maybe it could be very small,
for example, or I can make it very large.
| | 01:56 | Additionally, when I mouse over this
gradient, towards the top over here there
| | 02:00 | is a black dot. If I click on that,
this actually allows me to skew the
| | 02:04 | particular circle to make more of an
oval type gradient. As with the Linear
| | 02:08 | gradients, I also have the ability to
simply click on little icon right here,
| | 02:11 | drag it into my Swatches panel to now
save that particular gradient that I have
| | 02:15 | created as a swatch, which I
can now apply to other objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying and manipulating pattern fills| 00:00 | So just to review, any object inside
of Illustrator you can have any of three
| | 00:04 | types of Fill attributes either solid
colors, Gradients; both of, which we have
| | 00:08 | covered until now and patterns. So
let's take a look at this last type of Fill
| | 00:13 | called the Pattern Fill.
| | 00:14 | I'm actually working in this file
here called pattern_fills, which you will
| | 00:17 | find this inside of chapter10 of the
exercise files. And you notice that I have
| | 00:21 | three surfboard designs. One is
filled with these kinds of tulips, one has
| | 00:24 | these bamboo colored backgrounds and
this one has an overall floral pattern.
| | 00:29 | These have been applied as patterns.
Where did I get these patterns from? Well,
| | 00:32 | actually Illustrator ships with whole
variety of patterns. If you go down to
| | 00:36 | the Swatches panel and load a library
as we have done in the past, you will
| | 00:39 | notice that there is entire folder here
of patterns. There are Basic Graphics,
| | 00:43 | Decorative and Nature. I actually
chose these from the Nature_Foliage library
| | 00:48 | and you could find them here. You
could also step through these, for example,
| | 00:51 | Decorative_Primitive, Decorative_
Ornament, Decorative_modern and I found
| | 00:56 | actually that some of the basic ones
even though that has a word Basic in it.
| | 00:59 | The basic ones, for example, Basic_
Graphics_Lines or Basic_Graphic_Dots, can be
| | 01:04 | extremely useful when you are just
looking to have some kind of interesting
| | 01:07 | Pattern Fill for particular
object or for any artwork.
| | 01:11 | You would apply it the same way as any
swatch. For example, I can simply click
| | 01:14 | on an object and then choose any
pattern swatch from my particular panel here.
| | 01:18 | I'm going to close this library for
now because I want to talk about how to
| | 01:21 | actually manipulate your particular
patterns once you have already applied them
| | 01:24 | to a shape, for example, let's focus
here on the tulips, say I want these
| | 01:28 | tulips to be a little bit bigger. I
want the pattern to actually be bigger
| | 01:30 | right now. I don't want to make my
surfboard bigger but I do want the pattern
| | 01:33 | to be enlarged on that particular surfboard.
| | 01:36 | Well, the way that you can do that is
go over to the Scale tool and we will
| | 01:38 | discuss more about working with the
Scale tool and all these transformations
| | 01:41 | tools in the next chapter but for now
I'm just going to double click on the
| | 01:44 | Scale tool to bring up that option. I
have this surfboard selected right now
| | 01:49 | and you notice that I have the ability
to change my Scale. So let's say, I type
| | 01:52 | in 200% because I want to enlarge it
200%. Well, if you come down here to the
| | 01:54 | bottom where it says Options, I can un-
check the Objects box and only have the
| | 02:00 | Patterns box checked.
| | 02:01 | In doing so, I'm telling the Scale
option to only work on patterns but not on
| | 02:05 | the object itself. If we click in the
Preview button you will see that right
| | 02:09 | now the tulips are much larger but the
object itself stayed the same size. So
| | 02:13 | that's one way to go ahead and
adjust it. I'm going to click Cancel here.
| | 02:16 | I want to show you that you could
also shift a pattern within a particular
| | 02:19 | shape. Let's say you are really not
happy with positioning of where the pattern
| | 02:22 | aligned itself within the object. Well,
you can use your regular Selection tool
| | 02:26 | and normally when you click on an
object and you drag it, it moves the entire
| | 02:29 | object. But here is a little keyboard
shortcut for you, if you hold down Tilde
| | 02:33 | key on your keyboard and Tilde key is
little squiggly key that sits right on
| | 02:37 | top of the Tab key on the upper
left hand portion of the keyboard.
| | 02:40 | I'm holding that button down on my
keyboard and now I'm clicking to drag and
| | 02:44 | move my object but you will notice
that the object is not moving; the pattern
| | 02:47 | inside the object is moving. In fact,
I can keep that Tilde key down and use
| | 02:52 | the arrow keys on my keyboard to
nudge the pattern left and right or up and
| | 02:55 | down. This way I can ensure that as I'm
working with patterns, I get the exact
| | 02:59 | position that I'm looking for.
| | 03:01 | Likewise I can do the same thing here.
If I want to see more detail on those
| | 03:04 | bamboos that are right there, again I
can double click on the Scale tool, maybe
| | 03:08 | scale this up 300%, have the scale
only apply to patterns and not to the
| | 03:12 | Objects, click OK and now I have
enlarged that particular effect. Likewise,
| | 03:16 | I'll just point out that, when you are
using the Scale tool, you do have the
| | 03:19 | ability to scale Objects but not the
patterns. In this case, the pattern then
| | 03:23 | stays the size that you scaled it but
the Object itself gets bigger. Let me
| | 03:27 | click Cancel here for a second.
| | 03:28 | Let's focus on this pattern right
here. Just because the way the patterns
| | 03:32 | works, the artwork itself within the
pattern is not accessible when you work
| | 03:36 | inside of Illustrator. For example,
if you decide that some of these leaves
| | 03:39 | here should be of different color, you
can't select that in artwork. Even if
| | 03:42 | you go into the Outline mode, you will
see that I don't see any of the artwork
| | 03:45 | for that flower. It's a simple pattern
fill but I don't have any access to the
| | 03:49 | artwork that's in there. However, if
do want to make some changes, what I can
| | 03:54 | do is expand the fill. When I do so,
it converts the fill to something, which
| | 03:59 | is actually regular artwork that you can edit.
| | 04:01 | The way that you would do that is to
actually select your object, go to the
| | 04:04 | Object menu and choose Expand. If
you remember when we were using the
| | 04:08 | Appearances and the Appearances where
these live effects that apply to the
| | 04:12 | appearance of an object but not to
the underlying vector structure of the
| | 04:15 | object. You had to expand your
appearance to make that happen. Well, it's
| | 04:19 | similar in context to what
I can do here with patterns.
| | 04:22 | By expanding my patterns, I'll go ahead
and I'll choose to expand just the Fill
| | 04:25 | of my object. When I click OK, even
though it doesn't look like anything has
| | 04:29 | changed here, I can now take my
Direct Selection tool and click on the
| | 04:32 | individual elements of this pattern.
In fact, if I go into Outline mode now,
| | 04:35 | I'll see entire pattern right here. In
fact, you will see that the pattern is
| | 04:39 | made up of a repeated area or repeating
segment. How does that work? Well, let
| | 04:44 | me toggle back to Preview mode here.
| | 04:46 | In the next movie we will talk about
how to actually define and create your own patterns.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Defining simple patterns| 00:00 | Now that we know how to apply
patterns through our artworks inside of
| | 00:03 | Illustrator, let's explore how
to define our own Pattern designs.
| | 00:07 | Now in reality, defining Patterns can
get pretty complex. So what we are going
| | 00:10 | to do is focus on just creating very
simple patterns here. Afterwards, you can
| | 00:13 | start to experiment with more and
more complex designs and I'll give few
| | 00:16 | pointers for how to do that.
| | 00:18 | So in this file here called defining_
patterns, which you will find in chapter10
| | 00:21 | of the exercise files. I have a simple
shape here for a surfboard and I want it
| | 00:25 | to be able to fill with a pattern of
maybe these flip-flops or even this G,
| | 00:29 | which is the part of the logo
for the company called Groundswell.
| | 00:32 | So let's start with a simple one
here, which is just the G itself. Now
| | 00:35 | obviously I could take my artwork here
and just simply repeat it over and over
| | 00:38 | again just by using copy. I'll hold
down the Option key as I just drag over
| | 00:41 | copies here. But that doesn't create a
Pattern Fill, which I can easily adjust.
| | 00:45 | It's actually very simple to define a
Pattern although it's little bit more
| | 00:49 | complex when you want to get it just
the way that you want. So let's first see
| | 00:51 | how easy it is to create a pattern
swatch then we will go to the next step. All
| | 00:55 | you need to do is take the artwork that
exists on your artboard right here and
| | 00:58 | drag that artwork into the Swatches
panel. It's important to note that when I
| | 01:02 | do this, it turns it into a Pattern
automatically. This swatch that I created
| | 01:06 | now is called the Pattern swatch.
| | 01:07 | Remember if I want to create new
solid color fills, I would come here and
| | 01:11 | choose New Swatch. But if you want to
create a new pattern, the easiest way to
| | 01:14 | do is take any artwork from your
artboard, drag it right into my Swatches
| | 01:18 | panel. In fact, if I now go ahead and
click on the surfboard and I click on the
| | 01:21 | swatch right here, my
surfboard gets filled with those G's.
| | 01:25 | However, you will notice that the
actual pattern swatch repeats itself and each
| | 01:28 | G touches each other. Let's say I
wanted to actually create some space in
| | 01:32 | between each of the icons. So here is
basically the important concept of about
| | 01:36 | how patterns are defined. When you
drag artwork into the Swatches panel, it
| | 01:40 | takes the overall bounds of the
artwork itself and it uses that bound as the
| | 01:45 | repeat area. However, you could change that.
| | 01:47 | So for example, I'm just go over to
this G that I have over here and I'm going
| | 01:51 | to take a regular rectangle and I'll
draw a rectangle around the G, something
| | 01:55 | like say like that and I'll fill this
particular G right now with none. I'll
| | 01:59 | change the Stroke also to none and
what I'll do is I'll take the actual shape
| | 02:05 | itself and I'll choose Object, Arrange,
Send to Back. So what I now have is a
| | 02:11 | no fill and no stroke rectangle on the
back over here and then I have this G as well.
| | 02:15 | If I select both of these objects and I
now drag that into my Swatches panel, I
| | 02:20 | have defined the Pattern but my Pattern
is defined by the bounding box of this
| | 02:24 | no fill and no stroke rectangle, not
the G itself, which means that the repeat
| | 02:29 | area of this Pattern is this area what
I already built in the space around the
| | 02:33 | G. So if you think about it right now,
if I click on the surfboard and apply
| | 02:36 | this particular pattern
right now, I get to see this.
| | 02:39 | Using the technique we have covered in
the previous movie, I can use my Scale
| | 02:42 | tool to actually scale this maybe 25%
and adjust only the Patterns and not the
| | 02:47 | Object and you can easily see now that
I have this G that repeats itself over
| | 02:50 | and over again throughout the surfboard.
| | 02:52 | Again, I was the one who defined the
spacing between these by specifying a
| | 02:56 | bounding area around to this
particular icon, right here. Let's do something
| | 03:00 | similar with the flip-flops. If I take
my regular Rectangle tool and I click
| | 03:04 | and I drag to create an area. Let's
say I want there to be a lot of space on
| | 03:08 | top and bottom but too much space
side by side of these flip-flops. I can
| | 03:11 | create a rectangle that looks
something like this, for example.
| | 03:14 | Again apply a no fill and no stroke to
this particular object right here, send
| | 03:21 | that particular object to the back,
select both elements and drag them right to
| | 03:27 | my Swatches panel. Now when I click on
that surfboard, I can now fill that with
| | 03:31 | the pattern that I created. If I'm
constantly editing my pattern, there is a
| | 03:35 | way to update or replace the pattern.
For example, let's say I decide I want to
| | 03:38 | change the bounding area somewhat. So
I'll select this rectangle here and I'll
| | 03:42 | change its dimensions.
| | 03:43 | Let's say I want to create a pattern
that looks something like this but has a
| | 03:46 | lot more space on either side of the
flip-flops in that particular area. So
| | 03:51 | rather than I have to create a new
pattern in swatch, I can now select the this
| | 03:54 | artwork, hold down my Option key -- I'm
on a Mac, if you are on a PC, hold down
| | 03:58 | the Alt key and drag that artwork on
top of the existing swatch, see how now I
| | 04:02 | see a black line that appears around
that box. Now when I release the button,
| | 04:06 | that actually updates the Pattern, you
can see now in my shape the pattern is
| | 04:10 | now updated itself.
| | 04:11 | So to replace a pattern swatch, simply
Option or Alt drag the artwork on top of
| | 04:15 | the existing swatch. Again it's always
a good idea to name your patterns, that
| | 04:19 | way it's easier to identify or find
them later on. So finally let's talk about
| | 04:23 | some other more complex patterns that
may ship with Illustrator. How do they
| | 04:26 | create those? Let's load up some of those.
| | 04:28 | I'm going to go over here and choose
Patterns, let me choose Nature, for
| | 04:31 | example and let's do Nature_Animal_
Skins. There are some pretty wild ones in
| | 04:35 | here, for example, if I click on this
artwork here and apply this one, I may
| | 04:39 | wonder how that pattern was created.
Let's zoom in on that, I'll use the Zoom
| | 04:42 | tool just to zoom in on this area and
I may decide, "Hey, I like to make a
| | 04:46 | pattern like that. How do they do that?"
| | 04:48 | The easiest way to learn that is to
reverse engineer how this particular
| | 04:51 | pattern swatch was created. So what
will I do is I'll come over here my
| | 04:55 | Swatches panel and I'll take that Zebra
pattern swatch right here and click and
| | 04:59 | drag it right at on to the artboard
and not on to any piece of art work, just
| | 05:02 | right on to the artboard itself. When I
release the mouse, Illustrator actually
| | 05:05 | draws the graphics that were used to
define that particular pattern. So here is
| | 05:09 | the repeat area, it's important to
realize, by the way, that if you go into
| | 05:12 | Outline mode here, you can see that
I have a no fill, no stroke rectangle
| | 05:16 | that's sitting right here in the background.
| | 05:17 | Let me use my Direct Selection tool to
actually select that. This is the area
| | 05:22 | that defines the actual background to
that particular shape. In fact, you don't
| | 05:26 | need the entire artwork to be
contained inside of that repeat area as long as
| | 05:29 | the backmost object inside of your
selection is a rectangle then that rectangle
| | 05:34 | becomes the final repeat area for your artwork.
| | 05:37 | So definitely take a look at some of
the other ones that you have here inside
| | 05:40 | of Illustrator. Again, the Patterns
that come with Illustrator are not
| | 05:43 | necessarily there for you to always
use because after all, we can create our
| | 05:46 | own patterns. They are there for you to
learn how to use the Patterns tool. So
| | 05:50 | feel to reverse engineer those, learn
how they were created and then you can
| | 05:53 | create your own patterns as needed.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. Object Transformation and PositioningMoving and copying objects| 00:00 | Since we know that Illustrator is
underlying graphics architecture or vector
| | 00:04 | based graphics are all based with
mathematics meaning that it calculates the
| | 00:08 | position of all these anchor points.
Any time you adjust an object, it refers
| | 00:12 | to as something called the transform or
transformation. That could be something
| | 00:16 | as simple as taking an object and
moving its position from one place to another
| | 00:19 | on the page. It could also mean
rotating it or enlarging it as well. In this
| | 00:23 | movie specifically, we will talk about
moving and copying objects around in your page.
| | 00:27 | I have a file, which you are
probably going to be using for most of this
| | 00:29 | particular chapter. It's called
transforming_objects; you will find that in
| | 00:32 | chapter11 in your exercise files folder.
Let's actually start here with this
| | 00:36 | body suit. I'll click on it right now,
I'm using my regular Selection tool and
| | 00:40 | if I want to move it, I can simply
drag and move it as well and if I want to
| | 00:43 | move it, I simply click on it and drag it.
| | 00:46 | However, there may be times when you
want to move something in a precise way,
| | 00:49 | for example, you want to move it
exactly one inch up or one inch down or so on
| | 00:52 | and so forth. You can do that by double
clicking on the Arrow tool itself with
| | 00:56 | an object selected. So I'll double
click on the Selection tool and the Move
| | 01:00 | dialog box appears. Here I could
change the horizontal or vertical position.
| | 01:04 | Let's say, I want to make it move up
one inch, I can say, go to Vertical and
| | 01:07 | I'll type in 1 inch and then if I type
the Tab key, I have the Preview button
| | 01:11 | here checked. I can see that
it moves up exactly one inch.
| | 01:14 | If I like that I can go and then click
OK or I can click on the Copy button,
| | 01:19 | which actually moves a copy of that
up one inch but leaves original intact.
| | 01:23 | I'll press Command+Z or Ctrl+Z to undo
that because there is yet another way to
| | 01:27 | copy objects as well.
| | 01:29 | If you just want to create a copy of
an object, obviously you can copy and
| | 01:31 | paste or alternatively hold down the
Option key on your keyboard, if you are on
| | 01:35 | a PC hold down the Alt key. Notice how
your cursor changes from single arrow to
| | 01:39 | double arrow when you do that. That
indicates that that you will be dragging
| | 01:43 | not the original but actually a
copy of your object as you do that.
| | 01:47 | So again I'll hold down the Option
key and then I'll drag and now I'm not
| | 01:50 | moving the original, I'm actually
moving a copy of the original. So when doing
| | 01:53 | simple edits, you can either copy
objects by Option or Alt dragging them or
| | 01:57 | double click on the Selection
tool and specify an exact amount.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scaling objects| 00:00 | A function you will find yourself
doing quite often is scaling artwork inside
| | 00:03 | of Illustrator; either
making things larger or smaller.
| | 00:07 | As with many things that we have seen
until this point there are really two
| | 00:09 | ways to do something inside of
Illustrator, you can either do things precisely
| | 00:13 | by the numbers, or you can
eyeball it on the screen.
| | 00:15 | We have already seen that when you
have the bounding box option turned on
| | 00:18 | inside of Illustrator you can click on
any object. With the Regular Selection
| | 00:22 | tool you will see a bounding box
appear and you can click on any corner and
| | 00:26 | drag it to resize that object. You can
either do it non-proportionally or hold
| | 00:30 | down the Shift key to constrain that
it is always going to be proportional.
| | 00:33 | However, you will notice that when you
go ahead and you scale things that way
| | 00:36 | it's always scaling from one place.
| | 00:37 | For example, if I click and drag on
this corner here I'm scaling up from this
| | 00:41 | lower right hand corner. If I click and
drag in the upper right hand corner I'm
| | 00:46 | now scaling it from this
particular part of the object as well.
| | 00:49 | I'm going to press Command+Z or Ctrl+Z
to undo that. We will now focus on using
| | 00:53 | a specific tool inside of Illustrator
called the Scale tool. When you use the
| | 00:56 | Scale tool you have far more options
available to you on how you want to scale
| | 00:59 | your artwork.
| | 01:00 | For this exercise we will go ahead and
we will zoom in on the Flip Box that's
| | 01:03 | right here. So I'll go ahead and I'll
just simply marquee, select an area here
| | 01:06 | that I want to zoom in on. I'll
select it. I'll come over here to the tools
| | 01:10 | panel and click the Scale tool.
| | 01:12 | The first thing you will notice right
now is that there is an icon that appears
| | 01:16 | right here in the center; it almost
looks like a little cross hairs. That is
| | 01:19 | something that's called the Origin
Point. Whenever you scale an object, the
| | 01:23 | object gets scaled from a certain
point, that's where the scale originates
| | 01:27 | from; we call that the Origin Point. By
default, Illustrator places the Origin
| | 01:31 | Point in the center of your selection.
| | 01:33 | However, you could change the position
of that Origin Point at any time. For
| | 01:37 | now, we will leave the Origin Point
in the center in its default location.
| | 01:40 | The way to use the Scale tool is you
want to move your cursor away from that
| | 01:44 | particular Origin Point. I'm not
clicking down the mouse button right now; I'm
| | 01:46 | simply moving my cursor round on the page.
| | 01:50 | Basically, the way that you think
about it, imagine if you had this artwork
| | 01:53 | right now as a regular piece of paper
and you stuck a pin right there in the
| | 01:56 | middle. So now this part does not move.
So what you can do is you can drag
| | 02:00 | somewhere outside of the edge of the
paper and pull it to basically stretch it
| | 02:04 | if you want to, and it will
stretch from that point of the artwork.
| | 02:08 | Obviously, if you grab something that's
too close to the Origin Point you don't
| | 02:11 | have a lot of leverage to work with. So
what you want to do is move your cursor
| | 02:14 | away from that.
| | 02:15 | So for example, I'll click over here
and start dragging. I'm not holding down
| | 02:19 | the Shift key, so what I'm
able to do is actually scale this
| | 02:21 | non-proportionately. But you can see
what I'm doing is, see how its scaling out
| | 02:24 | from the center. If I hold down the
Shift key as I do this I'm now basically
| | 02:28 | forced to scale this in a proportional
manner. Now when I release the mouse I
| | 02:32 | have scaled it up in size.
| | 02:34 | I'm going to press Ctrl+Z or Command+Z
just to undo that for a moment here. I
| | 02:37 | also want to let you know that if I
start doing the exact same thing of holding
| | 02:40 | down the Shift key, I'm also going to
add the Alt key or the Option key as I
| | 02:44 | drag. Notice, now you see that double
cursor again. This means that I'm not
| | 02:48 | scaling the original artwork; I'm
actually scaling a copy of the artwork. So
| | 02:50 | when I release the mouse I'll now have
the original plus the copy that's here.
| | 02:54 | I'll undo that one more time, because
I want to show you how you can actually
| | 02:57 | change the position of that Origin
Point. You could simply click on it and
| | 03:02 | reposition it elsewhere.
| | 03:03 | For example, if I wanted to scale
from this part of the artwork right over
| | 03:06 | here, I can now click and drag and it
scales from that point, or let me undo,
| | 03:11 | move the Origin Point to let's say
over here and now scale from here as well.
| | 03:17 | Based in the needs for every design task,
you may want to position that Origin
| | 03:21 | Point where it makes the most sense.
| | 03:23 | It's also possible to scale artwork
numerically. To do so, come over to the
| | 03:27 | Scale tool and simply double click on it.
That brings up the Scale dialog box.
| | 03:31 | Here you can enter either an uniform
scale number or a non-uniform, meaning
| | 03:35 | different numbers for horizontal and
vertical. You could choose to scale the
| | 03:38 | strokes add effects.
| | 03:39 | For example, if you had 1-point
stroke on your object and you choose to
| | 03:43 | uncheck, no matter how large you make
your object it will always have 1-point
| | 03:46 | stroke. However, if you have 1-point
stroke and you turn the setting on and you
| | 03:50 | enlarge it let's say 200%, your
stroke will now be 2 points in weight.
| | 03:54 | As we had discussed in the last chapter,
you also have the ability to choose to
| | 03:57 | scale your objects, your patterns, or
both. Of coarse, you can choose to scale
| | 04:03 | or copy here by clicking on this button,
but I'm going to click Cancel to go
| | 04:05 | back to where I was before.
| | 04:07 | Finally, there may be times when you
want to scale something numerically but
| | 04:09 | you also want to specify where the
Origin Point should be. To do that, simply
| | 04:13 | select your Scale tool and Option Click
in a location from where you want that
| | 04:17 | Origin Point to be.
| | 04:18 | Now, it's important to note that the
Origin Point doesn't have to be in the
| | 04:21 | artwork itself, it could really be
anywhere. I can scale it from let's say this
| | 04:24 | point right here, by Option Clicking
here I get the dialog box and I also get
| | 04:29 | the ability to specify an
Origin Point right over here.
| | 04:32 | It may not be as evident of why it
would be important to position the Origin
| | 04:35 | Point so far away from the object when
using the Scale tool, but in the next
| | 04:39 | movie we are going to explore using the
Rotate tool inside of Illustrator, and
| | 04:42 | there are many uses for actually
positioning the Origin Point far away from the
| | 04:46 | object when rotating objects.
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| Rotating objects| 00:00 | Many of the Transformation tools
inside of Illustrator work in the same way.
| | 00:04 | For example, we saw how that when we
scaled objects we had an Origin Point
| | 00:07 | where the scale originated from, and
then we were able to specify the setting.
| | 00:11 | Well, it's not much different with the
Rotate tool. For rotating here, we will
| | 00:14 | actually go ahead and click on the
surfboard. I'll specify the Rotate tool by
| | 00:18 | clicking on the Rotate tool here in
the Tool panel or I could simply use the
| | 00:21 | keyboard shortcut, which is to
tap the R key on my keyboard.
| | 00:24 | Notice that by default my Origin
Point is in the center of the object. As I
| | 00:28 | click and drag to rotate the object
you can see that the object is rotating
| | 00:32 | from that Origin Point. Here when
using the Rotate tool it becomes far more
| | 00:36 | evident of why it would be important
to use this particular Origin Point.
| | 00:39 | For example, here is another way for
you to position the Origin Point, which is
| | 00:44 | simply to come ahead and click on a
different area. For example, I can choose
| | 00:47 | the bottom left hand Anchor Point |
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