IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hello! My name is Mordy Golding
| | 00:06 | and welcome to Illustrator CS5 Essential Training!
| | 00:09 | Having once been the Product Manager
for Illustrator over at Adobe and having
| | 00:14 | used and taught Illustrator for over
20 years, I've learned that there are so
| | 00:18 | many ways to use Adobe Illustrator.
| | 00:21 | So, in this title, I'll focus on
teaching you how to understand how Illustrator
| | 00:25 | works and how it thinks, providing you
with the knowledge that you'll need to
| | 00:30 | get started creating
artwork with Illustrator CS5.
| | 00:34 | I'll begin with basic concepts like
creating and working with documents.
| | 00:38 | Then I'll teach you how to draw and
build shapes, covering things like use of
| | 00:42 | color and special effects along the way.
| | 00:45 | I'll show you how you can work with
images alongside of your vector artwork and
| | 00:49 | how you can apply useful
distortion like blends and perspective.
| | 00:53 | I'll also spend time sharing tips and
tricks that the pros use, things like
| | 00:58 | keyboard shortcuts and production
secrets, so that you can increase your
| | 01:01 | efficiency and become more comfortable
with this powerful graphics application.
| | 01:07 | By the time we're done, you'll have all
the skills that you'll need to perform
| | 01:11 | virtually any task with Illustrator CS5.
| | 01:15 | So, what are we waiting for?
| | 01:16 | Let's get started!
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| What is Illustrator CS5?| 00:00 | Illustrator is an essential
application to a broad range of professionals and
| | 00:04 | hobbyists and it has an
incredible number of uses.
| | 00:07 | Illustrator is pretty much a
universal graphics translator.
| | 00:11 | Now, what do I mean by graphics specifically?
| | 00:14 | I refer to all kinds of
graphics with Illustrator.
| | 00:17 | The two most important attributes of
vector graphics are that your artwork is
| | 00:22 | always editable, meaning you can always
make changes to it at any time, and your
| | 00:27 | artwork is also scalable.
| | 00:29 | That means that no matter what size you
need your artwork for, be it something
| | 00:33 | as small as a business card or as
large as the side of a building, vector
| | 00:38 | graphics will always look clean
and sharp without any loss in detail.
| | 00:42 | Illustrator can both import and export
a wide variety of graphics file formats
| | 00:47 | for so many different uses.
| | 00:48 | For example, you can open up PDF files,
EPS or PostScript files, allowing you to
| | 00:54 | easily repurpose graphics for almost any need.
| | 00:57 | Speaking of creating graphics for
any need, the other main attribute of
| | 01:02 | Illustrator is the ability
to create cross-media design.
| | 01:05 | When I refer to cross-media, I'm
talking about how you deliver your artwork, be
| | 01:10 | that in a print-based format or in a
digital-based format, and even for display
| | 01:14 | on handheld devices, for example like phones.
| | 01:17 | If you need to design something,
Illustrator can play a big part in that.
| | 01:21 | Of course, at the core of Illustrator
are graphics creation tools like Pencil
| | 01:26 | tools and Pen tools and Paintbrushes
that allow fine artists to create wonderful
| | 01:31 | works of art using Illustrator.
| | 01:33 | In fact, there are many people who are not
even designers at all who also use Illustrator.
| | 01:37 | If you have some creativity inside of
you and you want to put that creativity to use,
| | 01:42 | working with Illustrator is
a great way to make that happen.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | Before we get started, I wanted to
take a quick moment to talk about the
| | 00:04 | Exercise Files that I'll be
using throughout this training.
| | 00:06 | If you are a premium member of the
lynda.com Online Training Library, or if
| | 00:11 | you're watching this tutorial on a disc,
you have access to the Exercise Files
| | 00:15 | that I'll be using throughout this title.
| | 00:17 | The Exercise Files are named by
chapter as you could see in this folder.
| | 00:21 | If you're a monthly or an annual
subscriber to lynda.com, you don't have the
| | 00:25 | Exercise Files, but you can certainly
follow along with the lessons. Are you ready?
| | 00:29 | Let's begin!
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1. Key ConceptsWhat are vector graphics?| 00:00 | Before we could learn about how to draw
vector graphics in Illustrator, we have
| | 00:04 | to first understand what a vector graphic is.
| | 00:08 | In reality, many people don't even
know what the term vector graphics means.
| | 00:12 | It's kind of thrown around a lot
when discussing different types of
| | 00:15 | graphical applications.
| | 00:17 | For the most part, there are two different
types of ways to draw graphics on a computer.
| | 00:22 | Illustrator primarily uses
something called vector graphics, while a
| | 00:26 | program like Photoshop uses
something called pixels, which are also
| | 00:30 | sometimes called rasters or bitmaps.
| | 00:32 | We're going to use this example here of
a flower to understand the differences
| | 00:37 | between pixel-based graphics like
Photoshop creates and vector-based graphics,
| | 00:42 | which is what Illustrator creates.
| | 00:43 | To better visualize these concepts, let's
first imagine a blank sheet of graph paper.
| | 00:49 | Basically a sheet of paper that's a
grid of a whole bunch of little squares.
| | 00:53 | You may have heard of the term called
resolution before, or in regard to an
| | 00:57 | image something called DPI or more
specifically PPI, which stands for Pixels Per Inch.
| | 01:05 | Basically, when you create a file in a program
like Photoshop, we define first a resolution.
| | 01:11 | A resolution is basically a
grid of squares or pixels.
| | 01:14 | If I create an image that's exactly 1
inch x 1 inch in size, I determine a
| | 01:20 | resolution or the number of pixels
that appear within that one inch.
| | 01:25 | So, you may have heard, for example, of
something called 300 ppi or 300 pixels per inch.
| | 01:31 | That means that if I create a Photoshop
file that is 1 inch x 1 inch, there are
| | 01:36 | hundres of these little
squares inside of that document.
| | 01:40 | Obviously, if you try to cram those little
squares into a small space like 1 inch x 1 inch,
| | 01:45 | those squares become very small.
| | 01:48 | When you have very, very small squares
or small pixels, we refer to that image
| | 01:53 | as being high resolution.
| | 01:55 | However, if I create an image that only
has, for example, 10 ppi within that
| | 02:01 | 1 inch x 1 inch space,
obviously those pixels are bigger.
| | 02:05 | We refer to images with big
pixels as having a low resolution.
| | 02:10 | The way that Photoshop creates images is
that each of these pixels have some kind
| | 02:15 | of a color value applied to them.
| | 02:16 | Currently, on the screen right now,
all the pixels are colored white.
| | 02:21 | But if I wanted to create some kind
of an image, I could start to color in
| | 02:25 | some of these pixels.
| | 02:26 | In fact, if you can imagine this as a
sheet of graph paper and if you had a
| | 02:30 | whole bunch of crayons or Magic Markers, you
could start to color in each of these squares.
| | 02:35 | The rule of the game is that you have to
fill in each square with only one color.
| | 02:41 | Meaning two colors can't occupy the same square.
| | 02:44 | Likewise, every square must be fully
colored in, meaning you cannot have a
| | 02:49 | partially filled in
square inside of your document.
| | 02:52 | So, if I wanted to draw a flower,
what I might do is start to fill in
| | 02:56 | these grids with colors.
| | 02:57 | As you can see in this example, this
image is set right now to a low resolution.
| | 03:02 | My eye can actually see the individual
pixels themselves, because they're big
| | 03:07 | enough for me to see.
| | 03:08 | So, the flower itself, while very pretty,
has kind of these jaggy edges to it,
| | 03:14 | and I could really see the
differences or the shades of color within it.
| | 03:17 | In fact, many times inside of
Photoshop, you may see that when you zoom in
| | 03:22 | really close to an image,
you start to see these pixels.
| | 03:25 | In fact, walk up really close to a TV
screen and you also start to see these pixels.
| | 03:31 | Of course, if you wanted to create a
sharper version or a cleaner version of
| | 03:35 | this flower, you might start off
with a higher resolution, meaning the
| | 03:39 | pixels are much smaller and it will
be then difficult to see jagged edges
| | 03:44 | inside of your artwork.
| | 03:46 | However, that would only work at the
actual size that you create that artwork.
| | 03:50 | As soon as you start to enlarge your
Photoshop document, what happens is that
| | 03:55 | new pixels are not added to your file.
| | 03:58 | The pixels that exist in
your file simply get bigger.
| | 04:01 | At some point as you start to zoom in
closer to your document, you're going to
| | 04:04 | see these jagged edges and these pixels.
| | 04:07 | In contrast, Illustrator looks
at this sheet of graph paper in a
| | 04:11 | completely different way.
| | 04:12 | It looks at it from a mathematic
perspective and actually looks at the graph
| | 04:17 | paper as coordinates.
| | 04:19 | Using these coordinates, you're able to
map these things called anchor points.
| | 04:23 | We'll talk more about
anchor points a little bit later.
| | 04:26 | But basically, Illustrator calculates
positions for certain anchor points on
| | 04:31 | this grid and then connects
each anchor point with a path.
| | 04:35 | Because these paths connect the anchor
points, there's really no jagged edges
| | 04:40 | that exist here, because the
path themselves are smooth.
| | 04:43 | More importantly, if I now go ahead and
enlarge the size of this image, meaning
| | 04:49 | I make the squares a lot bigger, all
I'm doing is adjusting the position of
| | 04:53 | these anchor points, but the paths that
connect the anchor points still remain
| | 04:58 | smooth and clean and sharp.
| | 05:00 | These paths can have attributes applied to them.
| | 05:03 | For example, something which we call
a fill and again we'll talk more about
| | 05:07 | fills a little bit later on, but
basically, I can apply these colors to fill
| | 05:12 | up the regions inside of these paths to
create a colorful flower that I'm looking for.
| | 05:17 | Of course, these paths and these
anchor points are not things that print.
| | 05:21 | They are only there for me to
work with inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:25 | The same thing, of course, the graph
paper is not something that I would ever see.
| | 05:29 | I could turn it on to see it inside of
Illustrator, but doesn't show up on a printout.
| | 05:34 | What I would see on a printed sheet of
paper is simply a beautiful flower with
| | 05:37 | nice, clean, sharp edges
and a smooth appearance.
| | 05:40 | This is the main difference between vector
graphics and pixel-based or raster graphics.
| | 05:46 | Once I create something inside of
Illustrator, I have the ability to resize or
| | 05:50 | edit that graphic at any time
without any loss in quality or detail.
| | 05:55 | As we learn more about using Illustrator,
we'll learn how to draw these shapes,
| | 05:59 | so that we get beautiful-
looking graphics for any need.
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| Path and appearance| 00:00 | So we understand that in Illustrator
vector graphics are made up of these paths,
| | 00:05 | and these paths have anchor points that
help define the position of those paths.
| | 00:10 | However it's important to realize that
paths themselves do not have any appearance.
| | 00:15 | Meaning that while I can see the
paths and the anchor points inside of
| | 00:19 | Illustrator, they're there to help me
define objects, but they don't actually
| | 00:24 | show when I print out a sheet of paper.
| | 00:26 | So let's take a look at what we
have on the screen here for a moment.
| | 00:29 | On the left side I have
this concept called a path.
| | 00:33 | We know that we had this graph
paper type of layout where I had these
| | 00:37 | coordinates and I had these anchor points
and paths that are used to define objects.
| | 00:43 | However on the right side of the
screen, let's focus on the appearance,
| | 00:47 | meaning what happens when I actually
print out this file. What does my graphic
| | 00:51 | actually look like?
| | 00:53 | The way that I like to describe it is
that the paths itself is like the skeleton
| | 00:57 | that defines the actual shape itself.
| | 01:00 | The appearance are the clothes that you
actually put onto that skeleton, so that
| | 01:04 | they have some kind of visual appearance.
| | 01:07 | There are three basic types of appearances
that you can apply to paths inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:13 | The first one is something called a fill.
| | 01:15 | The fill attribute basically fills up
the entire enclosed area within the path.
| | 01:21 | In this example here we have two paths.
One is the overall flower shape, which I
| | 01:26 | have filled right now with color, and
then inside of that I also have a circle
| | 01:31 | that's filled with a different color.
| | 01:33 | In fact, we're going to learn later on
in this title about different types of
| | 01:36 | fills that you can apply.
| | 01:38 | Some fills are completely solid colors,
but in this case here, I've actually
| | 01:43 | applied something called a
gradient as a fill inside of these objects.
| | 01:47 | And a gradient allows you to define
two or more colors and have those colors
| | 01:51 | seamlessly blend into each other.
| | 01:53 | But that's the first kind of an
appearance that you can apply to a path,
| | 01:57 | something called a fill.
| | 01:58 | The second type of appearance that
you can apply inside of Illustrator is
| | 02:02 | something called a stroke.
| | 02:03 | The stroke is actually applied directly
onto the path itself and gives the path
| | 02:08 | some kind of an appearance.
| | 02:10 | In this case for the flower shape
on the outside, there is now a stroke
| | 02:15 | specified using a black color.
| | 02:17 | The circle on the inside of the flower is
also using a black stroke but it's much heavier.
| | 02:22 | As we're going to learn about strokes,
you can change their colors and in
| | 02:26 | addition you could change their thickness,
or what we call the weight of a stroke.
| | 02:31 | It's important to realize that if you
do not specify a fill or a stroke for
| | 02:35 | your paths, then you do not get any appearance,
meaning nothing prints out on a sheet of paper.
| | 02:41 | It's only when you start to add
these attributes or like I said apply
| | 02:46 | clothing onto the skeleton that you
start to get an appearance, that does
| | 02:50 | appear on a printout.
| | 02:51 | Finally, the third kind of appearance
that you can apply to artwork inside of
| | 02:55 | Illustrator is something called an effect.
| | 02:58 | Effects can be things like soft drop
shadows or other things that modify
| | 03:02 | somewhat the appearance of your artwork.
| | 03:05 | If you take a step back for a moment,
and take a look at this from a 10,000 foot view,
| | 03:09 | this is really what
working in Illustrator is like.
| | 03:12 | Building shapes by creating paths and
then modifying the appearance of those
| | 03:17 | paths to get them to look
just the way you want them.
| | 03:20 | Because these paths and anchor points
are all defined mathematically and because
| | 03:25 | you have these appearance attributes
that you can apply to them, it's very easy
| | 03:29 | to make changes to your artwork at
any point in your creative process.
| | 03:33 | And if artwork needs to be scaled or
adjusted for any need, the results that
| | 03:38 | you'll get will always be
clean, sharp, and perfect.
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| Stacking| 00:00 | In Illustrator, we now know that you
actually draw these objects made up of
| | 00:05 | paths and anchor points and then you
apply appearances to make it look the way
| | 00:09 | that you want it to.
| | 00:10 | But as you draw new objects, they are
always applied in your document in a certain way.
| | 00:15 | As you draw new arts, each piece of art
gets added on top of the previous piece of art.
| | 00:21 | This is something what we
call an object stacking order.
| | 00:24 | Objects by default always get drawn
on top of previously drawn objects.
| | 00:30 | Now it doesn't obliterate the object beneath it.
| | 00:32 | In other words, it's as if
they're kind of on two separate layers.
| | 00:35 | I can still continue to move one of
the objects on top without disturbing or
| | 00:40 | destroying the object beneath it, but
each time I create a new piece of art,
| | 00:44 | that art gets added towards
the top of the stacking order.
| | 00:48 | For example if I would draw now a third flower,
that flower be drawn on top of the second one.
| | 00:53 | Now, when I'm using Illustrator, I do
have the ability to make adjustments
| | 00:58 | to the stacking order.
| | 00:59 | Meaning I could take the topmost
flower right now and send it one step
| | 01:03 | backwards inside of the stacking order.
| | 01:05 | So right now it appears
sandwich between the other two flowers.
| | 01:09 | Likewise, I could take that same
flower and send it all the way towards the
| | 01:13 | bottom of the stacking order, so it now
appears beneath the other two objects.
| | 01:18 | At any time I can always select that object
and bring it all the way back to the front again.
| | 01:23 | But at any time inside of Illustrator,
I'm always thinking about the stacking order
| | 01:28 | and I am moving objects around
inside of the stacking order.
| | 01:31 | You might think of these as having
three separate layers but everything that's
| | 01:35 | happening right now is
really happening on one layer.
| | 01:38 | You see Illustrator has something
called an object stacking order.
| | 01:42 | That means that each object has its own
place in the stacking order that's all
| | 01:46 | within a single layer.
| | 01:48 | At any time I can create a new layer and
that layer also has its own stacking order.
| | 01:54 | If I take even a step backwards, all of my
layers themselves also have a stacking order.
| | 01:59 | So in theory, I can have one layer
that has three flowers on it, and each of
| | 02:04 | those three flowers enjoy their own
stacking order, and then a second layer
| | 02:09 | on top of this which may have even
more flowers, and those flowers have their
| | 02:14 | own stacking order.
| | 02:15 | But because those flowers are now
inside of their own layer, that entire layer
| | 02:20 | sits on top of the previous layer in
the stacking order for layers as well.
| | 02:24 | So it's an important concept to
understand, the fact that we have the stacking
| | 02:28 | order that applies across all the
objects and layers inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:33 | As we start to learn more about
organizing and building our documents, we will
| | 02:38 | get a much better idea of how this
works, but for now it's important to
| | 02:41 | understand this concept that you can
add things at the top of the stacking
| | 02:45 | order and then at any time you can
adjust an object's position within that
| | 02:50 | stacking order as well.
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2. Creating New DocumentsThe Welcome screen| 00:00 | When you first launch Adobe
Illustrator, you're presented with this screen
| | 00:04 | that's called the Welcome screen.
| | 00:06 | In fact the default setting for
Illustrator is that this Welcome screen appears
| | 00:10 | anytime there are no other
documents open inside the program.
| | 00:13 | If you are really not interested in
seeing this screen each time you work
| | 00:16 | with Illustrator, you can choose this option on
the bottom over here called Don't show again.
| | 00:20 | However before you decide that you
don't need this Welcome screen and you
| | 00:23 | dismiss it forever, take a brief moment
to learn some of the things that it does.
| | 00:27 | Besides the bright and cheery orange bar
across the top of it, you might find it
| | 00:31 | useful as you use Illustrator day-to-day.
| | 00:33 | On the right side of the Welcome
screen is an area called Create New.
| | 00:37 | This contains a list of
something called new document profiles.
| | 00:41 | Illustrator can be used for a variety
of different tasks and can create artwork
| | 00:45 | that will be distributed
across multiple mediums.
| | 00:47 | However, each of those mediums
may require specific settings.
| | 00:51 | Creating a new document from any of
these new document profiles will make sure
| | 00:55 | that your settings are correct for
the intended use of your artwork.
| | 00:58 | We will talk more about these new
document profiles later on in the chapter.
| | 01:02 | On the left side of the Welcome screen
is something called Open a Recent Item.
| | 01:06 | Since I haven't started working on an
Illustrator files yet, this area is empty.
| | 01:10 | You will notice that this area will
become populated with the files that you
| | 01:13 | have most recently been working on.
| | 01:15 | Often, when working on a variety of
different projects you can save time by
| | 01:19 | opening files directly from here
instead of navigating through folders in your
| | 01:22 | computer or servers.
| | 01:24 | On the bottom left are a series of
links. The first three actually point to
| | 01:28 | Adobe's new community help system and
give you quick access to some getting
| | 01:32 | starter documents and new featured
documents and a list of resources.
| | 01:36 | This last link called Illustrator
Exchange will launch your web browser and take
| | 01:42 | you to Adobe's Exchange site.
| | 01:43 | It's a place where Illustrator
users such as yourself can share swatch
| | 01:47 | libraries, brushes, symbols, even
Illustrator artwork and timesaving scripts.
| | 01:52 | The bottom right actually serves as
some kind of billboard advertisement for
| | 01:56 | Adobe. What you see on your screen
when you launch Illustrator may differ
| | 01:59 | from what you see here as the content is
dynamic and Adobe changes it from time to time.
| | 02:04 | Finally, if you do decide to close the
Welcome screen you can do so by clicking
| | 02:08 | on this little button in
the upper left-hand corner.
| | 02:10 | You can always get it back by going to
the Help menu and choosing Welcome screen.
| | 02:13 | Now that you are familiar with the
Welcome screen and the new document profiles
| | 02:17 | that are contained within it, you're
ready to start creating some new documents.
| | 02:21 | Let's go!
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| Creating files for print| 00:00 | One of the most important benefits for
creating artwork inside of Illustrator is
| | 00:04 | that because of the vector nature
of the artwork itself, you can easily
| | 00:08 | repurpose that artwork for virtually any need.
| | 00:10 | That being said, the requirements
for publishing something in print or
| | 00:14 | displaying on a computer
screen can be very different.
| | 00:17 | While you can always change your
settings later on in your workflow, it will
| | 00:20 | always be easier if you get all of
your settings correct before you get
| | 00:23 | started creating your art.
| | 00:25 | In fact, I've always felt that one of
the most important parts of working on any
| | 00:29 | document inside of Illustrator is the
time that you take thinking about your
| | 00:32 | project before you get started
using Illustrator to begin with.
| | 00:35 | It's helpful to think about who is going
to be using this artwork once it's created.
| | 00:40 | How will the art be distributed or published?
| | 00:42 | Making decisions about these
important questions is called establishing an
| | 00:45 | intent for your artwork.
| | 00:47 | When creating new documents inside of
Illustrator, you can use that intent to
| | 00:52 | ensure that key settings are
in place before you get started.
| | 00:55 | For example, say you needed to create some
artwork that was going to appear in print.
| | 00:59 | It can be a business card design, an
advertisement that will appear in a
| | 01:03 | magazine or a newspaper, maybe a really cool
movie poster, or even a menu for a restaurant.
| | 01:08 | Using the Print New Document profile
here from the Welcome screen, we will have
| | 01:12 | key settings in place before
you start working on your art.
| | 01:16 | Let's review some of these settings.
| | 01:17 | I'll click Print Document, which
brings up the New Document dialog box.
| | 01:21 | Let's take a look at some
of the basic settings here.
| | 01:24 | Now, first we do have the ability
to name our document right here.
| | 01:28 | This won't actually save our document
but the first time that you choose to
| | 01:32 | save your document, we will have
already done that step by naming the file.
| | 01:36 | While I'll admit that it's a nice
idea in concept to name to file upfront,
| | 01:40 | it's certainly not something that
you need to worry about right now.
| | 01:43 | In fact during a busy day I often just
jump right in by creating a document.
| | 01:46 | And I worry about saving the file name later.
| | 01:49 | There is a pop-up list here that
actually displays all the new document profiles.
| | 01:53 | So you really still able to
change your mind if you want to use a
| | 01:56 | different intent here.
| | 01:57 | But I am going to stick
with Print at this point.
| | 01:59 | And I'm able to choose how many
artboards I want to create in my document.
| | 02:02 | By default the Illustrator creates
one artboard, but you can have up to 99
| | 02:06 | of them if you like.
| | 02:07 | If you do specify more than one artboard, you
can see that these options are now available.
| | 02:12 | You can specify which direction the
artboards are created in the documents,
| | 02:15 | choosing to line them up
in columns if you'd like.
| | 02:17 | And you can specify a value for how
much space appears between each artboard.
| | 02:22 | Notice that changing the number of
artboards now changed my document profile
| | 02:26 | to be set to Custom.
| | 02:27 | That is because the settings no longer
match Illustrator's default Print profile.
| | 02:31 | And just to make it easier to review
the rest of the settings, I am going to
| | 02:34 | return back to the Print profile.
| | 02:36 | Don't worry too much about artboards right now.
| | 02:38 | We are actually going to cover
artboards in far more detail in a later
| | 02:41 | chapter in this title.
| | 02:42 | You can choose what size
you want your artboard to be.
| | 02:45 | Illustrator has a few specific settings
here, for example Letter, Legal or Tabloid.
| | 02:50 | These are standard page
sizes here in the United States.
| | 02:53 | And there are also A and B sizes
for paper sizes that are used in other
| | 02:57 | parts of the world.
| | 02:58 | Of course you can also enter your own
custom width and height for artboards.
| | 03:02 | And while the measurements here are set
in points, you could change Units to use
| | 03:05 | either Points, Picas, Inches,
Millimeters, Centimeters or Pixels.
| | 03:10 | While I myself is more familiar with
using inches, it's important to know
| | 03:14 | that Illustrator will really do much of the
math and the conversions for you automatically.
| | 03:18 | For example if this project was a business card,
| | 03:21 | I know that a standard business crd
is 3.5 inches wide and 2 inches tall.
| | 03:25 | So even if my units were still set the
points, I could highlight a value in my Width field,
| | 03:30 | type in 3.5in for inches and when I
hit the tab key Illustrator automatically
| | 03:35 | figures out the conversion and
converts it to the 252 points.
| | 03:39 | For the Height I'll type 2in,
hit Tab to accept that value,
| | 03:43 | and see that that now changes to 144 points.
| | 03:46 | One of the nice things about
Illustrator is that I can do that throughout the
| | 03:48 | entire application, almost anywhere
where I am entering values into a field.
| | 03:52 | I can always swap the Width and
Height values by clicking on these
| | 03:55 | Orientation buttons.
| | 03:57 | This would be tall, also known as portrait.
| | 03:59 | This would be wide, also known as landscape.
| | 04:01 | When dealing with print projects, you
may be asked by a printer to specify bleed.
| | 04:06 | Printers may often print artwork on
large sheets of paper and then trim them
| | 04:10 | down to the sizes that you specify.
| | 04:12 | If your design calls for a color that
goes all the way up to the end of the page,
| | 04:15 | printers often request bleed,
| | 04:17 | a term used for artwork or color that
extends beyond the actual trim size of the page.
| | 04:22 | In this way you ensure that if the
trimming is off just a little bit and you don't
| | 04:25 | see any white gaps towards the ends of your page.
| | 04:28 | If you have questions about how
much bleed you should specify for your
| | 04:31 | documents, you should speak with your printer.
| | 04:33 | Overall these are basic document
settings, but when you think about print there
| | 04:37 | are some advanced settings that
are important to get right as well.
| | 04:40 | Let's click on the Advanced button
here to see what those settings are.
| | 04:43 | First of all you'll see that my
Color Mode now is set to CMYK.
| | 04:46 | CMYK, which stands for cyan, magenta,
yellow and black, is the color model that
| | 04:51 | you should be using when
creating documents for print.
| | 04:54 | In addition when creating print
documents we need to ensure that raster-based
| | 04:58 | Effects will print at a high enough resolution.
| | 05:00 | As you can see here the Print profile
sets the Raster Effects Resolution setting
| | 05:05 | the 300 pixels per inch.
| | 05:06 | While Illustrator itself is a vector-
based application, there are plenty of
| | 05:10 | raster-based effects in the program.
| | 05:12 | As an example when you apply a soft
drop shadow inside of Illustrator,
| | 05:15 | that drop shadow will get
rasterized at this setting.
| | 05:18 | You'll also notice here that the
Preview Mode is set to Default.
| | 05:21 | However, if you are going to be
using specialized printing techniques, for
| | 05:24 | example overprinting or spot colors,
| | 05:27 | you may want to choose the
Preview Mode to Overprint.
| | 05:30 | Now if all these settings seem
somewhat confusing to you, because the profile
| | 05:34 | themselves, for example in this case
the Print profile, already has all the
| | 05:38 | correct settings for most of the
print work that you'll end up doing.
| | 05:41 | So really on a day-to-day basis,
you'll probably ignore these Advanced
| | 05:45 | settings altogether.
| | 05:46 | Click on the Print Document button in
the Welcome screen, punch in the values
| | 05:49 | for your artboard, and
then click OK to get started.
| | 05:52 | I'll hide the Advanced settings here for now.
| | 05:54 | And it's nice to know that as you are
working on his base settings you do have
| | 05:57 | visibility to what those settings are here.
| | 05:59 | So you can take a quick glance to make
sure that everything is set before you go.
| | 06:02 | Once you've completed your settings you
can click OK to create the new document.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating files for the screen| 00:00 | It may seem like there's a lot of new
document profiles here in the startup screen.
| | 00:05 | However, if we think about intent some
of these are very similar. For example,
| | 00:08 | if you look at Flash Catalyst
Document, Web Document, Mobile and Devices
| | 00:12 | Document or the Video and Film Document
they all have one basic thing in common
| | 00:17 | and that is that the intent of that
artwork is to be displayed on a digital
| | 00:20 | device or screen. Because is probably
the most common, let's take a closer
| | 00:25 | look at the Web Document profile.
| | 00:27 | I am going to click on it to open up a
New Document dialog box and while we do
| | 00:31 | see the same basic settings from
when viewing the Print profile but now when
| | 00:35 | you click on the pop-up menu for size
instead of offering standard print sizes
| | 00:40 | you'll see screen resolutions, for
examples 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768.
| | 00:47 | Of course you may have a specific
resolution you need to use, maybe for
| | 00:51 | example of banner size of 720x90 in
which case you would enter those values
| | 00:56 | here for Width and Height.
| | 00:57 | Notice that the Unit chosen is
already set to Pixels which is the correct
| | 01:01 | setting for screen-based design, you
can pretty much ignored the Bleed setting
| | 01:05 | as that doesn't really apply to Web design.
| | 01:07 | However if you click on the Advanced
button, you will see now that the Color
| | 01:10 | Mode is set to RGB. RGB stands for Red,
Green, and Blue and is the color mode
| | 01:16 | that digital screens used such as
computer monitors, televisions, and handheld
| | 01:20 | devices like cell phones.
| | 01:21 | Because screens use a lower resolution,
you'll see that the Raster Effects
| | 01:25 | setting now is also set to low
resolution, a screen value of 72 pixels per inch.
| | 01:30 | And while the Preview mode
is set currently to default,
| | 01:33 | if you want to get a more accurate
preview of exactly how your artwork is going
| | 01:36 | to appear when viewed on a computer
screen, you may want to choose the Pixel
| | 01:40 | Preview mode. But as we'll are later on
this title, I would prefer working in the
| | 01:44 | default Preview mode and just using the
Pixel Preview mode as a way to test my
| | 01:48 | artwork before I send it out.
| | 01:50 | Finally there's one other important
sitting here that applies specifically to
| | 01:53 | screen-based design.
| | 01:54 | This is a new setting for Illustrator CS5.
It's called Align New Objects to Pixel Grid.
| | 01:59 | With this option checked Illustrator
will always snap the antialiasing of pixels
| | 02:04 | to the grid itself. This keeps your
graphics clean and sharp so that they look
| | 02:08 | great on any device.
| | 02:10 | I'll hide the Advanced settings here
and I just want to point out one more
| | 02:13 | setting. Notice right now we are viewing
the new document profile for Web, which
| | 02:17 | lists these few sizes here in the pop-up menu.
| | 02:20 | However, one of the main
differences between Web profiles and another
| | 02:22 | screen-based profiles is that
they often use different sizes.
| | 02:26 | For example let's take a look
at the Video and Film profile.
| | 02:29 | Notice that now this pop-up menu is
populated with presets specific for DV and
| | 02:34 | if I go back to does pop-up here for
the profile and I choose now Mobile and
| | 02:38 | Devices, once again I find
common sizes for mobile device screens.
| | 02:42 | I will return back to the Web profile
right here, I'll choose 1024x768, and now
| | 02:47 | I can click OK and now you're ready
to start designing your Web graphics.
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| Using prebuilt templates| 00:00 | Depending on the type of project that
you're working on, or your comfort level
| | 00:04 | with starting a new creative project,
you may be happy to know that Illustrator
| | 00:08 | ships with a variety of pre-built templates.
| | 00:10 | These templates cover a wide range of
design needs, including Web site designs,
| | 00:15 | DVD menus, stationary
brochures and restaurant menus.
| | 00:20 | Perhaps more importantly,
Illustrator also ships with a variety of blank
| | 00:24 | templates. These are templates that
don't really have any design elements inside
| | 00:28 | them, but they're already set up with
the right page sizes, trim marks, fold
| | 00:32 | marks, and basic guidelines
for a specific types of work.
| | 00:36 | Now, you can access these templates
directly from the Welcome screen by
| | 00:40 | clicking on this folder over
here called From Template.
| | 00:43 | Doing so navigates you directly on
your hard drive to where all these
| | 00:46 | templates are stored.
| | 00:47 | Notice here you have the blank
templates, covering things like brochures,
| | 00:50 | business cards, boxes, and then
there are several theme-based templates.
| | 00:54 | For example, Club, Film and Tech.
There is also a collection of Japanese
| | 00:59 | templates and a collection of
FlexSkins for creating user interface elements
| | 01:03 | like buttons and scroll bars, used
for building rich Internet applications.
| | 01:08 | However, the problem with choosing a
template in this way is there's really
| | 01:11 | no way to get a quick preview
of what that template looks like.
| | 01:14 | For example, if I want to open up this
template here for film and maybe to see
| | 01:18 | the web site one, I would just get a
generic icon here and the only way for me
| | 01:23 | to view what that looks like would
be to be to physically open a file.
| | 01:25 | Instead, I like to use a different
method for choosing a template. I'll click
| | 01:29 | Cancel here and then in
Illustrator, I want to go to the File menu and
| | 01:33 | choose this option called Browse in Bridge.
| | 01:36 | Choosing this option actually launches
Adobe Bridge, which is a file browser
| | 01:40 | application, and once again it takes me
directly to that folder that contains
| | 01:44 | all these templates.
| | 01:45 | Now, if I want to at this point, I can
double-click on any folder to view its
| | 01:49 | contents and I can get
visual previews of those files.
| | 01:52 | You can use this slider on the bottom of
the screen here to enlarge these previews.
| | 01:56 | But let me show you a little trick
that I like about working with Bridge. I'm
| | 01:59 | going to click over here where it says
Templates to navigate back to this part
| | 02:03 | of the location on my hard drive.
| | 02:04 | Next, I'm going to go to the View menu
and I'm going to an option here called
| | 02:09 | Show Items from Subfolders.
| | 02:11 | Even though I have several folders
right now and there are multiple files in
| | 02:15 | each of those folders, this setting
will allow me to view all the items across
| | 02:19 | all those folders at once.
| | 02:20 | So I'll choose Show Items from
Subfolders and because the folders are getting
| | 02:24 | in the way, I can go back to that
View menu and uncheck Show Folders.
| | 02:29 | At this point, I can scroll through and
browse through all the templates that
| | 02:33 | ship with Illustrator.
| | 02:34 | Once I found the one that I'm looking
for, I could just double-click on it and
| | 02:37 | it opens up right back inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding XMP metadata| 00:00 | In today's digital age, our hard drives are
filled with files that we've been working on.
| | 00:05 | For freelance designers, those files can
belong to any number of clients. If all
| | 00:09 | of your work is for a single company,
| | 00:11 | you probably have files from
many projects over the years.
| | 00:15 | The challenge that we're faced with
is finding the files when we need them.
| | 00:18 | For example, you may remember that you
worked on some kind of a design about
| | 00:21 | a year ago, but it may take hours or may
even be impossible to find that file at times.
| | 00:27 | More importantly though, because
Illustrator files can be used in so many
| | 00:31 | different ways, we're constantly
sending out our artwork to other locations, to
| | 00:34 | other hard drives, to other
people, to clients, so on and so forth.
| | 00:38 | As such, we may want to be careful
about putting copyright information,= or at
| | 00:42 | least putting some other kind of
information that identifies,= who the creator
| | 00:45 | of those files were.
| | 00:46 | And that's where the
concept of metadata comes in.
| | 00:49 | Metadata is information that describes
what is in a file. While some kinds of
| | 00:54 | metadata are automatically stored in a
file, for example what fonts or colors
| | 00:58 | are used in that document, the more
information you put into the metadata of a file,
| | 01:02 | for example who the designer was,
what project or client that was for,
| | 01:06 | pertinent copyright information, or
things of that nature, it will only help you
| | 01:10 | when it comes down to align later on,
when you need to find that file or track
| | 01:14 | information about the file.
| | 01:15 | Let me show you how to add metadata
to any document inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:19 | I'm going to start creating just a
new print document, click OK to get the
| | 01:22 | document open up on my screen, and
I will go to the File menu and choose File Info.
| | 01:27 | This brings up a comprehensive
dialog box where I can enter all kinds of
| | 01:32 | information about this file. In truth,
I can open up this dialog box at any time,
| | 01:37 | even after I have
saved this file many times.
| | 01:40 | However, my advice to you is that
getting into the habit of adding information,
| | 01:44 | even if it's basic, before you start
working on a file will make your life that
| | 01:48 | much easier. You'll notice across the
top of the dialog box many tabs. Each of
| | 01:53 | these tabs reference different types of
information or metadata that you can add to a file.
| | 01:57 | Now, it's important to realize that almost
every single digital file can contain metadata.
| | 02:02 | For example there's a tab here called
Camera Data. Well there's no camera data
| | 02:07 | if it's an Illustrator file. However,
whenever you snap a photograph with a
| | 02:10 | digital camera, certain metadata
called x-if metadata is automatically stored
| | 02:15 | along with the file.
| | 02:16 | It records what kind of camera was used
to take that picture, what the exposure
| | 02:20 | settings were set to, whether or not
the flash went off when the picture was
| | 02:24 | taken, and some cameras can even
record the GPS location of where that photo
| | 02:28 | was taken in the world.
| | 02:29 | However, when it comes to Illustrator
the most important panel is probably the
| | 02:33 | Description panel. At the very a least,
it's helpful to add a document title,
| | 02:36 | who the author was to that document, and
maybe a basic description of what that artwork is.
| | 02:41 | I also find it very helpful to add
keywords, which can be used when you're
| | 02:45 | trying to search for documents.
| | 02:47 | Finally, you may want to specify a
copyright status. When I create my own work,
| | 02:51 | I'll usually choose a copyrighted
option and I put my personal web site here
| | 02:55 | inside of this field.
| | 02:57 | If you work at a company, you may want
to put the company's web site here as well.
| | 03:00 | In doing so, no matter where your
Illustrator file ends up, even after it's been
| | 03:04 | placed into InDesign, turned into a
PDF or opened up with Illustrator even on
| | 03:09 | the other side of the world, your
information will be secure in that file.
| | 03:12 | Before I click OK, let me share with
you one little tip that I use often.
| | 03:16 | On the bottom of the screen over here
there's a button called Import, but if
| | 03:19 | you click just to the right of that on
this little arrow, it pops up over here
| | 03:22 | and gives you an option to Export.
| | 03:24 | What it's exporting? Well it's
actually creating something called a metadata
| | 03:28 | template, and when you export a
metadata template, you can then choose to open
| | 03:31 | up a different document and import that
template. This saves you the time from
| | 03:35 | having to type in information
every time you create a new document.
| | 03:38 | My advice is to actually sit down for
a moment and create a special metadata
| | 03:42 | template for yourself.
| | 03:44 | For example, the author name, which
would be your name, maybe your title
| | 03:48 | and maybe some basic keywords that you know
that you'll always have in every document.
| | 03:51 | For example if you work at a large
company and you're part of a department in
| | 03:54 | that company, you may want
to add a keyword for that.
| | 03:57 | Finally, specify a copyright status
and information for your file and then
| | 04:01 | export and create a template.
| | 04:03 | Now, anytime that you create a new
document inside of Illustrator, simply import
| | 04:07 | that template and all those
fields will automatically be populated.
| | 04:10 | All you'll have to do at that point is
simply change a document title, maybe
| | 04:14 | change the description, and
add some the necessary keywords.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring the panels| 00:00 | When working inside of Illustrator or
for the most part any Adobe application,
| | 00:04 | you'll be using a variety of tools,
which appear in the Tools panel over here,
| | 00:09 | menu commands or functions that are
available through this menu across the top
| | 00:12 | of the screen and panels over here
that cover specific functionality.
| | 00:18 | In truth, Illustrator has
tons of panels. Some out of them
| | 00:22 | you may find you need all the
time, while others get used far less often.
| | 00:26 | In fact, there are probably some
panels that you will never ever use.
| | 00:29 | To help you work more efficiently
inside of Illustrator, Adobe designed a user
| | 00:34 | interface that's
customizable to each user's needs.
| | 00:37 | In this movie, we'll specifically
talk about how to work with the panels
| | 00:40 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:41 | I'll just create a simple document in
my file here, just to have something to
| | 00:44 | work with on the screen. I'll use a
Web profile here and you'll notice that
| | 00:48 | flanking my document on either side
are the tools panel right here and the
| | 00:52 | default setting for some of the
panels here inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:54 | I'll move my cursor towards the top
over here, which is a dark gray area with
| | 00:58 | two little white arrows.
| | 01:00 | When I click on this area right here,
it expands these panels so that I can see
| | 01:03 | them completely. Clicking on the
white arrows once again will collapse and
| | 01:07 | that's what we call an iconic state.
All you see are just the icons themselves.
| | 01:12 | When you mouse over each of the icons,
a little tool tip pops up to let you
| | 01:14 | know which panel that is, but for the
price of just a small amount of screen
| | 01:19 | real estate, you can position your
cursor just over the left edge of the panels
| | 01:23 | until you see a double-headed arrow.
Click and drag to the left and you'll see
| | 01:27 | that you can actually pull out this area
to reveal the names of each of those panels.
| | 01:32 | Now when you're working, you can quickly
see the icon and also the name of that panel.
| | 01:36 | For now though, I'm going to move my
cursor back towards the left-edge of
| | 01:38 | this area here and click and drag to the
right to reduce them back to the iconic state.
| | 01:43 | This darker gray area, which actually
expands completely from the top to the
| | 01:46 | bottom of my screen, is referred to as
a panel dock. Within the panel dock, I
| | 01:52 | have something called panel groups,
and you can see that some of these panels
| | 01:55 | are broken down into groups.
| | 01:57 | Here I have the Artboards and the
Layers panel and they have both been
| | 02:00 | grouped together within this panel dock.
Likewise, my Graphic Styles and my Appearance panel
| | 02:06 | also appear in a separate group.
| | 02:08 | You can rearrange these any way you like.
Either grab an entire group from these
| | 02:11 | little dotted lines over here and
reposition them or you click on the icon for
| | 02:16 | any panel and move that panel within the
group, or completely outside the group,
| | 02:20 | so that it creates a brand new group on its own.
| | 02:22 | When the dock is fully expanded, you
can see the groups over here as tabs.
| | 02:27 | In this example, Swatches, Brushes and
Symbols are all appearing within a single
| | 02:31 | panel group, but the Swatches
panel is currently the active one.
| | 02:35 | Clicking on any panel's tab will make
that one active and you can also click
| | 02:39 | and drag to rearrange the
order of them inside of the group.
| | 02:42 | In Illustrator you're not limited to a
single panel dock. For example, if I have
| | 02:47 | more panels that I want to use and that
I'd liked to have easy access to it any time,
| | 02:51 | I may create a second
dock. Let's see how to do that.
| | 02:54 | I'm going to go to my Window menu and
I'll choose to open up the Align panel.
| | 02:58 | This panel which contains now a
grouping of the Transform and the Pathfinder
| | 03:02 | panel as well is something that I
might use often, but maybe not as often as
| | 03:06 | Swatches or my Color panel.
| | 03:08 | In the current state right now, the
Align panel and the group that it's
| | 03:11 | in appears on its own.
| | 03:13 | It's something that we call a floating panel.
| | 03:15 | In other words, it's not
tied to a specific dock.
| | 03:18 | One of the attributes of that is
that they'll always expand vertically to
| | 03:22 | fill your entire screen.
| | 03:23 | However, let's say if we wanted to turn
this now into a dock. If I grab just the
| | 03:27 | Align tab itself, that would mean I'm
pulling that one panel out by itself.
| | 03:32 | Rather, I'm going to grab this by the
actual dark gray bar on the top here and
| | 03:36 | start to drag that towards the right.
| | 03:38 | As I get close towards this dock
right now, you'll see another line up here
| | 03:42 | that animates out towards my cursor.
I will do that once again so you can see it.
| | 03:46 | As I move close, you'll see that
little line slides out and you see this nice
| | 03:50 | little thin blue line up here.
| | 03:51 | That indicates if I now release my
mouse, I will be creating a new panel dock.
| | 03:55 | So I'll go ahead and I release
the mouse and you can see now that I
| | 03:58 | have a second dock.
| | 04:00 | I can collapse this dock right here by
clicking on the little white arrows and
| | 04:03 | also as I did before, click and
drag to reduce it to an iconic state.
| | 04:07 | In Illustrator, it's possible to have one
dock expanded, but another one collapsed.
| | 04:12 | In this way, you can really customize
the user interface inside of Illustrator
| | 04:16 | for your specific needs.
| | 04:17 | In reality, the Tools panel
acts just like any of the others.
| | 04:21 | It's a dock that's simply on the
left side of your screen, instead of the
| | 04:23 | right side of the screen.
| | 04:25 | If I pull this panel group out of the
dock, you'll find that the panel dock
| | 04:28 | automatically disappears. But if I
wanted to attach it to the left side of the
| | 04:32 | screen, I can do the exact same thing,
bringing in it here and then create a
| | 04:35 | dock on this side of the screen.
| | 04:37 | Really it's whatever you prefer. But
I'll go ahead here and pull this out over
| | 04:40 | here, so that it's on its own.
| | 04:41 | It's back to a floating panel right now
and if you like to save a little bit of
| | 04:44 | real estate on your screen, you can
convert the Tools panel to be displayed by
| | 04:48 | clicking on this little white arrow
as a single-row of icons instead of a
| | 04:51 | double-row of icons.
| | 04:53 | Finally, there may be times when
you're working inside of Illustrator
| | 04:56 | where you may not want to
have any panels visible at all.
| | 04:58 | You want to focus purely on your work.
However, you need the panels sometimes to
| | 05:02 | get your work done, so you
are kind of in a Catch-22.
| | 05:05 | Well, Illustrator has this specific
mode where you can actually hide your
| | 05:09 | panels and then bring them back
temporarily when you need them.
| | 05:12 | To do that, simply hit the
Tab key on your keyboard.
| | 05:15 | When you hit Tab, all of your panels
disappear. However as you move you move
| | 05:19 | your cursor and you touch the
edges of your screen, that panel will
| | 05:22 | temporarily appear.
| | 05:24 | As soon as you move your cursor away,
the panel goes back to being hidden.
| | 05:27 | Same thing over here on the right side
of the screen. As I move my cursor and
| | 05:30 | touch the edge of my screen on the
right side, my panels will temporally
| | 05:33 | appear, but as soon as I move my cursor away,
those panels will go back to their hidden state.
| | 05:38 | To return all your panels back to their shown
state, again to the Tab key on your keyboard.
| | 05:43 | If you want to hide all of your panels
but keep your tools panel visible, hold
| | 05:46 | down Shift+Tab on your keyboard.
| | 05:48 | In this case, your tools remain
visible but all other panels become hidden in
| | 05:52 | that state where once again if I move
my cursor to the edge of the page,
| | 05:55 | they'll temporarily appear.
| | 05:57 | To bring everything back again, simply
hit Shift+Tab once more and you're back
| | 06:01 | to working with all of your panels visible.
| | 06:03 | If you're ever looking for a panel and
can't seem to find it, know that all the
| | 06:06 | panels inside of Illustrator are
listed alphabetically in the Window menu.
| | 06:11 | A checkmark next to the name indicates
that those panels are currently open.
| | 06:14 | Now that you're familiar with how
panels work, maybe take a few moments to kind
| | 06:18 | of practice, opening, closing and re-
arranging some of the user interface.
| | 06:22 | Don't worry about getting everything
right the first time. We can always make
| | 06:25 | adjustments to our interface as we
work and as you become more familiar with
| | 06:28 | Illustrator, you'll see which
panels are most valuable to you.
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| Using the Control panel| 00:00 | While there are plenty of panels
inside of Illustrator, perhaps the most
| | 00:03 | important one is called the Control panel.
| | 00:06 | The Control panel, which appears
across the top of your screen here, may not
| | 00:10 | look the same as the other panels, but
it does behave in the same way in that
| | 00:14 | you can click and drag on this
little line over here on the far left to
| | 00:17 | reposition it. Now it's in a floating
state. And you can even bring it to the
| | 00:21 | bottom and dock it towards the bottom of
your screen. However, I like it towards the top.
| | 00:25 | It's really kind of round where my
eye level is, which I like about it, and
| | 00:29 | the most important aspect of the Control
panel itself is that it's context-sensitive.
| | 00:33 | In fact, most of the information that
appears in the Control panel is simply
| | 00:37 | duplicated in the other
areas of the user interface.
| | 00:40 | For example, in this area I can
specify the stroke weight for a path, but that
| | 00:44 | same value also appears here
inside of the Stroke panel directly.
| | 00:47 | Since, adjusting the stroke weight is one
of the most common things that you'd do
| | 00:50 | to a path, Adobe took this setting and
brought it up over here in to the Control
| | 00:54 | panel to make it easier to find.
| | 00:56 | It also means you don't have to have
the Stroke panel open all the time, and
| | 01:00 | while there certainly are times when
you need additional functions that are
| | 01:02 | available only inside of the Stroke
panel, if you look at the Control panel,
| | 01:06 | you'll see the word Stroke appears underlined.
| | 01:08 | That means that you can click on it.
If I move my cursor over the word Stroke,
| | 01:12 | I can click and that temporarily brings up
the entire Stroke panel right here in context.
| | 01:17 | I'll be able to access other stroke
settings, for example, Dashed Lines or
| | 01:21 | Activate Arrowheads, and as soon as
I click away, that panel disappears.
| | 01:25 | Now as I said before, the Control
panel itself is context-sensitive.
| | 01:29 | That means when I make a certain
selection on my artboard or I choose a
| | 01:32 | different tool inside of my Tools panel,
I will see different settings that are
| | 01:36 | commonly attributed to those functions.
For example if I choose my Type tool,
| | 01:41 | you'll see the Character and Paragraph
Settings up here and I can bring up those
| | 01:44 | entire panels just by clicking on those words.
| | 01:47 | But here is the interesting thing. You
see when you click on the Type tool on
| | 01:50 | your screen, you may not see the exact
same things that I do here on my screen.
| | 01:55 | That's because the Control panel
is also aware of the resolution that
| | 01:58 | your monitor is set to.
| | 01:59 | Depending on how much room you
have on your screen, you may see
| | 02:02 | additional options.
| | 02:04 | If Illustrator finds that there isn't
enough room to display all the settings,
| | 02:07 | it collapses them to these little blue
underlined words, which you can click on
| | 02:12 | to get the full functionality of those panels.
| | 02:14 | You can achieve some level of control
by specifying which types of functions
| | 02:18 | are available to you inside of
the Control panel at any time.
| | 02:21 | To do that, move your cursor all the way
to the far right of the panel and click
| | 02:25 | on the icon up here.
| | 02:27 | This listing provides all the possible
functions that can be displayed inside
| | 02:30 | the Control panel and a checkmark next
to it means that will currently appear
| | 02:35 | if there's room for it and if the context
that you're in calls for that kind of function.
| | 02:39 | For example, if I don't really care
much about the Transparency settings,
| | 02:43 | because maybe I hardly ever use that
setting, I can uncheck it from this list.
| | 02:47 | Notice now that option disappears.
| | 02:49 | If you have a high-resolution
monitor though, you may want to leave all
| | 02:52 | those options checked, giving you access to a
full range of functionality in the Control panel.
| | 02:57 | Overall what the Control panel really
does is put certain functions at your
| | 03:01 | fingertips and relieves you from
having to have many other panels open.
| | 03:06 | It gives you more room to work with and
that makes it easier for you to focus on
| | 03:09 | the work that you're doing.
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| Using workspaces| 00:00 | Over the course of a day of using
Illustrator, you'll find yourself opening and
| | 00:04 | closing panels, repositioning them, and
at some point your screen may get messy.
| | 00:10 | For example, maybe I will go ahead and
expand this panel dock. Maybe I wanted to
| | 00:13 | get a closer look at some of the layers,
so I brought up the Layers panel on its own.
| | 00:17 | By the way, you can just double-click on
a tab over here to collapse that panel
| | 00:20 | temporarily as well and then double-
click to reveal it and maybe there are some
| | 00:24 | other panels that you just don't use
as often, so you went to the Window menu
| | 00:27 | and for example, open up the
Flattener Preview panel, which happens to be a
| | 00:31 | pretty big panel to work with.
| | 00:32 | I will also open up the Align panel,
maybe put that about over here, and before
| | 00:37 | you know that your whole
screen can be filled with panels.
| | 00:39 | In fact when panels are floating, it's
certainly possible to position one over
| | 00:43 | the other so they're partially
hidden or maybe even completely hidden.
| | 00:47 | Sometimes you just want a way to stop
that madness and start all over again.
| | 00:50 | Well, with Illustrator there had
to be a feature called Workspaces.
| | 00:55 | Adobe refers to your workspace as
everything you see on your screen.
| | 00:58 | A combination of your document window,
your Tools panels, the rest of your
| | 01:02 | panels and there's a way inside of
Illustrator to capture all the information
| | 01:06 | and save it as a workspace.
| | 01:07 | In fact, if you draw your attention to
the upper right-hand side of my screen
| | 01:11 | you'll see this word here called Essentials.
| | 01:14 | Illustrator comes with several preset
workspaces and one of them is called Essentials.
| | 01:19 | If you click on this button, you can
actually preview all the other workspaces
| | 01:23 | that come with Illustrator.
| | 01:24 | For example, there is one
called Automation. Essentials.
| | 01:27 | There are several that match other
applications. For example, setup Illustrator
| | 01:30 | make it look like I'm inside of
FreeHand, or InDesign, Photoshop, or for
| | 01:35 | performing a variety of other tasks.
| | 01:37 | But for now, I am just going to re-
choose the Essentials one to reset my
| | 01:40 | workspace back to the default Essential setting.
| | 01:43 | It's important to realize though
that Essentials doesn't really mean your
| | 01:46 | personal essentials.
| | 01:47 | It's basically a generic setting that
Adobe came up with to create a level
| | 01:51 | playing field for everyone.
| | 01:52 | However, you may have
your own personal essentials.
| | 01:55 | Now, this is your first time using
Illustrator or if you're pretty new to
| | 01:59 | Illustrator, you may not be completely
comfortable with the user interface to
| | 02:02 | know what your essentials are.
| | 02:04 | However, as you spend more and more
time with Illustrator, you'll get a feel
| | 02:08 | for which panels you use most often and how
you like things positioned on your screen.
| | 02:12 | When you reached that point, you're ready
to save your own customized workspace.
| | 02:16 | For example, I'm a big fan
of using the Appearance panel.
| | 02:20 | We will learn more about that later
in the title, but for now, I'm going to
| | 02:23 | come over here and actually drag the
Appearance panel up on to my screen and
| | 02:26 | I'll put that right here.
| | 02:28 | I like to use the Artboards and Layers
panels also, so I will drag that group
| | 02:32 | out and once I expand it I'll simply
take this and also drag it so that it now
| | 02:37 | gets combined together into
this one floating panel dock.
| | 02:41 | I really need some more room to view all
my layers, so I'm going to go ahead now
| | 02:44 | and expand this downward just a little bit.
| | 02:47 | And then what I'll do is I will take the
entire panel dock and move it over here
| | 02:50 | to create a second panel dock.
| | 02:52 | Now, I can access these as I need to and
I have this information just as I want it.
| | 02:56 | So what I want to do now is save this
workspace so that later on, at any time
| | 03:00 | I can return it back to this workspace and
this layout just the way that I like it.
| | 03:04 | To do that, I will come back to this button.
| | 03:06 | It's actually called the Workspace
Switcher and I'll click over here and
| | 03:09 | choose Save Workspace.
| | 03:11 | I'll call this one Mordy.
| | 03:13 | Although, at times, I also
like call it My Happy Place.
| | 03:16 | This way, I know that I
always return to my happy place.
| | 03:18 | But I'm going to click OK and now
you can see that my workspace name
| | 03:22 | appears right here.
| | 03:23 | If I were to switch to something else,
for example maybe now I wanted to do
| | 03:26 | some digital painting.
| | 03:27 | I'll choose now to the Painting
workspace and all the tools that I might need
| | 03:31 | for painting are now available to me.
| | 03:32 | But if I want to go back to my own
personal essentials, I can switch back to my
| | 03:36 | own workspace and get the
settings just the way I want them.
| | 03:40 | Remember, you can always
create more than one workspace.
| | 03:42 | So depending on the kind of work that
you do, you may have one for heavy type
| | 03:46 | editing, one for just design
exploration, or one for doing color studies.
| | 03:50 | Feel free to create as many as you need,
giving yourself more time to focus on
| | 03:54 | your task at hand and less
worrying about the user interface itself.
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|
|
3. Working with DocumentsNavigating within a document| 00:00 | In the previous chapter we spent
some time going over the user interface
| | 00:04 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:06 | Now in this chapter we are going to focus on
learning to get around the document itself.
| | 00:10 | I have this file open right now and
it has several artboards inside of it.
| | 00:15 | On a day-to-day basis you will be
moving around your document. Even if it has
| | 00:18 | only one artboard, you are going to move
around between different parts of your artwork.
| | 00:22 | There are two main tools inside of Illustrator
that are used to move around in your document.
| | 00:26 | They are located here in the bottom of
the toolbar. One is called the Hand tool
| | 00:30 | and one is called the Zoom tool.
| | 00:31 | The Hand tool allows you to simply
grab any area of the entire canvas itself
| | 00:36 | and move it around.
| | 00:38 | It is as if you're moving the
furniture in your room, your entire desk, and
| | 00:41 | everything is on that desk
simply moves around with it.
| | 00:43 | For example, if you really wanted to
focus on working with this one flower,
| | 00:47 | you might position this towards
the center of your screen.
| | 00:49 | You notice that when you move this around,
the little sliders that appear on the
| | 00:53 | bottom and the right side of your
screen also are adjusted as well.
| | 00:56 | You can grab on these icons called
thumbs and actually move them around as
| | 01:00 | well to go either vertically or horizontally and
navigate within your document that way as well.
| | 01:06 | So you can see that you would use the Hand
tool a lot on a day-to-day basis in Illustrator.
| | 01:11 | The other tool is the Zoom tool.
| | 01:13 | I'll choose that tool right here.
| | 01:15 | When you click in an area, you see
this little plus sign inside of the
| | 01:17 | Magnifying Glass icon.
| | 01:19 | It will zoom in on that area.
| | 01:21 | So you might use a combination of these tools.
| | 01:23 | If you wanted to zoom in on working on
this one flower, you might zoom in on it
| | 01:26 | over here and then use the Hand tool to
make sure that it appears in the right
| | 01:30 | place that you want on your screen.
| | 01:32 | Clicking with the Magnifying
Glass tool is called Zooming In.
| | 01:36 | But if I switch back to the Magnifying
Glass for a moment, you see that I have
| | 01:39 | the plus sign there.
| | 01:40 | That means it will zoom in.
| | 01:41 | There may be times that you want to
zoom out or see more of your document.
| | 01:45 | Pressing the Option key on Mac or Alt on
Windows turns the plus sign into a minus sign.
| | 01:49 | When you click again it zooms out.
| | 01:52 | An interesting thing about the Zoom
tool is that it has something called a
| | 01:55 | Marquee Zoom setting.
| | 01:56 | For example, if you wanted to zoom in
on a specific area in your document,
| | 02:01 | you can create a marquee area around that
object using the Zoom tool and then zoom
| | 02:06 | in on that specific area.
| | 02:08 | If I wanted to focus on this area where
it says "Get Well Soon," I could click and
| | 02:12 | then drag to draw a rectangle or a
marquee around that one little area and upon
| | 02:17 | releasing the mouse, I will
zoom in on just that one area.
| | 02:20 | So it is obvious that the Hand tool and
the Zoom tool are both valuable inside
| | 02:24 | of Illustrator, which is why I
will tell you, never use them. Why?
| | 02:28 | For a couple of reasons.
| | 02:30 | First of all, as we are about to find
out there are many other ways to navigate
| | 02:33 | around inside of your document.
| | 02:35 | More importantly, constantly
switching between your content creation tools
| | 02:38 | and these Hand and Zoom tools can really take
you out of the flow and context of your design.
| | 02:43 | So the key here is going to be
learning about how to use keyboard shortcuts.
| | 02:47 | Let's take a look at how this works.
| | 02:48 | I am going to switch here back to my
Selection tool and say I am working on
| | 02:52 | this artwork right here.
| | 02:53 | Notice I can click on this
shape right here to select it.
| | 02:55 | We will talk more about
selections in our next chapter.
| | 02:58 | But if I wanted to zoom in for
example on this W right here, rather than
| | 03:02 | switch to my Zoom tool I will simply
leave my cursor here and on my keyboard
| | 03:06 | press Command+Spacebar.
| | 03:08 | If you are on Windows
that would be Ctrl+Spacebar.
| | 03:11 | While you are holding those two
keys down, you will see that your tool
| | 03:14 | temporarily changes to the Zoom tool.
| | 03:17 | Upon releasing the keys my tool
goes back to the Selection tool.
| | 03:20 | So if I really want to work on
this one W here, what I might do is
| | 03:23 | press Command+Spacebar.
| | 03:24 | It switches to the Zoom tool.
| | 03:26 | I will then draw a marquee around the W,
release the mouse and then release the
| | 03:31 | keys on my keyboard.
| | 03:32 | If I wanted to zoom out a little bit,
I simply would add the Option or the Alt
| | 03:36 | key to that keyboard shortcut.
| | 03:37 | For example I will press Command+Spacebar.
| | 03:40 | You will see now that I
have the Zoom tool selected.
| | 03:42 | I am now going to add the Option key or
the Alt key on Windows and now you can
| | 03:46 | see the minus sign there.
| | 03:47 | Now when I click, it will actually zoom
out so I could see more of the artwork.
| | 03:51 | Now let's say I wanted to
focus more on the word Get.
| | 03:54 | Well, I can't really see
the G on my screen just now.
| | 03:56 | I would need to adjust my canvas
so that I can see more of my work.
| | 04:00 | The last thing that I want to do is
start coming down to these scrollbars
| | 04:03 | and making adjustments.
| | 04:05 | I also don't want to
specifically choose the Hand tool.
| | 04:08 | The keyboard shortcut to access the
Hand tool temporarily is to press the
| | 04:11 | Spacebar on your keyboard.
| | 04:12 | So I am holding the Spacebar down.
| | 04:15 | You see that my tool has
changed now to the Hand tool.
| | 04:18 | I will now go ahead and click and
drag so that I can see the G on my screen
| | 04:22 | and now I'll simply release the mouse and
the Spacebar on my keyboard to return
| | 04:26 | back my Selection tool.
| | 04:27 | But there are several commands inside
of Illustrator that will really let me
| | 04:30 | look at my entire document as a whole.
| | 04:33 | Let's take a look at some of the
settings that are available in the View menu.
| | 04:36 | First of all we have seen these
Zoom In and Zoom Out settings.
| | 04:39 | The keyboard shortcuts here are Command+
Plus and Command+Minus or Ctrl+Plus or
| | 04:43 | Ctrl+Minus on Windows.
| | 04:44 | But I also have a setting here
called Fit Artboard in Window. Command+0.
| | 04:48 | That's probably one of the most often use
keyboard shortcuts inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:52 | If I choose that option you will see that my
entire artboard now fits inside of my window.
| | 04:57 | Now I do have other artboards in my document.
| | 04:59 | But right now, Illustrator is filling
this one artboard to my entire screen.
| | 05:04 | If I wanted to see all of my artboards,
what I would do is I would go back to
| | 05:07 | the View menu and I would
choose Fit All in Window.
| | 05:10 | And doing so, I now see all of my artboards.
| | 05:13 | How does Illustrator know which
artboard I am working on to focus in on
| | 05:16 | just that one artboard?
| | 05:18 | The answer is that Illustrator has a
concept of something called an active artboard.
| | 05:22 | Take a look at all of my artboards right now.
| | 05:24 | They all have light gray borders around them.
| | 05:27 | However this one artboard
has a black border around it.
| | 05:29 | That indicates that this artboard
is currently the active artboard.
| | 05:33 | How do you choose which
artboard becomes the active artboard?
| | 05:37 | Well, Illustrator does so
automatically based on how you work.
| | 05:40 | Anytime that you click on a piece of
artwork that's in an artboard, Illustrator
| | 05:44 | automatically makes that
artboard the active artboard.
| | 05:47 | For example, if I wanted to work on
this flower down over here, simply by
| | 05:51 | clicking anywhere on the art or even on
the artboard itself would now make this
| | 05:55 | the active artboard.
| | 05:57 | Now if I were to go back to the View
menu and choose Fit Artboard in Window,
| | 06:01 | this artboard with the
flower would fill my screen.
| | 06:04 | So that's the main difference between
these two settings here, Fit Artboard in
| | 06:07 | Window and Fit All in Window.
| | 06:09 | There's another setting here called Actual
Size, which will display your artwork at 100%.
| | 06:13 | It can be somewhat confusing.
| | 06:16 | Don't think that actual size means that's
the size it is actually going to print at.
| | 06:19 | That depends on other variables, for
example, the resolution of your monitor.
| | 06:23 | In this case actual size just means 100%.
| | 06:26 | Speaking of different zoom percentages,
you will notice in the lower left-hand
| | 06:30 | corner of your screen is a
value here that says 100%.
| | 06:33 | This is actually a pop-up setting where
you can click on this and choose to view
| | 06:36 | your artwork at different values.
| | 06:38 | If I wanted to work really close on this
artwork, I can zoom in as much as 6400%.
| | 06:43 | Once again here I will press Command+0
to fit this artboard on my window.
| | 06:48 | This is the active artboard.
| | 06:49 | Let's talk a little bit more about
artboards though because we will be
| | 06:52 | navigating between
different artboards all the time.
| | 06:55 | This document has five artboards inside of it.
| | 06:58 | If I click on this pop-up right here,
I'll see a list of all my five artboards
| | 07:02 | and the artboard names and I could
jump to any of those artboards by simply
| | 07:05 | selecting them from this list.
| | 07:07 | For example, if I wanted to work on the
branding elements, I can simply go here
| | 07:11 | to the first artboard, Branding.
| | 07:13 | Illustrator does two things.
| | 07:14 | First of all it enlarges that
artboard to fill my screen and it makes this
| | 07:18 | artboard now currently the active artboard.
| | 07:21 | I can also use these little arrows
down here to step between each artboard.
| | 07:25 | However, I think a more intuitive way
to move between artboards is to use the
| | 07:28 | new Artboards panel.
| | 07:29 | This is new to Illustrator CS5.
| | 07:31 | I will go ahead and I
will open it right over here.
| | 07:33 | It is on this side of the screen.
| | 07:34 | You can see now a list of all my artboards.
| | 07:37 | If I double-click of any of these
artboards, Illustrator will make that artboard
| | 07:40 | the active artboard and
center it on my screen.
| | 07:43 | Finally, there is one other panel inside
of Illustrator called the Navigator panel.
| | 07:47 | Let me close the Artboards panel here, go
over to my Window menu and choose Navigator.
| | 07:53 | This is a panel here that gives me a
little preview of my entire canvas.
| | 07:57 | The highlighted area refers to when
it is currently visible on my screen.
| | 08:01 | I can click on this little highlighted
area and move it around to view different
| | 08:05 | parts of my document.
| | 08:06 | For example, if I wanted to focus on the
part of the flower I can go right over here.
| | 08:10 | I can also use the slider to zoom in
on those areas or to zoom out as well.
| | 08:14 | While the Navigator panel is nice in
concept, I don't rely on it as much
| | 08:18 | because it is so much easy to navigate
your document once you learn how to use
| | 08:21 | the keyboard shortcuts.
| | 08:23 | So let's take a moment to review that.
| | 08:25 | Remember that right now
there is an active artboard.
| | 08:28 | If I wanted to go and zoom in and
work on that one artboard, I would press
| | 08:31 | Command+0 on my keyboard and
focus on that one artboard.
| | 08:34 | Command+Minus will zoom out, Command+Plus
will zoom in, pressing the Spacebar will
| | 08:39 | change to the Hand tool, so I can move
this artwork around and Command+Spacebar
| | 08:43 | will let me zoom in on a piece of artwork.
| | 08:46 | Command+Option+0 will go ahead and
fill all of my artboards in my view and
| | 08:50 | clicking on any artboard turns that
artboard into the active artboard.
| | 08:54 | So that once again pressing
Command+0 fills that artboard in view.
| | 08:58 | When you get started using
Illustrator, it is really important to become
| | 09:01 | familiar with these settings and even
though it may be a little bit slow at
| | 09:04 | first, force yourself to
learn these keyboard shortcuts.
| | 09:07 | Before you know it, they will become
second nature and your brain will be
| | 09:10 | focusing on how to create your
artwork and less about how to get around your document.
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| Using rulers and guides| 00:00 | One of the most important
attributes of vector graphics is precision.
| | 00:04 | In other words, your ability to
create artwork to a very specific size or
| | 00:08 | position, to have artwork lineup with each
other perfectly, or to create things in scale.
| | 00:13 | For example, the layout of a
room or architectural drawings.
| | 00:17 | Illustrator has many tools and functions
to help us create perfect graphics, but
| | 00:21 | at the very core of that are rulers and guides.
| | 00:24 | As you can see in my document
right now, I have rulers visible.
| | 00:27 | They appear across the top and left of
my screen and you can toggle these rulers
| | 00:31 | on and off by pressing Command+
R on Mac or Ctrl+R on Windows.
| | 00:36 | The rulers in this document are
currently set to use inches, but we can really
| | 00:40 | change them to use
different measurement systems.
| | 00:42 | You can find that setting
inside of your Preferences panel.
| | 00:45 | I will press Command+K or Ctrl+K on
Windows to open up my Preferences dialog box
| | 00:49 | and from the popup here I'll switch to Units.
| | 00:52 | The General setting could be set to
Inches, Picas, Points, Millimeter,
| | 00:56 | Centimeters or Pixels.
| | 00:57 | But it's important to realize that the
setting here is simply the basic generic
| | 01:01 | setting of how measurements are
displayed inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:04 | But you can really specify values
in any way that you want later on.
| | 01:07 | For example, even if I am using
Inches now, I could type in a value of 3p4,
| | 01:12 | which stands for 3 Picas and 4 Points,
and Illustrator will automatically
| | 01:16 | convert that to inches as necessary.
| | 01:19 | But for this document, I am going
to set it to Inches and click OK.
| | 01:22 | If you want to change just the rulers
itself, you can actually right-click on
| | 01:26 | the ruler and change the settings
for that ruler right here as well.
| | 01:29 | But let's take a moment here to focus on
the actual rulers inside of the document page.
| | 01:33 | I am going to zoom in just a little
bit here and I am actually going to go to
| | 01:36 | reposition this artwork so it comes
kind of on the upper left-hand corner of my
| | 01:40 | screen, so that you can see that right
now the upper left-hand corner of my page
| | 01:44 | is where my rulers begin from.
| | 01:46 | That's where the 0 point of my ruler appears.
| | 01:49 | Wherever the X and Y axis or the 00
point of my ruler meets, we refer to that in
| | 01:54 | Illustrator as my origin
point for that artboard.
| | 01:56 | This is actually important and new
to Illustrator CS5 because in previous
| | 02:00 | versions, the origin point of an artboard
was always in the lower left-hand corner.
| | 02:05 | Now in CS5 Adobe moved to 00 point to
be in the upper left-hand corner which
| | 02:09 | really matches other
applications, for example, like InDesign.
| | 02:13 | But you'll notice right now that my
ruler starts at 0 and just keeps going.
| | 02:17 | Well right now, this is my active artboard.
| | 02:19 | So Illustrator shows me
the rulers for this artboard.
| | 02:22 | Another thing that's new to Illustrator
CS5 is that each artboard maintains its
| | 02:26 | own ruler system. Or you can say
every artboard has its own origin point.
| | 02:31 | Take a look at this.
| | 02:32 | When I go ahead now and I move to
this artboard and I click on any piece of
| | 02:35 | artwork on this artboard, which will
now turn this artboard into the active
| | 02:39 | artboard, my ruler now
resets itself to 0 at this point.
| | 02:43 | This is valuable because every
single object that you create inside of
| | 02:46 | Illustrator is positioned
precisely by coordinates.
| | 02:50 | You can view these coordinates by
opening up your Transform panel.
| | 02:52 | I will go to the Window menu and I'll
choose to open up Transform and you can
| | 02:56 | see that right now this piece of art has
coordinates of X and Y at these values.
| | 03:02 | This little icon here called the
reference point proxy allows you to specify
| | 03:06 | which part of the object is
identified by those X, Y coordinates. Right now
| | 03:10 | because the upper left-hand corner of
this proxy selected, I am seeing the
| | 03:14 | coordinate values of this part of my graphic.
| | 03:17 | If I move back to this artboard though
and I click on this flower right here,
| | 03:21 | the coordinates that are represented
here are specific to this artboard.
| | 03:25 | While 99% of the time you will
probably want rulers to work in this way where
| | 03:29 | each artboard gets its own ruler system,
there may be times when you want to
| | 03:33 | have one overall ruler for your
entire canvas even if there are multiple
| | 03:37 | artboards inside of it.
| | 03:38 | If that's the case you will go to the
View menu down to where it says rulers and
| | 03:43 | you'll choose this option here,
Change to Global Rulers.
| | 03:46 | Let me close the Transform panel here
for a moment and let's focus on another
| | 03:50 | aspect of working with precision
inside of Illustrator. And that's guides.
| | 03:54 | Guides work together with rulers to help
you position artwork precisely on your page.
| | 03:59 | To create a guide you would simply move
your cursor into the ruler itself, click
| | 04:03 | and then drag to pull out that guide.
| | 04:06 | I have my mouse button held down and
I'll continue to hold it down until I am
| | 04:09 | ready to position my guide in place.
| | 04:11 | If you hold down the Shift key while
you are dragging out the guide, it will
| | 04:14 | snap the tick marks in your ruler.
| | 04:17 | At my current view each tick mark in my
ruler represents an eighth of an inch.
| | 04:20 | Once I release my mouse, I have now
created a guide inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:25 | Even after you have created a guide,
you are still able to select it and move
| | 04:27 | it and you do have the ability to lock
your guides if you don't want that to happen.
| | 04:32 | The easiest way to adjust that setting
is to simply right-click anywhere on your
| | 04:35 | artboard and you will see an
option here for Lock Guides.
| | 04:38 | By selecting that right now I can
actually work with this guide and not worry
| | 04:42 | about selecting it and removing it.
| | 04:43 | It is currently locked.
| | 04:45 | If I want to adjust or move the guide,
I can right-click, uncheck that option,
| | 04:50 | and now I can select that
guide and move it around.
| | 04:53 | Guides are kind of like magnets and as
you have other objects selected-- We'll
| | 04:56 | talk more about selections
itself in the next chapter.
| | 04:59 | But here if I take this piece of artwork
and I start to move it, I can feel that
| | 05:03 | it will actually snap to that guide.
| | 05:05 | In this way I am assured that I am
lining objects up exactly to those areas.
| | 05:09 | You can create horizontal guides by
pulling out a guide from the horizontal ruler.
| | 05:14 | What I find extremely helpful inside
of Illustrator is that if you have any
| | 05:17 | artwork selected, for example, I will
select this piece of art right here,
| | 05:20 | guides will actually snap to the
artwork when you are drawing it.
| | 05:23 | So if I wanted to create a guide right
here along the edge of this graphic,
| | 05:27 | I can click over here, drag, and as my
guide touched that that object, it will snap
| | 05:31 | to it automatically.
| | 05:33 | Perhaps one of the most powerful
things about guides inside of Illustrator and
| | 05:36 | really what makes guide so unique
inside of Illustrator is that a guide is
| | 05:39 | really just a special type of an object.
| | 05:42 | In other words, you can draw any artwork
inside of Illustrator and turn it into a guide.
| | 05:47 | Say you had to create some artwork
that had to fit into an area of a
| | 05:49 | specific dimension.
| | 05:51 | Rather than struggle with getting your
ruler setup and your guides drawn just in
| | 05:54 | the right place, you could draw
a shape to exact specifications.
| | 05:58 | For example, I will select my Rectangle
tool and I will click once on my artboard.
| | 06:02 | I will type in an exact width, maybe 3.5
inches, and the height should be 2 inches,
| | 06:07 | the size of a business card, and I'll click OK.
| | 06:10 | Now that I have the shape created I can
go to the View menu, go down to where it
| | 06:14 | says Guides, and then turn this
setting on called Make Guides.
| | 06:19 | What I've now done is I have
changed that shape into a guide.
| | 06:23 | If my guides are actually locked
you'll see that I can't select it, but other
| | 06:28 | pieces of art that I actually click
on and move will snap to that guide.
| | 06:32 | Guides don't even need to be rectangular.
| | 06:34 | You could take any shape.
| | 06:35 | For example, I'll use my Ellipse tool
to just click and drag to draw a circle
| | 06:40 | and I will press the keyboard shortcut
Command+5 or Ctrl+5 on Windows to now
| | 06:45 | turn that into a guide.
| | 06:46 | If your guides are unlocked and I will
right-click here to unlock my guides,
| | 06:50 | you have the ability to select any of
these guides and then go back to the View
| | 06:54 | menu, choose Guides, and choose to
release that guide to return it back to a
| | 06:59 | regular shape inside of Illustrator.
| | 07:00 | If I can pass on some helpful advice,
don't worry so much about getting all your
| | 07:05 | guides set up inside of your
document before you start drawing.
| | 07:08 | It is perfectly okay to just jump in
and start creating and then worry about
| | 07:12 | the precision later.
| | 07:14 | It is easy to add guides at anytime or
to change any of the settings inside of
| | 07:17 | your rulers and more likely than not,
you'll end up changing things anyway.
| | 07:21 | So jump in, have fun, and everything
else will fall right in the place.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using grids| 00:00 | There are many designers who prefer to
do their pencil sketches on graph paper.
| | 00:05 | In fact, many times when working inside
of Illustrator it may be helpful to use
| | 00:09 | a grid to assist in laying out your artwork.
| | 00:12 | To view your grid you would go to
the View menu and choose this option
| | 00:16 | here called Show Grid.
| | 00:17 | The grid itself is made up of larger
squares with smaller subdivisions inside of it.
| | 00:22 | Going back to the
View menu for a moment here,
| | 00:24 | you'll see there's a
setting here called Snap to Grid.
| | 00:27 | When this setting is turned on, as you
move objects around on your artboard,
| | 00:31 | it will snap to these squares on the grid.
| | 00:34 | This can be very helpful in
different types of design, but perhaps more
| | 00:37 | importantly is getting the grid to be
set up so that it represents exactly
| | 00:41 | what you need it to.
| | 00:42 | To do that, we'll go to Preferences.
| | 00:44 | I'll press Command+K on a Mac or
Control+K on Windows to bring up the
| | 00:47 | Preferences dialog box and then from
the pop-up menu, I'll go to where it says
| | 00:52 | Guides and Grid. If we take a look on
my artwork, you can see that my artwork
| | 00:56 | hides the grid. In other words,
the grid appears behind my artwork.
| | 00:59 | That's because this setting, Grids
In Back is turned on. If I turn this
| | 01:03 | option off, I'll actually see my
grid as if it were overlaid on top of my
| | 01:07 | artwork, which sometimes is helpful but when
I've been working, it kind of gets in the way.
| | 01:12 | The main setting that you care about
though is how many gridlines you set and
| | 01:16 | how many subdivisions each gridline has.
| | 01:18 | The gridline refers to the
darker lines that appear over here.
| | 01:21 | Currently my document is set up so
that each of these gridlines appears every
| | 01:25 | inch in my document.
| | 01:27 | And then that's split up further into
eight subdivisions. You might notice for a
| | 01:31 | minute though that on my screen,
you only see four subdivisions.
| | 01:35 | That's because the level the zoom
level that I'm currently at in my document
| | 01:38 | only displays half of the subdivisions.
| | 01:41 | For example, I'm going to click OK,
and if I zoom in a little bit closer on
| | 01:44 | my document, you'll now see that there are
eight subdivisions between each of my gridlines.
| | 01:50 | Just to give you a basic
idea about how I use grids,
| | 01:52 | if I'm working in Web design, I do care
very much about pixel dimensions. So I
| | 01:58 | like to set a gridline every 10 pixels.
| | 02:01 | That way as I'm working, I can quickly count
off 10, 20, 30, 40 and see how big an object is.
| | 02:06 | I'll then specify 10 subdivisions,
which means that every square on my artboard
| | 02:11 | will reference one pixel.
| | 02:13 | Another way that you might use guides
is when trying to layout a room.
| | 02:16 | For example, if you're trying to do
interior design and you want to make sure that
| | 02:20 | furniture or other elements inside of
that room will fit perfectly, you might
| | 02:24 | set it up so that your gridlines
represent the foot with 12 subdivisions and
| | 02:28 | each subdivision references an inch.
| | 02:30 | In reality, there are many reasons why
you might want to use a grid inside of
| | 02:33 | Illustrator. Just know that it's
there and that you can control it.
| | 02:36 | I'll zoom back out again and remember
to hide your grid, you can go back to the
| | 02:40 | View menu and then choose Hide Grid.
| | 02:43 | It's important to realize that all of
these settings that Illustrator has that
| | 02:46 | help you align up your artwork, be it
the guides that we spoke about in the
| | 02:49 | previous movie or the grid here in
this movie. You will always have complete
| | 02:53 | control over them. So I can turn off
the grid here if I don't need to see it,
| | 02:57 | and if you also want to hide the
guides that you've created, that can also be
| | 03:00 | controlled from the View menu.
| | 03:01 | Simply go to View, choose Guides,
and choose to hide your guides.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the bounding box| 00:01 | Illustrator offers a variety of
different settings for the ways that
| | 00:04 | different people work.
| | 00:06 | In truth, there was a time when I used
Illustrator where I felt that I had to
| | 00:09 | get everything set in one way.
| | 00:10 | And then I always work in that way.
| | 00:12 | But I'm finding now that more and more
as I work inside of Illustrator, I am
| | 00:15 | turning these settings on and off
because sometimes some methods work
| | 00:19 | better than others.
| | 00:20 | One example of this is something in
Illustrator called the bounding box.
| | 00:24 | I'm going to zoom in this artwork right here.
| | 00:26 | And I'm going to focus on some of the
elements here to see how this bounding box works,
| | 00:30 | how it can help you,
| | 00:32 | and when you might want to turn it off?
| | 00:33 | First, let me explain what a bounding box is.
| | 00:35 | When I click on some artwork, for
example I'm going to click on the logo here
| | 00:38 | for hansel & petal, I'm using the black
arrow or the Selection tool to this,
| | 00:43 | you can see that the actual artwork is
selected. The actual anchor points are
| | 00:47 | highlighted in doing so.
| | 00:48 | But there's also an overall box that
appears around the perimeter of that artwork.
| | 00:53 | The bounding box is basically a
rectangle that is drawn to encompass the
| | 00:57 | entire piece of artwork.
| | 00:59 | At various points on this rectangle
or this bounding box are handles.
| | 01:04 | They appear as little hollow squares, which
you can see over here for example or here.
| | 01:09 | These handles allow you to do
different things to your artwork.
| | 01:11 | For example, you can scale or rotate your
artwork very quickly using the bounding box.
| | 01:16 | Clicking and dragging on this handle,
for example, lets me stretch my artwork
| | 01:21 | down and to the right,while keeping
the upper left-hand corner stationery.
| | 01:25 | Let me press Command+Z or Ctrl+Z to undo that.
| | 01:28 | Likewise if I grab it from the upper
left-hand corner and I click and drag,
| | 01:32 | the lower right-hand corner remains
stationary but I stretch my artwork in this direction.
| | 01:37 | Holding down the Shift key as I drag will
ensure that the proportions are maintained.
| | 01:41 | And once again I am going to press Undo.
| | 01:44 | By grabbing on the handles on the side, I can
stretch it either horizontally or vertically.
| | 01:50 | Let me press Undo twice to go
back to my original artwork.
| | 01:55 | And if you want to rotate your artwork,
position your cursor just outside any of
| | 01:59 | these corner handles.
| | 02:01 | Your cursor changes to a bent arrow.
| | 02:03 | When you click and drag Illustrator
defines the center of your artwork, as we
| | 02:07 | call an origin point, and I can now
rotate my artwork around that center point.
| | 02:13 | Once again, I'll press Undo to
go back to my original artwork.
| | 02:16 | We'll talk more about Selection
tools later in another chapter.
| | 02:20 | But you'll notice that this bounding
box only appears when you select artwork
| | 02:23 | using the black arrow or the Selection tool.
| | 02:26 | If you use the Direct Selection tool
or the white arrow, you'll only see the
| | 02:30 | artwork itself selected. You
will not see at the bounding box.
| | 02:33 | Sometimes, when you're working with
complex artwork, the bounding box can almost
| | 02:37 | get in the way of your artwork.
| | 02:38 | More importantly, sometimes you want
to grab a piece of artwork by a specific
| | 02:42 | area so that it will snap to something.
| | 02:44 | Let me give you an example.
| | 02:46 | If I use my regular Selection tool to
select this flower right here, I may
| | 02:50 | want to grab it from this point so that I
can now position it to snap to something else.
| | 02:55 | But if I click now and drag, I'm going
to get the handle and I'm going to go to
| | 02:58 | stretch my artwork instead.
Let me press Command+Z.
| | 03:01 | In such a case what I may want to do is go
to the View menu and hide the bounding box.
| | 03:06 | I can either choose this option
here or I can use the keyboard shortcut
| | 03:10 | Command+Shift+B or Ctrl+Shift+B on Windows.
| | 03:13 | By hiding the bounding box, even with
my black arrow selected, the regular
| | 03:17 | Selection tool, I'm able to grab it
from any specific point on the artwork that
| | 03:21 | I like and move that artwork around.
| | 03:23 | Rather than force yourself to choose
the bounding box should be on or off,
| | 03:27 | I constantly toggle between those
modes by using the keyboard shortcut.
| | 03:30 | Command+Shift+B, turns on the
bounding box when I need it.
| | 03:34 | Command+Shift+B hides it when I don't.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Smart Guides| 00:01 | You already know about something
inside of Illustrator called guides.
| | 00:04 | Those are lines that you can
basically draw inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:07 | They can take on other shapes as well.
| | 00:09 | But they act as these magnets.
| | 00:11 | So that when you're drawing art or when
you're positioning artwork, they snap to
| | 00:14 | these guides to ensure that
things are aligned correctly.
| | 00:17 | However, Illustrator also has
something called Smart Guides.
| | 00:20 | These are guides that just
seem to happen automatically.
| | 00:23 | And they let you know when artwork is aligned.
| | 00:26 | In other words, you don't have to draw
the guides first. The guides just seem to
| | 00:29 | automatically activate as
you're moving artwork around.
| | 00:32 | Let me give you an example in this document.
| | 00:33 | If I move this piece of art
up just a little bit over here
| | 00:36 | and I take this piece of art
and I start to move it upwards as well,
| | 00:39 | you can see that guides seem to appear
as I move it to let me know where that
| | 00:43 | artwork is currently being aligned to.
| | 00:45 | And that's what Smart Guides are.
| | 00:47 | The reality though is that Smart Guides
go beyond just helping you align objects.
| | 00:51 | Let me press Undo a few times to go
back to the original artwork here.
| | 00:55 | And we'll take a look at some of the
settings that are a part of Smart Guides.
| | 00:58 | For example, when I move my over artwork,
you can see that they get highlighted.
| | 01:03 | Little words also appear. Path, anchor.
| | 01:07 | As I work around, these little gray
boxes with X and Y coordinates pop up.
| | 01:11 | All these features are also the
part of this Smart Guide feature set.
| | 01:14 | Now granted sometimes, especially with
this object highlighting, you may find
| | 01:19 | that it's somewhat confusing or even
bothersome to see these on your screen.
| | 01:23 | So before we talk about the settings
of Smart Guides itself, let me show you
| | 01:26 | how you can actually
toggle Smart Guides on and off.
| | 01:29 | You do so by going to the View menu
and choosing the Smart Guides option.
| | 01:33 | The keyboard shortcut, which I think
you should become familiar, with is
| | 01:36 | Command+U on Mac or Ctrl+U on Windows.
| | 01:39 | For example, as I move my mouse over
this artwork, it becomes highlighted.
| | 01:44 | But if I press Command+U, now
I've turned off Smart Guides.
| | 01:48 | I can move my cursor around without
the Smart Guides getting in my way.
| | 01:51 | But one of the really nice things about
Smart Guides is that Adobe allowed us to
| | 01:55 | set preferences to control which
parts of Smart Guides we want to see.
| | 01:59 | For example, the alignment
capabilities might be very valuable to us.
| | 02:03 | But maybe we don't care so
much about the highlighting.
| | 02:06 | Or if you're dealing with very complex
artwork, the highlighting may be very
| | 02:09 | important to you but you really don't
care about the alignment because maybe
| | 02:13 | you have guides setup or you're using
the align palette or some other method to
| | 02:17 | align your artwork.
| | 02:18 | In fact, some artwork you may
not want to have aligned at all.
| | 02:21 | If you're creating fine art or free-
form drawings, you may not want to have
| | 02:24 | those alignment settings at all.
| | 02:25 | So rather than just having one global
setting, turning Smart Guides on or off,
| | 02:30 | let's learn now how to control Smart
Guides to do exactly what we want to do.
| | 02:34 | The settings for Smart Guides are
found in your Preferences panel.
| | 02:37 | I'll press Command+K or
Ctrl+K to open up Preference panel.
| | 02:41 | And from the popup menu,
I'm going to choose Smart Guides.
| | 02:44 | First, you can choose a color for your
Smart Guides and a Snapping Tolerance.
| | 02:49 | If you specify a high value for
Snapping Tolerance, as long as your cursor is
| | 02:52 | anywhere near in the vicinity of
other shapes or aligning to other objects,
| | 02:56 | Smart Guides will kick in.
| | 02:58 | If you use a very low value for Snapping
Tolerance that means you'll need to be
| | 03:01 | really, really close to other
artwork for these Smart Guides to appear.
| | 03:05 | The default setting in Illustrator is 4 points.
| | 03:07 | I'll be honest with you,
| | 03:08 | I sometimes find that value to be
just a little bit too big for me.
| | 03:11 | Especially, when I'm dealing with
very complex art where I have lots of
| | 03:14 | artwork in small areas.
| | 03:17 | I personally prefer a
Snapping Tolerance of 2 points.
| | 03:20 | And I find that helps me because I'm
usually zoomed in very close to my artwork anyway.
| | 03:24 | But let's focus on some of the
settings here in the middle of this panel.
| | 03:27 | First, let's talk about Alignment Guides.
| | 03:30 | These are the guides that appear to let
you know whether your artwork is going
| | 03:33 | to be aligned with other art in your document.
| | 03:35 | It will also help you align your
artwork to guides and the edges of artworks.
| | 03:40 | When working in Illustrator, this is probably
one of the most valuable parts of Smart Guides.
| | 03:45 | Nine times out of ten, I'm leaving
the Alignment Guides setting turned on.
| | 03:49 | Object Highlighting is that we've seen
before where when you move your cursor
| | 03:52 | over objects that path becomes highlighted.
| | 03:55 | It can certainly be helpful
when you have very complex art
| | 03:58 | and you want to make sure that what
you're about to click on is the piece of art
| | 04:00 | that you're trying to select.
| | 04:02 | However, if you don't want that setting
turned on, just simply uncheck this box.
| | 04:06 | Transform tools are guides that kick
in when using any of the Transform tools
| | 04:10 | inside of Illustrator. That refers to
rotating artwork, scaling artwork, sharing
| | 04:15 | or skewing artwork, or
reflecting or mirroring artwork.
| | 04:19 | I find this very useful many times when I'm
working, so I like to turn this setting on.
| | 04:23 | Construction Guides refer to when
you're actually drawing artwork with say the
| | 04:27 | Rectangle tool or maybe the Line Segment tool.
| | 04:30 | You can specify that
guides appear at certain angles.
| | 04:34 | You can either choose from the popup
list of different settings or you can
| | 04:37 | specify your own custom values here as well.
| | 04:40 | As you make adjustments to these
values, you'll actually see a preview up
| | 04:43 | here in this window.
| | 04:45 | The Anchor/Path Labels are the words that
appear when you mouse over anchor points.
| | 04:49 | Again, when working inside of
Illustrator, they may help to identify when
| | 04:53 | objects snap to other paths or anchor points.
| | 04:55 | But again personally, I don't
find as much value with that.
| | 04:59 | So I usually turn this setting off.
| | 05:01 | Finally, there are Measurement Labels.
| | 05:03 | I find these extremely helpful.
| | 05:05 | These are those gray boxes that
appear with the values inside of them.
| | 05:08 | For example, as you're drawing out a
rectangle, you will actually see the size
| | 05:12 | of that rectangle being
displayed as you draw it.
| | 05:15 | When you move objects, these labels will
also tell you how far you're moving that shape.
| | 05:19 | When you're done, simply click OK to go
ahead now and accept those preferences.
| | 05:23 | Now, whenever you turn Smart Guides on
using the Command+U keyboard shortcut,
| | 05:27 | it'll use the settings that you've just
specified now in that Preferences dialog box.
| | 05:31 | For example, if I go to my View menu
| | 05:34 | and I turn my Smart Guides on, notice
that now when I mouse over my artwork,
| | 05:38 | I don't see the object highlighting that
I did it before because I didn't want
| | 05:41 | that specific setting.
| | 05:42 | However, I do see the measurement settings.
| | 05:45 | In this way, I get Smart
Guide to do what I want it to do.
| | 05:48 | And rather than get in the way of my
experience inside of Illustrator, they
| | 05:52 | do just the opposite.
| | 05:53 | They help me get my work done faster.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Hide Edges command| 00:01 | Sometimes when you're working inside
of Illustrator, you just want to focus on
| | 00:04 | the work that you're dealing.
| | 00:05 | You don't want to be involved or
become distracted by all these little things
| | 00:08 | that are flashing on your screen.
| | 00:10 | And yes, we know that we
can turn off Smart Guides.
| | 00:12 | In fact, I'm going to turn off
Smart Guides for this one lesson here.
| | 00:15 | I'm going to go to the View menu here.
| | 00:17 | I'm going to choose to turn off Smart Guides.
| | 00:20 | So now we don't see anything
that gets highlighted on my screen.
| | 00:22 | And let's focus on just this
piece of artwork right here.
| | 00:25 | So I'm going to click to make this
artboard active and then I'll press
| | 00:28 | Command+0 so that it fills my screen.
| | 00:30 | Let's say I'm working on just getting the
position of all these flowers just right.
| | 00:34 | I want to click on let's
say this flower right here.
| | 00:36 | And I want to move it around.
| | 00:37 | It's hard for me when I'm working to
actually see what my artwork is going to look like
| | 00:41 | with it highlighted with all of
these anchor points and paths.
| | 00:45 | You see, Illustrator needs some way
to let me know as a user which path I
| | 00:50 | currently have selected.
| | 00:51 | So whenever, you click on any artwork,
for example I'll click on the hansel
| | 00:54 | & petal text, you can see that all the
anchor points and the paths become highlighted.
| | 00:58 | Same thing when I click on this
artwork here or this artwork here.
| | 01:02 | That's Illustrator's way of letting me
know that I've selected that artwork.
| | 01:06 | However, when I'm working though and I
want to continuously move this piece of
| | 01:09 | artwork around, it's kind of annoying that
I see that because I don't get a true visual
| | 01:13 | of what my artwork is going to look like.
| | 01:15 | So that's why Illustrator has
a setting called Hide Edges.
| | 01:19 | You could find that setting in the View
menu. The keyboard shortcut Command+H.
| | 01:23 | When you choose that option, Illustrator
hides the highlighted paths and the anchor points.
| | 01:28 | However, it's important to realize
that that artwork is currently selected.
| | 01:33 | In fact, if I use the arrows on my
keyboard, the up and the down arrows for
| | 01:37 | example, you will see that
that artwork is now moving.
| | 01:40 | I can reposition that artwork to get it
just where I want it to be without being
| | 01:44 | distracted by the highlighted areas.
| | 01:46 | This is actually great when
working on detailed artwork.
| | 01:49 | However, the downside is that I have no
way of knowing which artwork is selected.
| | 01:53 | For example, if I want to move the hansel &
petal text around somewhere else, I can click on it
| | 01:58 | and now it's become selected.
| | 02:00 | How do I know it's selected?
| | 02:02 | Well, I guess it is I've to trust
Illustrator, knowing that I've just clicked on it.
| | 02:06 | I can use arrow keys now
to move that around as well.
| | 02:09 | I think that you'll find when you start
using Illustrator you'll be turning this
| | 02:12 | setting, the Hide Edges setting, on and
off constantly to help you in your work.
| | 02:17 | Let me just leave you
though with one piece of advice.
| | 02:20 | The Hide Edges command
that's what we call a toggle.
| | 02:22 | That means that once you turn
it on, it stays on until you turn it off.
| | 02:26 | So you're maybe working
on this piece of artwork.
| | 02:28 | And you get everything just the way that
you wanted and now you want to focus on
| | 02:31 | another piece of artwork.
| | 02:33 | So maybe I will open up my Artboards panel
and I'll jump to working on the Seed Packets.
| | 02:37 | Now I want to select just this one
packet here, so I'll click on it.
| | 02:40 | And well, it appears that nothing is happened.
| | 02:42 | The truth is it is selected.
| | 02:44 | If I click and drag, you'll
see that object will move.
| | 02:47 | But I don't see any outlines or highlighted
areas to indicate that that path is highlighted.
| | 02:51 | That's because the Hide
Edges command is still turned on.
| | 02:54 | I would need to go back to the View menu,
| | 02:56 | now choose Show Edges,
| | 02:58 | and now you can see that
that selection is indicated.
| | 03:00 | Just something for you to keep in mind.
I can't tell you how many times it happens to me
| | 03:04 | where I click on an object and it
looks like nothing's becoming selected
| | 03:07 | and I think there's
something wrong with Illustrator.
| | 03:09 | If that ever happens to you, the first
thing to check would be the Hide Edges command.
| | 03:13 | Keeping that in mind, the Hide
Edges command is extremely valuable.
| | 03:16 | And I think you'll find it useful
especially when trying to make subtle
| | 03:19 | adjustments to your artwork.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Various preview modes| 00:00 | One of the things that we've come to
expect when working with computer-based
| | 00:04 | design is that whatever you see on your
screen should match what you expect to
| | 00:08 | see in printed output, or on other
computer screens if for example you're
| | 00:11 | creating Web graphics.
| | 00:13 | However, Illustrator does
have various preview modes.
| | 00:16 | These various preview modes really
serve two basic functions in Illustrator.
| | 00:21 | The first function is well, giving you
a really good idea of what your artwork
| | 00:25 | is going to look like in its final form,
whether that artwork will be appearing
| | 00:29 | on a computer screen or in print.
| | 00:32 | But there's also a view mode in
Illustrator that gives you a better idea of
| | 00:35 | the structure of your artwork.
| | 00:37 | In fact, you'll probably end
up using that one more often.
| | 00:40 | Let's take a closer look.
| | 00:41 | I'll zoom in on this artboard right here.
Click on it to make it active.
| | 00:44 | Press Command+0 to zoom in on it.
| | 00:46 | And I'm currently right now in
Illustrator's default mode called Preview mode.
| | 00:50 | You can see what mode you are in
simply by looking over here in that
| | 00:53 | document tab itself.
| | 00:55 | It currently says CMYK.
| | 00:57 | That's the color model my document is
set to and it tells me the preview mode.
| | 01:01 | However, you can choose between
different preview modes by going to the View
| | 01:04 | menu and looking at the first
three settings that appear here.
| | 01:07 | First is a setting here called Outline mode.
| | 01:10 | Outline mode is a way to view your
artwork from the perspective of structure.
| | 01:15 | In other words, rid your mind of
color or actual appearance itself. You just
| | 01:19 | want to see the raw vector paths
that exist inside of your artwork.
| | 01:23 | The keyboard shortcut for that is
Command+Y and it's actually a very helpful
| | 01:27 | mode to look at, because it gives you an idea
of how the art is built inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:31 | When you have very detailed artwork or
artwork that overlaps itself, it may be
| | 01:36 | easier for you to actually make
selections in this viewing mode.
| | 01:39 | Also if you are tracing objects and you
just want to get a really good idea of
| | 01:42 | what your paths are doing,
this is the mode for that.
| | 01:45 | Again Command+Y is the toggle to go
between Preview mode and Outline mode.
| | 01:50 | Now, Illustrator has an additional two
modes, which help you identify how your
| | 01:54 | artwork will appear in different mediums.
| | 01:56 | For example, I am going to go to
View and then choose Pixel Preview mode.
| | 02:00 | Pixel Preview mode is use to
simulate how your artwork will appear when
| | 02:04 | displayed on a television or on the web.
| | 02:06 | For example, if you zoom in you'll
actually see the anti-aliasing or the pixels
| | 02:11 | that occur on those devices.
| | 02:13 | However, if my design is going to be
used in print and I want to see what this
| | 02:16 | is going to look like
| | 02:17 | when it appears in final print, I can
get a very accurate preview by going to
| | 02:22 | the View menu and choosing
something called Overprint Preview.
| | 02:25 | This was actually a setting that was
added to Illustrator to help you see
| | 02:28 | certain transparency effects.
| | 02:29 | For example, there is a way for you
to define something called an overprint
| | 02:33 | where you specify that certain inks
mix on press to create special effect.
| | 02:38 | Using the Overprint Preview mode
you'd be able to see the result of those
| | 02:41 | effects right on your screen.
| | 02:43 | Perhaps more importantly though the
Overprint Preview mode gives you a very
| | 02:47 | accurate display when using spot colors.
| | 02:50 | For example, many designers when
designing print pieces may use something
| | 02:54 | called Pantone colors.
| | 02:55 | We'll talk more about color in
another chapter, but for now know if you are
| | 02:59 | using Pantone spot colors and you want
to get an accurate display of what that
| | 03:03 | color is going to look like when it
gets printed, using the Overprint Preview
| | 03:06 | setting is the best way
for you to see those colors.
| | 03:09 | It's important to know that you can
actually work and use either the Overprint
| | 03:13 | Preview mode or the Pixel Preview mode
| | 03:15 | the same way that you might work
with the Preview mode in Illustrator.
| | 03:19 | However, the Overprint Preview mode is a
little bit slower when it comes to redraw.
| | 03:23 | Also even if you are in Overprint
Preview mode when you press Command+Y to view
| | 03:27 | outlines and you press Command+Y to
come back to Preview, it doesn't return you
| | 03:30 | to the Overprint Preview mode.
| | 03:32 | It actually returns you back
to the regular Preview mode.
| | 03:35 | It's certainly important to know that
all these preview modes exist, but realize
| | 03:38 | on a day-to-day basis you are probably
just be dealing with the Outline and the
| | 03:41 | regular Preview mode.
| | 03:43 | Just know that these additional
preview modes are available to you should
| | 03:46 | you ever need them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating custom views| 00:00 | There is a pretty basic setting
inside of Illustrator that even some of the
| | 00:04 | more advanced Illustrator users often forget
about, and that's something called Custom Views.
| | 00:09 | We've spent a significant amount of
time so far in this chapter talking about
| | 00:13 | different ways to view the
artwork in your document.
| | 00:15 | You have different preview modes, you
can pan around or zoom to certain areas in
| | 00:19 | your documents, switch between
different artboards, but it's nice to know that
| | 00:23 | it can actually save some of those setting.
| | 00:25 | In fact, when you are working on a document
that you know you'll return to again and again--
| | 00:29 | For example, this document right here
has many different elements inside of it.
| | 00:33 | I have some branding information,
some cards that are here and here, maybe
| | 00:37 | some packaging designs and even some
other artwork. I may use these many times
| | 00:41 | throughout a campaign and even when
trying to work on this artwork to begin with,
| | 00:45 | I may want to find an easy way to jump to
the part that I want to work on at the moment.
| | 00:50 | So, let's see how Custom
Views can help us do that.
| | 00:52 | I'm going to start by just zooming
in on some of the artwork over here.
| | 00:55 | So, I'm going to go over here.
Command+Spacebar gives me my Zoom tool.
| | 00:59 | I'm going to zoom in on just this one
area here. Draw a marquee around that.
| | 01:03 | And what I'm going to do now is save a
new view with this particular setting.
| | 01:07 | The way that you do that is you go to
the View menu and all the way at the bottom
| | 01:10 | there's a setting here called New View.
| | 01:12 | I'm going to give this view a name.
I'm going to call it main branding.
| | 01:16 | Then I'm going to click OK.
| | 01:19 | Now, say I really want to focus on
the detail of this flower right here.
| | 01:23 | So, what I'll do is I'll zoom in
on just as one flower right here.
| | 01:26 | Now, that's front and center of my
screen so I could really focus on it, and
| | 01:30 | I'll save this as a view.
| | 01:31 | I'll go back to the View menu, I'm going to
choose New View, and I'll call this one lilly.
| | 01:36 | When I click OK, I now have created
two custom views in this document.
| | 01:40 | For example, let's return to this
view over here, Fit All in Window.
| | 01:45 | This is what we started out with.
| | 01:46 | If I now wanted to work on just a
main branding I can go to the View menu,
| | 01:51 | choose down here main branding
and jump directly to that view.
| | 01:55 | If I know I want to focus on that
artwork with the lily in it, I can go back
| | 01:59 | to the View menu and instead of trying
to zoom in or use the Hand tool or the
| | 02:03 | Zoom tool to get just that area in
my focus, I can go straight to it by
| | 02:07 | choosing lilly here.
| | 02:09 | But it's important to know that custom
views can really go a step beyond this.
| | 02:13 | I'll zoom back out to view my entire
document once again, and maybe I want to
| | 02:17 | focus on this area over here, but I am
also working in Outline mode because I
| | 02:21 | have so many different
objects going on over here.
| | 02:23 | So I'm going to go to the View menu and
I'm going to go into Outline view.
| | 02:27 | Now I see all the paths that were
used to create this artwork.
| | 02:30 | And once again I'll define a new view
by going to the View menu, scrolling down
| | 02:34 | to the bottom, choosing New View and
I'll call this one gift card outline.
| | 02:40 | I'll save this view by clicking OK.
| | 02:42 | And notice that even though I am right
now in Outline mode, if I go back to the
| | 02:46 | View menu and I choose main branding,
Illustrator returns me to the Preview mode.
| | 02:50 | Why? Because the Preview mode is
currently active when I saved this view.
| | 02:55 | However, if I were to jump back now to
that gift card outline view mode, notice
| | 03:00 | now I'm returned to the Outline view.
| | 03:02 | So when you save a view Illustrator not
only saves the zoom level and the part
| | 03:06 | of the document as visible.
| | 03:08 | It also memorizes whether or not that
artwork was in Outline mode or in Preview mode.
| | 03:13 | So, while it takes a few extra
clicks to create these new views inside of
| | 03:17 | Illustrator, know that once you have
created them it's somewhat easier now to
| | 03:21 | navigate within your
document. One thing to note.
| | 03:24 | The views that you have just
created now belong to this one document.
| | 03:28 | This means that each document that you
create can have its own custom views.
| | 03:32 | While it certainly makes sense to have
a custom view setup in a document such as
| | 03:36 | this with multiple artboards in it.
| | 03:38 | It can also be helpful
for very detailed artwork.
| | 03:40 | For example, if you are doing a movie
poster that has many different elements
| | 03:43 | inside of it, you can create custom
views to quickly zoom in on different
| | 03:46 | portions of the illustration.
| | 03:48 | One last thing to point out. You'll notice
if you go to the View menu and you scroll
| | 03:52 | down to these settings over here,
you'll see that you can choose Edit Views.
| | 03:56 | In doing so, you can select any of
these and choose to delete them if you feel
| | 04:01 | that view is no longer needed.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Locking and hiding artwork| 00:00 | So far in this chapter we've been
talking about features that help you view your
| | 00:04 | documents so that you can work more easily.
| | 00:06 | We know that you can hide selection edges.
| | 00:08 | We know that we can use Smart
Guides to highlight certain objects.
| | 00:12 | We know that we can even define custom views.
| | 00:14 | Well, there is another important
setting inside of Illustrator, which is your
| | 00:17 | ability to lock objects or even
hide them completely from view.
| | 00:21 | I'll go to my Artboards panel and I'm
going to double-click on the Branding
| | 00:24 | artboard to have that one focused on my screen.
| | 00:26 | Now, say we are working with this artwork.
I can click on these elements to move
| | 00:31 | them around, but maybe I want to deal
with focusing on just the hansel & petal text.
| | 00:36 | I want to move that around my
screen, but I don't want to accidentally
| | 00:39 | move any of the flowers. I really
like where the flowers are right now.
| | 00:42 | And I don't want to accidentally select
one of them and move them and lose all
| | 00:46 | that synergy that's going on.
| | 00:47 | So, here is one thing that I can do.
| | 00:49 | I can click and drag to select these
areas here and then simply hold down
| | 00:53 | the Shift key and click on let's say just the
word hansel & petal right here to deselect that.
| | 00:57 | So now all these elements are
selected except for this text.
| | 01:02 | I'll now go to the Object menu
and I'll choose Lock > Selection.
| | 01:07 | Now, you'll see that if I click-and-drag
to try to select these elements I can't.
| | 01:10 | They are not able to be selected.
| | 01:12 | The only thing that I can
select is the hansel & petal text.
| | 01:15 | In fact, it can be quite often that
when you have very complex artwork that you
| | 01:19 | are working with that you'll lock a
lot of the artwork that you don't
| | 01:22 | accidentally select it.
| | 01:24 | That also lets you work more quickly,
because you can easily just click on the
| | 01:27 | artwork that you need.
| | 01:29 | To unlock your artwork you can simply go
back to the Object menu and choose Unlock All.
| | 01:33 | It's important to realize that there is
no really way in Illustrator for you to
| | 01:37 | unlock just one individual object.
| | 01:39 | In a future chapter we'll see that you
could lock individual objects used in the
| | 01:43 | Layers panel, but for now there is an
Unlock All Object, which simply releases
| | 01:47 | all the artwork that was locked.
| | 01:49 | Another option that you have is hiding artwork.
| | 01:51 | Let's say that I know that right now this flower
is just the way that I want it. It's in position.
| | 01:56 | It looks just how I wanted to be, but I
want to focus on some other areas right
| | 01:59 | now and I really don't
need to see that right now.
| | 02:02 | Instead of locking it I can go back to the
Object menu and I can choose Hide > Selection.
| | 02:07 | In doing so, the artwork
still exists in my document.
| | 02:10 | It's just hidden from view right now.
| | 02:13 | In some aspects this is better than locking
it, because I certainly can't select it now.
| | 02:17 | It's not even visible on my screen.
| | 02:19 | And it really lets me focus on
different areas of my artwork.
| | 02:23 | If I want to reveal that artwork
again, I'll go back to the Object menu
| | 02:26 | and choose Show All.
| | 02:28 | So, when you are working with complex
artwork, know that you have the ability to
| | 02:31 | both lock and hide objects, but perhaps
more importantly it's good to know about
| | 02:35 | these features because often when
working with other people's files they may
| | 02:39 | have locked certain objects and you
may be trying to select that artwork and
| | 02:43 | you're not able to, the reason why is
because those people may have locked
| | 02:47 | certain elements in the artwork and
the only way that you can work with that
| | 02:50 | artwork is to unlock it first.
| | 02:52 | Likewise, you may get a document from
somebody else and they may have hidden
| | 02:55 | certain elements in that file.
| | 02:57 | If you're having trouble selecting
files or if it appears as if something is
| | 03:00 | missing, you might want to go to the
Object menu and just make sure that the
| | 03:04 | Show All or the Unlock All
settings are not available.
| | 03:07 | If they are, that means that
some objects are hidden or locked.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Making SelectionsUsing the basic selection tools| 00:00 | There are a lot of great tools inside
of Illustrator to be creative with.
| | 00:04 | Pen tools, Paintbrush tools, a variety of
shape tools. However, the most important
| | 00:09 | tools inside of
Illustrator are the Selection tools.
| | 00:12 | In fact on a day to day basis you'll
find that use of Selection tools far more
| | 00:16 | than any other toolsinside of Illustrator.
| | 00:18 | The Selection tools are all grouped over
here at the top of your Tools panel and
| | 00:22 | for good reason. They are up here
because of how often they are used.
| | 00:25 | Before we learn how to draw inside of
Illustrator it's really important to get
| | 00:28 | an understanding of how the Selection
tools work inside of Illustrator and the
| | 00:31 | reason for that is because the
Selection tool is your way to tell Illustrator
| | 00:35 | what it is that you're trying to do.
For example if you wanted to change the
| | 00:39 | color of some of the leaves in this
document how would Illustrator know which of
| | 00:42 | those leaves you want work with?
By selecting some of them, in other words
| | 00:46 | making a choice and letting Illustrator
know these are the ones that I want to
| | 00:49 | change, Illustrator can
help you accomplish a task.
| | 00:52 | But it's not just working with colors.
| | 00:54 | It's everything you do inside of
Illustrator. Copy and paste, moving things
| | 00:58 | around, reshaping or resizing artwork.
| | 01:01 | It all boils down to
making your selection first.
| | 01:04 | Now Illustrator has three main
Selection tools. They actually appear in your
| | 01:08 | tools panel as just two arrows,
a black arrow and a white arrow.
| | 01:12 | The official names are the Selection
tool and the Direct Selection tool but there
| | 01:16 | is a third one hidden behind the
Direct Selection tool. If you click and you
| | 01:19 | hold your mouse button down you'll
see there is something there called the
| | 01:22 | Group Selection tool.
| | 01:23 | It's the white arrow with a little
plus sign that appears next to it.
| | 01:26 | In this movie, we are going to go over
using these three different tools.
| | 01:30 | Let's start first with the regular
selection tool, the black arrow.
| | 01:33 | There are two ways that
you can make a selection.
| | 01:35 | The first is actually just click on
any object doing so selects the artwork.
| | 01:39 | The other way to make a selection is
to click and drag and create a marquee.
| | 01:43 | Anything within this little dotted border
become selected when you release the mouse.
| | 01:47 | Now artwork inside of Illustrator
can be made up of one object or several
| | 01:51 | objects that are grouped together.
| | 01:53 | The black arrow or the Selection tool
selects entire groups or entire objects.
| | 01:58 | For example, if I click over here all
these elements become selected because
| | 02:02 | they're all grouped together.
| | 02:04 | We're going to learn more about groups and
how they're structured in another chapter.
| | 02:07 | But in this particular document
each of these are also grouped together.
| | 02:11 | You can click on an object and drag to
move the entire group as a whole. Let me
| | 02:16 | press Undo and come back to the shape over here.
| | 02:19 | Let's say I just wanted to adjust the
position of one of these leaves. By using
| | 02:23 | the Selection tool I select the
entire group so everything moves together.
| | 02:27 | I'll press Undo and I'll now
switch to the Direct Selection tool, the
| | 02:30 | white arrow. Notice now that when I click on
this leaf just this one leaf is now selected.
| | 02:36 | Now I can move it and the entire group
doesn't move; just this one leaf does.
| | 02:41 | I'll press Command+Z to undo that
action because I'll show you that the Direct
| | 02:45 | Selection tool also allows you to
select individual anchor points on a path or
| | 02:50 | an object. For example right now this
leaf has three anchor points. One here,
| | 02:55 | one here and one here.
| | 02:57 | If I were to click on just this one
anchor point right now you can see that this
| | 03:01 | anchor point is now selected, but these
are hollow, indicating that they're not
| | 03:04 | selected. That means if I now click
and drag on this anchor point just this
| | 03:09 | anchor point moves not the
other ones that are here.
| | 03:12 | So you can see that you'll use the
Selection tool, the black arrow, to select
| | 03:15 | entire objects or entire groups.
However if you want to select just individual
| | 03:20 | anchor points or individual objects
within a group you would use the white arrow
| | 03:23 | or the Direct Selection tool.
| | 03:25 | Let me press Undo and now let's see
what the Group Selection tool does.
| | 03:27 | I am going to come over here to the
Tools panel, click and hold my mouse button
| | 03:31 | down, and choose the Group Selection tool.
| | 03:33 | Now in Illustrator when we create
groups we have the ability to have something
| | 03:36 | called a nested group.
| | 03:37 | That means that you'll one group and
then inside of that group is another group
| | 03:41 | and then inside of that group is yet
another group. For example if I take a look
| | 03:44 | at this artwork right over here,
| | 03:46 | I know that all of this is a group
together. However within the overall group
| | 03:49 | this bottom part where it says
Seeds is one group and these leaves and
| | 03:54 | flowers are a second group.
| | 03:55 | Within this top group the leaves and
the flowers are in two separate groups and
| | 04:00 | each of the flowers themselves
are a separate group as well.
| | 04:03 | When you understand how the Group
Selection tool works you can also understand
| | 04:07 | how valuable it would be to
structure your artwork in an efficient way.
| | 04:11 | The Group Selection tool will allow
you to make selections based on the
| | 04:14 | structures inside of that group.
| | 04:16 | Let's take a quick look.
| | 04:17 | If I take my Group Selection tool and
I position it over this leaf right here
| | 04:20 | and I click once this selects, this
entire object. However if I click again it
| | 04:25 | selects the other objects
that are grouped with that leaf.
| | 04:27 | Notice right now that all the leaves
are selected. Watch what happens when I
| | 04:31 | click yet again on this leaf.
| | 04:33 | It now selects the next higher group.
If I click now even one more time this part
| | 04:38 | gets selected as well.
| | 04:39 | So we understand what these Selection
tools do, but let me share with you a few
| | 04:43 | pointers on how to use these
tools in a more efficient manner.
| | 04:45 | First of all, it's rare that
experienced Illustrator users actually choose the
| | 04:49 | Group Selection tool
directly from the Tools panel.
| | 04:52 | I'll go back to the Direct Selection
tool and you'll find when I'm using this
| | 04:55 | tool if I hold down the Option key on
my keyboard. I'm on a Mac now but if I were
| | 04:59 | on a PC I'd hold down the Alt key.
| | 05:01 | You can see that my tool temporarily
changes to the Group Selection tool.
| | 05:05 | Therefore changing between
those two tools are not necessary.
| | 05:09 | I can do so directly from the keyboard.
So I can use the white arrow for example
| | 05:13 | to click on just the edge of a
path to select a few anchor points.
| | 05:16 | I can click on the center of the path to
select the entire object and I can hold
| | 05:20 | down my Option key and
click to select entire groups.
| | 05:23 | In this case, I'm selecting
individual parts of my group and then with each
| | 05:27 | click selecting more and more of my
group. But if I use my regular Selection
| | 05:31 | tool, the black arrow,
I can actually go in reverse.
| | 05:33 | Let me show you what I mean. I am going
to deselect everything but just clicking
| | 05:36 | on any area here, and I am going to
click on the Selection tool itself and I'll
| | 05:40 | select my group with one click.
| | 05:42 | What I'll do now though is I am going to
double-click. When you double-click on a
| | 05:45 | group that group becomes isolated.
| | 05:48 | See how now how everything else inside
of Illustrator has been dimmed back and
| | 05:51 | is instantly locked?
| | 05:52 | I can longer select these elements. Even
this part which was part of a group of
| | 05:56 | four is now selectable when I click on
it but it's separate from this group.
| | 06:00 | Now that I'm basically inside of this
group I have two groups that I can see.
| | 06:04 | If I want to go deeper into this
group I'll double-click now in this group.
| | 06:07 | Notice now I cannot select this element
right here. This part has been isolated.
| | 06:11 | Now if I want to work strictly on just
one of these leaves, I'll double click again.
| | 06:15 | Notice now that all the leaves are now
isolated and if I only want to work on
| | 06:18 | just this one leaf I'll double-click
on this one and now everything else is
| | 06:22 | completely locked and unable to be selected.
| | 06:25 | If you take a look at the top of my
screen I have a gray bar that identifies
| | 06:28 | exactly where I am in my artwork. You
can see that right now I have a path, which
| | 06:32 | is inside of a group which inside of
another group which is inside of another
| | 06:36 | group that's on Layer 1.
| | 06:37 | We'll learn more about document
structure in another chapter but for now you can
| | 06:41 | see how I can use the two arrow tools
to kind of go in different directions.
| | 06:45 | In this example here, with the white
arrow I can start with the leaf and work my
| | 06:48 | way up the entire group.
| | 06:50 | And with the black arrow I can start
with the entire group and work my way back
| | 06:53 | down towards the leaf.
| | 06:55 | It's not a question of which tool is
better it's a question of what you need to
| | 06:58 | do to accomplish a task at hand.
| | 07:00 | To exit this isolation mode simply
double click on an empty area on the artboard.
| | 07:05 | For the most part the selections
you'll be making every day inside of
| | 07:08 | Illustrator will encompass the use of
these arrow tools. However, there is also
| | 07:12 | a keyboard shortcut, which I think you'll make
great use of which is the Select All command.
| | 07:16 | While you can certainly find that here
inside the Select menu by choosing Select > All,
| | 07:20 | the keyboard shortcut to memorize is
Command+A. This will allow you to quickly
| | 07:24 | select everything. Or you can also
choose this command called All on Active
| | 07:28 | Artboard because if your document has
multiple artboards you may just want to
| | 07:32 | select all of the elements
within this active artboard.
| | 07:35 | Here is a reason of why that might be important.
| | 07:37 | As we've already seen, you can use the
black arrow to click on a group to select it.
| | 07:41 | However, if you want to select two
groups the way, that you would add to a
| | 07:45 | selection is to hold down the Shift key on
your keyboard and click on another object.
| | 07:50 | If you click on a second object while
the Shift key is down, Illustrator adds
| | 07:54 | that object to your selection.
| | 07:55 | But it's important to realize that the
Shift key doesn't mean add. The Shift key
| | 07:59 | really acts as a toggle.
| | 08:00 | In other words, I am still holding the
Shift key down on my keyboard right now.
| | 08:04 | If I were to click on this object,
that would remove or drop that piece of
| | 08:08 | art from my selection.
| | 08:09 | So just to quickly review, if I
wanted to make some selections on this
| | 08:13 | artboard right now, say maybe I
wanted to select this element this element
| | 08:17 | down here and this element here,
| | 08:20 | I could click on this one first, hold
down the Shift key, click on this one, and
| | 08:24 | then while still holding the
Shift key down click on the third one.
| | 08:27 | Now all three of those are selected.
If I know that I want to select multiple
| | 08:30 | objects that are near to each other
I could also use the Marquee method.
| | 08:34 | For example, I can click and drag
to select all of these elements.
| | 08:37 | But as you can see if I click and
drag along this, I get all the elements.
| | 08:41 | I would have no way choose just
this one and this one or this one.
| | 08:44 | Finally pressing Command+A on my
keyboard would select everything select so I
| | 08:48 | could move everything at once.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Magic Wand tool| 00:00 | The Selection tools inside of
Illustrator, both the Selection tool and the Direct
| | 00:04 | Selection tool, allow you to select
specific objects. For example if I click on
| | 00:09 | this group right here this is the
group that becomes selected. It's a very
| | 00:12 | precise process. Whatever I click on
that's what becomes selected. However there
| | 00:17 | may be times when I want to select
objects that are similar to each other.
| | 00:20 | For example, take a look at these
designs here towards the bottom.
| | 00:24 | They're all pretty much identical except
that where the word Seeds appears there's
| | 00:28 | a color background and that color
background is somewhat different among
| | 00:32 | these different designs.
| | 00:33 | Now maybe I feel that I want to able to
adjust that background area or I want to
| | 00:37 | maybe resize them or adjust their
position just a little bit, or even change
| | 00:41 | their colors. It can be quite difficult
for me to make that selection and there
| | 00:45 | are two reasons for that.
| | 00:46 | First of all, if I wanted to select four
distinct objects I would need to use a
| | 00:50 | regular Selection tool and then click
and hold down the Shift key to add the
| | 00:54 | other objects to my selection.
| | 00:55 | That isn't even something that I can do
currently with my regular Selection tool
| | 00:58 | because simply clicking
anywhere here selects the entire group.
| | 01:02 | So what I would need to do is use my
Direct Selection tool, click on this shape
| | 01:05 | right here, hold down the Shift key, and
then continue to click on these other
| | 01:09 | objects to add those to my selection.
| | 01:11 | Now I'll be able to make some kind of
adjustment by moving with the arrow keys
| | 01:14 | for example. However there is a way to have
Illustrator select objects based on their content.
| | 01:20 | The tool for that is
something called the Magic Wand tool.
| | 01:23 | It's actually a tool that
also exists inside of Photoshop.
| | 01:26 | The concept is pretty much the same.
| | 01:28 | If you're inside of Photoshop and you
have a photograph of maybe a sky, that sky
| | 01:32 | is made up of beautiful different
shades of blue, because everything is
| | 01:36 | individual pixels inside of Photoshop,
how do I select all of my blue pixels?
| | 01:40 | I can't choose just one color and tell
Photoshop select that one color because
| | 01:44 | this guy is made up of
many different shades of blue.
| | 01:47 | So what the Magic Wand tool allows you
to do is select colors that are similar
| | 01:51 | to the one that you click on.
| | 01:52 | There is a setting in the Selection
tool called a tolerance which gives you
| | 01:56 | the power to control how close or how
different the criteria is for selecting those objects.
| | 02:02 | Let's take a look at what I mean by that.
| | 02:03 | I'm now going to deselect my
artworks so nothing is selected.
| | 02:06 | I am going to switch to the Magic
Wand tool. Before I actually use the Magic
| | 02:09 | Wand tool I'm going to double click on it
because that's going to bring up the Magic Wand panel.
| | 02:14 | These are the settings which
control how the Magic Wand tool works.
| | 02:17 | Let's do a very basic one first.
| | 02:19 | If I want to click on these leaves
for example and I want to select all the
| | 02:22 | leaves in my document,
| | 02:23 | I can use the Magic Wand tool to click
on this one leaf here and because the
| | 02:27 | Magic Wand panel currently has Fill
Color checked and a tolerance setting of 20
| | 02:32 | it means that when I click on this
Illustrator will search through my entire
| | 02:35 | document and it will find the fill
colors that are within 20 tolerance levels of
| | 02:40 | the object that I click on and
it will select those as well.
| | 02:43 | So let's see what happens. Now I am
going to click on this leaf and as you
| | 02:46 | can see all the leaves now in
my document were now selected.
| | 02:50 | The reason is because all those leaves
have the same fill color characteristics.
| | 02:53 | They are actually filled with a
gradient. If I use a very low tolerance,
| | 02:58 | that means I'm telling Illustrator that
when it make its selections I want those
| | 03:02 | selected areas to be very, very close
to the object that I am clicking on.
| | 03:05 | If I choose a higher value for
tolerance, that means I'm letting Illustrator
| | 03:09 | expand the criteria for making
selections and it will select other artwork that
| | 03:13 | is even somewhat close to the
artwork that I am now clicking on.
| | 03:16 | To understand a little bit more about
how that works let's try selecting some
| | 03:20 | other artwork, for example the color
bars that appear behind the words Seeds on
| | 03:24 | these package designs.
| | 03:25 | I am going to set my tolerance level to
something a little bit lower, maybe like 5.
| | 03:29 | Now I am going to click on just this
background area right here and you could
| | 03:33 | see that Illustrator right now
only selects this one object.
| | 03:36 | That's because there's nothing else in
my document right now that has a fill
| | 03:40 | color that falls within this range
of five for the tolerance setting.
| | 03:44 | If I increase the tolerance setting
now to 20, now when I click on this
| | 03:47 | background color you could see that
Illustrator selected this object and also
| | 03:51 | this object. They are different colors
indeed but they're close enough within my
| | 03:55 | tolerance level that now both
of these have become selected.
| | 03:58 | Let's change my tolerance setting now to 40.
| | 04:01 | If I now click on this shape I can see
that I've successfully selected all the
| | 04:05 | colors here with one click.
| | 04:06 | Now in this example, I only had four
objects so I guess you can say it wasn't
| | 04:10 | that much more difficult for me to use
the Selection tool or in this case the
| | 04:14 | Direct Selection tool to Shift+
Click on those four different elements.
| | 04:17 | However, if I had a document that had
many hundreds of objects and I wanted to
| | 04:21 | select them but they were all slightly
different in shades of colors this would
| | 04:25 | allow me to do that in a single click.
| | 04:26 | Perhaps even more valuable is that the
Magic Wand tool can have criteria other
| | 04:31 | than just fill colors.
| | 04:32 | I'll come to the Magic Wand panel here
and from the flyout menu, I'll choose to
| | 04:36 | show my options. There are stroke
options and they're also transparency options.
| | 04:42 | By checking these options here
I could tell the Magic Wand tool to select
| | 04:46 | objects based on the other
tolerance areas, for example stroke Weight.
| | 04:50 | If I put in a tolerance of say one
point and I click on a one point stroke,
| | 04:54 | that means that everything in my document
that has anywhere from a zero point stroke
| | 04:58 | all the way to a two point
stroke will become selected.
| | 05:01 | If I specify an opacity with a
tolerance of 5% and I click on an object that
| | 05:05 | has 50% opacity, that means anything from 45%
opacity to 55% opacity will become selected.
| | 05:12 | Depending on the type of work that
you're doing, you may find that the Magic Wand
| | 05:16 | tool is an invaluable Selection tool
that can help you get your work done
| | 05:20 | quickly and efficiently.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Lasso tool| 00:00 | Aside from making selections with the
Selection tools, you can also use a tool
| | 00:04 | called the Lasso tool.
| | 00:06 | On a very basic level, the Lasso tool
performs the same function as a Direct
| | 00:10 | Selection tool in that it can be
used to select parts of objects like
| | 00:14 | individual anchor points
or objects within groups.
| | 00:18 | So what's the difference?
| | 00:19 | The difference has to do with the
concept of selecting something via marquee
| | 00:23 | instead of clicking on it.
| | 00:24 | As we have discussed, if I use my
Direct Selection tool, I can click on an
| | 00:28 | object to select it but I can also click
and drag to draw a marquee and anything
| | 00:33 | that falls within the boundary
of that marquee becomes selected.
| | 00:36 | In this case just these two anchor points.
| | 00:39 | However, the marquee is always rectangular.
| | 00:42 | So for example, if I wanted to select
this leaf, this leaf and this leaf here,
| | 00:47 | if I try clicking and dragging to make
a marquee, parts of the flowers would
| | 00:51 | also become selected.
| | 00:52 | Likewise if you look at these elements
right here, if I wanted to select just
| | 00:56 | this first shape and then this one over
here and then this one over here, if I
| | 01:00 | were to actually use the marquee method
I would have a hard time doing that and
| | 01:04 | that's where the Lasso tool comes in.
| | 01:05 | It allows you to draw a
marquee in a free form shape.
| | 01:08 | Let me switch here to the Lasso tool
and you'll see that when I click and
| | 01:12 | start dragging, I can actually draw a
shape. I'm not really drawing a shape.
| | 01:15 | I'm just drawing a marquee area and
anything that falls within that area is
| | 01:20 | going to become selected.
| | 01:21 | So now that I've drawn this area around
these shapes, when I release the mouse
| | 01:26 | you'll find that now this,
this and this all become selected.
| | 01:29 | Going back to the example of the leaves
here, if I were to click and drag around
| | 01:33 | these leaves just like this, you can see
that by creating some kind of a marquee,
| | 01:37 | I have yet another way to
make a selection for what I want.
| | 01:40 | The only caveat I guess you can say
about using the Lasso tool is that it can
| | 01:44 | only be used to make the selection itself.
| | 01:46 | What differentiates the arrow tools
from every other tool inside of Illustrator
| | 01:50 | is that they perform two functions.
| | 01:51 | Yes, you can use them to make
selections but you use those same arrow tools
| | 01:55 | to then edit the art.
| | 01:57 | For example, when I use my Direct
Selection tool I may click over here to select
| | 02:01 | that element and that once I select
that anchor point I can click on it again
| | 02:05 | with the same tool and
move it. Let me press undo.
| | 02:08 | If I use my Lasso tool to click and drag to
select that area, I can't actually move it.
| | 02:13 | This tool is only used for
selecting and not for anything else.
| | 02:17 | However, when you need to make some kind
of a marquee selection and that marquee
| | 02:21 | is not going to be of any
rectangular type of shape, the Lasso tool will
| | 02:25 | certainly come in handy.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selecting objects by attribute or type| 00:00 | In addition to all of the Selection
tools that you see here inside of the Tools
| | 00:04 | panel, Illustrator also has a Select
menu and there are some options that are
| | 00:08 | here that really let you focus on getting
certain types of selections very quickly.
| | 00:13 | The two I want to focus on in this
movie though are the ones down hear called
| | 00:16 | Select > Same and Select > Object.
| | 00:20 | On a basic level the Select > Same
functions allow you to select one type of
| | 00:24 | object and then tell Illustrator
I want to now go ahead and select all the
| | 00:28 | other objects in my document that are
the exact same as the one that I have
| | 00:32 | currently selected right now.
| | 00:34 | So in other words, it allows you to
select one object and then select others
| | 00:38 | that are exactly the same.
| | 00:39 | The Select > Object command allows
you to select similar types of objects
| | 00:43 | inside of your document.
| | 00:45 | In this example, you don't
have to select anything first.
| | 00:48 | You just tell Illustrator, "well,
select all of my text objects for example."
| | 00:52 | Let's take a look at how
some of these settings work.
| | 00:54 | I'm going to use my Direct Selection
tool and I'm going to click just on this
| | 00:57 | portion of the flower.
| | 00:58 | It currently has a stroke and a fill,
what appears to be a gradient fill, and
| | 01:02 | if I want to select all other objects
in my document that had that exact same
| | 01:06 | fill and stroke color, I can go
to the Select menu and I can choose
| | 01:10 | Select > Same > Fill and Stroke.
| | 01:13 | If all I was interested in, by the way,
was just the stroke color itself, I could
| | 01:17 | say select other objects that
share that exact same stroke color.
| | 01:20 | The shapes and everything else can be
different as long as it has that same attribute.
| | 01:24 | These commands here are kind of nice,
but there's a way to access these commands
| | 01:28 | much more quickly
directly inside of your artboard.
| | 01:31 | Let's see how that works. Notice
that at the top of my screen I have my
| | 01:35 | context-sensitive Control panel.
| | 01:37 | One of the elements that you'll
find in the Control panel is this icon
| | 01:41 | right here. It's the Select Similar
Objects which is exactly the same as
| | 01:45 | the Select > Same menu.
| | 01:47 | Here's how you use it. First you'd
click on little arrow here to choose what
| | 01:52 | type of attributes it is
that you want to select by.
| | 01:55 | You can choose All, which is the default
setting, or you can use Fill and Stroke
| | 01:58 | Color, kind of what we've been using here.
| | 02:00 | So I'll choose Fill and Stroke Color.
| | 02:03 | Notice now that everything in my
document that had that same fill and stroke
| | 02:06 | has now become selected, but here is why
this feature is so nice inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:10 | If I deselect everything right now
and I click on one of these flowers and
| | 02:14 | I decide now that I want to select all the
flowers, I just have to click once on this button.
| | 02:18 | It memorizes the last setting that
I've used for that, which was the
| | 02:22 | Select > Same > Fill and Stroke Color
setting, and instantly applied it now so that
| | 02:25 | all the elements are now selected.
| | 02:27 | For example, if I now choose to select
one of these leaves, a single click on
| | 02:31 | this icon would now select
all the leaves in my document.
| | 02:34 | I'll click on a blank area of my
artboard to deselect everything.
| | 02:37 | And let's take a quick look in the
Select menu at some of the settings for these
| | 02:41 | Select > Object commands.
| | 02:43 | If you're working with Web graphics,
Illustrator has the ability to snap art to a pixel grid.
| | 02:47 | If you'd like to make sure that all
of your art is snapped to this grid,
| | 02:51 | you can choose Object > Not Aligned to
Pixel Grid and any elements that are
| | 02:54 | currently not snapped to that pixel
grid will become selected so you can
| | 02:58 | work with them manually.
| | 02:59 | Additionally, you may have a document
with lots of clipping masks inside of them.
| | 03:03 | We're going to talk a lot about
clipping masks in another chapter, but if you
| | 03:07 | want to quickly select all of the masks
in your document, you can do so in one
| | 03:10 | fell swoop just by choosing Select >
Object and then choosing Clipping Masks.
| | 03:15 | There is one thing to keep in mind
about these two settings, the Selects > Same
| | 03:18 | and the Select > Object commands, and
that's of course if objects are locked
| | 03:22 | in your document, those objects will
not become selected even when you're
| | 03:26 | using these functions.
| | 03:27 | So if you find yourself working with
files that someone else created and you
| | 03:31 | want to use any of these Select
functions, it might be a good idea to make sure
| | 03:34 | that everything is unlocked before you use them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving and reusing selections| 00:00 | Sometimes making a selection is as
easy as just clicking on an object.
| | 00:04 | However, many times if you want to make
some difficult selections you may have
| | 00:08 | to go through a lot of
steps to make that happen.
| | 00:10 | If you're working on a project that you
might return to again and again it may
| | 00:14 | make sense to save your selections
so that you can easily return to them.
| | 00:17 | Let's see how to do that in this movie.
| | 00:19 | For example, I may want to make
adjustments to all of the leaves in this document.
| | 00:24 | A quick way to select those leaves
might be by using a Magic Wand tool.
| | 00:27 | So I'll take my Magic Wand tool,
click on one of the leaves, and now all of
| | 00:31 | them become selected.
| | 00:32 | I may find that I'm doing lots of
experimentation with these leaves so I want to
| | 00:35 | always return to making changes to them.
| | 00:37 | So what I'll now with all these leaves
selected is go to the Select menu and
| | 00:41 | I'll choose Save Selection.
| | 00:43 | I'll give it a name, I'll call
it leaves, and then I'll click OK.
| | 00:48 | Now I may select these flowers, for
example, all the flowers are selected, and
| | 00:52 | I'll choose Select > Save
Selection and I'll call those flowers.
| | 00:57 | At any time now when I'm working
inside of Illustrator, if I realize I want
| | 01:00 | to make some changes to the leaves, I
could go to the Select menu and choose leaves.
| | 01:05 | Now Illustrator loads that selection
and all of these leaves are selected.
| | 01:09 | What's actually happening here is
Illustrator is memorizing which objects were selected.
| | 01:14 | What's nice about that is that even
if the leaves have moved or a change in
| | 01:17 | position or even color for example,
I can still return back to that selection.
| | 01:21 | Let's take a look at what I mean. I'm
going to use my Direct Selection tool and
| | 01:25 | I'm going to move some of
these leaves to different areas.
| | 01:27 | Maybe I'll take this one here and push
this one up over here, move this one down
| | 01:30 | here, and maybe I'll actually
change the colors of these leaves.
| | 01:34 | I'll change this one to a
different color right here.
| | 01:39 | Let's choose a wacky kind of
gradient to put in this one.
| | 01:42 | Now if I decide that I want to make some
changes to all of the leaves, I can go
| | 01:46 | back to the Select menu, choose to
load the leaves selection and even though
| | 01:50 | I've moved those objects around and
changed some of their colors, they still are
| | 01:54 | now selected because that selection
was saved based on the object that I had
| | 01:59 | chosen, not by the attributes itself.
| | 02:02 | Where possible, especially when I work
in very complex documents, for example
| | 02:05 | maybe a map, I will take some
time to save some selections.
| | 02:09 | That way, when I need to make some
changes I can do so quickly just by loading
| | 02:13 | the selection that I need.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selecting artwork beneath other objects| 00:00 | As we know inside of Illustrator,
artwork has something called a stacking order.
| | 00:04 | That means that as you draw vector
graphics, objects appear on top of each other
| | 00:09 | or beneath each other.
| | 00:11 | As you can see up here with these
flowers, one flower appears on top of this
| | 00:15 | flower that appears beneath.
| | 00:16 | When you try to make selections
however, it can sometimes be difficult to
| | 00:20 | select the object that appear beneath other
objects because they're currently hidden from view.
| | 00:24 | For example, let's focus on this one
area over here. I'm going to zoom in on
| | 00:28 | just this part right here and I'm also
going to use my regular Selection tool to
| | 00:32 | double-click on this group to isolate it.
| | 00:35 | Now I'm inside of a group.
| | 00:36 | If I were to click right over here,
I would select this object that you can see
| | 00:41 | but if I want to select a background
object I would need to click over here to
| | 00:44 | select it because if I click here,
this object is in front of it.
| | 00:48 | However, many times when you had very
complex artwork there may not be room for
| | 00:52 | you to select artwork that
appears beneath other objects.
| | 00:55 | Quite often designers may toggle and
go into the Outline mode. I'm pressing
| | 00:59 | Command+Y on my keyboard to do that
so that you can see the actual path
| | 01:03 | themselves and you might
select things in this way.
| | 01:06 | For example, click on the path and then
when I go back into Outline mode, I now
| | 01:10 | see that that object is selected.
| | 01:11 | However there is a way now in
Illustrator CS5 to actually select objects
| | 01:16 | through other objects.
| | 01:17 | The way that you would do that is to
first use your regular Selection tool to
| | 01:21 | click on the topmost object. Then hold
down the Command key on your keyboard,
| | 01:26 | if you are using Windows that would be
the Ctrl key, and then click again.
| | 01:29 | Notice that now that I clicked again, a
little arrow appears next to my white arrow.
| | 01:34 | That means I'm now in this drill
down mode. It lets me select other
| | 01:38 | areas beneath this object
that's currently selected.
| | 01:42 | If I now click again, you can see that
the background object becomes selected.
| | 01:46 | Now if I go ahead and I release the
Command key, I'm back to my Selection tool
| | 01:50 | and I've selected the backmost
object, not the topmost object.
| | 01:55 | If you have many overlapping objects,
each time that you click with the Command
| | 01:59 | key pressed down, you will
systematically select the next object beneath it.
| | 02:03 | It's just something to keep in mind as
you're working inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:06 | If you find that you're having a hard time
selecting a piece of art, just hold down
| | 02:09 | the Command key while you're
clicking to select other objects beneath it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring selection preferences| 00:00 | For the most part, Illustrator lets you
select objects by clicking anywhere on
| | 00:04 | that object, either on the path
itself or its fill if it has one.
| | 00:08 | This makes it really easy to make selections.
| | 00:10 | However, sometimes those selections are
made too easily and you don't get what
| | 00:13 | you are looking for.
| | 00:14 | For example, if I use my Direct
Selection tool, you'll see that I can select the
| | 00:18 | leaf just by clicking anywhere inside its fill.
| | 00:20 | The same thing applies for the
circles in the flowers or the flower itself.
| | 00:24 | However if we go into Outline mode for
a moment, you'll find that you cannot
| | 00:28 | select artwork by clicking
anywhere on the inside of the object.
| | 00:31 | You would need to actually click on
the path itself to make that selection.
| | 00:34 | Since I am using the Direct
Selection tool, I am only selecting the
| | 00:38 | individual anchor points.
| | 00:39 | I would have to hold down my Option key
to get the Group Selection tool to click,
| | 00:44 | to actually select the entire object here.
| | 00:46 | While it may seem primitive at first,
when working with very complex artwork it
| | 00:50 | could be very valuable to come here into
Outline mode and make these selections.
| | 00:54 | For example, this flower over
here has lots of detail inside of it.
| | 00:57 | If I were to hold down my Command and
Spacebar keys to zoom in on this flower,
| | 01:01 | I can easily click on these
paths to make selections
| | 01:04 | and clearly see the structure of that
artwork, which may be more difficult to do
| | 01:07 | if I were in Preview mode.
| | 01:09 | So I'll zoom back over here to where I
was before and I'll show you that there
| | 01:12 | are some preferences that you can set
for making selection inside Illustrator.
| | 01:16 | I'll open up my Preference panel by
hitting Command+K and then in the popup
| | 01:20 | menu here I'll switch to
Selection & Anchor Display.
| | 01:23 | First take a look over here towards
the bottom, where it says Anchor Point
| | 01:26 | and Handle Display.
| | 01:27 | Just to make things a little bit easier
to see on your screen, you can choose to
| | 01:31 | have the anchor points displayed at different
sizes or handles with different shapes.
| | 01:35 | I'll leave it set to the
default settings for now.
| | 01:37 | But there is also an option that highlights
anchor points whenever you mouse over them.
| | 01:41 | This just makes it easier for you to
find those anchor points when you're
| | 01:44 | viewing your artwork in Preview mode.
| | 01:46 | Of course if you're in Outline mode,
you'll see the anchor points right away.
| | 01:50 | However for selection behaviors,
take a look over here at some of the
| | 01:53 | settings in the top.
| | 01:54 | First of all there is
something called the tolerance.
| | 01:57 | By default it's set to 3 pixels.
| | 01:59 | That means that whenever I click on a
shape, as long as my cursor is within 3
| | 02:03 | pixels of that shape, it will select that shape.
| | 02:06 | If I have lots of artwork in a small
area, sometimes at a tolerance with a value
| | 02:10 | of three, could mean it's too easy for
me to accidentally select the wrong object.
| | 02:14 | So you might choose to reduce that
tolerance level to something little bit lower.
| | 02:18 | But just know that means you have to
be really precise about where you're
| | 02:20 | clicking your cursor.
| | 02:22 | However the setting that I really want
to point out though is this one here called
| | 02:25 | Object Selection by Path Only.
| | 02:27 | By default this setting is turned off.
| | 02:29 | This is what allows us to click on
the interior of an object to select the
| | 02:33 | entire object when I'm in Preview mode.
| | 02:35 | However watch what happens
when I turned this setting on.
| | 02:38 | Now I am going to click OK.
| | 02:39 | I am using my Direct Selection tool.
| | 02:42 | I'm now going to click in the
middle of this object right now
| | 02:45 | and notice that nothing is becoming selected.
| | 02:47 | That's because with that Preference
setting turned on, the only way for me to
| | 02:50 | make a selection is to actually
click on the physical path itself.
| | 02:54 | Basically it gives me the same
functionality as if I were inside of Outline mode.
| | 02:58 | It means I need to click on an object's
path in order to select it, not its fill.
| | 03:03 | Especially when working with very
complex artwork, you may prefer to work in
| | 03:07 | this way, because you won't accidentally
select an object just by clicking on the fill area.
| | 03:11 | You'd have to deliberately click on the
path to know that's the object that you
| | 03:14 | are trying to select.
| | 03:15 | As with almost anything we do inside
Illustrator, there is no right or wrong.
| | 03:19 | It's really your own preference,
which is why Adobe puts it into the
| | 03:22 | Preference dialog box.
| | 03:23 | I am going to go back into Preferences
though and turn that setting off, because
| | 03:27 | I actually prefer working
with the setting turned off
| | 03:29 | so that I can select objects by clicking
on their fills, not necessarily their paths.
| | 03:34 | I'll point out one other thing though.
| | 03:36 | If I switch now the Preferences to
display the Type Preferences, you'll see that
| | 03:41 | the text also has the ability to be
selected only by clicking on the path.
| | 03:45 | We will go into detail about how to
create type in Illustrator in another chapter.
| | 03:49 | But I wanted you to know that there are
many different settings for how you can
| | 03:51 | select objects inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:53 | More importantly you can control all
these settings so that they work just the
| | 03:57 | way that you expect them to.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Drawing and Editing PathsThe importance of modifier keys| 00:00 | Before we jump into learning about
the drawing tools inside of Illustrator,
| | 00:04 | I wanted to take a moment
to talk about the keyboard.
| | 00:08 | While the actual drawing that you'll
be doing will be done with the mouse or
| | 00:11 | with a pen, if you're using a Wacom tablet,
| | 00:14 | the keys in your keyboard play a very
important role in how you get your work done.
| | 00:18 | Basically certain keys on the
keyboard can make the drawing tools
| | 00:22 | behave differently.
| | 00:23 | For this reason there are certain keys
on the keyboard called modifier keys.
| | 00:28 | Across the board in almost every
single tool inside of Illustrator, these
| | 00:32 | modifier keys can really make
a difference in how you draw.
| | 00:35 | These modifier keys are the Shift,
Option and Command and Spacebar keys on Mac,
| | 00:40 | or the Shift, Ctrl, Alt
and Spacebar keys on Windows.
| | 00:44 | There are many different keyboards out
there, so what you see here may not match
| | 00:48 | exactly what you have.
| | 00:49 | But one of the nice things that I've
seen is that lately keyboards have these
| | 00:53 | keys mirrored on both the left and
right sides of the keyboard, providing equal
| | 00:56 | rights to both lefties and righties.
| | 00:59 | Specifically in the case of drawing
tools though, there are a few other
| | 01:03 | additional modifier keys.
| | 01:04 | And those are the Arrow keys on the
keyboard, the Tilde key, which appears all
| | 01:09 | in the upper left hand corner of your keyboard.
| | 01:11 | It's the little squiggly character.
| | 01:13 | And for some drawing tools
also the X, C, V and F keys.
| | 01:18 | Don't worry yet about committing all
these keys to memory. That will come in time.
| | 01:22 | However the most important thing to
know about these modifier keys is that you
| | 01:25 | need to use them while
your mouse button is down.
| | 01:28 | As we'll see inside of Illustrator,
while you're drawing, while you're dragging
| | 01:32 | the mouse and your finger is
pressing down the mouse button,
| | 01:35 | these modifier keys can
adjust certain behaviors.
| | 01:38 | However, once you release the mouse
button your shape is already drawn and
| | 01:42 | you've to that committed to that shape
without the ability to change it using
| | 01:45 | any of these modifier keys.
| | 01:47 | Now that we know about the
modifier keys, let's get started drawing
| | 01:50 | in Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing closed path primitives| 00:00 | Let's draw some shapes.
| | 00:02 | In this video we are going to
focus on drawing closed path shapes.
| | 00:06 | Mainly the shapes that can be drawn
with these tools over here are grouped with
| | 00:10 | the Rectangle tool, Rectangle tool,
the Rounded Rectangle tool, the Ellipse
| | 00:14 | tool, Polygon tool and Star tool.
| | 00:16 | To be honest with you I am not really
sure why the Flare tool is here, but
| | 00:19 | we're going to focus on these
other five tools in this movie.
| | 00:22 | Let's get started first by creating a
new document. I will create a new print
| | 00:26 | document and I will just make sure that
it's a wide orientation just so it fits
| | 00:30 | the screen little bit better
here and we can get started.
| | 00:32 | Now when you have the Rectangle tool
selected you will see a little crosshair
| | 00:36 | that appears on your screen.
| | 00:37 | This defines the point of where your
rectangle will get started from when you
| | 00:41 | start drawing. For example, if I click
now and drag my mouse out you'll see that
| | 00:46 | I am now drawing a rectangle but I
started from that point where I clicked.
| | 00:50 | It has become now the upper left-hand
corner of the rectangle and I'm dragging
| | 00:54 | down and towards the right
to define the actual shape.
| | 00:57 | Once I release the mouse, I've now
created that rectangle on my screen. By the
| | 01:01 | way you don't need to start in the
upper left-hand corner and drag down towards
| | 01:05 | the right. I just do so because it
feels natural to me but you can actually
| | 01:09 | click on any point and then drag up to
the left or up to the right or even down
| | 01:14 | to the left for example.
Whatever feels most comfortable to you.
| | 01:17 | Let me delete this rectangle for
moment and I will delete this one also and
| | 01:21 | I want to spend a moment talking about how
the modifier keys work with the Rectangle tool.
| | 01:25 | Now remember the key to drawing inside
of Illustrator and using the modifier
| | 01:29 | keys is that I click on the mouse and I start
to drag and I do not release the mouse button.
| | 01:35 | In this way the modifier keys that I
press on the keyboard can control the shape
| | 01:39 | on the middle of drawing.
| | 01:40 | However once I release the mouse, I've
committed that shape to the artboard and
| | 01:45 | the modifier keys no longer work on it.
| | 01:46 | We will start with the most basic
modifier key, which is the Shift key.
| | 01:51 | As you click and drag, if I now also
hold down the Shift key on my keyboard I
| | 01:56 | constrain my shape to be even on all four
sides. Since I am using the Rectangle tool,
| | 02:01 | that means that every shape that I
draw will now be a perfect square.
| | 02:04 | If I let go of the Shift key on my
keyboard you'll see that I could create a
| | 02:07 | rectangle but if I have the Shift
key down I can only create a square.
| | 02:11 | I will let go of the Shift key for a moment.
| | 02:14 | I remember that when I started
drawing the shape I clicked over here and I
| | 02:17 | started dragging it down to the right.
| | 02:19 | So the origin point or the first point
to my rectangle is the upper left-hand
| | 02:23 | corner, but what I am now going to
do is hold down the Option key on my
| | 02:26 | keyboard. I am on a Mac here so if you
are on a PC that will be the Alt key and
| | 02:31 | notice that now the origin point to the
point that I clicked with the mouse has
| | 02:35 | become the center of my rectangle.
| | 02:37 | So I am drawing out the shape
from the center point instead of the
| | 02:41 | upper left-hand corner.
| | 02:42 | If I wanted to draw a square out from
the center, I would hold down at the
| | 02:46 | same time the Option and the Shift keys to
create a square drawn out from that center.
| | 02:51 | I will let go the modifier keys and you will
see I am back to drawing like I was before.
| | 02:54 | Now you may start drawing a shape and
then realize, I really want that shape to
| | 02:58 | be positioned somewhere else on your artboard.
| | 03:01 | Now I could actually release the mouse,
create my shape, switch to the Selection
| | 03:05 | tool and move the rectangle to
position that I want. Or I can actually use a
| | 03:09 | modifier key to change the position of
the rectangle while I am drawing it.
| | 03:14 | I'll delete this rectangle
and show you what I mean.
| | 03:16 | I am going to click and drag with a
mouse to create my rectangle. Again without
| | 03:20 | letting go with the mouse button, I'll
now press the Spacebar on my keyboard and
| | 03:25 | notice that now if I move my mouse,
the rectangle itself is kind of frozen in
| | 03:29 | place as far as its dimensions and I
can now reposition that rectangle anywhere
| | 03:33 | else in my screen. Once I let go the
Spacebar it goes back to allow me to change
| | 03:39 | the dimensions that shape in its new position.
| | 03:42 | So when drawing this rectangle I was
using the Shift key to constrain it so
| | 03:45 | that is always a perfect square, the
Option key would allow me to draw it out
| | 03:49 | from its center, and the Spacebar allowed me
to reposition that art as I was drawing it.
| | 03:54 | In this method I was using the
Rectangle tool to simply draw a shape on my
| | 03:58 | screen. I was kind of eyeballing it.
| | 04:00 | However if you want to draw artwork to
a very specific dimension it is possible
| | 04:05 | for you to draw shapes numerically.
| | 04:07 | The way to do that is to simply
position your cursor anywhere on the screen and
| | 04:11 | then instead of clicking and dragging to draw
a rectangle just click and release the mouse.
| | 04:16 | A Rectangle dialog box appears,
prompting you to enter the width and height
| | 04:20 | that's desired for your shape.
| | 04:22 | Now remember all the measurements that
you have inside of Illustrator can be
| | 04:25 | changed on the fly. Every single field
inside Illustrator is kind of like a
| | 04:29 | miniature calculator.
| | 04:30 | So if I wanted to create for examples
some kind of outline for a business card,
| | 04:34 | which is 3.5" x 2", I might specify a
width of 3.5 and then type in IN for
| | 04:40 | inches. Hit the Tab key on my keyboard
to advance to the next field. Illustrator
| | 04:45 | now automatically converted my inches
into points and then for the height I
| | 04:50 | specify 2in, again hit Tab to
accept that value, click OK and now I have
| | 04:54 | created the rectangle.
| | 04:56 | By the way the reason why I had my
document set to points as a default setting
| | 04:59 | is because I started this document
using the Print profile, which uses points.
| | 05:04 | Notice by the way that Illustrator took
the place where I clicked on my screen,
| | 05:08 | which is right here, and used that as
the origin point of that rectangle.
| | 05:12 | So it took my dimensions and created a
rectangle from this point out this way.
| | 05:16 | However if you want a rectangle to be
drawn out from its center, you can do that
| | 05:20 | again using the Option key.
| | 05:21 | Let's see how that works.
| | 05:23 | I am going to hold down my Option key
now and you can see now that my cursor
| | 05:27 | changes to look little more like a
square. This is the center cursor and now if
| | 05:31 | I click let's say right over here I can
enter the same values for my rectangle
| | 05:35 | but when I click OK, notice how that the
rectangle was drawn out from that point
| | 05:40 | as its center point.
| | 05:42 | So just clicking once with the mouse
brings up the Rectangle dialog box and uses
| | 05:45 | that as the upper left-hand corner of
your rectangle. Option or Alt clicking
| | 05:49 | with the tool allows you to specify
values for your rectangle and draws out the
| | 05:54 | rectangle from the center.
| | 05:56 | The techniques that we have just covered
here in drawing rectangles applies also
| | 05:59 | to the other shape tools that
we are now going to go through.
| | 06:02 | However, because they're different shapes
they may have a few extra options above
| | 06:06 | and beyond what we've seen of the rectangle.
| | 06:08 | Let's take a look. I am now going to
switch to my Ellipse tool. The Ellipse tool
| | 06:13 | allows me to click and drag to create ellipses.
| | 06:16 | If I want to have a perfect circle,
I will hold down the Shift key if. If I want
| | 06:20 | to draw my circle out from its
center, the Option key does that.
| | 06:24 | Option and Shift together allows me
to draw a perfect circle out from the
| | 06:28 | center and like we discussed before,
the Spacebar will allow me to reposition
| | 06:33 | where that circle starts from and upon
releasing the Spacebar you can go back
| | 06:37 | to drawing that shape. Upon releasing the mouse
I have now committed that shape to my artboard.
| | 06:42 | If I have specific dimensions in mind,
I can just click once on the artboard to
| | 06:46 | bring up the Ellipse dialog box or
Option+Click any where on the artboard to
| | 06:51 | draw out that ellipse from the center point.
| | 06:53 | Now there are some other drawing tools
here as well and these actually use a few
| | 06:57 | more modifier keys to help draw the shapes.
| | 06:59 | For example, I'm going to select the
Rounded Rectangle tool and I will start
| | 07:04 | clicking and dragging to
draw a rounded rectangle.
| | 07:07 | It acts very much in the same way that
the Rctangle tool does, but if I wanted
| | 07:11 | to adjust the radius of the rounded
corners itself as I am dragging the shape,
| | 07:15 | I can use the up arrow my keyboard to
increase the radius or the down arrow on my
| | 07:20 | keyboard to decrease the radius.
| | 07:22 | I don't know how often you will actually
be drawing rounded rectangles here.
| | 07:25 | As we will see later on in a different
chapter Illustrator has an effect that allows
| | 07:30 | you to apply rounded corners
to any shape after the fact.
| | 07:33 | More importantly you can always make changes
or edits to those rounded corners as needed.
| | 07:38 | Still, if you know that you want to
create a rectangle with rounded corners,
| | 07:41 | this is a quick and easy way to do it.
| | 07:43 | Notice by the way, as I delete this
shape that if you click once with the mouse,
| | 07:46 | you get the same dialog box but this
time we have a value for corner radius.
| | 07:51 | Let's take a look at some of the other tools
that are here, for example, the Polygon tool.
| | 07:56 | As you click and drag with the
Polygon tool, it creates a shape that has a
| | 08:00 | certain number of sides. If you want
to add more sides, as you're holding the
| | 08:04 | mouse button down and dragging, tap the
Up Arrow on your keyboard. Each time you
| | 08:09 | tap the Up Arrow it adds another side
to your shape. One thing to note about
| | 08:13 | the Polygon tool is that all the sides in
your shape always going to be equal in length.
| | 08:18 | If you want to remove sides, tap the
down arrow on your keyboard. In fact the
| | 08:23 | easiest way to draw a triangle inside
of Illustrator is to tap the down arrows
| | 08:27 | that your polygon only has three sides.
Hold down the Shift key as you are
| | 08:31 | drawing and you'll always get
a perfect equilateral triangle.
| | 08:35 | As we discussed before, the Spacebar
will allow you to reposition that as you
| | 08:39 | move it around your screen and by
holding down the Shift and the Spacebar, I can
| | 08:44 | move that perfect equilateral
triangle anywhere in my document.
| | 08:48 | There is one important thing to note
about working with the Polygon tool and
| | 08:51 | really all these drawing tools inside
of Illustrator. And that is there is no
| | 08:55 | easy way to reset the tool
back to its default setting.
| | 08:58 | Notice that right now I
have just created a triangle.
| | 09:01 | The next time that I click and drag to
draw a polygon with the Polygon tool,
| | 09:04 | it's going to have the same settings.
The only way to reset a tool back to its
| | 09:08 | default is to actually quit
and re-launch Illustrator.
| | 09:12 | So we have drawn a few polygons here.
Let me delete these and now I want to
| | 09:16 | create a shape using the Star tool, which is
probably the most fun out of all these tools.
| | 09:21 | As I click and drag with the Star tool,
you can see that now I have five points
| | 09:25 | on my star. Using the Up Arrow on my
keyboard, I add points to my star. The Down
| | 09:30 | Arrow removes points from my star.
| | 09:33 | The shift key will help constrain my star.
| | 09:36 | It aligns a star to a baseline and
the Option key does something, which is
| | 09:40 | called Align Shoulders.
| | 09:42 | It basically makes these parts of
the star here line up with each other.
| | 09:47 | Notice that now that I have released
the mouse I can no longer add more points
| | 09:50 | to my star, as I've committed the shape,
but there are additional modifier keys
| | 09:54 | that come into play when using the Star
tool. For example, I click and drag
| | 09:58 | to create a new star. I can
also hold down the Command key.
| | 10:02 | When I hold down the Command key I make
an adjustment to the difference between
| | 10:05 | the first and second radius of the star.
| | 10:08 | What do I mean by radius?
| | 10:09 | Well, I am going to release the mouse
for a moment. Imagine if you were to draw
| | 10:12 | a circle to connect all these inner
points with each other. Now imagine that
| | 10:17 | you draw a second circle that
connected all of these anchor points on the
| | 10:21 | outside of the Star.
| | 10:22 | That would create two circles. Each
of those circles would have their own
| | 10:25 | radius value. The way that Illustrator
calculates a star is it determines the
| | 10:30 | first and the second radius values and then it
determines how many points you want in that star.
| | 10:35 | You can see this clearly by just
clicking once with the mouse on the artboard to
| | 10:38 | bring up the Star dialog box and here
you can see you can specify a value for
| | 10:42 | radius one, radius two and the
number of points in the star.
| | 10:46 | Let me click Cancel here and I will
delete the starts for moment and I'll show
| | 10:51 | you one more I guess what would be
considered a whimsical keyboard shortcut
| | 10:54 | using the Tilde key modifier. Remember
the Tilde key is that little squiggly key
| | 10:59 | that appears in the upper left-
hand corner of your keyboard.
| | 11:02 | While drawing any of the shapes
inside of Illustrator, if you click and drag
| | 11:06 | and then hold down that tilde key
modifier key while you drag, it creates
| | 11:10 | duplicates of your shape.
| | 11:12 | The result is a lot of
stars, not just one of them.
| | 11:16 | Again, this works with really any
shape inside of Illustrator. If I use the
| | 11:19 | Rectangle tool for example, as I
click and drag with a Rectangle tool I can
| | 11:23 | hold on the Tilde key and I continue
to drag and I get lots of rectangles.
| | 11:28 | Why would this be useful? I will leave
that up to your creative minds, but here's
| | 11:32 | is a great overview of how to use the
shape tools for creating closed shapes
| | 11:36 | inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing open path primitives| 00:00 | As we know inside of Illustrator we can
classify paths as being either open or closed.
| | 00:06 | In this movie, I want to talk about
some of the basic primitive tools that you
| | 00:09 | can use to draw open shapes.
| | 00:12 | They are grouped here with the Line
Segment tool and cover the Arc tool, the
| | 00:15 | Spiral tool, and kind of hybrid tools
because as we'll soon see this creates a
| | 00:19 | combination of both open and closed shapes,
the Rectangle Grid tool and the Polar Grid tool.
| | 00:24 | But we will start with a Line
Segment tool and I will create a new print
| | 00:27 | document. I will just go ahead and make
sure that it's set to a landscape mode
| | 00:31 | just to make it easier to fit in
my screen, and I will click OK.
| | 00:34 | To draw a line that's very simple,
simply click and then drag in the direction
| | 00:38 | you want that line to go.
| | 00:39 | Now, you can use modifier keys to
adjust the shape as you draw it.
| | 00:43 | For example, holding down the Shift
key constrains your line to an angle.
| | 00:47 | I don't want to say that the Shift
key allows you to a draw straight line
| | 00:50 | because the line is always going to be
straight from the point that you start
| | 00:54 | to the point that you end.
| | 00:56 | In other words, it's not a curved path,
but the Shift key does allow you to
| | 00:59 | constrain to an angle of 45 degrees.
| | 01:02 | Notice as I move my cursor around here,
my line is always going to be drawn on
| | 01:06 | one of those angles. I can also use of
course the Spacebar key to reposition
| | 01:10 | that line and I could use the Option
key to draw that line out from the center
| | 01:14 | as well. If you know the exact
dimensions of the line that you are trying to
| | 01:18 | create, you can simply just click
once on the artboard to bring up the Line
| | 01:22 | Segment Tool Options dialog box where
you could enter the exact length and angle
| | 01:26 | of the line that you are trying to create.
| | 01:28 | I want to take a moment here to stop
and talk about this dialog box because there is
| | 01:32 | a very helpful feature that you have
inside of Illustrator that many people overlook.
| | 01:36 | You see right now the values that are
being displayed in this dialog box are
| | 01:41 | the values of the shape that I've
just created. This can be helpful where
| | 01:45 | sometimes you want to create a shape
just by eyeballing it and you like that
| | 01:48 | shape and you want to know exactly
what settings it was. Simply click once to
| | 01:52 | bring up the dialog box for that tool
to see those settings. This really by the
| | 01:56 | way works for all shape
tools inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:59 | So as an example if I click Cancel
right now and I hold my Shift key down and I
| | 02:04 | drag upwards just like this to
basically draw a line on a 90-degree angle,
| | 02:08 | now if I launch that dialog box by
clicking on my screen,I see that the line
| | 02:12 | that I've just created is 85
points and was drawn at 90 degrees.
| | 02:17 | It's just something to keep in mind when
you are working with other tools inside
| | 02:19 | of Illustrator as well.
| | 02:20 | Let's click Cancel here.
| | 02:22 | I'll delete these shapes and we will
take a look at the next tool here which is
| | 02:25 | the Arc tool. If I click and drag with
the Arc tool, you can see that I create
| | 02:29 | an arc. I can use the Modifier keys
the up and down arrows on my keyboard to
| | 02:34 | increase the radius of that arc or decrease it.
| | 02:37 | In fact I can also make a convex and
concave, although I will tell you there is
| | 02:40 | an easy way to simply flip an arc to be
convex or concave and that's by tapping
| | 02:45 | the X key on your keyboard.
| | 02:47 | Finally, even though this is technically
an open shape, you can type the C key on
| | 02:51 | your keyboard to create a
closed arc if you'd like to.
| | 02:54 | It's almost the wedge of a pie chart
for example. Though if you wanted specific
| | 02:58 | dimensions remember you can always click once
with the mouse and define that arc numerically.
| | 03:02 | We will tell you, however, that later on
in our training in this video title we
| | 03:07 | will cover different ways to draw
shapes inside of Illustrator and there is a
| | 03:10 | method called shape building.
| | 03:12 | It's a way of drawing complex
shapes in Illustrator by combining very
| | 03:15 | simple shapes and using tools like
the Shape Builder tool and a group of
| | 03:19 | functions called Pathfinder.
| | 03:21 | I only mention it because don't worry
about creating shapes exactly with these
| | 03:25 | tools right now. We may find it easier
to create these types of pie wedges or
| | 03:29 | other shapes using alternative methods.
| | 03:32 | I'll delete this shape for now and
let's now go back to the Tools panels and
| | 03:36 | take a look at creating spirals.
| | 03:37 | Almost as fun as using the Star tool,
you can click and drag to create a spiral,
| | 03:41 | use the up and down arrows to add or
remove segments in your spiral, and you can
| | 03:46 | control the decay of that spiral by
using the Command key or that would be the
| | 03:51 | Control key on Windows.
| | 03:53 | Release the mouse to commit that
shape to be artboard and remember that you
| | 03:56 | can always just click once to bring up the
Spiral dialog box to draw spirals numerically.
| | 04:01 | Now let's take a look at the two grid
tools that come with Illustrator.
| | 04:04 | Those are the Rectangular Grid
tool and the Polar Grid tool.
| | 04:07 | We will start with the Rectangle Grid
tool and I will click and drag to draw it
| | 04:11 | as if were creating a rectangle.
Remember that I could use the Option key to
| | 04:14 | drag out from the center. I could also
use the Spacebar key to reposition it.
| | 04:18 | But let's focus on the grid itself.
As I hold the mouse button down, I can use
| | 04:22 | the following modifier keys to adjust
the grid. The up and down arrows will
| | 04:27 | allow me to add or remove the number
of rows in my grid and I could use the
| | 04:32 | right and left arrows on my keyboard to
adjust the number of columns in my grid.
| | 04:37 | I can also use the X and the C keys to
skew the number of columns to the left
| | 04:42 | and right of my grid and I can use the
F and the V keys to skew the number of
| | 04:47 | rows towards the top or bottom of my grid.
| | 04:50 | Once I release the mouse however, I can
no longer adjust the number of columns
| | 04:54 | or rows using these methods. Again if
you really know in advance how many rows
| | 04:58 | and columns you need and exactly what
size you need to create them at, just
| | 05:02 | click once with the mouse anywhere on
your artboard and specify the values
| | 05:05 | numerically. We can use the same keyboard
modifiers to create some really cool Polar Grids.
| | 05:10 | I'll choose the Polar Grid tool, I will
click and drag to draw, and notice now by
| | 05:15 | using the up and down arrows, I can
add more concentric circles. The right and
| | 05:19 | left arrows allow me to add more
divisions. And I can skew all of these settings
| | 05:24 | by using the X and C keys or the F and V keys.
| | 05:28 | Releasing the mouse commits
the shape to your artboard.
| | 05:31 | So now that you know how to create the basic
primitive shapes inside Illustrator, you
| | 05:35 | can start drawing shapes inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:37 | Remember that all these shapes
automatically create the anchor points and paths
| | 05:41 | for you and you're already well on your
way to creating more customized shapes
| | 05:45 | in Illustrator as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding anchor points| 00:00 | The next drawing tool that we are going to
cover inside of Illustrator is the Pen tool.
| | 00:05 | But before we learn how to use the
tool itself, we have to understand what
| | 00:08 | the Pen tool creates.
| | 00:10 | You see at the very core of vector
graphics is something called an anchor point.
| | 00:14 | These anchor points are connected by paths.
| | 00:17 | However, when we use the Pen tool
we don't really draw paths at all.
| | 00:21 | What we end up doing is plotting where
these anchor points go and Illustrator
| | 00:25 | then connects these dots by drawing the paths.
| | 00:27 | When we use the primitive shape tools,
for example, the Rectangle tool inside of
| | 00:31 | Illustrator, we are just drawing the
rectangle and Illustrator automatically
| | 00:35 | creates both the anchor
points and the paths for us.
| | 00:38 | But when we use the Pen tool we are free
to draw any shape that we desire and we
| | 00:42 | do so by plotting these anchor points.
| | 00:45 | The analogy that I would like to use
when thinking about how the Pen tool works
| | 00:49 | is something called string Aart.
| | 00:50 | It is where you take a block of wood
and you tap these nails into the wood
| | 00:54 | but you leave parts of the nails
sticking out of the wood and then you take
| | 00:57 | string and you wrap the
string around those nails.
| | 01:00 | In that example, each of the nails
would be anchor points and the thread that
| | 01:04 | you put around those nails could be the path.
| | 01:07 | When drawing the Pen tool in Illustrator,
imagine you had a hammer in your hand
| | 01:11 | and you were tapping these nails into the wood.
| | 01:13 | You're not drawing the paths.
| | 01:15 | You're not working with the string.
| | 01:16 | You're just creating the structure for
where those paths are eventually going to go.
| | 01:20 | So let's talk a little bit
more about these anchor points.
| | 01:23 | First of all it is important to
realize that there are really two different
| | 01:26 | types of anchor points inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:28 | The most basic and simple one is
something called the corner anchor point.
| | 01:31 | This is where two or more points
are connected by a straight line.
| | 01:35 | For example, as you see here a rectangle
would have four different anchor points
| | 01:40 | and Illustrator would connect all
those anchor points with straight paths.
| | 01:43 | When we start working with anchor
points, you will also notice that when an
| | 01:46 | anchor point is a filled solid,
| | 01:47 | that means that it is currently selected.
| | 01:49 | Hollow anchor points, however,
indicate that those are not selected.
| | 01:53 | Now corner anchor points are
used to create straight lines.
| | 01:56 | But what happens when you
want to create a curved line?
| | 01:59 | Well, an anchor point that has a
curved line running through it is called a
| | 02:03 | smooth anchor point.
| | 02:04 | When you are using smooth anchor
points, Illustrator doesn't connect those
| | 02:07 | points with a straight path.
| | 02:09 | Rather it connects them with a curved path.
| | 02:12 | These smooth anchor points have an
additional attribute called the control handle.
| | 02:16 | The position of these control handles
control exactly how that curve is drawn
| | 02:21 | between the anchor points.
| | 02:22 | To get a better idea of how that works,
imagine as if these anchor points were
| | 02:26 | actually connected with straight lines.
| | 02:28 | The control handles act as if
they have some kind of magnetic or
| | 02:31 | gravitational pull.
| | 02:33 | By adjusting these control handles,
you can specify exactly how each curved line
| | 02:38 | connects to each smooth anchor point.
| | 02:40 | Another thing to note about smooth
anchor points is that the path travels
| | 02:44 | directly through the actual anchor
point itself and the anchor point acts as a
| | 02:49 | tangent to that curve.
| | 02:50 | As we start using the Pen
tool, we will learn two things.
| | 02:53 | First of all, it will take some
practice to figure out exactly where we should
| | 02:57 | be plotting the anchor points.
| | 02:59 | Second, we will learn how to adjust
the control handles to get the curve to
| | 03:03 | match exactly what we are looking for.
| | 03:05 | So we know what a corner anchor point is
and we know what a smooth anchor point is.
| | 03:09 | However, there's also one other kind of
anchor point, which is called a change
| | 03:14 | direction anchor point.
| | 03:15 | That's where you have a curved path
that enters the anchor point, but when
| | 03:19 | that path leaves that anchor point, it is
traveling in a completely different direction.
| | 03:23 | It's really actually kind of a hybrid
between a smooth and a corner anchor point.
| | 03:28 | It acts as a corner anchor point
because the path changes direction, yet it
| | 03:32 | acts like a smooth anchor point
because it has control handles to help you
| | 03:36 | define a curve to that path.
| | 03:37 | Now that we know all about anchor
points and control handles, we are ready to
| | 03:41 | start drawing with the Pen tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing straight paths with the Pen tool| 00:00 | Perhaps one of the first tools added to
Illustrator, the Pen tool really defines
| | 00:05 | the entire application.
| | 00:06 | One of the really nice things that
Adobe has done over the years is make sure
| | 00:10 | that the Pen tool, which is present
in other applications, for example,
| | 00:13 | Photoshop, InDesign, Flash,
Fireworks, acts consistently.
| | 00:18 | Meaning what you learn here can
easily be applied elsewhere as well.
| | 00:21 | Now remember with the Pen tool itself,
we don't actually draw the paths.
| | 00:26 | We plot anchor points.
| | 00:28 | Since anchor points can be connected by
both straight lines and curved lines,
| | 00:32 | we have to create different types of anchor points.
| | 00:34 | Corner anchor points are
connected by straight lines.
| | 00:36 | Smooth anchor points are
connected by curved lines.
| | 00:40 | To start off with the Pen tool we will
be creating straight lines so we need to
| | 00:44 | create corner anchor points.
| | 00:46 | These are also the most
straightforward and simple to create.
| | 00:49 | I will start by coming over here to
the Pen tool inside of Illustrator and
| | 00:53 | I'll click on it to select it, and
also just to make things a little bit
| | 00:56 | easier to see on the screen, I am going to
specify a really thick stroke that we can work with.
| | 01:00 | We will learn more about fills and
strokes in another chapter in this title.
| | 01:04 | But for now, I am going to come here to
the top of the Control panel and change
| | 01:08 | my fill volor to none, and I am going
to change the stroke weight, meaning the
| | 01:13 | thickness of the stroke, to 4 points.
| | 01:16 | Now I am working in this document.
| | 01:17 | It is called pentool_exercises and
I have several artboards in this file.
| | 01:21 | So what I am looking at right now is
the first artboard in the document.
| | 01:25 | If I come over here to the
Artboards panel, you'll see it is called
| | 01:28 | corner anchor points.
| | 01:29 | I will just double-click on it to make
sure that this one is currently in view.
| | 01:32 | The first thing to realize about
using the Pen tool is that it doesn't work
| | 01:36 | like a real pen tool.
| | 01:37 | For example, if you have got a piece
of paper in front of you with the pen in
| | 01:40 | your hand, you would press the tip of
the pen to paper and then drag across the
| | 01:44 | paper to create a line.
| | 01:46 | However, remember with the Pen tool we
are not drawing the path itself. We are
| | 01:50 | just defining where the anchor points live.
| | 01:52 | So for a moment, if you were drawing
that same line, close your eyes and imagine
| | 01:56 | how you might draw it if you were
creating a connect-the-dots exercise.
| | 02:00 | You would draw a dot where you want
to start your path, and then you draw
| | 02:03 | another path, and then you draw
another dot where you want to end that path.
| | 02:07 | So to begin working with the Pen tool,
I'm going to first click in one area and
| | 02:11 | then release the mouse. Click and release.
| | 02:13 | What I've just done now is I
have defined my first anchor point.
| | 02:16 | I don't see anything on my screen, because
Illustrator has nowhere to draw that path.
| | 02:20 | I have one point.
| | 02:22 | I need to create a least two points
to have something appear on my screen.
| | 02:25 | So now what I need to do, I am no
longer holding the mouse button down.
| | 02:28 | I am going to move my cursor
somewhere else on my screen where I want the
| | 02:32 | second anchor point to go.
| | 02:33 | I will click and then once
again release the mouse immediately.
| | 02:36 | Now with two anchor points,
Illustrator automatically connected those two
| | 02:40 | anchor points with a line.
| | 02:42 | It is a straight line, because what I've
just defined are two corner anchor points.
| | 02:47 | Another important thing to realize
about how Illustrator works with the Pen
| | 02:50 | tool is that as I am working,
Illustrator now is expecting that I now create a
| | 02:55 | third anchor point.
| | 02:56 | We discussed earlier that anchor
points are either hollow or solid.
| | 03:01 | As you can see right now have a hollow
anchor point here and a solid anchor point here.
| | 03:06 | When I have an anchor point selected
and I have the Pen tool selected, I now
| | 03:10 | just created an anchor point.
| | 03:11 | Illustrator now assumes I'm now
going to create a third anchor point.
| | 03:15 | So if I move my cursor somewhere
right now and I click, notice now that
| | 03:18 | Illustrator continues that line to now
connect with this third anchor point.
| | 03:23 | This can be somewhat confusing to new
users because let's say I now want to
| | 03:27 | start drawing another line.
| | 03:28 | If I move my cursor over here and I
start clicking, which I think is going to
| | 03:32 | be a new line, Illustrator actually thinks
I am now adding a fourth point to that path.
| | 03:37 | In order for you to create a brand-new line--
I am going to press Undo for a moment here.
| | 03:41 | I need to actually deselect this path.
| | 03:43 | Normally I would have to use the
Selection tool, click somewhere on artboard to
| | 03:47 | deselect it, and then move on.
| | 03:48 | However, using the keyboard shortcut,
the Command key on my keyboard or if you
| | 03:53 | are Windows that will be the Ctrl key,
| | 03:55 | you can temporarily switch to the
Selection tool, click anywhere on your
| | 03:58 | screen to deselect everything, and then
release the Command key to then return
| | 04:02 | back to the Pen tool.
| | 04:03 | Now take a really close
look at the Pen tool right now.
| | 04:06 | You can see the Pen tool icon, but it
also has a little X that appears just at
| | 04:10 | the bottom right of it.
| | 04:11 | That X indicates that Illustrator's Pen tool
is now ready to start creating a brand-new path.
| | 04:17 | In fact, as we use the Pen tool more
and more, you will learn to identify small
| | 04:21 | nuances in the Pen tool icon. While
subtle in appearance, these little different
| | 04:26 | icons actually help us understand
what the Pen tool is about to do.
| | 04:30 | So now when I click to define a new
anchor point, I'm actually creating a new path.
| | 04:35 | Once again, I'll move my cursor elsewhere
and click to actually draw that path.
| | 04:40 | So again, the experience is more
of me plotting the anchor points and
| | 04:43 | Illustrator connecting the dots.
| | 04:45 | Now that we understand how to create
corner anchor points, let's actually create
| | 04:49 | a shape using the Pen tool.
| | 04:50 | I am going to press Command+A to select
all and then Delete to remove the paths
| | 04:54 | that we just created.
| | 04:55 | I am also going to Command+Click now my
artboard to make sure that my Pen tool
| | 04:59 | is ready to start creating a new path.
| | 05:01 | Let's create a triangle.
| | 05:03 | I have some basic instructions here in
the background of my document which will
| | 05:07 | help us create the shape.
| | 05:09 | But remember, when you start using the
Pen tool the hardest part of your job is
| | 05:13 | to visualize where those
anchor points need to be positioned.
| | 05:16 | Once you become comfortable with that,
you'll find the Pen tool is really not
| | 05:20 | that difficult to use.
| | 05:21 | So let's begin here.
| | 05:22 | Step one, I will click and
now I will release the mouse.
| | 05:25 | By the way take a look right now at my icon.
| | 05:27 | It has a little minus sign next to it.
| | 05:30 | That's because Illustrator's Pen
tool has a preference, which is on by
| | 05:33 | default, that automatically senses that maybe
I actually want to remove that anchor point.
| | 05:38 | So by clicking on an existing
anchor point it will delete it.
| | 05:41 | I don't want to do that here, so I am
just going to move my cursor elsewhere.
| | 05:44 | Now that I have plotted my first anchor
point, and again my goal is to create
| | 05:47 | a triangle, I am going to visualize in my
mind where should that other anchor point go.
| | 05:51 | Well, if you think over here that I have
the three dots, right, and that's where
| | 05:54 | my triangle is going to go, the next
anchor point should go right over here.
| | 05:58 | So I have step two, click over here.
| | 06:00 | We will click and release
the mouse on this point.
| | 06:02 | Don't worry if it is
exactly on that area or not.
| | 06:04 | We are not trying to make the
world's most perfect triangle here.
| | 06:07 | We are just trying to
learn how to use the Pen tool.
| | 06:09 | So at this point I've now
created two anchor points.
| | 06:12 | They're both corner anchor points and
therefore a straight line connects the two of them.
| | 06:16 | Now I need to define a third anchor point.
| | 06:19 | I am going to move my cursor on the
left over here to where I have this square
| | 06:22 | indicated, and I'll click now
to create my third anchor point.
| | 06:25 | Now I am actually going
to press Undo for a second.
| | 06:27 | You can see that the line is
not so perfect and straight.
| | 06:29 | I just want to share with you a nice way
that you can use Illustrator to be more
| | 06:33 | precise in the work that you create.
| | 06:35 | I am going to press Undo and I am going
to hold down my Shift key when I click.
| | 06:39 | When I do so, the Illustrator will
make sure that this anchor point is at the
| | 06:43 | same constraint angle as the
previous anchor point that I created.
| | 06:47 | As you'll find with many tools inside
of Illustrator, the Shift key always acts
| | 06:51 | as a constrain function.
| | 06:53 | Now I have three anchor points.
| | 06:54 | But I haven't really told
Illustrator to close off this shape.
| | 06:58 | So what I am going to do now is I am
going to return my cursor back to the
| | 07:01 | original anchor point that I created,
and notice what happens when I do that.
| | 07:04 | As my cursor comes to that area a
little circle appears just at the bottom
| | 07:08 | right of my cursor.
| | 07:10 | The circle indicates that I am
now about to create a closed path.
| | 07:14 | So I'll click and
Illustrator now completes my triangle.
| | 07:17 | So at this point you should have a
general understanding of how to create corner
| | 07:20 | anchor points inside of Illustrator.
| | 07:22 | Remember, we don't click and drag
with the Pen tool. We click to place our
| | 07:26 | anchor points and Illustrator
connects those with the paths.
| | 07:30 | Once I have closed my path,
Illustrator's Pen tool returns back to the little X
| | 07:34 | icon indicating it's now
ready to create a new shape.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing curved paths with the Pen tool| 00:00 | So we know that when using the Pen
tool in Illustrator, when I click once to
| | 00:04 | define an anchor point, I'm
creating a corner anchor point.
| | 00:08 | That means that those anchor
points are connected by straight lines.
| | 00:12 | However, what happens when the
design calls for the use of a curved line?
| | 00:15 | In order to do that, we'll need to
learn how to create smooth anchor points.
| | 00:20 | To make things more visible inside of
Illustrator as we draw, I'm going to
| | 00:23 | change my fill to None.
| | 00:25 | I'm going to leave my stroke set to Black.
| | 00:28 | But I'm going to change my
stroke weight to 4 points.
| | 00:31 | Now I'm also going to select my Pen tool.
| | 00:34 | Now you already know that to create a
straight line you need corner anchor
| | 00:37 | points, where you click, release the
mouse, reposition your cursor, click again
| | 00:41 | to create that straight line.
| | 00:42 | The process of creating smooth anchor
points is just a little bit different.
| | 00:46 | So I'm going to press Command+A and
delete the path that we've just created.
| | 00:49 | And I'm not going to click, but
now I'm going to drag the mouse.
| | 00:53 | I'm not going to click and release.
| | 00:55 | I'm going to click and drag
and notice what happens here.
| | 00:58 | I create an anchor point, but I'm also
pulling out control handles from that anchor point.
| | 01:03 | Remember the control handles are going to
define the direction of that curved path.
| | 01:08 | For now, let's not worry about exactly
what direction that path is going in.
| | 01:12 | We just want to create a curved path.
| | 01:14 | So now when I pulled out the control
handle to where I want it, I'm going
| | 01:18 | to release the mouse.
| | 01:19 | Now, as we did before, I'm going to
move my cursor to where I want the
| | 01:24 | second anchor point to go.
| | 01:25 | Once again, I'm going to click and then drag.
| | 01:28 | Notice that now I've created a curved line.
| | 01:30 | I still have the same two anchor points.
| | 01:33 | But now these anchor points are
smooth anchor points with control handles.
| | 01:37 | And rather than a straight-line
connecting these two anchor points, the control
| | 01:41 | handles define a curved path that connects them.
| | 01:44 | I'll press Command+A and delete these
paths, and let's actually create a shape.
| | 01:48 | In this document, the pentool_
exercises.ai file, I'm going to open up
| | 01:52 | my Artboards panel
| | 01:53 | and I'm going to double-
click on smooth anchor points.
| | 01:56 | In this example, we're going
to create a basic round shape.
| | 01:59 | Remember, the whole challenge of using
the Pen tool is really figuring out where
| | 02:02 | the anchor points and the
control handles need to go.
| | 02:05 | So I have some basic instructions that
are here, which we can use as a guide
| | 02:09 | just to get some comfort or level
of familiarity with what we're doing.
| | 02:13 | I'll begin by positioning my cursor right here.
| | 02:16 | I'm going to click
and drag towards the right.
| | 02:19 | By the way, what I'm doing right now
is I'm also holding down the Shift key.
| | 02:22 | The Shift key allows me to constrain
the direction in which I'm pulling out
| | 02:25 | those control handles.
| | 02:26 | For example, without the Shift key down,
I can pull handles out in almost any direction.
| | 02:31 | With the Shift key held though,
I'm constrained to 45 degree angles.
| | 02:35 | So I'm going to hold down the Shift key and
pull the handle out to just about here.
| | 02:40 | Now I'm going to release the mouse.
| | 02:41 | What I've justify defined
now is a smooth anchor point.
| | 02:45 | I'm now going to move my cursor on the
right side, right about over here, and
| | 02:48 | once again I'm going to
click, hold the Shift key down.
| | 02:51 | I'm going to drag that
cursor down to about over here.
| | 02:54 | So let's see what we've just created now.
| | 02:55 | We've created the first
arch or a part of our circle.
| | 02:58 | The only thing that's different here in
this case is we're clicking and dragging
| | 03:02 | with the mouse when we define an
anchor point, instead of just clicking and
| | 03:05 | releasing right away.
| | 03:07 | Next, I'll move my cursor down to
the bottom over here and I'll click.
| | 03:10 | And then once again drag to
bring my control handle to this point.
| | 03:15 | Now I'll move my cursor here, because I
want another anchor point to go in this
| | 03:18 | location. Click, hold, and drag
upwards while holding the Shift key.
| | 03:23 | And then finally, I've return back to
the original point to close my path.
| | 03:27 | See now that circle appears letting
me know I'm about to close this shape.
| | 03:31 | And once again I will click, hold the mouse,
| | 03:33 | and then drag the Shift key to make sure
that now I get a control handle on both
| | 03:38 | sides to that anchor point
and then release the mouse.
| | 03:41 | And now we've created a
circle inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:43 | We were able to do this because we
were creating smooth anchor points, not
| | 03:48 | corner anchor points.
| | 03:50 | At this point we really just want to
get familiar with when we want to click
| | 03:53 | with the Pen tool and when we want
to click and drag with the Pen tool.
| | 03:56 | Don't worry if the
control handles are not perfect.
| | 03:59 | We can always adjust those later.
| | 04:00 | But for now, it's getting
comfortable learning how to use this tool.
| | 04:04 | In fact, let's explore one other way to create
shapes inside of Illustrator with the Pen tool.
| | 04:08 | Let's create a shape that uses
the change direction anchor points.
| | 04:12 | Remember those are anchor points that
actually are a combination of the corner
| | 04:15 | and smooth anchor points, where the
anchor points allow the path to completely
| | 04:19 | change direction, but also I have
control handles to allow a curve.
| | 04:24 | So I'll double-click where it says
Change Direction Anchor Points here.
| | 04:27 | And let's take a look at this exercise.
| | 04:29 | Again, with my Pen tool selected, I'm
not going to position my cursor right over
| | 04:33 | here and I'm going to click and
then drag down to this point right here.
| | 04:37 | I am holding down the Shift key to
ensure that my control handle is being pulled
| | 04:41 | out on a straight line.
| | 04:42 | Now I'll release the mouse.
| | 04:44 | I'm now going to come here to this location.
| | 04:46 | And I'm not going to click and drag.
| | 04:48 | I am now going to click just once.
| | 04:50 | Remember that when I click once, that
defines a corner anchor point, not a
| | 04:54 | smooth anchor point.
| | 04:55 | In other words, at this point right
now there is not a control handle that's
| | 04:59 | available for this anchor
point that I've created.
| | 05:01 | But I do want the next path to come out
of this anchor point with a control handle.
| | 05:06 | So what I'm going to do is I'm going
to click on this anchor point right now.
| | 05:09 | Click, hold the mouse button down, and
then with the Shift key down as well,
| | 05:13 | drag out a control handle,
just to about over here.
| | 05:17 | Once again I'm going to position my
cursor here and I'm not going to click
| | 05:20 | once with the mouse.
| | 05:21 | So you see what happened here? I now
have a new anchor point that I've just
| | 05:26 | created which is a corner anchor point,
but because in the previous anchor
| | 05:30 | points, I pulled out a control handle,
I've created that change direction point.
| | 05:34 | Let's do that again.
| | 05:36 | Click, drag down to here, release the
mouse, move my cursor here, and click once.
| | 05:42 | In this way I was able to combine both a
smooth and a corner anchor point to get
| | 05:47 | a shape where rather than the path
running straight through the anchor point,
| | 05:52 | it actually stopped short at the anchor
point and completely changed direction.
| | 05:56 | Now working with the Pen
tool requires a lot of practice,
| | 05:59 | especially when dealing
with smooth anchor points.
| | 06:01 | So let's take just a few moments to
try three different exercises that will
| | 06:05 | allow us to learn more about how the Pen tool
works when creating these types of anchor points.
| | 06:09 | In the Artboards panel, I'm
going to double-click on Exercise_1.
| | 06:13 | Using the Pen tool, I'm going to
start over here and click with the mouse.
| | 06:17 | You can see that even
professionals make mistakes sometimes.
| | 06:21 | I wasn't paying attention to my Pen tool cursor.
| | 06:23 | What I needed to see was a cursor that
had a little X next to it, identifying
| | 06:27 | that Illustrator was ready to create a new path.
| | 06:29 | You see I was still creating the
path we've just created a moment ago.
| | 06:33 | Illustrator thinks that I still want
to continue that path, so it connected
| | 06:36 | now the anchor point that I've just created
with the last anchor point that I was working on.
| | 06:41 | I'm going to press Undo, and I'm going
to press the Command key to temporarily
| | 06:45 | change to my Selection tool.
| | 06:47 | Click now on the artboard, which
is going to deselect the path that was
| | 06:51 | selected on the other artboard.
Now when I return back to the Pen tool by
| | 06:55 | releasing the Command key, I now have a
cursor that has the little X next to it,
| | 06:59 | which identifies that Illustrator is
now ready to begin creating a new path.
| | 07:03 | So now, I'll position my cursor
over this point and I'll click
| | 07:07 | and then drag with the mouse.
| | 07:08 | I'm using the Shift key actually now,
because it will constrain this to a 45 degree
| | 07:13 | angle, and I'll drag it out all the
way to here and then release the mouse.
| | 07:16 | I've just defined my first smooth anchor point.
| | 07:19 | Next, I'll move my cursor
all the way down over here.
| | 07:23 | I'll hold down the Shift key once again.
| | 07:25 | And I'll click and drag
to this point and release.
| | 07:28 | So now we've created an S-curve
by creating two anchor points.
| | 07:33 | The control handles pull that path in
different directions to give me that S-curve.
| | 07:38 | This time to make sure that I'm now
going to create a new path, I'm going to
| | 07:41 | press the Command key, click on a blank
area to deselect the path, and now you'll
| | 07:45 | see my Pen tool has the X next to it.
| | 07:47 | Let's go to Exercise_2.
| | 07:48 | I'm going to double-click in
the Artboards panel on Exercise_2
| | 07:52 | and let's a look at the shape that this creates.
| | 07:54 | Let's start over here by step one.
| | 07:56 | I'm going to click with my cursor right here.
| | 07:58 | Hold down the Shift key and
drag upwards. Release the mouse.
| | 08:02 | And now I'm going to move my cursor
here and I'm going to click and drag in
| | 08:05 | the opposite direction.
| | 08:07 | I'm still holding the Shift key as I
do this, because I want to pull that
| | 08:10 | control handle on a straight line.
When I come down to this point,
| | 08:13 | I'll release the mouse.
| | 08:14 | So I've just created an arch.
| | 08:16 | I'll move the cursor here.
| | 08:18 | Click, drag upwards, once again, move
the cursor here, click and then drag down.
| | 08:23 | We aren't creating any fancy shapes right now.
| | 08:26 | But I've created these exercises that
you should become more familiar with
| | 08:29 | smooth anchor points inside of Illustrator.
| | 08:31 | Let's do one final exercise.
| | 08:33 | I'll come down here to
Exercise_3 in the Artboards panel.
| | 08:36 | I'll remember to hold down the Command
key, click on the artboard to deselect
| | 08:40 | the previous path, and I'll begin drawing a new path.
| | 08:42 | I'll click over here and then drag
down to the bottom, release the mouse.
| | 08:46 | Now last time we actually clicked here
and then released the mouse immediately
| | 08:51 | to create a corner anchor point here,
but I want to create a smooth anchor point
| | 08:55 | where the path will go
completely through this anchor point.
| | 08:59 | So I'm going to click and then
drag in one motion down to here.
| | 09:02 | Once again, I'm going to click,
drag, release, click, drag, release.
| | 09:08 | And now you can see that rather than
the path stopping at this anchor point and
| | 09:12 | changing direction, the path
actually comes up over here and then travels
| | 09:16 | directly through the
anchor point on its way down.
| | 09:19 | So hopefully, these exercises have given
you some experience in using the Pen tool.
| | 09:23 | You learned how to create corner,
smooth, and change direction anchor points.
| | 09:28 | On a basic level it's just knowing when
to click and release the mouse or when
| | 09:31 | to click and drag with the mouse.
| | 09:33 | With a little more practice, you'll
learn to anticipate exactly where you need
| | 09:37 | to place the anchor points to
create the shapes that you have in mind.
| | 09:41 | Once you learn to do that, you'll find
that you'll appreciate the precision that
| | 09:44 | the Pen tool offers in Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing freeform paths with the Pencil tool| 00:00 | In learning about the Pen tool, we've
come to understand that when we use the
| | 00:05 | Pen tool, we're actually plotting
anchor points and Illustrator automatically
| | 00:08 | connects all those anchor points with the path.
| | 00:11 | And it really requires us to imagine
where those anchor points are going to go.
| | 00:15 | However, there is another
tool inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:17 | It's called the Pencil tool.
| | 00:19 | And it works in the exact
opposite way that the Pen tool works.
| | 00:22 | In other words, it allows us to
draw the paths and then Illustrator
| | 00:26 | automatically figures out
where the anchor points need to go.
| | 00:29 | In other words, the Pencil tool
really mimics the way that you currently
| | 00:32 | interact with the pencil on a paper.
| | 00:34 | Let's take a look at how the Pencil tool works.
| | 00:37 | I'm going to create a new document.
| | 00:38 | I'll use a Print profile and I'll click OK.
| | 00:41 | And I'm going to switch now to the
Pencil tool, which you'll find right over
| | 00:43 | here inside of the Tools panel.
| | 00:45 | Now I'll be honest with you.
| | 00:46 | If you're trying to use the Pencil
tool and you have a mouse in your hand,
| | 00:49 | it can be very difficult to get good results.
| | 00:52 | That's because you're not really used
to sketching with a big object in your
| | 00:55 | hand. Usually, you have a very
slender thing like a pencil for example.
| | 00:59 | For this exercise, I'm actually going to
use a pressure-sensitive pen tablet by Wacom.
| | 01:03 | Now the way that you use the Pencil tool
is you put your cursor somewhere on the
| | 01:06 | page, and then you click
and drag to draw the path.
| | 01:09 | Illustrator now automatically figured out
where the anchor points in that path need to go.
| | 01:13 | But there's some really cool
functionality that's built-in to the Pencil tool.
| | 01:17 | You know, normally as an artist, if you
think about having a pencil in your hand
| | 01:20 | and sketching something on a piece
of paper, you don't always draw things
| | 01:23 | perfectly the first time.
| | 01:25 | Sometimes you'll sketch out basic ideas
very lightly in pencil and then you'll
| | 01:28 | go over that sketch again and again
with the pencil making darker lines.
| | 01:32 | Well, with Illustrator's Pencil tool,
once you create the path, it's there.
| | 01:36 | However, if you want to make small
modifications to it, you can simply take your
| | 01:39 | cursor and draw over that part of
the path that you want to modify.
| | 01:43 | And Illustrator will
automatically update it as you draw over it.
| | 01:46 | If I wanted to add a little bit of
curve here to the end of the path, I could
| | 01:48 | simply come here and drag
over to make that happen.
| | 01:51 | If I were making some kind of a flower
with some leaves on it, for example,
| | 01:55 | I might draw a stem line down at the
middle here and I may create some kind of a
| | 01:58 | leaf here, and if I wanted to now
adjust the way that this edge looks for the
| | 02:01 | leaf, I can simply draw over it to
make it look a little bit different.
| | 02:04 | Let's say something like that and
then I want to create the other part of
| | 02:07 | the leaf on this side.
| | 02:08 | But watch what happens if I try to
drag too close to this one. Notice that it
| | 02:11 | replaces that path with the
new path that I just created.
| | 02:14 | That's because Illustrator thought
that I wanted to modify my existing path.
| | 02:18 | To understand how to fix this
problem, let's take a look at some of the
| | 02:21 | preferences for the Pencil tool.
| | 02:23 | I'm going to go to the Pencil
tool directly and double-click on it.
| | 02:26 | That brings up the Pencil
Tool Options dialog box.
| | 02:28 | Now the first two settings here
for Tolerances, both for Fidelity and
| | 02:32 | Smoothness, help me
control how smooth my line is.
| | 02:35 | If you're using a mouse, you might want
to increase the Smoothness somewhat so
| | 02:39 | that Illustrator smoothes
out any bumps in the path.
| | 02:42 | If you've got a pen tablet though,
you might be able to afford to go with
| | 02:45 | something a little bit lower.
| | 02:46 | More importantly though are the
options here towards the bottom.
| | 02:48 | There were two settings that are
turned by default in Illustrator.
| | 02:51 | One is called Keep Selected.
| | 02:53 | This means that when I draw a
path, that path remains selected.
| | 02:57 | Second, there's a setting
here called Edit selected path.
| | 03:00 | This is the feature that allows me to draw
over a path and change its shape in doing so.
| | 03:05 | That feature kicks in whenever my
cursor is within 12 pixels of the path as
| | 03:10 | defined right here.
| | 03:11 | I'll be honest with you.
| | 03:12 | I really don't want to give up that feature.
| | 03:14 | I like the ability to draw over a
path to make a modification to it.
| | 03:17 | However, I want to have full
control of when that happens.
| | 03:20 | As such, what I'm going to do is I'm
going to do deselect the Keep Selected option.
| | 03:24 | Now only the Edit selected
paths option is turned on.
| | 03:27 | So I'm going to click OK.
| | 03:29 | Now whenever I draw a path,
the path is not selected.
| | 03:32 | That means I can very easily draw
other paths right near it without any worry
| | 03:36 | about me making modifications to the path.
| | 03:38 | Now let's say I created a path over here
and I realize I want to change how that
| | 03:41 | looks. I'll hold down the Command key,
which is the keyboard shortcut to
| | 03:45 | temporarily return me to the Selection tool.
| | 03:47 | Now, I'll select this path.
| | 03:49 | And now that it's selected, I can
draw over it to modify its appearance.
| | 03:52 | When working with Illustrator though,
we know that there are two types of
| | 03:55 | paths we can create.
| | 03:57 | Both open and closed paths.
| | 03:58 | Everything we've been creating
here so far has been an open path.
| | 04:02 | However, when you're trying to create
close paths, it can be very difficult to
| | 04:05 | do that with the Pencil tool.
| | 04:06 | You'll notice that right now next to
my cursor, there's a little X.
| | 04:10 | That identifies that now the next shape that
I draw is going to be a brand-new shape.
| | 04:13 | Similar to the Pencil tool, when I'm about
to close the shape, a little O will appear.
| | 04:18 | So if I wanted to create some kind of a
shape that was closed, I might come over
| | 04:21 | here and start drawing.
| | 04:22 | And notice now that as I come close to
where I started drawing that might turn
| | 04:26 | into a little O. However, it's really
hard to get over that spot and make it
| | 04:29 | appear as if it's closed.
| | 04:31 | So to do so inside of Illustrator, when
you're drawing with the Pencil tool, you
| | 04:34 | can hold down the Option key.
| | 04:35 | The Option key tells Illustrator,
make sure the path is closed.
| | 04:39 | And if I don't really even come close
to where that area is when I release the
| | 04:42 | mouse, or in this case I stop drawing
with the pen, Illustrator automatically
| | 04:46 | draws a line to connect and close the path.
| | 04:49 | Now on one level, you might think
to yourself, why deal with having to
| | 04:52 | worry about what kind of anchor
points there are and where to position the
| | 04:55 | anchor points with the Pen tool,
when I could simply draw whatever I want
| | 04:59 | with the pencil tool?
| | 05:00 | The answer is that that Pencil tool
itself draws free-form paths, but it's very
| | 05:04 | difficult to control exactly what
those paths are going to look like.
| | 05:08 | If you wanted to create a shape of an
exact size, it's hard to eyeball it as
| | 05:11 | you're drawing on the screen.
| | 05:13 | However, with the Pen tool, you can be
very precise and click in very specific areas.
| | 05:18 | Due to the nature of most vector
graphics that are usually very precise,
| | 05:22 | you'll end up using the Pen tool
a lot more often than the Pencil tool.
| | 05:25 | However, when you're drawing
something more freeform, the Pencil tool is a
| | 05:28 | great way to get some paths into
your design inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Smoothing and erasing paths| 00:00 | When using the Pencil tool inside of
Illustrator, you may find it difficult to
| | 00:04 | get really nice looking smooth paths.
| | 00:07 | This happens more often when you're
using a mouse with the Pencil tool, but it
| | 00:10 | can happen when using a tablet also.
| | 00:13 | After all Illustrator is simply trying
to keep up with the paths that you create.
| | 00:17 | But the truth is you really don't need
to worry about this because there is a
| | 00:20 | tool inside of
Illustrator to help you modify that.
| | 00:22 | Let's take a quick look.
| | 00:24 | I am going to jump into a new document.
| | 00:25 | I'll use the Print profile and I'll click OK.
| | 00:28 | And I'll use the Pencil tool here
to draw a few paths to my screen.
| | 00:32 | May be I'll create some kind of
a basic outline of a flower here.
| | 00:34 | So let's create this.
| | 00:36 | Let's create some nice
looking leaves here for now.
| | 00:40 | I'll hold down my Command key to
select all these elements and just move this
| | 00:44 | down just a little bit here.
| | 00:45 | Command+Click to deselect them, and add
some kind of a daisy type of flower here.
| | 00:51 | Now say I want to focus on making some
of these paths a little bit more smooth.
| | 00:54 | If you click and hold the mouse on the
Pencil tool, you'll see that there are
| | 00:57 | two additional tools grouped
together with the Pencil tool.
| | 01:00 | One is called the Smooth tool and
one is called the Path Eraser tool.
| | 01:03 | For now, let's go ahead and
work with the Smooth tool.
| | 01:06 | The Smooth tool only works on selected paths.
| | 01:09 | So if I want to focus on the stem
for a moment, I'll go ahead now and
| | 01:12 | I'll click on this.
| | 01:13 | Notice now that my cursor has
changed to the Selection tool.
| | 01:16 | That's because I'm now pressing the
Command key on my keyboard to select that.
| | 01:20 | Upon releasing the Command key I am
returned back now to the Smooth tool.
| | 01:23 | And I'll simply draw over
this path to smooth it out.
| | 01:26 | See how those anchor points went away?
| | 01:28 | That's because Illustrator
adjusted the path as I painted over it.
| | 01:31 | I am going to hold down the Command
key once again to switch to my Selection
| | 01:34 | tool and select this path right over here.
| | 01:36 | And now I can go and start dragging
on this one to smooth this one out.
| | 01:39 | Just by dragging over different areas
I'm smoothing out that part of the path.
| | 01:43 | In fact, smoothing is something that you
do so often that Illustrator gave us an
| | 01:47 | additional keyboard
shortcut to help us work faster.
| | 01:50 | For example, I'll deselect this path right here.
| | 01:53 | I'll switch now to my Pencil
tool and I'll draw a shape.
| | 01:58 | I'll Command+Click to
actually select that shape.
| | 02:00 | And now with my Pencil tool active, I am
going to press the Option key on my keyboard.
| | 02:05 | Notice that when I hold down the Option
key, my Pencil tool changes temporarily
| | 02:10 | into the Smooth tool.
| | 02:11 | Now I could smooth over this
path, get it to look just how I want it to,
| | 02:15 | and when I'm done I can let go and
I'm back to using the Pencil tool.
| | 02:18 | I also have the ability to delete parts
of a path using the Path Eraser tool.
| | 02:23 | Notice by the way it's called the Path
Eraser tool because there is another
| | 02:27 | tool inside of Illustrator down here
which is the Eraser tool itself.
| | 02:32 | Since we are dealing directly with paths
here, I want to use the Path Eraser tool.
| | 02:36 | And I can now simply draw over
any part of the path to remove it.
| | 02:40 | If I draw over the middle part of the path,
it will remove that part of the path as well.
| | 02:44 | When I'm ready to start drawing again,
I'll switch back to the Pencil tool and I
| | 02:48 | can create new paths.
| | 02:49 | Now I just want to point out one thing here.
| | 02:51 | The Smooth tool and the Path Eraser
tool will work on any path, whether or not
| | 02:56 | those paths were created with
the Pencil tool or otherwise.
| | 02:59 | So even if you have never used the
Pencil tool, you may find that the Path
| | 03:02 | Eraser and the Smooth tool are valuable
in the work that you will do inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing anchor points| 00:00 | While there are many tools inside of
Illustrator that you can use to create
| | 00:04 | artwork, I think you'll find that a
majority of the time that you spend in
| | 00:07 | Illustrator is editing artwork.
| | 00:09 | We've learned how to use the Pen tool and the
Pencil tool to create paths and anchor points.
| | 00:14 | Now let's see how to modify those anchor
points and paths by making edits to them.
| | 00:19 | For this example, I have a file open.
| | 00:21 | It's called watering_can.
| | 00:22 | I'm going to zoom in just a bit so we
could see a little more clearly and if
| | 00:26 | I select the artwork with my
Selection tool, you can see where the anchor
| | 00:30 | points are on the path.
| | 00:32 | However we're going to want to deal
with individual anchor points and when
| | 00:35 | we're using the
Selection tool, we can't do that.
| | 00:38 | We need to use Direct Selection tool.
| | 00:40 | So I'll switch to the Direct
selection tool and now you'll see that I could
| | 00:43 | actually select some of these anchor
points and view the control handles for
| | 00:47 | this part of the path.
| | 00:49 | Just by quickly looking at this object,
I can tell that, for example, this would
| | 00:53 | be a corner anchor point, this would
be a smooth anchor point and this one is
| | 00:57 | one of the those combination points
what we call a change direction point.
| | 01:00 | Before we go any further, let's change
some of the preferences in Illustrator to
| | 01:04 | make it little bit easier to
work with these anchor points.
| | 01:07 | If I click on a blank area to deselect
everything, you'll see that I have quick
| | 01:11 | access to the Preferences panel
right here from the Control panel.
| | 01:14 | So I'll open up Preferences and I'll switch
over here to the Selection & Anchor Display.
| | 01:19 | You can see that Illustrator offers
different ways to display the anchor points
| | 01:23 | and the handles for paths and for the
Anchors setting I'll have Illustrator
| | 01:27 | display the largest possible indicators.
| | 01:29 | This doesn't change the functionality.
| | 01:31 | It just makes the anchor points bigger
so I could see them a little bit better.
| | 01:35 | I'll do the same thing for the handles
to make them more visible and I just want
| | 01:38 | to make sure that Highlight
anchors on mouse over is also turned on.
| | 01:42 | This way I'll easily be able to tell when
I'm moving my mouse over an anchor point.
| | 01:46 | Now that I've made these settings, I'm
just going to click OK and you'll see now
| | 01:50 | when I select this artwork the anchor
point are just little bit more visible and
| | 01:54 | hopefully it'll be easier
for you to follow along.
| | 01:56 | Using my Direct Selection tool, I'm able
to click on any anchor point and adjust
| | 02:01 | its position in the document.
| | 02:02 | Obviously doing so also affects
the paths that are connected to it.
| | 02:07 | In addition, I can use that same
Direct Selection tool to click on any of the
| | 02:11 | handles and adjust the curve of those paths.
| | 02:14 | However grouped together with the Pen
tool are a few additional tools to help
| | 02:19 | you work with editing points.
| | 02:20 | Just to make it easier to work with in
this training video, I'm going to move my
| | 02:24 | cursor over to the Pen tool.
| | 02:25 | I'll click and hold my mouse on it so
that you can see the different tools.
| | 02:28 | But what I'm going to do is move my
cursor all the way to the far right to this
| | 02:32 | panel which is called Tearoff.
| | 02:34 | If I release the mouse now, Illustrator
creates a little miniature Tools panel
| | 02:37 | that I could reposition anywhere on my screen.
| | 02:39 | Here you can see I have four tools.
| | 02:41 | The Pen tool you already know about.
| | 02:43 | I also have two other tools here.
| | 02:45 | This one is called the Add Anchor Point
tool and this one the Delete Anchor Point tool.
| | 02:50 | Using these tools allows me to
delete or add anchor points as necessary.
| | 02:54 | We'll talk about that in just a moment
but I want to focus on this last tool
| | 02:57 | called a Convert Anchor Point tool.
| | 02:59 | We already know that there are
different types of anchor points inside of
| | 03:02 | Illustrator: corner anchor points, smooth
anchor points or change direction Points.
| | 03:07 | At any time you can change a type of anchor
point into a different type and anchor point.
| | 03:12 | The way that you do that is using this
tool right here. But before I apply it
| | 03:16 | let's quickly review how we
draw paths using the Pen tool.
| | 03:19 | I'll press the Command key and deselect
my artwork and using my Pen tool, if I
| | 03:24 | wanted to draw a straight
line using corner anchor points,
| | 03:27 | I know that I would click release the
mouse, change the position of my cursor,
| | 03:31 | and then click again to create a line.
| | 03:33 | So to create a corner anchor point
I click once and release the mouse.
| | 03:37 | If I wanted to create a curve, I click
and drag and I pull out control handles
| | 03:42 | to create that curved path.
| | 03:44 | This creates a smooth anchor point.
| | 03:46 | Keeping that in mind, let's see how
this new tool works inside of Illustrator,
| | 03:50 | the Convert Anchor Point tool.
| | 03:52 | I'll select this artwork here, I'll
now come over here and choose the Convert
| | 03:56 | Anchor Point tool, and I'll move
over to this anchor point right here.
| | 03:59 | This is currently a smooth anchor point,
but if I want to convert it to a corner
| | 04:03 | anchor point I would take this Convert
Anchor Point tool, position it right over
| | 04:07 | the anchor point, and
click and release the mouse.
| | 04:09 | In doing so, I've taken a smooth
anchor point and I've now converted it to a
| | 04:13 | corner anchor point.
| | 04:14 | Remember with the Pen tool I click and
released to make a corner anchor point.
| | 04:19 | With the Convert Anchor Point tool I
also click and released to create a
| | 04:22 | corner anchor point.
| | 04:23 | Now let's focus on this anchor point right here.
| | 04:26 | This is currently a corner anchor point.
| | 04:28 | If I wanted to turn this now into a
smooth anchor point, I would position my
| | 04:32 | cursor right over that
anchor point, click, and then drag.
| | 04:37 | Now we can that I'm pulling
out handles from this path.
| | 04:40 | This now converts that anchor
point from a corner anchor point to a
| | 04:43 | smooth anchor point.
| | 04:45 | If you want to create a change
direction point, take that same Convert Anchor
| | 04:48 | Point tool, but instead of clicking
on the actual anchor point itself.
| | 04:52 | Click and drag on the control handle.
| | 04:55 | Now position my cursor right over the
control handle and I'll click and drag to
| | 04:58 | see that I can now adjust just one
side of the path into that anchor point.
| | 05:03 | Now there are some tools inside of
the Control panel that will also help me
| | 05:06 | get some of this done.
| | 05:07 | For example, I'm going to switch
back to use my Direct Selection tool.
| | 05:11 | I'm going to click on this point
right here which is now currently a corner
| | 05:14 | anchor point and you can see in the
top over here by the Control panel,
| | 05:18 | I have an option where it says Convert to
convert this to a corner or a smooth anchor point.
| | 05:23 | Clicking once now converts that to a
smooth anchor point with control handles.
| | 05:27 | Now it's important to realize that
right now I have this anchor point selected.
| | 05:32 | I've selected it with my Direct Selection tool.
| | 05:34 | If I wanted to remove it, if I
pressed the Delete key on my keyboard I
| | 05:39 | wouldn't be removing just the point.
I'd also be removing the paths that go
| | 05:43 | through that point.
| | 05:44 | In other words, I would actually
be severing the path if I did that.
| | 05:47 | Notice now that Illustrator removed all
the paths that ran through that anchor
| | 05:51 | point, which leaves me with an open gap.
| | 05:54 | I'll press Command+Z to undo that and if
I really want to just remove the anchor
| | 05:58 | points but leave the path intact,
I would use the Delete Anchor Point tool.
| | 06:03 | I can click on that, position my
cursor right over the anchor point I want to
| | 06:06 | delete, and click to do so.
| | 06:08 | It happens to be that inside of
Illustrator it's rare that I'd need to use these
| | 06:12 | tools and in that I mean referring to
the Add and Delete Anchor Point tool.
| | 06:17 | Because Illustrator has some of this
intelligence built in with a preference. To illustrate,
| | 06:21 | watch what happens when I go back to
my regular Pen tool and I move that Pen
| | 06:25 | tool over an existing anchor point.
| | 06:27 | Illustrator automatically switches to
the Delete Anchor Point tool thinking that
| | 06:31 | I might want to delete that anchor point.
| | 06:33 | Likewise, if I move my cursor over
any part of an existing path, Illustrator
| | 06:38 | automatically changes to the Add
Anchor Point tool and if I click it adds an
| | 06:42 | anchor point on to the existing path.
| | 06:44 | If you ever want to change his
behavior you can do so in Preferences.
| | 06:48 | I'll deselect my path I'll open up my
Preferences panel and in the General section,
| | 06:53 | you could see there's a setting
here called Disable Auto Add/Delete.
| | 06:56 | If I turn this check box on, I will be
required to use these tools specifically
| | 07:01 | to add or remove anchor points.
| | 07:02 | So let's just take a quick moment to review.
| | 07:05 | We know that in Illustrator I'll
perform most of my edits with anchor points
| | 07:09 | using my Direct Selection tool.
| | 07:10 | If I want to change one type of
anchor point to another, I would use the
| | 07:14 | Convert Anchor Point tool.
| | 07:16 | Finally I can add or remove anchor
points by using the Add or Delete
| | 07:19 | Anchor Point tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Joining and averaging paths| 00:00 | As we know all objects inside of
Illustrator, all paths, are made up of anchor
| | 00:06 | points. Now there are many times when
you are working with creating objects when
| | 00:10 | you need to actually fuse or
join anchor points together.
| | 00:13 | So in this video, we're going to focus
on two commands inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:18 | One called Join and one called Average
and we'll actually see how we can use
| | 00:22 | both of these settings together to
get the results that we're looking for.
| | 00:26 | To begin with, I'm going to zoom in
just on these leaves right over here and
| | 00:31 | notice that when I click on this to
select it has a bounding box around it.
| | 00:35 | I'm temporarily just going to turn
that bounding box off for now, so we can
| | 00:38 | better focus on seeing the
actual anchor points themselves.
| | 00:42 | To do so, I'm going to go to the View
menu. I'm going to choose Hide Bounding Box,
| | 00:46 | the keyboard shortcut for that is
Command+Shift+B or Ctrl+Shift+B, and now
| | 00:52 | I have the bounding box turned off.
| | 00:53 | We can clearly see where the
anchor points are on these objects.
| | 00:58 | Now if I take a look at this leaf over here,
| | 01:00 | from a first glance, it may appear
as if this leaf is actually joined as
| | 01:04 | one object, but it's really made up
of two shapes. If I click on this part
| | 01:08 | of the leaf here, I see that it's completely
separate from this part of the leaf as well.
| | 01:12 | They're two objects that just
happen to be kind of touching each other.
| | 01:15 | I'm going to press undo to return them
back to the original position and more
| | 01:20 | so, the anchor points.
| | 01:21 | These objects are just made up basically
of two anchor points each, one here and
| | 01:25 | one here for this object,
and one here and one here.
| | 01:29 | Actually, this one is the
third one right over here.
| | 01:31 | But these anchor points on the ends, if
I press undo here, are actually occupying
| | 01:37 | the same coordinates or same position. They're
basically just one right on top of each other.
| | 01:42 | Now I'm going to deselect by
clicking on the background here.
| | 01:44 | I already locked all these objects and
they so they won't become selected when I
| | 01:47 | click in these areas here.
| | 01:48 | But the first thing that I need to
do is just make a selection to tell
| | 01:52 | Illustrator which anchor
points I want to connect.
| | 01:55 | Now normally to make a selection, I
would just click on something and if I
| | 01:58 | wanted to select two objects, I would hold
down the Shift key and click on the second object.
| | 02:02 | But in this example, both anchor points
are stacked right on top of each other
| | 02:06 | so I have to use a marquee selection in
order to select both of those elements.
| | 02:11 | Now remember, if I'm using my regular
Selection tool as a click and drag, I'm
| | 02:15 | going to be selecting entire object,
meaning all the anchor points here.
| | 02:19 | I just want to join these two
separate anchor points into one.
| | 02:23 | So I'm going to hold down my
Command key or Ctrl on Windows.
| | 02:27 | So I now temporarily access my Direct
Selection tool and I'm going to click and
| | 02:32 | drag to marquee select these two anchor points.
| | 02:35 | So at this point right now, I have two
anchor points selected, one from each of
| | 02:40 | these halves of the leaf.
| | 02:42 | Now I'm going to go to the Object menu,
I'm going to choose path, and then this
| | 02:47 | option here called Join, the keyboard
shortcut is Command+J, and now these two
| | 02:53 | anchor points have been combined into one.
| | 02:56 | Now, I can do the same for these
two anchor points that are right here.
| | 02:59 | I'm going to basically deselect my
object, hold down my Command key, now I'm
| | 03:03 | going to click and drag to marquee
select these two anchor points and I'm going
| | 03:07 | to use the keyboard shortcut Command+J
or Ctrl+J to now join those together.
| | 03:12 | I now have one single object.
| | 03:13 | I have taken two objects and by
fusing their anchor points together, I now
| | 03:18 | result with one single object.
| | 03:20 | Now in the example that I just showed
you right now, the anchor points that I
| | 03:24 | was joining together were
stacked right on top of each other.
| | 03:26 | But let's take a look at another example.
| | 03:28 | I'm going to zoom in on this leaf right
here at the bottom and you can clearly
| | 03:32 | see that while these two anchor points
are stacked right on top of each other,
| | 03:36 | these two are very far away from each other.
| | 03:38 | So what happens now if I want to
join these two anchor points together?
| | 03:42 | Well I'm going to use my Direct
Selection tool, I'm going to click and drag to
| | 03:46 | select these two anchor points, and if I
go to the Object menu and I choose Path
| | 03:51 | > Join, notice that what Illustrator
does is it leaves the two anchor points in
| | 03:56 | the positions where they were but it
creates a straight line, basically a path,
| | 04:00 | to connect those two anchor points.
| | 04:02 | So my result is that they are joined
but a path is added there to basically
| | 04:07 | close off that area.
| | 04:08 | I'm going to press Undo because I don't
really want that effect. What I really
| | 04:12 | want is I want Illustrator to somehow
figure out a location somewhere in between
| | 04:16 | over here where both of these
anchor points might move for example.
| | 04:20 | I'm doing this manually but I'm moving
two individual anchor points together and
| | 04:24 | now they are overlapping the same
spot and my leaf comes to a point.
| | 04:28 | So if I press now Command+Z to undo
that action, I just pressed Undo twice to
| | 04:33 | return both anchor points to their
original position here, I could perform an
| | 04:37 | action in Illustrator called Average,
where Illustrator will look at the
| | 04:40 | position or the coordinates of each of
those anchor points and come up with some
| | 04:45 | kind of compromise or area or another
position where both those of those anchor
| | 04:50 | points can come together.
| | 04:51 | So I'm now going to basically drag-
select these with my Direct Selection tool.
| | 04:56 | I'm now going to go to the
Object menu, I'm going to choose Path and
| | 05:00 | now I'll choose average and
Illustrator just needs to know how we should
| | 05:04 | perform that average.
| | 05:05 | Should it look at the horizontal axis,
the vertical axis, or both of them?
| | 05:09 | In this case here, I want to
select both horizontally and vertically.
| | 05:12 | So I'm going to the Both option and
in just a short while we are going to
| | 05:16 | really understand better what these
two horizontal and vertical settings do.
| | 05:20 | But for now, I'm going to click OK
and you'll see that Illustrator now
| | 05:23 | calculated a position that both lines
up these anchor points horizontally and
| | 05:27 | vertically so their positions are now averaged.
| | 05:30 | It hasn't joined them yet, but it
found out a place where they can now both
| | 05:33 | overlap and at this point, I can go
back to the Object menu, I can choose Path,
| | 05:38 | and I can choose Join.
| | 05:40 | I'll share with you a little
bit of a keyboard shortcut though.
| | 05:42 | It's somewhat tedious to have to first
perform the Average command and then on
| | 05:46 | top of that also perform the Join
command. I mean after all doesn't Illustrator
| | 05:50 | realize I am only
averaging it so that I can join it?
| | 05:53 | It's true that there are times that you
might want to average something that you
| | 05:56 | don't want to join them.
| | 05:58 | I'm just going to press Undo to go
back to the original positions here.
| | 06:01 | But there is a keyboard shortcut that
you can apply that will perform both the
| | 06:04 | averaging and the joining together.
| | 06:07 | So once again with my Direct
Selection tool, I'm going to click and drag to
| | 06:10 | select just these two.
| | 06:12 | Now normally the keyboard shortcut
for joining is Command+J or Ctrl+J.
| | 06:17 | The keyboard shortcut for the Average command
is Command+Option+J or Ctrl+Alt+J on Windows.
| | 06:25 | Well if you hold Command, Option and
Shift while tapping the J key, or in Windows
| | 06:31 | that would be Ctrl, Alt and Shift,
using that keyboard shortcut will actually
| | 06:36 | perform both commands, the Average
and the Join command, in one step.
| | 06:40 | So let's try that right now.
| | 06:41 | I'm going to press now on my Mac Command,
Option and Shift and then I'll hit the J key.
| | 06:47 | Notice now that Illustrator found the
average for both the horizontal and the
| | 06:52 | vertical axis and join those two
anchor points together into one, all with
| | 06:57 | one keyboard shortcut.
| | 06:58 | Now I want you to get a better idea of
exactly what this averaging command does,
| | 07:02 | specifically in regard to
both horizontal and vertical.
| | 07:06 | So I'm going to zoom out just a bit here
and let's focus on these lines that are
| | 07:09 | down here on the bottom of the page.
| | 07:11 | I'm going to use my Direct Selection
tool to click and drag to select all the
| | 07:15 | anchor points on the left sides of these paths.
| | 07:17 | So these anchor points are
not selected but these are.
| | 07:21 | Now if I want to calculate an average
position for all these anchor at once,
| | 07:26 | I can go to the Object menu, I can
choose Path > Average, and I'll start off by
| | 07:31 | choosing Horizontal.
| | 07:33 | When I click OK, watch what happens.
| | 07:35 | If I were to draw a line now straight
to the middle, you can see that all these
| | 07:39 | anchor points are aligned horizontally.
| | 07:41 | I'm going to press Undo and now once
again I'm going to click and drag to select
| | 07:45 | just the left side anchor points.
| | 07:47 | Now I'm going to use the keyboard
shortcut Command+Option or Ctrl+Alt+J.
| | 07:52 | This brings up the Average dialog box and this
time, I'm going to choose the Vertical option.
| | 07:57 | When I click OK, you can see that
Illustrator found the vertical average between
| | 08:02 | all those different anchor points.
| | 08:04 | Now, in reality the functions that I've
just been doing now with averaging can
| | 08:09 | also be accomplished using the Align
tools inside of Illustrator,. Those can be
| | 08:13 | found here in the Control panel.
| | 08:15 | So for example, if I press Undo and
once again I click and drag with the Direct
| | 08:19 | Selection tool to select just these
anchor points, I could use this option right
| | 08:24 | here, Align Horizontal Left, to now
line up all those anchor points as well.
| | 08:29 | This is one of the nice things about
Illustrator. There are always multiple ways
| | 08:32 | to accomplish similar tasks and later
on in another chapter in this video title
| | 08:37 | we will cover in depth how to
use all these other align functions.
| | 08:41 | But hopefully this gives you a better
idea on how to use the Average commands
| | 08:44 | inside of Illustrator and more
importantly, how to combine and average at the
| | 08:49 | same time using that combine keyboard
shortcut so that you can quickly and
| | 08:53 | easily join anchor points together.
| | 08:55 | Now there is one thing that I want to
talk about which is new to Illustrator CS5
| | 09:00 | and that's the ability to actually join
multiple anchor points at the same time.
| | 09:05 | Now, if I go back up over here to our leaves,
kind of zoom in on this area right here.
| | 09:10 | When we were joining these objects
together, I was selecting two anchor points
| | 09:14 | at a time and then creating a join.
| | 09:15 | Well take a look at this.
| | 09:16 | I have a leaf over here, which
also is set up in to two halves.
| | 09:21 | It's two separate objects.
| | 09:22 | If I know that I want to basically join
all of these anchor points together,
| | 09:26 | I can use my Selection tool and I can click and
drag to select both halves at the same time.
| | 09:32 | Now I'll use the keyboard shortcut
Command+J or Ctrl+J on Windows and in
| | 09:36 | one step, Illustrator not only
joins these anchor points here but these
| | 09:41 | anchor points as well.
| | 09:42 | In other words Illustrator right now
did a search throughout those paths
| | 09:46 | for overlapping anchor points and
automatically connected all those that were separated.
| | 09:51 | So with Illustrator CS5, I don't
necessarily need to work with just two
| | 09:55 | anchor points at a time.
| | 09:56 | I can go ahead now and just
click and drag to select two objects.
| | 10:00 | I know right now they are split into
two shapes but I can hit Command+J or
| | 10:04 | Ctrl+J to combine those together into one shape.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Simplifying paths| 00:00 | In Illustrator anchor points are a
good thing. After all they allow us to
| | 00:04 | create our graphics.
| | 00:06 | However, having too many
anchor points can cause problems.
| | 00:11 | For example, let's take a look at
some of the artwork in this file.
| | 00:14 | I'm going to zoom in on
these two icons right here.
| | 00:17 | Notice when I click on this shape right
here, I have a certain number of anchor
| | 00:20 | points that appear along the path.
| | 00:22 | However, when I click on this flower
over here, I can see that I have many
| | 00:25 | more anchor points.
| | 00:27 | As you become more familiar with using
anchor points you'll also become more
| | 00:31 | efficient in using them.
| | 00:32 | But there are two specific
consequences when it comes to actually using too
| | 00:36 | many anchor points.
| | 00:37 | First of all, the more anchor points
you have, the large your file size is.
| | 00:41 | After all Illustrator has that many
more anchor points to keep track of.
| | 00:45 | More importantly however having more
anchor points means it could be far more
| | 00:49 | difficult to edit your artwork.
| | 00:51 | For example, if I just want to make a
small modification to the shape of this
| | 00:55 | piece of artwork down here towards the
bottom I can do so easily by modifying
| | 00:58 | three anchor points.
| | 01:00 | However, if I take a look at this
flower icon right here, if I wanted to adjust
| | 01:04 | one of these petals right here I'd
have to adjust many anchor points.
| | 01:07 | It wouldn't only take me longer to do my work.
| | 01:09 | The results will be far less desirable
and probably somewhat chunky in appearance.
| | 01:14 | Now, in all likelihood when you draw
artwork inside of Illustrator you won't be
| | 01:18 | using this many anchor points.
| | 01:20 | In fact, you can imagine just how
tedious it might be to even add all those
| | 01:24 | anchor points on your own.
| | 01:25 | However, there may be times when
you get artwork from other sources.
| | 01:28 | For example, artwork that's imported
from CAD programs, or maybe artwork that's
| | 01:33 | been exported from other graphic
design programs like CorelDRAW for example.
| | 01:37 | These programs may not generate Bezier
curves the same way that Illustrator does,
| | 01:42 | and they may generate an
unnecessary amount of anchor points.
| | 01:45 | Another time when you may be faced with
large numbers of anchor points on paths
| | 01:49 | is when you perform tracing functions,
when you convert raster-based content
| | 01:53 | into vector-based content.
| | 01:54 | For example, Illustrator's
Live Trace feature can do this.
| | 01:58 | You can start with a photograph and
then with a single button have that photo
| | 02:02 | converted into a vector graphic.
| | 02:04 | We'll spend a lot more time dealing
with Live Trace in another chapter in this
| | 02:08 | video title, but for now note that it's
certainly possible that you may be faced
| | 02:12 | with artwork that has a
tremendous amount of anchor points.
| | 02:15 | So it's nice to know that Illustrator
has a Simplify feature to help you reduce the
| | 02:19 | number of anchor points along a path.
| | 02:22 | I'm going to zoom in just a little
bit closer on this shape right here and
| | 02:25 | let's take a look at this Simplify feature.
| | 02:27 | I'm going to go over here to the Object
menu, I'm going to choose Path and then
| | 02:32 | I'll choose Simplify.
| | 02:33 | This brings up the Simplify dialog box,
which I'll move over here on this side
| | 02:37 | so we can get a better idea of what's
happening to our artwork as we apply this command.
| | 02:41 | First of all I'm going to
click on the Preview button.
| | 02:44 | This lets us actually see
what this feature is going to do.
| | 02:48 | Notice that my original artwork had 322
anchor points inside of it and now that
| | 02:53 | I've applied this command
I'm left with 13 anchor points.
| | 02:56 | That's a tremendous reduction in
anchor points here, but it's important to
| | 03:00 | realize that as Illustrator reduced
the anchor points it's certainly possible
| | 03:04 | that the fidelity or the closeness of
this new path to what the original path
| | 03:08 | look like can be affected.
| | 03:11 | So Illustrator gives us a variety of
options to dial in just the right amount
| | 03:15 | of simplification along with a few settings
to make sure we get the results that we want.
| | 03:19 | First of all I would start by
clicking option here called Show Original.
| | 03:24 | This displays the original path in red
so I can compare what the new path and
| | 03:28 | what the old path look like.
| | 03:30 | As you can see, the curves
don't really match up exactly.
| | 03:33 | Remember, I do want to reduce the
number of anchor points in my path, but
| | 03:37 | I'd like to have my path remain as similar
as possible to the way it looked originally.
| | 03:42 | The easiest way to do that is by
adjusting the Curve Precision slider.
| | 03:46 | I find that for most cases I can go
all the way up to about 98% and get some
| | 03:52 | really great results.
| | 03:53 | Notice I saved 300 anchor points in the
process, and both the new path and the
| | 03:57 | old path match up pretty close.
| | 03:59 | When dealing with curved paths the Angle
Threshold setting really has no effect
| | 04:03 | whatsoever on your artwork.
| | 04:05 | However, there is an additional option when
you simplify artwork to use Straight Lines.
| | 04:10 | In other words, when reducing the
number of anchor points also only use corner
| | 04:14 | anchor points, not smooth anchor points.
| | 04:17 | So, if I choose that option you can see
that Curve Precision is grayed out and I
| | 04:22 | can now use the Angle Threshold slider
to adjust just how the straight lines
| | 04:27 | should simulate the angles of the artwork.
| | 04:30 | Obviously, the higher I go with the
Angle Threshold, the fewer anchor points I'll have,
| | 04:34 | but my artwork might look quite different.
| | 04:37 | I'll go back to using Smooth Lines
over here and I am pretty happy here with
| | 04:40 | the setting of 98%, so I'm going to
click OK, and now I've been able to
| | 04:45 | successfully reduce the number of
anchor points, which again not only make this
| | 04:48 | file size a little bit smaller.
| | 04:50 | It also makes modifying or working
with this artwork that much easier.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Offset Path| 00:00 | When you scale artwork you want to make
sure that you get the results that you expect.
| | 00:04 | In fact, sometimes if you want to
create like an outline around an object,
| | 00:08 | scaling artwork itself is
the wrong method to use.
| | 00:11 | Let me demonstrate by focusing on this
icon here in the middle of this document.
| | 00:14 | I'm going to zoom in a little bit
closer here and say I want to create some
| | 00:18 | kind of an outline around just
the perimeter of this artwork.
| | 00:21 | You'll notice that when I select it,
I can scale it by double-clicking on the
| | 00:25 | Scale tool here inside of the Tools panel.
| | 00:27 | Let me move it over here just to this
side so we could see the artwork and I'll
| | 00:30 | click on the Preview button.
| | 00:32 | Now that's way too big, but
let's say I scale it for about 125%.
| | 00:36 | I'll click Copy and then I'll press D for
Default and I'll also set my fill here to None.
| | 00:42 | This is where you could compare the new
shape that I just created to the shape
| | 00:46 | that was there before.
| | 00:47 | Notice that while the artwork itself
is 125% larger, I don't really get that
| | 00:52 | outline that I'm looking for.
| | 00:54 | What I'd really like to have here is
a uniform amount of space that appears
| | 00:58 | around the entire artwork.
| | 01:00 | So to get that kind of effect I need
to use a different type of path function.
| | 01:04 | Something called Offset Path.
| | 01:06 | So I'm going to press Delete
to remove this object right now.
| | 01:09 | And once again I'm going to select
this artwork, but this time I'll go to the
| | 01:12 | Object menu, I'll choose Path
and then I'll choose Offset Path.
| | 01:18 | Let's move this over here just to this
side and I'll click on the Preview button.
| | 01:21 | Now right away you can start to see that
I'm getting the results that I'm looking for.
| | 01:25 | A path that's uniformly larger around
the entire parameter of my object.
| | 01:29 | The Offset amount is quite large here. I
can even reduce that to something like 4
| | 01:33 | point, or note that you could even use
negative values, for example -2,to have
| | 01:39 | the new path be inset or
offset on the inside of my artwork.
| | 01:43 | But I'll choose 4 point
here just for this example.
| | 01:47 | And if you have really sharp or acute
corners in your artwork you may want to
| | 01:50 | increase the value for the Miter limit, but
for most cases 4 is probably going to be okay.
| | 01:55 | And I'll click OK to apply it.
| | 01:57 | Once again I'll press D for Default
and I'll fill my object with None so we
| | 02:01 | can see the result.
| | 02:02 | Getting exactly what I wanted, I now
have a path that's offset at a uniform
| | 02:07 | amount from my original artwork.
| | 02:09 | I think that as you work more and more
with Illustrator, you'll find yourself
| | 02:12 | coming back to the Offset
Path feature again and again.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cleaning up errant paths| 00:00 | As you continuously work on a file,
open it and save it, make changes, open
| | 00:05 | it and save it, so on and so forth,
you may find that the file starts to get
| | 00:09 | a little bit messy.
| | 00:11 | I think you'll find that as you'll
learn to Illustrator more and more you'll
| | 00:14 | want to keep your documents
as clean and neat as possible.
| | 00:18 | Let me explain exactly
what I'm talking about here.
| | 00:20 | You see right now this document looks
pretty neat, but if I press Command+Y
| | 00:24 | to go into Outline mode, I'll see that I've
some other errant objects around my document.
| | 00:29 | For example, there are some stray
anchor points right over here and over here.
| | 00:33 | These can be created by accidentally
just clicking with the Pen tool somewhere
| | 00:36 | or by creating these blank text
objects by just clicking somewhere on the
| | 00:40 | artboard with the Type tool.
| | 00:42 | I also have certain objects here, for
example this rectangle and this rectangle.
| | 00:46 | While they aren't visible, their fill and
stroke attributes are both set to None,
| | 00:50 | they can certainly get in
the way as I edit my artwork.
| | 00:53 | For example, when I want to marquee
something I may click and drag, not realizing
| | 00:57 | that this actually artwork over
here that's going to be selected.
| | 01:00 | This can affect things like
bounding area and can throw off things like
| | 01:03 | alignment for example.
| | 01:04 | If I had an empty text object somewhere,
even though no characters appear inside of
| | 01:08 | my document that text object may
still reference a certain typeface.
| | 01:13 | In other words, if I give that file
now to somebody else they may get a font
| | 01:16 | error that that font is missing even
though really that font isn't being used to
| | 01:20 | generate characters.
| | 01:21 | It's simply an empty text
frame somewhere in my document.
| | 01:24 | In general, stray objects floating right
in your document can only serve to make
| | 01:29 | things more hazardous as you
continue to work in your artwork.
| | 01:32 | Perhaps more importantly in my
experience I found that documents that become
| | 01:36 | corrupt over time are
those that aren't kept clean.
| | 01:39 | Now, I know cleaning a room is never fun.
| | 01:42 | However, with Illustrator there is a
single simple command that can clean up
| | 01:46 | your document and make things a
whole lot easier to work with.
| | 01:49 | To use this command you actually
don't need to have any artwork selected.
| | 01:52 | In fact, you don't even have to know
where these errant objects actually appear.
| | 01:56 | You could simply go over to the Object
menu, choose Path, and then choose this
| | 02:01 | option at the bottom called Clean Up.
| | 02:03 | Illustrator offers the ability to clean
up stray points, unpainted objects, in
| | 02:07 | other words, objects with no fill and
no stroke, and also empty text paths.
| | 02:12 | I'll click OK and now if I go into
Outline mode you'll see that all those other
| | 02:17 | elements now have been removed from my document.
| | 02:19 | The two rectangles are gone, and
the stray anchor points are also gone.
| | 02:23 | So with a simple command I was able
to clean up my document, which not only
| | 02:27 | makes it easier for me to work. It also
helps prevent potential problems later
| | 02:30 | on down the line.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Building ShapesThe Draw Inside and Draw Behind modes| 00:01 | When you're creating artwork inside of
Illustrator, you'll find that there are
| | 00:05 | several different drawing modes
that can help you do your work.
| | 00:08 | These drawing modes are
actually new inside of Illustrator CS5.
| | 00:12 | And you'll find the controls for these
drawing modes at the bottom of your Tools panel.
| | 00:17 | There are three icons here.
| | 00:19 | The first one is called Draw Normal.
| | 00:22 | This is the way that Illustrator has
always been drawing graphics over the years.
| | 00:25 | However now in CS5 there are
two additional drawing modes.
| | 00:29 | One is called Draw Behind and the
other one is called Draw Inside.
| | 00:34 | So in this movie we'll take a look at
how to use these drawing modes, and we'll
| | 00:38 | find out when they might be useful.
| | 00:40 | So the first thing to note right now is
that of the three drawing modes one of
| | 00:44 | these is grayed out.
| | 00:45 | That's the last one called Draw Inside.
| | 00:48 | Now what Draw Inside allows you to do
is it allows you to take a certain shape
| | 00:53 | and then draw other
artwork inside of that shape.
| | 00:56 | Obviously in order to use this Drawing
mode, I need to first make a selection to
| | 01:01 | let Illustrator know which
object I want to draw inside of.
| | 01:04 | So currently in my document I don't have any
artwork selected, so that mode is grayed out.
| | 01:10 | But if I did want to draw inside of a shape,
for example maybe this flower shape right here,
| | 01:15 | if I select it, I'll now see that this
option for Draw Inside is now available.
| | 01:20 | Now we know that inside of Illustrator
there is something called the stacking Order.
| | 01:24 | Objects appear either on top
of or beneath other objects.
| | 01:27 | In the case of this example right here
where I have three different flowers,
| | 01:30 | they all overlap each other, and some flowers
are in the front, for example like this
| | 01:35 | one right here, and some are in
the back, like this one over here.
| | 01:39 | Normally when you work inside of
Illustrator, as you draw new shapes, those
| | 01:43 | shapes get added to the
top of the stacking order.
| | 01:46 | However if you want to draw a shape to
appear behind or beneath other objects,
| | 01:51 | the steps you needed to actually do to
get that effect would be to first draw
| | 01:55 | your shape and then once you've created
it you would then select it and choose
| | 01:59 | an option to send it to the back.
| | 02:01 | It's just an extra step.
| | 02:02 | Well in Illustrator CS5 this new
drawing mode over here called Draw Behind
| | 02:07 | allows you to select artwork and rather
than have new objects appear at the top
| | 02:11 | of the stacking order, new objects
that you create are actually drawn at the
| | 02:15 | bottom of the stacking order.
| | 02:17 | So let's take a few moments to
see how these might be useful.
| | 02:20 | First of all I think you are going to
find that it's a pain to have to come
| | 02:23 | down to the bottom of the Tools panel every
time you want to change some of these modes.
| | 02:27 | So it's important to learn the keyboard
shortcut, which is Shift+D on your keyboard.
| | 02:32 | Notice that right now I am in the Draw
Behind mode. If I hit Shift+D again I am
| | 02:37 | now back to the Draw Normal mode.
| | 02:39 | That's because I don't
have any artwork selected.
| | 02:41 | But now let me choose a piece of artwork.
| | 02:43 | So now all three drawing
modes are now available.
| | 02:46 | So now if I press Shift+D, I'm going to
cycle through these different drawing modes.
| | 02:51 | Right now I am in the Draw Behind mode.
| | 02:53 | I'll hit Shift+D again.
| | 02:55 | Now I am inside the Draw Inside mode.
| | 02:57 | Notice that Illustrator throws up these
little doted lines around the corners
| | 03:01 | of my artwork, to indicate that that is the
artwork that I am now going to be drawing inside of.
| | 03:05 | If I press Shift+D again, I'll
return back to the Draw Normal mode.
| | 03:10 | So as you are working and you want to
dance between these different drawing
| | 03:13 | modes, using the keyboard shortcut of
Shift+D will be really useful. Great!
| | 03:18 | Now that we understand that, let's take
a look at how we might use Draw Behind
| | 03:22 | for some cool examples.
| | 03:24 | I am going to press Shift+D.
I'm now in the Draw Behind mode.
| | 03:27 | One thing that I do want to note and
you have to kind of be careful about this.
| | 03:31 | Illustrator does not indicate in
any way whatsoever on your artboard
| | 03:35 | that you're currently now
inside of Draw Behind mode.
| | 03:37 | In fact the only way to know that is to
take a look at the bottom of the Tools
| | 03:41 | panel, and see that right now the
middle icon is currently lit up.
| | 03:45 | Even when you're in Draw Inside mode,
Illustrator throws up those little dashed
| | 03:48 | lines around the corners of your artwork.
| | 03:50 | so you'll always know that
you're inside of Draw Inside mode.
| | 03:53 | But you might get sometimes confused
between Draw Normal and Draw Behind.
| | 03:57 | It's just something to pay attention to.
| | 03:58 | But for now I am inside of Draw Behind
mode and I want to actually create some
| | 04:02 | leaves that will appear kind of
sticking out behind these flowers right here.
| | 04:07 | So rather than have to draw them first
and then send them to the back now that I
| | 04:11 | am inside of Draw Behind mode,
I could take my Pen tool.
| | 04:15 | And I'll start clicking
let's say right about over here.
| | 04:17 | I'll move over here and create a shape
over here for some kind of a leaf and
| | 04:22 | continue that shape just like this.
| | 04:25 | And I'll go to my Swatches
panel here and choose a green color.
| | 04:29 | Maybe something a little
bit more bright here. Great!
| | 04:32 | So notice that even though I have
created my shape all the way here into
| | 04:36 | this piece of artwork,
| | 04:37 | since it's at the bottom of the Stacking
Order I only see it visible peeking out
| | 04:41 | over here from beneath the flowers.
| | 04:43 | Let's create another leaf
over here maybe on this side.
| | 04:45 | I'll click once here to create my shape.
| | 04:47 | I'll click and drag over here and
then once again create another kind of
| | 04:51 | leaf, say just like that.
| | 04:55 | I'll add one more leaf down over here
so I am just going to click, drag
| | 04:59 | over here, back here.
| | 05:03 | And because I'm now inside of Draw
Behind mode it's much easier for me to create
| | 05:07 | this artwork that's already in the right
position in the stacking order. So great!
| | 05:12 | I am going to deselect this artwork now.
| | 05:13 | I am going to switch back
to my Selection tool here.
| | 05:15 | And I have created my leaves but I also
want to create some kind of a design or
| | 05:19 | pattern inside of one of the flowers.
| | 05:22 | Maybe I want to create something abstract here.
| | 05:24 | So I just want to put a whole bunch of
lines inside of this flower right here
| | 05:27 | to add some texture to it.
| | 05:29 | So what I'll start by doing is first
selecting the flower that I want to work with.
| | 05:33 | This is the flower that
I want to draw inside of.
| | 05:36 | And now I am going to press Shift+D to
now switchover to the Draw Inside mode.
| | 05:41 | I'll switch to the Line Segment tool,
and then I'll simply click-and-drag right
| | 05:45 | here across the shape to draw my first line.
| | 05:48 | Notice that even though the line
itself starts here and ends here, it's only
| | 05:52 | visible inside of this shape.
| | 05:55 | I'd like to change some of its attributes.
| | 05:57 | So I am going to crank up the stroke
weight just a little bit, maybe around 5 points.
| | 06:02 | And I'll change the stroke color to
something a little bit more bright, for
| | 06:05 | example this bright green right over here.
| | 06:07 | Now I am still inside of my Draw Inside
mode so I am going to add a few more of these.
| | 06:11 | I am going to click and drag on
my artboard here to add some more.
| | 06:17 | Notice that as I am drawing I only see the
artwork appear inside of that flower shape.
| | 06:22 | Now I want to toggle over here, once I
deselect my artwork, into Outline mode,
| | 06:27 | which is Command+Y or Ctrl+Y on Windows,
so that you can see all the lines that
| | 06:32 | I created are still here.
| | 06:34 | Let me go back and press Command+Y
again to return back to Preview mode.
| | 06:37 | And what happened here is that
Illustrator turned that flower shape into a mask.
| | 06:43 | As we will learn in a chapter later on
inside of this video title, a mask allows
| | 06:47 | us to clip artwork so that
we only see a portion of it.
| | 06:50 | Rather than have to manually create a
mask, by simply toggling over to the Draw
| | 06:55 | Inside mode Illustrator
took care of all that for me.
| | 06:58 | Once you are in Draw Inside mode you
can either press Shift+D to return back to
| | 07:03 | Draw Normal mode or you can double-
click on any area outside of those double
| | 07:07 | lines to also return yourself
back to the Draw Normal mode.
| | 07:11 | So as you work inside of Illustrator,
you may find yourself constantly moving
| | 07:14 | between these different drawing modes.
| | 07:16 | Draw Normal, where everything that
you draw gets added to the top of
| | 07:19 | your stacking order.
| | 07:21 | Draw Behind, which is the exact opposite.
| | 07:23 | All new shapes appear at the bottom of
the stacking order. And then finally Draw
| | 07:27 | Inside, which allows you to instantly
create shapes and draw artwork that's
| | 07:32 | clipped inside of another shape.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating compound paths| 00:01 | You know that you can create shapes
inside of Illustrator, things like ellipses,
| | 00:06 | circles, rectangles, squares, so on and
so forth, and these are all objects that
| | 00:10 | are made up of single path.
| | 00:12 | However, there is a concept in
Illustrator, something called a compound path,
| | 00:17 | which is a single path, but that single
path is made up of multiple paths inside of it.
| | 00:22 | The main use for creating a compound
path is for when you want to chop out or
| | 00:27 | punch out a hole inside of your shape.
| | 00:30 | Let's take a look at an example of this
and how to work with these compound paths.
| | 00:34 | So in this file right here, I am just
going to zoom in closer to this photograph
| | 00:38 | here, and I am going to take my
Ellipse tool here and hold down the Shift key
| | 00:42 | while drawing to create a
nice perfect circle here.
| | 00:45 | I hit the D key for the default settings.
| | 00:47 | Now just a single one point
black stroke with a white fill, very simple here,
| | 00:52 | and I want to now create a
second circle and I want to be able to
| | 00:56 | basically see through a
part of this bigger circle.
| | 00:59 | So what I am going to do is I am going
to hold down the Shift key once again and
| | 01:01 | create another circle,
just about right over here.
| | 01:04 | I want this area right here should
actually appear hollow, so I could see
| | 01:09 | through to the photograph that appears beneath.
| | 01:12 | So to do that, I am first going
to switch to my Selection tool.
| | 01:16 | I already have now this circle selected.
| | 01:18 | I am going to hold down the Shift key.
| | 01:20 | I am going to click on this circle,
so now both of the circles are selected.
| | 01:24 | I have two paths currently selected,
and I am now going to choose to turn this
| | 01:28 | into a compound path, meaning take
two paths and turn them into one path.
| | 01:34 | So I am going to go to the
Object menu here. I am going to choose
| | 01:38 | Compound Path > Make.
| | 01:40 | The keyboard shortcut for this is
Command+8 on Mac or Ctrl+8 on Windows.
| | 01:45 | Now you can see that I've effectively
taken that second smaller circle and
| | 01:50 | I've punched it out of the original
larger circle so I can now see directly
| | 01:54 | through the shape to the objects or
the artwork that appears beneath it.
| | 01:58 | So again, my result here is now one path.
Just to show you right now, I'm going
| | 02:04 | to take my stroke value, which is now 1 point.
| | 02:06 | I am going to change that to something
like 5 points and you will see that that
| | 02:10 | applies now to both of the circles,
because right now this acts as one shape.
| | 02:15 | It's one object that I have selected,
something called the compound path.
| | 02:19 | But that compound path is made up of
multiple paths inside of it and those
| | 02:24 | multiple paths determine which parts
of the objects are visible and which
| | 02:29 | parts are invisible.
| | 02:30 | Now it's important to realize that
compound paths can be made up of more
| | 02:34 | than just two shapes.
| | 02:35 | I'm going to press Undo two times.
| | 02:38 | Now I'm back to just having two paths here.
| | 02:40 | I am going to draw a few more circles
| | 02:42 | So I will draw let's say smaller one
here, maybe a medium-size one here.
| | 02:47 | Something like that.
| | 02:48 | Now I am going to basically
switch to my regular Selection tool.
| | 02:51 | I am going to hold down the Shift key and
select all these five different circles.
| | 02:55 | So I now have five circles selected.
| | 02:58 | Now once again I am going to choose
Object, I am going to choose Compound Path > Make,
| | 03:02 | and now I have been able
to basically cut holes out through many
| | 03:06 | parts of that one overall circle.
| | 03:09 | Now, how do compound paths actually work?
| | 03:12 | Well, the reality is that Illustrator
looks at all these paths and determines
| | 03:18 | the direction that those paths travel in.
| | 03:20 | We don't really think about it, but
normally whenever I create any kind of a
| | 03:23 | path inside Illustrator that
path travels in a certain direction.
| | 03:28 | So just to give you a basic idea, if I
draw a circle right here and for example
| | 03:32 | let's say this is my starting point of
my circle, my path basically starts here
| | 03:37 | and then travels in this direction all
the way across the path back to here.
| | 03:42 | So you can see that right now my path
is traveling in a clockwise direction.
| | 03:47 | Now let's say I draw another circle
right here and just for purposes of
| | 03:51 | illustration here, I am going to draw
a line right through the middle here.
| | 03:55 | This line doesn't really exist, but
I want you in your imagination to imagine as
| | 03:59 | if there were some kind of a line there.
| | 04:00 | Now if I were to start over here with
this part of my path and start traveling
| | 04:04 | in one direction, I am now
traveling in a clockwise direction.
| | 04:08 | So I come all the way around here, but
then at this point of the path I cut
| | 04:12 | towards the inside of this path,
and now I am going to start going in a
| | 04:16 | counterclockwise direction.
| | 04:18 | I come here, I go back into line,
and you can see I am returning back to a
| | 04:21 | clockwise direction.
| | 04:23 | So what happens when Illustrator creates
a compound path is that it looks at the
| | 04:28 | direction that those paths are traveling in.
| | 04:31 | Anything that travels in a clockwise
direction remains visible, but any part of
| | 04:36 | my object or any part of the path that
travels in a counterclockwise direction
| | 04:41 | becomes invisible on the object.
| | 04:43 | You can actually control this
very easily inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:47 | I am just going to delete these objects
right here and let's return back to this example.
| | 04:52 | I am going to use my Direct Selection tool
to now click on just this circle right here.
| | 04:56 | This part of the path.
| | 04:58 | I am now going to go to the Window menu.
| | 05:00 | I am going to open up a panel
called the Attributes panel.
| | 05:04 | Inside of the Attributes panel, if I
completely expand it so that I can see all
| | 05:08 | of it right here, there is a setting
here whenever I have a compound path
| | 05:12 | selected that allows me to
reverse the path direction.
| | 05:15 | So right now, it says
Reverse Path Direction is on.
| | 05:19 | That makes this part of this object invisible.
| | 05:22 | But if I wanted to turn the Reverse
Path Direction off, notice now that
| | 05:26 | circle is now visible, because both
the outer path and this path are now
| | 05:32 | traveling in the same direction.
| | 05:34 | So you can see how compound paths work
inside of Illustrator and in reality
| | 05:40 | compound paths are used mainly inside of fonts.
| | 05:42 | For example, the uppercase A has a hole
that is kind of cut out from the middle of it.
| | 05:47 | Same thing for lowercased
E or the letter O, for example.
| | 05:51 | All those are created using compound paths.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating compound shapes| 00:00 | One of the secrets to building complex
artwork inside of Illustrator is to think
| | 00:05 | about the concept of building
shapes instead of drawing shapes.
| | 00:10 | In other words, if you wanted to create
something like this flower right here,
| | 00:14 | instead of thinking about using a Pen
tool or even a Pencil tool to try and draw
| | 00:19 | the shape as it appears right here,
you might think about creating several oval
| | 00:23 | shapes, rotating them in a certain
direction, and then combining them together to
| | 00:28 | arrive at this final shape.
| | 00:31 | Doing so not only allows you to
create these objects more quickly.
| | 00:35 | It also allows you to create
objects that are very precise.
| | 00:39 | Now you already know how
to draw primitive objects.
| | 00:42 | But how do we combine those objects
together to create the final shapes that we want?
| | 00:47 | We've already seen one thing.
| | 00:48 | Something called using compound paths
to combine multiple shapes to create a
| | 00:53 | final shape that maybe has
some holes cut out of it.
| | 00:56 | But in this case here, we are going to
learn how to take multiple shapes and
| | 00:59 | either combine them together or
subtract them from each other to arrive at the
| | 01:04 | final shape that we need.
| | 01:06 | We can do that by using something in
Illustrator called compound shapes.
| | 01:10 | So before we were dealing with
compound paths, let's take a look now at
| | 01:14 | something called compound shapes, and
we are going to use a separate panel here
| | 01:19 | called the Pathfinder panel
to help us build these shapes.
| | 01:23 | I am going to choose Window > Pathfinder.
| | 01:26 | And we will see that the Pathfinder
panel has several buttons here across the
| | 01:29 | top called shape modes.
| | 01:32 | Now I am going to zoom in just a little
bit over here on this piece of artwork
| | 01:36 | so we can see how these shape modes
work and how they help us build artwork.
| | 01:41 | The gray background here is locked, so
I don't have to worry about selecting it.
| | 01:45 | I am going to start by clicking and
dragging to select all these elements.
| | 01:50 | Now I want to combine all these
ovals together into one overall flower.
| | 01:54 | But I don't want to actually
combine this circle that has this thicker
| | 01:58 | stroke applied to it.
| | 01:59 | I am going to use that to cut
a hole out of my flower later.
| | 02:02 | So I am going to hold down the Shift key
and I am going to now click on that one
| | 02:07 | shapes so that I deselect it.
| | 02:09 | So now I have all these oval selected,
except for that circle here in the middle.
| | 02:13 | I am going to come to the Pathfinder
panel and where it says shape modes, I am
| | 02:19 | going to click on this
first object here called Unite.
| | 02:22 | This now combines all those shapes together.
| | 02:25 | It has basically united many
different shapes into one new shape.
| | 02:29 | Next, I want to cut a hole out of the
center of this flower and I want to use
| | 02:34 | this circle to do that.
| | 02:35 | Now we know that we could use a
compound path for that purpose, but it's easier
| | 02:40 | to actually do this directly
inside of the Pathfinder panel.
| | 02:44 | So with this object right now selected,
I am going to hold down my Shift key and
| | 02:48 | also now select the circle.
| | 02:50 | Now, I am going to come to the shape
modes here and I will choose the second
| | 02:54 | option, which is called Minus Front.
| | 02:57 | Minus Front means it is going to take
the object in front, which is this circle,
| | 03:01 | and it is going to subtract
it from the object beneath it.
| | 03:04 | When I do so now, I have a single
object that has a hole cut out of the middle.
| | 03:09 | Just to show you, I am going to
change the fill of this object to yellow.
| | 03:13 | You could see now that only this
part is filled. This part is hollow.
| | 03:17 | In fact, if I now take this
object I drag it over the photograph,
| | 03:21 | we can see the photo
through the center of this flower.
| | 03:24 | Now I am going to go back to the File
menu and I am going to choose Revert,
| | 03:27 | because I want to go back to the
original state of this document.
| | 03:30 | I want to show you some hidden
functionality that exists inside of the
| | 03:34 | Pathfinder panel which may be useful to you.
| | 03:37 | But before we do that, I am just going
to quickly create a brand new document.
| | 03:40 | Command+N or Ctrl+N. I am going to
click OK to take the default settings and I
| | 03:45 | want to quickly give you an overview of
what each of these four shape modes do.
| | 03:49 | As I said before, the secret to
creating perfect art inside of Illustrator in
| | 03:53 | a very efficient and easy manner is
to think about building artwork instead
| | 03:58 | of drawing artwork.
| | 03:59 | For example, if I wanted to create
some shape for example, like a crescent,
| | 04:04 | I could take a circle and I can create a
perfect circle, use my Selection tool, and
| | 04:10 | Option-drag to create a copy of that.
| | 04:12 | So now I have two circles.
| | 04:14 | But you can see that I've basically
created this part of the crescent shape here.
| | 04:19 | I can some of the shape modes to help me
end up with just the shape that I need.
| | 04:24 | So I am going to select both of these right now.
| | 04:26 | Maybe I will increase the stroke
weight a little bit to make it easy to
| | 04:29 | understand what's happening here.
| | 04:30 | I'll go through each of these shape modes.
| | 04:33 | If I click on the first one, the Unite
option, that takes both circles and adds
| | 04:39 | them to each other as if they were one shape.
| | 04:41 | So my result is this.
| | 04:42 | I'm going to press Undo.
| | 04:44 | If I do the Minus Front option, I
get the crescent that I'm looking for.
| | 04:48 | I took basically the second circle and
had that second circle be subtracted from
| | 04:53 | the original one, leaving me
with just the part that I want.
| | 04:57 | There are two other options, however, so
I am going to press Undo and show you
| | 05:00 | that this option here called Intersect
will only leave you with the option where
| | 05:04 | the two objects overlap each other.
| | 05:06 | If I press Undo and I apply the last
option, which is Exclude, it will basically
| | 05:11 | remove the middle part,
| | 05:12 | leaving me only with this part over here of
the object and this part of the object as well.
| | 05:17 | But you will notice that there is
also an Expand button, which is currently
| | 05:20 | grayed out right now. Hmmm, what's that for?
| | 05:23 | Well, let's go back to our original
document here, the building_shapes.ai file,
| | 05:28 | and once again I am going to zoom in on
just this area right here, and we'll see
| | 05:32 | where these things come into play.
| | 05:34 | I am going to start doing what I did
before by clicking and dragging to select
| | 05:38 | all these elements, but I am going to
Shift+click on the thick black circle
| | 05:42 | here so that it is not selected.
| | 05:44 | Now all these ovals are selected
except for that circle and instead of just
| | 05:49 | clicking on the Unite button, I'm going
to hold down the Option key on a Mac or
| | 05:53 | the Alt key on Windows.
| | 05:55 | Now I am going to click on that
button with that key held down.
| | 05:59 | This creates something inside of
Illustrator called a compound shape that is
| | 06:03 | live, meaning that I still see all
of my original oval shapes right here.
| | 06:09 | But if I deselect the artwork, they
appear as if they've all been fused together.
| | 06:15 | Again, if I press Command+Y or Ctrl+Y
to go into Outline mode, I see that my
| | 06:19 | original paths still exist.
| | 06:22 | However, the appearance of those paths
gives me this look as if they have all
| | 06:26 | been fused into one.
| | 06:28 | The benefit of this is that I can now
take my Direct Selection tool and click on
| | 06:33 | each of these shapes individually,
and even move them around.
| | 06:38 | I can adjust them if I wanted to
control exactly how that shape looks, even
| | 06:43 | after I fuse them together.
| | 06:45 | Of course, you can nest or have
multiple compound functions all applied to a
| | 06:52 | single piece of artwork.
| | 06:53 | So right now, I've taken a whole bunch
of all those and combined them together.
| | 06:58 | I now want to select all these,
meaning that overall shape that I've added
| | 07:02 | together, plus now this new circle, and
then again instead of clicking on this
| | 07:07 | button I'm going to Option+
click or Alt+click on that button.
| | 07:10 | Now basically I have a single shape
that has some elements that are added and
| | 07:15 | some elements that are subtracted.
| | 07:17 | If I click on it to select it, I then
bring my fill to focus and I change my
| | 07:22 | swatch color here to yellow,
| | 07:24 | I can't apply a fill if it is a single
object, yet it is made up inside of this
| | 07:28 | as many different objects
that are still editable.
| | 07:32 | At any point in time if I decide that I
don't want to edit this object anymore,
| | 07:36 | and I just want to kind of
flatten it so it is just one object,
| | 07:39 | that's when I can now click on the
Expand button to now combine it all to
| | 07:43 | just one flat shape.
| | 07:45 | So we see now when working with
artwork inside of Illustrator, I can use these
| | 07:49 | shape modes to combine multiple
objects into the final objects that I need in
| | 07:55 | a far more efficient manner, than if
I had tried to draw these from scratch
| | 07:59 | using the Pen tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Shape Builder tool| 00:01 | One of the new tools that was added to
Illustrator CS5 is something called the
| | 00:05 | Shape Builder tool. You'll find that
here inside of the Tools panel and the
| | 00:08 | keyboard shortcut for it is Shift+M.
You know, over the years Adobe has
| | 00:13 | noticed that many people struggle with
building artwork inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:17 | Unfortunately, many people struggle
with the Pen tool not realizing that it
| | 00:21 | can be far more efficient to build shapes using
Pathfinders like we've been discussing so far.
| | 00:26 | However, admittedly, even if you take a
look at the Pathfinder panel itself and
| | 00:31 | I will go to the Window menu here just
to open it up, you will note that the
| | 00:34 | Pathfinder panel has many options
inside of it and it can be sometimes
| | 00:38 | difficult to understand which
button to click at what time.
| | 00:41 | So while working at Pathfinders can be
very helpful inside Illustrator, Adobe
| | 00:46 | notice that there is a lot of trial and
error, meaning that people would select
| | 00:49 | some artwork try one Pathfinder
function, realize no, that wasn't it, maybe
| | 00:53 | undo, try another one, until they
finally got what they were looking for.
| | 00:56 | Well, the Shape Builder tool was built
to help alleviate the situation. In fact,
| | 01:01 | rather than rely on Pathfinder itself,
the Shape Builder tool allows us to take
| | 01:06 | a more visual approach to
the concept of shape building.
| | 01:09 | So I am going to close the Pathfinder
panel for now and let's start by focusing
| | 01:13 | on this artwork right over here.
| | 01:15 | I am actually going to zoom in a little
bit closer to this artwork, and before
| | 01:19 | we use the Shape Builder tool on this
piece of artwork, let's take a quick look
| | 01:23 | at how it actually works, because we
are going to have to learn a few keyboard
| | 01:26 | shortcuts along the way.
| | 01:27 | So I will just grab my Ellipse
tool here and I will create a circle.
| | 01:31 | I'll switch to my Selection tool here,
Option-drag to create a copy, and now
| | 01:36 | I have two overlapping circles.
| | 01:39 | The first thing to note about working
with the Shape Builder tool is that it
| | 01:42 | only works on artwork that's selected.
| | 01:44 | Since I have nothing selected right
now, you could see that my cursor has a
| | 01:47 | little circle with a line running through it.
| | 01:49 | Now remember that at anytime inside
of Illustrator by pressing down the
| | 01:53 | Command key, you could temporarily toggle for
the last selection tool that you were using.
| | 01:58 | This is going to be increasingly
important when you start using the Shape
| | 02:01 | Builder tool, as it's the only way
that it will allow you to make selections.
| | 02:04 | So I am going to hold down my Command
key and I am going to click and drag to
| | 02:07 | select these two circles, and now that
they are both selected and I release
| | 02:11 | the mouse, you'll see that now a plus appears
next to my cursor for the Shape Builder tool.
| | 02:16 | When I run my mouse over the shapes
itself, Illustrator will highlight those
| | 02:21 | regions or areas, and it will
identify closed regions or areas that can now
| | 02:25 | become distinctive shapes.
| | 02:27 | For example, if I wanted both of
these circles to be combined together into one,
| | 02:31 | we know that there's a Pathfinder
command called Unite that can make that happen.
| | 02:36 | However, with the Shape Builder tool,
since both of these are now selected,
[00:02:439.88]
I can start by clicking on the top
shape right here, and then dragging down,
| | 02:44 | and notice that now as I touch all
these other three areas, they all become
| | 02:48 | highlighted. When I release the mouse
they will become joined into one new shape.
| | 02:53 | In other words, I have just now
performed the Pathfinder Unite, but I've done so
| | 02:57 | visually instead of just
clicking on some icons inside of a panel.
| | 03:02 | Let's press Undo for a moment here,
because what I just created now was a single
| | 03:06 | shape out of two shapes.
| | 03:07 | Let's say I wanted to end
up with that crescent shape.
| | 03:10 | I only want this one shape in the bottom.
| | 03:13 | But I want to remove these two areas right here.
| | 03:15 | So to do that I am going to hold down
my Option key and you can now see that
| | 03:19 | instead of a plus next to my
cursor, it changes to a minus sign.
| | 03:23 | That means that I'm
currently now in Subtract mode.
| | 03:26 | So if now click and then drag
downwards to highlight these two areas and
| | 03:30 | release the mouse, I am left
with only this crescent shape.
| | 03:34 | So we are starting to get an idea right
now on how the Shape Builder tool works.
| | 03:38 | It identifies all the overlapping
regions of my artwork, granted that that
| | 03:42 | artwork is selected, and that
allows me to either add or subtract those
| | 03:46 | elements from each other.
| | 03:47 | So I am going to delete this crescent
shape right here and let's focus on the
| | 03:51 | artwork that I see right here on my screen.
| | 03:53 | Now first I need to select it. So I am
going to press Command and then I am
| | 03:57 | going to click and drag to
marquee select all this artwork.
| | 04:00 | Next, as I run my cursor of the Shape
Builder tool over this artwork, you can
| | 04:04 | see that each individual area, even
though they're not distinct shapes right now,
| | 04:07 | show up as regions that can
be turned into their own shapes.
| | 04:12 | If I wanted to combine all these, I
can start by clicking and dragging to
| | 04:16 | combine these different areas.
| | 04:18 | Now remember, I going to want this
shape in the middle here to be hollow, so I
| | 04:21 | don't want to include that shape, so
what I am going to do is click and drag
| | 04:24 | around the outside of this.
| | 04:28 | And then once again, I can add on
these little areas here to add those.
| | 04:32 | Unfortunately, as you click and drag
the line that gets created is a straight
| | 04:36 | line and there is now way to create a
curved line. So I can't just trace around
| | 04:40 | the outside, for example, of all these
areas, but by clicking and dragging here,
| | 04:45 | I can now combine all those shapes together.
| | 04:47 | However, as you can see, there is a
lot of clicking and dragging going on.
| | 04:50 | It can be somewhat tedious to do this.
| | 04:53 | And while at first blush you might
think that the fact that you need to make
| | 04:56 | selections in order to use the Shape
Builder tool is somewhat of a disadvantage,
| | 05:00 | if you think about how you want a create
your artwork, you can actually use this
| | 05:04 | requirement of making
selections to your benefit.
| | 05:07 | So to show you what I mean, I am
actually going to go back to the File menu
| | 05:09 | here, choose Revert, because I want to
go back to the state this document was in
| | 05:13 | at the beginning, and I will just focus
on this part of the document right here,
| | 05:17 | so that we can use the Shape Builder
tool to create the shape that we want.
| | 05:21 | Now I have the Shape Builder tool
currently selected, but there's no artwork
| | 05:24 | selected in my artboard, so I am going
to press Command and then I click and
| | 05:27 | drag to select this artwork, and with
the Command key still pressed down, I am
| | 05:31 | also now going to and add the Shift key.
| | 05:33 | I am going to click on the circle
with a thick outline to deselect it.
| | 05:36 | So now all these shapes are selected,
except for that circle right there.
| | 05:41 | In other words, the calculations right
now that the Shape Builder tool is doing
| | 05:45 | are not taking to
account this circle right here.
| | 05:49 | Now while it's certainly true that I
could start clicking and dragging to
| | 05:51 | combine these shapes together, notice
that because I can only go in a straight
| | 05:55 | line, it would require many multiple
clicks and drags to select and fill this
| | 05:59 | entire piece of artwork.
| | 06:01 | So here's a little keyboard shortcut.
If I move my Shape Builder cursor out
| | 06:04 | about over here and I click and drag,
right now, you don't actually need to be
| | 06:08 | inside of the piece of artwork.
| | 06:10 | I can also hold down the Shift key to
activate this Marquee mode. In other words,
| | 06:15 | the same way that I just made the
selection of these pieces of artwork to begin with.
| | 06:18 | As I increase the size of my marquee,
any area that falls within that marquee
| | 06:22 | will now be combined or
united together into one shape.
| | 06:26 | So with one click and drag and now I'll
release the mouse, all of these elements
| | 06:30 | have now been combined together.
| | 06:32 | This circle was not touched because it
wasn't selected, but now I actually want
| | 06:37 | to remove or cut out that circle from the shape.
| | 06:39 | So what I will now do is hold down the
Command key and then I will click and drag,
| | 06:43 | so that now I have both the
outside shape and the circle selected.
| | 06:48 | I'll move my cursor to the circle on
the inside here and I will hold down my
| | 06:52 | Option key, because I want to remove
this circle from the overall flower shape.
| | 06:57 | So I'll click right now and what I
have successfully done now is created an
| | 07:00 | overall flower shape that has
a whole cut out of the center.
| | 07:04 | At this point, I can now go ahead and change
the fill color of my flower and I am done.
| | 07:08 | Speaking of the fill color itself,
the Shape Builder tool actually has a lot
| | 07:12 | more functionality built into it.
| | 07:14 | In fact, with a little bit of planning,
you can even save yourself some steps,
| | 07:18 | because the Shape Builder
tool can not only build shapes.
| | 07:21 | It can also color them at the same time.
| | 07:24 | I'd like to show that to you and it will
also be a great opportunity to review the
| | 07:28 | concepts that we have just learned.
| | 07:30 | So once again I am going to go to the
File menu. I am going to choose to revert
| | 07:33 | my file back to its original state.
I will just zoom in a bit closer here on
| | 07:37 | this part of the flower.
| | 07:39 | Before I make my selection, I am
actually going to double-click on the Shape
| | 07:43 | Builder tool in the Tools panel.
| | 07:45 | This brings up the Shape
Builder Tool Options dialog box.
| | 07:48 | Now at the very top there is an
option here called Gap Detection. This is
| | 07:52 | actually a pretty cool feature brought
over from the Live Paint feature inside
| | 07:55 | of Illustrator that allows you to
connect their combine objects even if they
| | 07:59 | aren't exactly touching each other.
| | 08:01 | For now, however, for the shapes that
I've created I don't need to use that
| | 08:04 | setting, but notice over here at
the bottom where it says Options.
| | 08:07 | There is a setting here called Cursor
Swatch Preview and I have the ability to
| | 08:12 | pick a color from either Color
Swatches or from Artwork itself.
| | 08:16 | I am actually going to choose Color
Swatches here and I am going to turn on the
| | 08:19 | Cursor Swatch Preview setting and click OK.
| | 08:23 | The first thing you'll notice as I
start to work with my shapes here is that
| | 08:26 | once I make my selection-- and I'll do
that by pressing Command and then marquee
| | 08:30 | dragging across the shapes to release.
| | 08:33 | And then once again now, I'll press
Command+Shift to deselect just this
| | 08:38 | one thick circle here.
| | 08:40 | My cursor now looks somewhat different.
Yes, I see that little arrow and plus sign,
| | 08:44 | but on top of that I have three boxes.
| | 08:47 | The three boxes that appear here are
actually my swatch indicators, and if I
| | 08:51 | open up my Swatches panel right here,
you can see that the first three swatches
| | 08:55 | inside of my document are
none, white and then black.
| | 08:59 | We don't count registration
as a color here in this case.
| | 09:02 | And if I take a look over here at the
Preview, on the left you'll see then
| | 09:05 | none box, in the middle is a bigger
box, which is the white box, and on the
| | 09:09 | right is the black box.
| | 09:10 | Well watch what happens now when I
actually tap the right arrow on my keyboard.
| | 09:15 | You can see that I am actually
moving across the swatches panel.
| | 09:18 | For example, right now I have the yellow
swatch selected. Just to the left is my
| | 09:23 | red swatch, and just to the right is
my green swatch, but as I'm working now
| | 09:27 | with the Shape Builder tool, I have the
ability to select a color which will be
| | 09:32 | applied as I combine and
join my shapes together.
| | 09:35 | So for example, if I wanted this to
be a yellow flower, instead of first
| | 09:38 | creating the shape then going to the
Swatches panel and applying Yellow, I
| | 09:42 | could load up my cursor now with yellow
and now I will start here and click and
| | 09:46 | drag by holding down the Shift key to
activate the Marquee setting for the Shape
| | 09:51 | Builder tool, and at the same time that
it now combined all the shapes, it also
| | 09:55 | filled them all yellow.
| | 09:56 | I will now press the Command key and
I will click and drag to select all this
| | 10:00 | artwork, and then using the Shape
Builder tool, I am going to Option+Click on
| | 10:04 | just the center to remove it.
| | 10:06 | So again, here in this example, I was
able to build my flower and color at the
| | 10:11 | same time using the Shape Builder tool.
| | 10:14 | Again, it's just another way to think
about how to create your artwork inside
| | 10:18 | of Illustrator. Start by creating
very simple shapes and then use either
| | 10:22 | Pathfinder functions or the new
Shape Builder tool to create exactly what
| | 10:27 | you're looking for.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Pathfinder functions| 00:01 | When we think about building
objects inside of Illustrator instead of
| | 00:05 | drawing them, we know that we can
use the Pathfinder panel to help us
| | 00:08 | accomplish that task.
| | 00:09 | And so far we've used things like shape modes,
Unite, Minus Front, Intersect and Exclude.
| | 00:16 | However, if you take a look at the
bottom half of the Pathfinder panel, you will
| | 00:20 | notice that there are some
icons here called Pathfinders.
| | 00:24 | These are things like Divide, Trim,
Merge, Crop, Outline, and Minus Back.
| | 00:32 | Rather than thinking about these as
ways to accomplish a single shape, we use
| | 00:36 | Pathfinders as calculations to kind of
break objects apart so that we can get
| | 00:42 | just the parts that we need.
| | 00:44 | Each of these Pathfinder functions
performs different types of calculations.
| | 00:48 | So let's take a few moments
to see what they actually are.
| | 00:52 | By far, the most popular Pathfinder
that's used is something called Divide.
| | 00:57 | This simply takes a whole bunch of
overlapping objects and divides them all by
| | 01:02 | their overlapping regions.
| | 01:03 | So let's take this first example right
here. I am going to click and drag to
| | 01:07 | marquee select these three flowers.
| | 01:09 | It's three objects that overlap each
other, but if I use divide right now, you
| | 01:15 | can see that my result if I use my
Direct Selection tool is a whole bunch of
| | 01:19 | objects that are chopped up, made up of
all the overlapping regions or parts of
| | 01:24 | those three flowers.
| | 01:25 | I am going to press Undo to kind of
go back to the original shape here.
| | 01:28 | Just to show you another popular use
of the Divide function, if I take any
| | 01:32 | shape, in this case here an oval, and
I simply draw a line right through the
| | 01:36 | middle, I can select both of these
elements and choose Divide and Illustrator
| | 01:41 | basically now chops that
into two separate pieces.
| | 01:44 | So it's an easy way to kind of slice
up one bigger object or several objects
| | 01:49 | into multiple smaller objects. I will go
ahead now and just undo a few times to delete that.
| | 01:55 | Let's now talk about the
second Pathfinder called Trim.
| | 01:58 | So in this case here I am going to
select these three elements right here.
| | 02:02 | Again, they are the same three
overlapping flowers right here.
| | 02:05 | I am going to choose Trim and the
first thing you will notice is that the
| | 02:08 | stroke attributes have gone away.
| | 02:11 | So the first thing that Trim does is it
gets rid of the stroke and it also trims
| | 02:17 | the objects where they overlap.
| | 02:19 | So you can see if I use my Direct
Selection tool, I am left with one shape
| | 02:23 | that's here, but the rest of this flower,
which used to be beneath these other
| | 02:27 | flowers, has been removed. It's gone.
| | 02:30 | The same thing with this part of flower as well.
| | 02:32 | The only flower that remains intact
is this one because it was on top.
| | 02:37 | So basically Illustrated trimmed
all the objects so that there are no
| | 02:41 | overlapping areas. I just
see some flat art that's here.
| | 02:45 | This can be useful many times when
creating, for example, color separations
| | 02:49 | for screen-printing.
| | 02:50 | There are many uses where you might
need to use Trim where you specifically
| | 02:54 | want to get rid of the
overlapping areas of objects.
| | 02:57 | And that brings us to our next setting
here after Trim is something called Merge.
| | 03:02 | If I use my Selection tool now to
select these shapes, you'll notice that the
| | 03:06 | only difference that I have here
between what I've seen before and now is that
| | 03:11 | these two flowers here are
actually of the same color.
| | 03:14 | Before I had three flowers each with
a different color. Now I have three
| | 03:18 | flowers, but two of those
flowers do share the same fill color.
| | 03:22 | Well, the Merge command here inside of
the Pathfinder panel actually performs
| | 03:26 | the exact same command that the Trim
one does, with one exception. If it finds
| | 03:32 | colors that have similar fills,
| | 03:34 | it combines those into a single shape.
| | 03:37 | So let's see what happens.
| | 03:38 | I am now going to choose Merge, and my
result now is two shapes. One shape here.
| | 03:43 | And one shape here.
| | 03:45 | Like the Trim, it got rid of the
stroke attributes and it removed any extra
| | 03:50 | areas that are beneath other objects,
but what's different here is that since
| | 03:54 | it founds two objects that have the
same fill color, it also merged those
| | 03:58 | together into one shape.
| | 04:00 | So my result here was three separate
shapes. Here my result is two shapes.
| | 04:05 | Let's take a look now at
the next Pathfinder command.
| | 04:09 | This one is called Crop.
| | 04:11 | If I now again switch back to my
Selection tool and I select all of these
| | 04:15 | elements, here I basically have the
same three flowers but I also have an oval
| | 04:20 | that I've drawn on top of this.
| | 04:22 | What the Crop command will do is it will
take the topmost object and use that as
| | 04:27 | some kind of base to determine where
the objects will be visible beneath it.
| | 04:32 | Any part of objects or artwork that
appears beneath that oval will actually get
| | 04:37 | removed from the file entirely.
| | 04:39 | So effectively it crops the
artwork using that topmost shape.
| | 04:43 | So let's see how that works.
| | 04:45 | With everything selected, I'm now going to
go to Pathfinder panel and click on Crop.
| | 04:50 | Now once again it removed all
of the strokes of my artwork.
| | 04:54 | It also basically performed the Trim
command. If I look now at my Direct
| | 04:58 | Selection tool, I only see the parts
of the artwork here that were inside the
| | 05:01 | oval and any parts of the object that
appeared beneath other parts were removed as well.
| | 05:08 | While the Crop command is certainly
useful for certain types of art, many times
| | 05:12 | you will probably want to create a mask
inside of Illustrator, which allows you
| | 05:16 | to have the full appearance of the
artwork appear inside of it, meaning things
| | 05:20 | like stroke attributes and even images,
and we will talk about masks in detail
| | 05:25 | in another chapter in this training title.
| | 05:28 | Let's take a look now at the
last two Pathfinder options.
| | 05:31 | Once again, I am going to use my
regular Selection tool here to select these
| | 05:35 | three flowers that I have created, and
now I'll come here to Pathfinder panel
| | 05:41 | and click on the Outline option.
| | 05:43 | Notice now, remember in the past,
we've had the stroke options removed.
| | 05:47 | This does the exact opposite.
| | 05:49 | It keeps the strokes, but
it gets rid of all the fills.
| | 05:53 | The Outline command is useful when you
really want to deal with just the paths
| | 05:56 | themselves and you are
not interested in the fills.
| | 05:59 | In fact, Illustrator did
something very interesting here.
| | 06:03 | It's difficult to see here because all
the strokes have a value of zero, but if
| | 06:07 | I were to now click on this and change
my stroke weight to something like five
| | 06:10 | points, you can see what Illustrator did here.
| | 06:13 | When I performed this Outline command,
the fill colors now became the stroke colors.
| | 06:18 | So remember, this flower was filled with
this blue color, this flower was filled
| | 06:23 | with this color, and this
one with a darker color here.
| | 06:26 | Now those fill colors all were
transferred to the stroke settings and the
| | 06:30 | fills have been removed.
| | 06:31 | In addition, if I use my Direct
Selection tool and I click on entire objects here,
| | 06:36 | I can see that the objects have
been kind of chopped apart, similar to
| | 06:41 | divide, but again in this case
focusing on the stroke attributes and not
| | 06:45 | necessarily on the fill attributes.
| | 06:47 | So you can almost think of Outline as
the exact opposite of the Divide command.
| | 06:52 | Divide focuses on the fills of the
objects, whereas Outline focuses on the
| | 06:56 | strokes of the objects.
| | 06:58 | Finally, we have the Minus Back command.
| | 07:01 | The Minus Back command is actually the
exact opposite of the Minus Front command
| | 07:06 | that appears right here.
| | 07:07 | See normally when I have several
objects selected, and I choose the Minus
| | 07:12 | Front option, Illustrator finds the
front-most objects and subtracts them from
| | 07:16 | the back-most objects.
| | 07:18 | If I click on the button
you'll see exactly what I mean.
| | 07:20 | I am going to press Undo though.
| | 07:22 | If I choose the Minus Back Option,
Illustrator looks at the artwork in the back
| | 07:27 | and uses that to remove
the objects from the front.
| | 07:31 | So in this case here, these two back-
most objects remove parts of the object
| | 07:35 | that was in front. So like I said before,
if I press Undo here, it's the exact
| | 07:40 | same reverse of the Minus Front command.
| | 07:44 | So there's an overview now of the
Pathfinder functions that you will find inside
| | 07:48 | of the Pathfinder panel.
| | 07:49 | Again, then very helpful for when you
are working inside of Illustrator, but as
| | 07:54 | you can see, they all
perform very specialized tasks.
| | 07:57 | So don't feel like you need to know
and memorize all these. Just know that if
| | 08:01 | you ever need them, you can come
directly to the Pathfinder panel and find that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Splitting an object into a grid| 00:00 | There may be times inside of
Illustrator where you'll want to take a certain area
| | 00:04 | of your document and split
it up evenly into pieces.
| | 00:07 | Well there is a great feature inside of
Illustrator called Split Into Grid that
| | 00:11 | can do this for you. For example, I may
be working on a piece of artwork in just
| | 00:16 | one part of my document.
| | 00:17 | So what I'll do is I'll take my
Rectangle tool and I'll draw a rectangle over
| | 00:21 | the area that I want to calculate a
different specific segments for. With that
| | 00:26 | rectangle selected I'll now go to the
Object menu, I'll choose Path, and then
| | 00:31 | I'll choose Split Into Grid.
| | 00:33 | I click on the Preview button so I
could see what's happening here and I'll
| | 00:37 | increase the number of
columns, maybe to something like 4.
| | 00:40 | Notice I can also control the gutter
or the space between these columns.
| | 00:44 | But I can even set that setting to 0.
| | 00:45 | So now I get four distinct areas that
are all evenly spaced. Perhaps my favorite
| | 00:51 | part of the feature is this
button here called Add Guides.
| | 00:54 | Note it doesn't actually add
real guides in Illustrator.
| | 00:57 | It just draws lines that act as these guides.
| | 01:00 | However, once I click OK, I could
simply press Command+5 or Ctrl+5 on my
| | 01:05 | keyboard to convert all
these elements to real guides.
| | 01:09 | So now when I deselect this I now have
the area sectioned off just the way I need that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Blob Brush and Eraser tools| 00:00 | There are two unique drawing tools
inside of Illustrator, one here called the Blob
| | 00:05 | Brush tool. The other one
here is called the Eraser tool.
| | 00:08 | And they're both unique in that they
are kind of performing these Pathfinder
| | 00:11 | functions behind the scenes for you as you draw.
| | 00:15 | Before we learn how to use these
tools let's take look at some of their
| | 00:18 | settings because as we'll find out
they're really based in the same technology
| | 00:22 | and they are quite similar.
| | 00:23 | So I am going to start by double
clicking here on the Blob Brush tool to bring
| | 00:27 | up the Blob Brush Tool Options dialog box.
| | 00:29 | You know I'll be honest with you.
I am not a big fan of the name Blob Brush.
| | 00:33 | It sounds too close to blah, but in
reality when you start working with this brush
| | 00:37 | it's anything but blah.
| | 00:39 | I want to focus here on the bottom
here where it says Default Brush Options
| | 00:43 | because you'll see here that you have
the ability to set a size for your brush.
| | 00:47 | But you can also choose different
options for the brush itself. Now I'm using a
| | 00:51 | Wacom tablet here with a pressure-sensitive pen.
| | 00:53 | So I can set the size of my Blob
Brush to take the pressure of my pen into
| | 00:59 | account when I draw.
| | 01:00 | I can also choose a variation for how
much I want that pressure to affect the
| | 01:05 | size of the brush itself.
| | 01:06 | For example, to
understand how this preview works,
| | 01:09 | I've currently specified
the brush size of 10 points.
| | 01:13 | It's a rounded shape right now.
| | 01:15 | So I see a round 10 point circle right here.
| | 01:18 | However, because I specified a variation
of up to 10 points, that means that as I
| | 01:24 | press harder or a lighter on my tablet
I can either have the tip of my pen to
| | 01:28 | be almost 0 or up to 20 points in size.
| | 01:32 | I am going to leave my brush set to a
round brush here. Obviously the angle of a
| | 01:36 | perfectly round brush has no visual
difference, so I'm going to click OK.
| | 01:41 | Now when you are working with the
Brush tool itself, the color that you draw
| | 01:45 | with it is actually
determined by your stroke color.
| | 01:47 | So I am going to tap the X key on my
keyboard to bring my stroke into focus.
| | 01:53 | Notice now my stroke is actually now
in the front. Same thing also here inside
| | 01:57 | that the Color panel.
| | 01:58 | And I'll choose like a dark green color.
| | 02:00 | Now first I'll start drawing with the
mouse. Because the mouse has no pressure
| | 02:04 | sensitivity, as I click and drag I get one
uniform stroke that's consistently 10 points in size.
| | 02:12 | However, now I'll pick up my Wacom pen
and as I create a stroke I could vary the
| | 02:17 | pressure so now that you can see I
could have thin and thick areas as well.
| | 02:21 | Now I mentioned before that the Blob
Brush performs some type of Pathfinder
| | 02:26 | functions in the background.
| | 02:28 | And here's the real unique thing
about working with the Blob Brush tool.
| | 02:31 | I am going to jump into outline mode
for a moment by pressing Command+Y and
| | 02:36 | you'll see that I am now
working with these filled shapes.
| | 02:39 | That's because as I draw a stroke with
the Blob Brush tool Illustrator expands
| | 02:43 | it into a filled shape
when I stop drawing the stroke.
| | 02:46 | So I'll toggle back to preview mode by
pressing Command+Y and watch what happens
| | 02:50 | now when I continue to
draw over a certain areas.
| | 02:53 | Like maybe I want to thicken up the
area down here in the bottom so I am just
| | 02:56 | going to simply go ahead now and
kind of paint over these areas.
| | 02:59 | Well, now if I go into Outline mode I'll
see that Illustrator combined all those
| | 03:04 | together. Basically as I would draw
more strokes with the Blob Brush tool,
| | 03:10 | Illustrator will automatically create
a single shaped by uniting all those
| | 03:14 | strokes together into one.
| | 03:16 | But Illustrator is using some
intelligence to make that happen.
| | 03:19 | For example, I am going to change now
to a different color, a lighter green.
| | 03:23 | And I'll start now adding
some other color here as well.
| | 03:27 | In this example you'll see if I go back
into Outline mode that Illustrator did
| | 03:31 | not combine those two together.
| | 03:32 | That's because they're different colors.
| | 03:35 | So when you're using the Blob Brush
tool, as you continue to add strokes,
| | 03:39 | Illustrator will combine like fill
colors into one overall object but it won't
| | 03:45 | do that for a different colors.
| | 03:47 | So back in Preview mode you can see how
working with the Blog Brush tool can be
| | 03:51 | very easy to work with and to draw with.
| | 03:53 | Let me delete these shapes for
example and draw something like a leaf.
| | 03:57 | Once again I am using the Wacom pen
for this. So I'll start off with a nice
| | 04:01 | green color here and I'll create some
kind of shape like this and then like that.
| | 04:06 | Maybe I'll add some detail down the
middle, add a few shapes like this.
| | 04:12 | And then if I decide I want to fill
in or add some kind of color, I could
| | 04:16 | switch to a lighter green color and I might
want to scribble this behind all these shapes.
| | 04:21 | So I'll actually press Shift+D to
toggle into my Draw Behind mode and I'll
| | 04:26 | simply go ahead and scribble
some of this right here behind this.
| | 04:30 | And notice how that gets added right there.
| | 04:31 | Let me kind of fill that up just a little
bit more. I don't want too many gaps there.
| | 04:35 | But this is really one of the
benefits of working with the Blob Brush tool
| | 04:39 | because as I just click and drag, it's
merging the colors that have the same
| | 04:42 | fill and maybe I'll just go ahead right
about over here and add a little bit more detail.
| | 04:47 | Now that I am done with that, I'll press Shift+
D to go back to my regular Draw Normal mode.
| | 04:52 | Now inside of the Tools panel right next
to the Blob Brush tool is the Eraser tool.
| | 04:57 | If I double-click on Eraser tool, I'll
see that the options are very similar to
| | 05:01 | what I just saw inside of the Blob Brush tool.
| | 05:04 | In fact for the size of my eraser, I
leave it set to 10 points, which is the
| | 05:07 | same that I had it as for the Blob Brush tool.
| | 05:11 | I'll change the setting here from Fixed
to Pressure and I'll set the Variation
| | 05:14 | to 10 points as well and click OK.
| | 05:17 | What this allows me to do is actually
write or draw over these artwork to erase it.
| | 05:22 | So it's kind of like
performing a subtract for this artwork.
| | 05:27 | One of the really nice things that I
like about working with the Wacom tablet,
| | 05:30 | however, is that my pen has an eraser on
one end and a drawing nib on the other.
| | 05:36 | So if I go ahead now and I select my
Blob Brush tool here and I start clicking
| | 05:41 | and dragging to draw some artwork here,
I could just flip my pen over and notice
| | 05:45 | that Illustrator automatically turns it
to the Eraser where I can now go ahead now
| | 05:49 | and erase parts of those paths as well.
| | 05:51 | So it mimics the exact same
experience that I might have when working with
| | 05:55 | traditional tools like a pencil and paper.
| | 05:58 | Just one thing I want to note about
the Eraser is that obviously in this
| | 06:02 | example I've been using it to erase
paths that I've drawn with the Blob Brush tool
[00:06:053.02]
but the Eraser tool can really be used to
erase almost any paths inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:11 | In fact, sometimes you might find it
easier to simply swipe across an object to
| | 06:15 | erase it rather than to perform
its distinct Pathfinder command.
| | 06:19 | The Eraser tool also changes its
behavior somewhat based on the selections
| | 06:23 | that you've made. For example, right now
I have nothing selected so if I choose
| | 06:27 | my Eraser tool here and I click and
drag through the middle everything in its
| | 06:31 | path becomes erased.
| | 06:33 | However, if I press Undo and I hold
down my Command key to temporarily access
| | 06:38 | the Selection tool and I click
on just the background right here,
| | 06:42 | now if I click and drag through the
middle only the artwork that was selected
| | 06:46 | becomes erased. The artwork that was not
selected doesn't get touched at all by the Eraser.
| | 06:51 | It's almost as if that leaf right now
was locked, but the light green background
| | 06:55 | behind it was not locked.
| | 06:57 | So even if you don't like the name of
the tool itself, the Blob Brush tool,
| | 07:01 | I think you'll find that you'll have
a tremendous amount of fun actually using it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Working with TextCreating point text| 00:00 | Illustrator contains an
extremely powerful set of text features.
| | 00:05 | Just about everything that you'll need
to set professional typography inside of
| | 00:08 | Illustrator can certainly be done.
| | 00:11 | And in fact many of the functions
that you'll see here match those found in
| | 00:15 | other Adobe applications for
example like Adobe InDesign.
| | 00:18 | Now at a very basic level inside of
Illustrator, there are two kinds of type
| | 00:23 | objects that you can create.
| | 00:25 | There is something called the point
text object which is actually what you see
| | 00:28 | right over here where
its says Bermuda Buttercup.
| | 00:31 | And then there is something called
an area text object, which happens to
| | 00:34 | be employed in this example here
where we list the care and the planting
| | 00:37 | guide instructions.
| | 00:39 | There is actually a third kind of type
object something called type on a path
| | 00:43 | but we'll find out that type on a
path works very similarly to area text.
| | 00:48 | In this movie, let's focus specifically on
creating point text inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:53 | First I am going to switch to my Direct
Selection tool, and I am going to click
| | 00:56 | over here where it says Bermuda
Buttercup and I am going to select it.
| | 01:00 | Notice that I have the characters of
text that appear here, there is now a
| | 01:03 | single anchor point that exists right here
and the text all appears along this line.
| | 01:09 | The main reason why we refer to this
as a point text object is because this
| | 01:13 | point right here actually defines this object.
| | 01:16 | We'll learn more about paragraph
settings later but right now you can see that
| | 01:19 | the text Bermuda Buttercup is centered
right along this anchor point right here.
| | 01:24 | However, if I change my alignment using
the Control panel to align to the left,
| | 01:29 | notice the anchor point remains stationary.
| | 01:31 | The text now aligns itself from
the left of that anchor point.
| | 01:34 | Likewise, if I change my alignment
in my paragraph settings to be Align
| | 01:38 | Right, once again the anchor point
remains stationary but the text adjusts
| | 01:42 | itself according to that.
| | 01:44 | I'll return the paragraph setting here
back to centered and let's talk about how
| | 01:48 | to create a point text object.
| | 01:51 | I'll click on the artboard here
to deselect that current selection.
| | 01:54 | And I'll switch to my Type
tool here in the Tools panel.
| | 01:57 | Notice by the way if you click and
hold your mouse button down the Type tool
| | 02:00 | you'll see many other different
variations of the Type tool that are visible,
| | 02:04 | don't worry about these other tools
right now, because we'll learn how to
| | 02:07 | actually access most of these tools by
using some intuitive keyboard shortcuts.
| | 02:12 | This will prevent us from having to
come back to the Tools panel every time you
| | 02:15 | want to create a different kind of type object.
| | 02:18 | So for now, I am going to choose the Type
tool and I'll move my cursor onto the artboard.
| | 02:22 | To create a point text object simply
click and release the mouse on the artboard.
| | 02:27 | Notice now that your cursor
changes to a blinking insertion point.
| | 02:31 | Illustrator is now ready
for you to enter some text.
| | 02:33 | So in this case, I am going to type in
the word Bermuda and if I hold down my
| | 02:36 | Command key to switch back to the
last Selection tool that I've used I can
| | 02:40 | click on this object to select it and
you'll see now that the anchor point is
| | 02:44 | right here in the center.
| | 02:45 | That's because the last text object
that I was working with was also centered.
| | 02:48 | But the important thing to realize
here is that my text object is defined by
| | 02:53 | that one anchor point
that appears in the center.
| | 02:55 | I release the Command key and if I want
to continue editing my text, I'll take
| | 02:59 | my type cursor here and just simply
click at the end of the word Bermuda to get
| | 03:03 | that insertion point back.
| | 03:05 | Let's add some more text to this object.
| | 03:07 | I'll hit the Spacebar to define a new
word and then I'll type here something
| | 03:10 | like Buttercup is my favorite flower.
| | 03:16 | Notice that as I'm typing the text
just keeps going on and on it doesn't
| | 03:19 | break into a second line.
| | 03:21 | This is really the distinctive
behavior of a point text object there's really
| | 03:25 | nothing that defines it or encloses this type.
| | 03:28 | In other words, if I were to keep on typing
right now the text will just go on and on and on.
| | 03:33 | If I hit Return or Enter I can now
jump to the next line and I could
| | 03:37 | start typing some more.
| | 03:39 | But I think that you'll find that
inside of Illustrator the most common kind
| | 03:43 | of type that you'll be creating is the
point text kind, for example if you are
| | 03:47 | creating labels for a map some words for a
logo or a tagline or some text to create a sign.
| | 03:53 | Point text objects are easy to create
and they're also easy to navigate or move
| | 03:57 | around your document as well
using your regular selection tools.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating area text| 00:00 | While point text objects are easy to
create and easy to move around your
| | 00:04 | document, their nature is unstructured.
| | 00:07 | By that I mean, there's no shape or
area that contains that text, so if
| | 00:11 | you're working with a lot of copy, making
edits to point text objects can be quite tedious.
| | 00:17 | Area text and context is different.
| | 00:19 | That's because area text objects have
structure. Another way to define area
| | 00:24 | text objects is that it flows within the
confines of some kind of a shape or a container.
| | 00:29 | Let's take a look at this example over here.
| | 00:31 | It's the back of the card that lists
the instructions for caring and for
| | 00:34 | planting plants, and if I use my
Direct Selection tool to go ahead
| | 00:38 | now and select this shape, you can see
that there is kind of a boundary here
| | 00:42 | that contains the text within it.
As I mentioned before, area text has
| | 00:46 | something called text flow.
| | 00:48 | So when you make an edit to type, the rest
of the type in that object is also affected.
| | 00:53 | For example, in this case I'm going
to switch over here to my Type tool and
| | 00:56 | let's say I find out that there's some
misinformation here that these specific
| | 01:00 | plants are not acid loving plants.
| | 01:02 | So I need to remove this one sentence over here.
| | 01:05 | So if I now go ahead now and I to
click and drag to select the elements
| | 01:09 | right here, I can press Delete and notice
that all of the other text moves up accordingly.
| | 01:14 | Let's see how we actually
create an area text object.
| | 01:17 | I'll hold down my Command key and then
click on the artboard here to deselect that.
| | 01:20 | Once I release the Command key, I'm
going to return back to my Type tool and if
| | 01:25 | you'll remember when we created a point
text object, we used the Type tool to
| | 01:29 | simply click on the artboard.
| | 01:31 | While there is a separate Area Type
tool inside of the Tools panel, there's
| | 01:35 | really no need to use it specifically
because we can just work differently on
| | 01:39 | artboard with the same Type tool.
| | 01:41 | So to create an area text object, I'll
think back to the technique that I used
| | 01:46 | to draw a rectangle. I'll position my
cursor, I'll click and drag to draw some
| | 01:51 | kind of the shape, and then once I
release the mouse I'll now see my text
| | 01:55 | insertion point blinking inside of
that shape. So for example, now I could
| | 01:59 | start adding some type.
| | 02:01 | I'll type in over here
'Plant in well-drained acid soil.'
| | 02:08 | Now watch what happens when I start
adding additional copy. Remove from metal
| | 02:15 | or plastic container.
| | 02:17 | See that as I type,
| | 02:18 | the text automatically reflows to
fit within the area that I created.
| | 02:24 | This is the main attribute of an Area
Text object. I defined an area and now
| | 02:28 | text can live within that area.
| | 02:31 | One of the great benefits of working
with area text is that if I now choose
| | 02:35 | to change this shape, the text
that's inside that shape will also
| | 02:38 | automatically reflow.
| | 02:40 | So I'll switch back here to my
regular Selection tool, I'll now adjust the
| | 02:44 | width of the shape by clicking on
the handle on the side, and notice what
| | 02:47 | happens now as I click and drag.
| | 02:49 | Illustrator actually previews in blue
how that text is going to reflow. Notice
| | 02:54 | that right now all of the
text fits on a single line.
| | 02:58 | If I were to make this area a lot
narrower, you can see now that it takes four
| | 03:02 | lines of text to display it.
| | 03:04 | I'll make it just a little bit wider here,
and I'll show you that there are also
| | 03:07 | some additional settings that apply
specifically to Area Type objects.
| | 03:11 | You can find these settings by going
to the Type menu and choosing an option
| | 03:15 | here called Area Type options.
| | 03:17 | This brings up a dialog box, which
has a Preview setting and in addition to
| | 03:21 | showing you the width and the height
for the area that you've just defined,
| | 03:25 | you can also set in number of
rows and columns for that text.
| | 03:28 | For example, if I want two columns of
text here, I could change its value to two.
| | 03:33 | Illustrator automatically takes my
overall shape and divides them into two even
| | 03:37 | areas, called spans, with a
gutter area in the middle.
| | 03:41 | You can adjust this gutter value
by changing the setting right here.
| | 03:44 | Additionally you can use the Offset
settings here to specify that the text does
| | 03:49 | not match up exactly towards the
edge of this shape that you've created.
| | 03:53 | This gives you a little bit of a buffer
space and could be useful if you want to
| | 03:56 | actually have some kind of a stroke
appearance here and you don't want the text
| | 04:00 | to actually touch that stroke.
| | 04:01 | If you're working with both rows and
columns, you can also choose exactly how
| | 04:05 | that text will flow
across those rows and columns.
| | 04:08 | Let's take a look at another way to create
an area type object inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:13 | I'll click Cancel here and rather than
starting with the actual Type tool,
| | 04:17 | I can create any shape inside of Illustrator and
then turn that shape into an Area Type object.
| | 04:23 | For example, I'm going to use my
Ellipse tool here to simply click and drag to
| | 04:26 | draw a circle. I'm going to use my same
Type tool right now, but notice that now
| | 04:30 | when I move my cursor over this
shape the outside of my cursor to these
| | 04:35 | parentheses. See when I
move it outside the shape here
| | 04:38 | it's a box, but when I move it here over
this shape, it changes to those rounded edges.
| | 04:43 | That indicates that if I click right
now it will convert this object to an Area
| | 04:47 | Type object. So I'll click and now you
can see that I have a blinking insertion
| | 04:51 | point inside of this shape. As I add
text here, I can the see the text will now
| | 04:56 | flow within the confines
of that customized shape.
| | 05:00 | There is one important thing to note
about working between both point text and
| | 05:04 | area text and that's because of some
of the settings inside of Illustrator,
| | 05:07 | it can be somewhat tricky to find out
what type of object you're working
| | 05:11 | with at any one time.
| | 05:12 | So let me explain what I mean by that.
| | 05:14 | I'm actually going to go ahead now and
delete this shape and I'll delete this
| | 05:17 | one that I created earlier as well.
At the moment, I have a feature turned
| | 05:21 | on inside of Illustrator
called the bounding box.
| | 05:23 | The bounding box is a great feature
that allows you to actually resize your
| | 05:26 | artwork or to rotate that artwork
without having to use separate tools. You can
| | 05:30 | do it directly with your Selection tool.
| | 05:33 | So with my Selection tool, if I click
on this point text object, I see the
| | 05:37 | bounding box around the object itself.
| | 05:39 | Even though that I know right now that
this a point text object, I might mistake
| | 05:43 | in this for an area text object because
I might think that this bounding box is
| | 05:47 | actually the frame for an area type object.
| | 05:51 | For example, I'm going to use my Type
tool here to click and drag to define an
| | 05:55 | area type object and I'll type in
the same words, Bermuda Buttercup.
| | 06:03 | A real easy way to make this
typography match what I see right here is to
| | 06:07 | actually select it, change to the
Eyedropper tool, and then click on the text
| | 06:11 | that you'd like to copy.
| | 06:13 | That makes my selected type
match the type that I'm clicking on.
| | 06:16 | So now I have two objects. This right
here is an area type object. This one is
| | 06:22 | a point type object.
| | 06:23 | See that with the bounding box option,
and when using the Selection tool, they
| | 06:27 | both appear quite similar when they're selected.
| | 06:30 | However, if I click on the edge over
here and I resize this Frame, because my
| | 06:35 | text is centered, my text now gets
centered inside of the overall frame.
| | 06:39 | Likewise, if I were to resize my frame,
so it's more narrow, there's no room for
| | 06:44 | the word Buttercup, so I can actually
extend this downwards and see that it
| | 06:48 | automatically puts it on two separate
lines for me. But if I click on the word
| | 06:51 | Bermuda Buttercup down here, which is
the point text object, and I now try to
| | 06:55 | resize it by clicking on this handle
and dragging it, see how the text actually
| | 06:59 | get stretched as if it's artwork.
| | 07:02 | That's because this is a point type
object, so I'm actually stretching the
| | 07:05 | Type itself. Whereas in the previous
example where I was using area type, all
| | 07:10 | I was doing was just scaling the frame that the
type is inside of. So I'm not scaling the type.
| | 07:15 | I am the scaling the
frame that contains the type.
| | 07:19 | I'll press undo here and the way to
really kind of make sure that you don't make
| | 07:22 | this mistake is through one of two methods.
| | 07:25 | I can either make sure that when
I'm working with text I'm using my
| | 07:28 | Direct Selection tool.
| | 07:29 | That's because when you use a Direct
Selection tool, the bounding box does
| | 07:33 | not come into play.
| | 07:34 | So notice that here this is my area
text frame, but when I click on this object
| | 07:39 | right here I can instantly see
it, it's a point text object.
| | 07:42 | The alternative is to actually
disable the bounding box feature when you're
| | 07:45 | working with topography.
| | 07:47 | The keyboard shortcut to toggle the
bounding box on and off is Command+Shift+B
| | 07:51 | on the Mac or Ctrl+Shift+B on Windows.
| | 07:55 | Alternatively, you can find the option
here inside of the View menu and the
| | 07:59 | option here would either say Hide
Bounding Box or Show Bounding Box.
| | 08:03 | So at this point you now know how to
create the two kinds of type objects inside
| | 08:07 | of Illustrator that are most common,
point text objects and area text objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying basic character settings| 00:00 | When you're working with type inside
of Illustrator, be it point text or area
| | 00:04 | text objects, there are two main areas
or levels where you might apply settings
| | 00:09 | to adjust the appearance of your text.
| | 00:12 | There are character-based settings, for
example, things like type size and font
| | 00:17 | and there are paragraph-based settings,
things like alignment or hyphenation for example.
| | 00:22 | In general you'll find that paragraph
settings are things that can only be
| | 00:26 | applied to an overall paragraph.
| | 00:28 | Character settings however can be
applied to any individual character inside
| | 00:32 | of any text object.
| | 00:33 | In this movie, we're going to focus
specifically on character-based settings.
| | 00:37 | There is actually an entire panel
dedicated to these settings and you can find
| | 00:41 | that if I go into the Window menu,
scrolling down towards the bottom where it
| | 00:45 | says Type, and then choosing
to open up the Character panel.
| | 00:48 | The keyboard shortcut is Command+T or
Ctrl+T. It's important to note that the
| | 00:52 | Character panel has many different
states, so you might want to come over here
| | 00:56 | to the flyout panel,
and choose to show Options.
| | 00:59 | In an effort to enhance user
experience, you'll find that whenever you have
| | 01:03 | any text object selected, you'll
find some basic character settings here
| | 01:07 | inside of the Control panel and if you
need access to more functionality, you
| | 01:11 | could actually bring up the entire
Character panel by clicking on the word
| | 01:15 | Character right here.
| | 01:16 | But for now let's focus on the
features using the Character panel right here.
| | 01:20 | Notice that right now my
entire point text object is selected.
| | 01:24 | That means that any settings that
I now apply will affect all of the
| | 01:27 | characters in this object.
| | 01:29 | However, I can always go to my Type tool
and select just a few characters inside
| | 01:34 | of that Type object and now any
changes that make to my Character panel will
| | 01:38 | only happen to these selected characters.
| | 01:41 | For now however, I'm going to select the
entire object and will go through these settings.
| | 01:46 | Using the top two pop-up menus here,
you can choose a font face and style.
| | 01:51 | If you click on the pop-up here,
you'll actually see a Font menu up here and
| | 01:55 | Illustrator will also try to display
what that typeface looks like and on the
| | 01:59 | far left it will display an icon
identifying what kind of font it is.
| | 02:03 | In other words either a Postscript
Type A font, a TrueType font or an
| | 02:07 | OpenType font. We'll talk more about
OpenType fonts later on in this chapter.
| | 02:11 | By the way the preview that you're
seeing here is actually a preference inside
| | 02:14 | of Illustrator. If you'd go ahead and
open up your Preferences panel, I'll press
| | 02:19 | Command+k and switch over
here to the Type section.
| | 02:23 | There is an option where it says Font
Preview which is currently turned on.
| | 02:26 | If you'd like to see a bigger sample of
each of those fonts, you could change the
| | 02:30 | medium-size to something more larger.
I'll leave it set to medium, however, and
| | 02:34 | go back to work inside of my document.
| | 02:36 | There are settings for point size or how
big or small your type appears. Kerning
| | 02:41 | information, which we'll
talk about in just a moment.
| | 02:43 | Kerning is basically the amount of
space that appears between each character
| | 02:47 | inside of your Type object. There is a setting
here for leading. Leading is the amount
| | 02:51 | of space that appears between each line
of text. Some word processors refer to
| | 02:56 | this as line spacing.
| | 02:57 | And then there is also settings here
for a something called tracking, which is
| | 03:00 | somewhat similar to kerning.
| | 03:02 | In other words, it controls the amount of
space that appears between each character.
| | 03:05 | But rather than on individual character
by character basis, this is the setting
| | 03:09 | that applies over an entire range of text.
| | 03:12 | There are some less used options down
here. The ability to stretch your text
| | 03:16 | horizontally or vertically, the
ability to adjust baseline shift and even the
| | 03:20 | ability to rotate individual
characters inside of your text.
| | 03:23 | There are buttons here for both
underline and strikethrough and if you're
| | 03:27 | working with Web graphics, you can
choose which type of anti-aliasing is
| | 03:30 | applied to your text.
| | 03:32 | However, a feature that's often
overlooked by many is this one here on
| | 03:35 | the bottom, Language.
| | 03:37 | Currently this Type is set to
English USA. Why is that important?
| | 03:41 | Well, because Illustrator's spell
checker is actually multilingual. For example,
| | 03:47 | when you're working with text, you may
find that you'll add maybe a Spanish word
| | 03:51 | somewhere inside of a regular English sentence.
| | 03:53 | Of course, when you run spell check,
Illustrator will see that Spanish word,
| | 03:58 | but since it doesn't know that it's
Spanish, will probably give you some kind
| | 04:01 | of a spelling error.
| | 04:02 | However, if you highlight that one word
and you change that language to Spanish,
| | 04:07 | when Illustrator performs its
spellchecking, it will actually now go ahead and
| | 04:11 | spell check that one word using the
Spanish libraries and dictionaries.
| | 04:15 | Perhaps even more importantly, by
specifying the correct language Illustrator
| | 04:20 | will also hyphenate those words
according to their native language dictionary.
| | 04:24 | Now I'll tell you that the key to
working more comfortably with text inside
| | 04:27 | of Illustrator is learning all the
keyboard shortcuts. Sure, you can always
| | 04:31 | come here to the Character panel and
adjust some of the settings, but let's
| | 04:34 | take a look at some of the important keyboard
shortcuts that you can use when working with text.
| | 04:38 | First of all, if I actually want to
select some of this type, I don't have to
| | 04:42 | physically change to my Type tool.
I have my Selection tool currently active and
| | 04:46 | I'm going to double-click on this type object.
| | 04:48 | When you double-click on a type object,
Illustrator assumes that you want to
| | 04:51 | now edit that type, so it changes to the Text
tool and gives you the blinking insertion point.
| | 04:57 | I want to work with all of the text in
my string, so rather than sit here and
| | 05:00 | try to click and drag to select
everything, which depending on how complex my
| | 05:04 | document is can be difficult,
| | 05:07 | I'm just simply going to press Command+A
or Ctrl+A on my keyboard to select all
| | 05:12 | the text inside of that object.
| | 05:13 | Next, if I want to adjust the size of
my text, I'm going to hold down Command
| | 05:18 | and Shift on my keyboard and then
while still holding those keys I'm going to
| | 05:24 | tap the less than sign or the comma on
my keyboard. This incrementally reduces
| | 05:29 | the size of my text.
| | 05:31 | Command+Shift+Greater than sign or
Command+Shift+Period increases my point size.
| | 05:36 | Let's take a moment to talk
about kerning and tracking.
| | 05:39 | With all of my text selected right now,
I can hold down the Option key on a Mac
| | 05:43 | or Alt on Windows and then tap the
right or the left arrows to adjust the
| | 05:49 | tracking of my text.
| | 05:50 | Notice this adds a uniform amount of
space in between all the characters across
| | 05:55 | this entire range of text.
| | 05:57 | If I want to adjust the kerning or
the amount of space between two specific
| | 06:01 | characters, I would place my text
cursor between the two characters that I want
| | 06:06 | to work with, in this case these two
T's right here, and I'll use the same
| | 06:10 | keyboard shortcut, Option+Left arrow
and Option+Right arrow, to add space.
| | 06:15 | However, there's one other option
in regard to kerning that I think is
| | 06:18 | important to know about.
| | 06:20 | I'm going to press Command+A to select
all of my text and then in the Kerning
| | 06:23 | settings, I'm going to click on the pop
-up here and you'll see something here
| | 06:27 | called Auto. This is actually the
default setting for Illustrator and it
| | 06:30 | allows Illustrator to automatically
figure out how much space should appear
| | 06:34 | between each character.
| | 06:35 | In reality the Auto setting is
not really up to Illustrator at all.
| | 06:39 | It's up to whoever the
designer was of that typeface.
| | 06:42 | Most type designers will actually
create something called the metrics file and
| | 06:46 | that will determine how much space
belongs between each different character.
| | 06:49 | For example, a lowercase l or a
lowercase i, which is a very narrow character,
| | 06:55 | takes up less space than maybe a
w or m, which is a wider character.
| | 06:59 | However, you'll also find another setting
here in this pop-up menu called Optical.
| | 07:03 | When you choose this setting,
Illustrator actually analyzes the letterforms
| | 07:08 | themselves. The Optical setting
actually overrides any of the information that
| | 07:12 | a type designer put into that typeface and
ensures a good-looking result for your topography.
| | 07:17 | In general, I find the Optical
setting to be very helpful and time saving,
| | 07:22 | because I find that I don't have to go in
there and manually adjust the kerning by myself.
| | 07:25 | Another great benefit about working
with optical kerning is that if you later
| | 07:29 | decide to change your typeface, the
kerning settings update accordingly.
| | 07:33 | So with the information here inside of
the Character panel and more importantly,
| | 07:37 | with the keyboard shortcuts that we
just learned, you're now ready to set
| | 07:40 | great-looking text inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying basic paragraph settings| 00:00 | While there are some basic paragraph
settings that will apply, while you can
| | 00:05 | apply some basic
paragraph settings to point text,
| | 00:08 | the majority of the paragraph features
that you'll find inside of Illustrator
| | 00:12 | are most useful when working with area text.
| | 00:15 | You can find the Paragraph panel by
going to the Window menu, scrolling down to
| | 00:19 | the bottom where it says Type ,
and then choosing Paragraph.
| | 00:23 | The Paragraph panel does
have additional options.
| | 00:25 | So from the fly ut menu here, I will
see here that it says Hide Options, which
| | 00:29 | means that currently everything is now
visible inside of the Paragraph panel.
| | 00:33 | Let's take a look at some of these settings.
| | 00:35 | Now in Illustrator it is certainly
possible that I can use the Selection tool to
| | 00:39 | select the entire area type object and
in doing so, any setting that I now apply
| | 00:45 | occurs to all of the paragraphs
inside of this area text object.
| | 00:49 | However I also have the ability to double-click.
| | 00:52 | Now Illustrator changes me to the Type
tool and now if I make a change in the
| | 00:56 | Paragraph panel, the only thing
that's affected is the paragraph where my
| | 01:00 | insertion point is currently blinking.
| | 01:03 | Note that here if my cursor is now
inside the text, I can press Command+A to
| | 01:07 | select all the text inside
of this area text object.
| | 01:10 | The buttons that appear across the top
of the Paragraph panel allow me to choose
| | 01:15 | the alignment for the text inside the paragraphs.
| | 01:17 | You can choose Align Left, Align Center
or Align Right and you can also choose
| | 01:23 | from three different justification options.
| | 01:26 | When we use the term justification
inside of Illustrator in regard to text,
| | 01:30 | it means we want text to appear so that
it begins and ends stretching across the
| | 01:35 | entire width of each line.
| | 01:37 | The only difference between these
three is what happens on the last line.
| | 01:40 | Does that last line get aligned to
the left, to the center, or to the right?
| | 01:45 | There is an option here
called Full Justification.
| | 01:48 | Although in many cases, you might not get
the appearance that you are looking for.
| | 01:51 | Speaking of these justification options,
I will go back to this one over here,
| | 01:55 | Last line aligned left.
| | 01:56 | It is important to realize that in
order for Illustrator to actually space out
| | 02:00 | the text and make it appear straight
on both the left and the right sides of
| | 02:03 | the paragraph, it needs to add extra space in
between each of the words to make that happen.
| | 02:08 | If you take a look at the flyout menu
inside of the Paragraph panel, you'll see
| | 02:12 | that you can choose something
called Justification, which allows you to
| | 02:16 | determine minimum desired and maximum
amounts for word and letter spacing.
| | 02:20 | Perhaps more importantly though, in
the same flyout menu, you will see an
| | 02:24 | option here for something called
Adobe Single-line Composer or Adobe
| | 02:29 | Every-line Composer.
| | 02:31 | A Composer is a technology that
Illustrator uses in order to flow text across
| | 02:36 | the paragraph, taking into account
things like point size, the justification
| | 02:40 | settings, the width of your text
frame, and hyphenation libraries.
| | 02:45 | Illustrator figures out how many
words should appear on each line.
| | 02:48 | When using the Adobe Single-line
Composer, Illustrator analyses the paragraph
| | 02:52 | one line at a time and determines how the
text should be spread out across that paragraph.
| | 02:57 | Because Illustrator only looks at
each line by itself, there could be times
| | 03:01 | where you will have odd spacing
occur when setting justified copy.
| | 03:05 | However, when you use the Adobe Every-
line Composer, Illustrator analyzes the
| | 03:09 | entire paragraph and as such if it
finds extra spaces that it might be able to
| | 03:14 | fix by moving some words
around between lines, it does so.
| | 03:18 | For example, I will choose the Every-
line Composer here and I will see that the
| | 03:21 | spacing inside of this line is
not as severe as it was before.
| | 03:24 | If you are the kind of person who
really does a lot of your line breaks
| | 03:27 | manually, you probably want to stick
with the Adobe Single-line Composer.
| | 03:31 | However, if you are just looking to
set some type quickly and have it look
| | 03:34 | pretty good in the process, you can
choose the Adobe Every-line Composer and you
| | 03:38 | will get some pretty good results.
| | 03:40 | Just keep in mind that if you try to
add manual line breaks when using the
| | 03:43 | Every-line Composer, you may
have a bit more of a hard time.
| | 03:47 | Remember that in any paragraph, you
can always choose between these two
| | 03:50 | different composers.
| | 03:51 | Let's take a look at some of the other
settings inside of the Paragraph panel.
| | 03:54 | You have the ability to specify indents on both
the left and the right side of your paragraph.
| | 03:59 | You could specify a first-line indent
and you could choose to add space before
| | 04:03 | and after your paragraph.
| | 04:05 | For me, one of the most handy
settings inside the Paragraph panel is
| | 04:09 | the Hyphenate button.
| | 04:10 | With a simple click of the mouse,
you could choose to either turn on
| | 04:13 | hyphenation or turn it off.
| | 04:15 | Again as you are working inside of
Illustrator, you can always access these
| | 04:19 | paragraph settings directly from the
Control panel just by clicking on the word
| | 04:22 | Paragraph right here.
| | 04:23 | It will appear anytime that you
have some kind of text object selected.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating text threads| 00:00 | So we know that when working
specifically with area text, I have an object or
| | 00:05 | a shape that contains text within it and
I also know that the text itself will
| | 00:10 | reflow or adjust itself within
the boundaries of that shape.
| | 00:13 | Well, when you are working with area
text object, there is also an additional
| | 00:17 | functionality that you get, something
called working with theatext thread.
| | 00:21 | This is the ability to actually start
text inside of one text frame and then
| | 00:25 | have that text flow or continue
into a completely separate text frame.
| | 00:29 | What some people also refer to as linked text.
| | 00:33 | However, in Illustrator we refer to
this as a thread and before we understand
| | 00:36 | how to create a thread, we need to
focus on some of the user interface elements
| | 00:40 | that appear anytime that you
have an area text object selected.
| | 00:44 | For example, I am going to switch to
my Direct Selection tool here, and I am
| | 00:48 | going to click on this area text object.
| | 00:50 | Notice I can see the text
and I can see the shape itself.
| | 00:53 | I could see the anchor points
that are used to define that shape.
| | 00:56 | If I look at the upper left-hand corner
of the object and the lower right-hand
| | 00:59 | corner of the object, I also
see these two bigger squares.
| | 01:03 | The name of these squares are ports and
they help us control threading from one
| | 01:08 | container or one area text object to another.
| | 01:12 | To see how that works, we are going
to create a separate area text object.
| | 01:16 | But I want to copy some of this text so
I don't have to actually retype it again.
| | 01:19 | So I will double-click over here to
change my Selection tool into the Type tool
| | 01:23 | so I can now work on selecting this text.
| | 01:26 | Here are a couple of pointers
when working with selecting text.
| | 01:29 | We already know that when I have a
cursor blinking inside of text, I can press
| | 01:34 | Command+A or Ctrl+A to select all.
| | 01:37 | No, it won't select all the
elements inside of my document.
| | 01:40 | Since my focus is now inside of this
text object, it will just select all the
| | 01:44 | text inside of this shape.
| | 01:46 | But if I just want to select one
paragraph, you'll find that you can do some
| | 01:49 | interesting things with just clicking the mouse.
| | 01:52 | For example, you already know that
when you click on a word, Illustrator puts
| | 01:55 | the blinking cursor at
the point where you clicked.
| | 01:58 | But if you double click on a word,
Illustrator selects that entire word.
| | 02:02 | If you triple-click with a mouse, you will
notice that it will select the entire paragraph.
| | 02:06 | Now that I have done that, I am going to
press Command+C or Ctrl+C to copy that.
| | 02:10 | Now I want to create a new text frame,
but notice that when I move my cursor
| | 02:13 | outside of this frame, even though I
would like to start clicking and dragging
| | 02:16 | out to create a new shape, my focus is
still in the existing area text object.
| | 02:21 | So, in order for me to get out of that
focus, I am going to hold down my Command
| | 02:24 | key to temporarily switch to my
Selection tool and I will click on the artboard.
| | 02:29 | This will effectively deselect the text
object and now I could start creating a new one.
| | 02:33 | It is actually not that different from
when you are using the Pen tool for example.
| | 02:36 | So I am going to start over here and
click and drag to draw a frame and with
| | 02:40 | my cursor now inserted inside of that frame,
I am going to press Command+V to paste.
| | 02:46 | I will switch to my Selection tool and
let's take a closer look at what we are
| | 02:49 | dealing with right here with this
new text frame that we just created.
| | 02:52 | First of all, when I click on it,
because I have the bounding box turned on,
| | 02:55 | I do see the handles that will allow me
to resize the frame itself and remember,
| | 02:59 | since text reflows inside of a frame,
as I resize that frame, the text will
| | 03:04 | reflow inside of it.
| | 03:06 | Now I'll switch to the Direct Selection tool
for just a moment here because I want a
| | 03:09 | clearly focus on the other UI elements,
mainly the two ports that we spoke about.
| | 03:14 | The port that appears in the upper
left-hand corner of a text frame is
| | 03:18 | called the in port.
| | 03:19 | Text always flows into a
text frame through its in port.
| | 03:23 | The port that appears on the lower right-
hand side of the object is called the out port.
| | 03:27 | As you can probably guess, text flows
out of a text frame through its out port.
| | 03:32 | As we start to work with threads
inside of Illustrator, we are going to use
| | 03:36 | these ports to control how the text flows.
| | 03:38 | Illustrator will help us there by
putting certain icons inside of these ports.
| | 03:43 | Currently both the in port and the
out port of this frame are empty.
| | 03:47 | That means that my text starts here and that
at this point in my frame there is no more text.
| | 03:52 | So my text ends here as well.
| | 03:55 | However, if I switch back now to my
regular Selection tool and I resize the
| | 03:59 | frame so that it is not really big
enough to contain all the text,
| | 04:02 | let's now take a closer look
at what the ports look like.
| | 04:05 | In fact, I am going to disable the
bounding box for just a few moments here
| | 04:09 | by choosing Hide Bounding Box in the
View menu, so we could take a better
| | 04:12 | look at these icons.
| | 04:14 | Notice that on the upper left-hand
corner the in port is still empty.
| | 04:17 | Again, that means that my text begins here.
| | 04:20 | However now in the out port,
I now see a red plus sign.
| | 04:23 | This indicates that I have
something called overset or overflow text.
| | 04:26 | It means that currently my frame is not
big enough to contain all of this text.
| | 04:31 | So Illustrator only puts in as much as will fit.
| | 04:33 | The rest of the text still
does exist inside of my document.
| | 04:37 | Only it is not visible.
| | 04:38 | While I can certainly resize my frame
in order to remedy the situation, I also
| | 04:43 | have the ability to create a brand-new
frame and have any overset text simply
| | 04:48 | continue on and flow into the second frame.
| | 04:50 | In order to do that I'm going to be
using my Selection tool and I am going to be
| | 04:54 | focusing once again on the ports themselves.
| | 04:57 | With my Selection tool, I am now going
to click on the out port or in this case
| | 05:01 | here the red arrow.
| | 05:02 | When I do so and move my cursor away,
I can see that a new icon appears.
| | 05:07 | This is called the loaded text cursor.
| | 05:09 | It means that Illustrator now has
loaded up all that extra overset text and put
| | 05:13 | it into my cursor and now Illustrator
is waiting for me to now either click on
| | 05:17 | another shape, at which time Illustrator
will convert that shape to an area text
| | 05:21 | object and flow the text into it, or
since I don't have another shape right now
| | 05:26 | to work with I can click and drag as I
had done before to create a new frame.
| | 05:30 | Now we will see that Illustrator starts
the text off inside of one area text object.
| | 05:35 | That text now flows into a brand-
new text frame and finishes here.
| | 05:40 | Let's select both of these objects here and
take a look at the icons inside the ports.
| | 05:44 | At the beginning of my thread,
my port is filled wide or it is empty.
| | 05:48 | This means this is now the start of my text.
| | 05:50 | The out port identifies now a blue arrow.
| | 05:53 | This means that text is currently
flowing out of my frame and this text frame
| | 05:58 | has a blue arrow in its in port.
| | 06:00 | That means that the text that I am
seeing right here is actually coming in
| | 06:03 | from a previous source.
| | 06:04 | Illustrator connects these two ports
with a line to let me know the direction in
| | 06:08 | which this text is going.
| | 06:09 | Finally, if there is no more text
left anymore and I have room left inside
| | 06:14 | of this frame, I now see this is the end of the
text, which is identified by an empty out port.
| | 06:19 | One of the really nice things about
working with threads inside of Illustrator
| | 06:23 | is that it is really easy to
edit the threads themselves.
| | 06:25 | For example, I am now going to go ahead now
and select just this one object right here.
| | 06:30 | I am going to move it over
to this part of the page.
| | 06:32 | Maybe I want to add now a third
text frame, but I want it to be in the
| | 06:35 | middle between these two.
| | 06:36 | So I want text to start off in this
frame, flow into a new text frame here, and
| | 06:41 | then finally finish off on this one.
| | 06:43 | In fact maybe in this case, I am
going to draw a separate shape first.
| | 06:46 | For example, I am going to use my
Ellipse tool to click and drag and draw some
| | 06:49 | kind of an oval shape.
| | 06:50 | Next, I will use my regular selection
tool to select the first text frame.
| | 06:54 | I will click on the out port.
| | 06:56 | Notice now that I get that loaded text cursor.
| | 06:58 | I will now mouse over this shape and as
soon as I do so, it becomes highlighted,
| | 07:02 | meaning I can now click on it.
| | 07:04 | When I do so, Illustrator
converts it to an area text object.
| | 07:07 | But it also inserts it
into the middle of the thread.
| | 07:09 | So now I see that text starts here,
flows into this new shape that I created and
| | 07:14 | then continues on to the shape right here.
| | 07:16 | I'll turn the bounding box back on
now by going to the View menu and
| | 07:19 | choosing Show Bounding Box.
| | 07:21 | You'll see now that if I resize any
of these frames, the text simply moves
| | 07:25 | across all these other frames accordingly.
| | 07:27 | Perhaps one of the biggest benefits or
reasons for using area text objects that
| | 07:31 | are threaded inside of Illustrator is
how easy it is to work with that text when
| | 07:35 | you're actually editing it.
| | 07:37 | For example, I am going to double-click
now inside of this text and notice now
| | 07:40 | if I want to quickly move across these
three objects, I can just use the down
| | 07:44 | arrow on my keyboard to move across that text.
| | 07:47 | So often when you're thinking about
text overall, we probably think about
| | 07:51 | working with flowing text and text
threads as being something that InDesign does
| | 07:55 | or working on large documents
or brochures or even newsletters.
| | 07:59 | However, when working with projects
inside of Illustrator, you might find that
| | 08:03 | instead of using multiple point text
objects, which are tedious to select, you
| | 08:07 | might think about structuring your
document using multiple area text objects
| | 08:11 | that are threaded together in a single thread.
| | 08:13 | As with almost any project if you know
you going to be using a lot of text,
| | 08:17 | it might make sense for you to take just
a few moments in advance to better plan
| | 08:21 | out how you might implement
that text inside of your document.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting text along an open path| 00:00 | While it's certainly true that
Illustrator has two main ways of creating text,
| | 00:05 | either point text objects or area text objects,
| | 00:08 | there is a third type of text
object, something called type on a path.
| | 00:12 | However as we are about to find out
type on a path and area text are really
| | 00:17 | very much the same. Let's take a look.
| | 00:20 | As you can see in this artwork over
here, I have the word Bermuda Buttercup
| | 00:23 | which appears, but the shape of the
card itself is really kind of a little
| | 00:27 | bit of a curved shape and I may want to have
the text itself match somewhat along that curve.
| | 00:32 | We can have text follow this curve
by creating a type on a path object.
| | 00:37 | In this movie we are going to focus
specifically on creating these type on a
| | 00:41 | path objects, but with using open paths.
| | 00:43 | Once we get a feel for how this works
we can move on and create type on a path
| | 00:47 | objects with closed paths.
| | 00:49 | Now for this example here, I am just
going to start by creating a new path and
| | 00:53 | to do that I'm going to use the Pen tool.
| | 00:55 | Normally, if I wanted to match this
exact same curve here, I might actually copy
| | 01:00 | and paste and cut a small
portion of that path to work with.
| | 01:02 | But for now so that we can just focus
on understanding how this type on a path
| | 01:06 | feature works, I am going to start by
clicking over here, maybe I will add
| | 01:09 | anchor point here by dragging to make
some kind of a curve, and then I will end
| | 01:13 | it off somewhere over here.
| | 01:14 | It doesn't need to be perfect and in
fact at this point I don't want it to be
| | 01:17 | perfect because I want you to be able
to see how you can still edit the path
| | 01:20 | even after you've added type to it.
| | 01:22 | So I have defined the path here.
| | 01:24 | It's an open path and I'll go ahead
now and I will switch to the Type tool.
| | 01:28 | Note by the way that if you press and
hold your mouse button down here, you
| | 01:31 | could reveal additional type tools,
for example something here called the
| | 01:35 | Type on a Path tool.
| | 01:36 | However we are not going to
specifically use that tool because I think that as
| | 01:40 | you are working, it's a little bit
silly to have to continuously jump between
| | 01:43 | different text tools.
| | 01:45 | By learning a few keyboard modifier keys,
we could stick to just using one type
| | 01:49 | tool inside of Illustrator and
we'll become that much more efficient.
| | 01:52 | In the current state right now, if
I were to click somewhere I would be
| | 01:55 | defining a new text object.
| | 01:57 | If I click once with the mouse,
I will create a point text object and if I
| | 02:01 | click and drag with the mouse, I'll be
drawing a shape that defines an area text object.
| | 02:05 | If you move your cursor onto any other
kind of the path, in this case here an
| | 02:09 | open path, you'll see that the cursor
changes directly to the Type on a Path tool.
| | 02:14 | This wouldn't be the case by the
way if I moved over to a closed path.
| | 02:18 | We will deal with that in the next
movie but for now if I want to define a type
| | 02:22 | on a path object, all I need to
do is just click once on this path.
| | 02:26 | At this point right now Illustrator
actually removes the stroke attribute from
| | 02:30 | the path, assuming that I don't want to
see the stroke, I just want to see some
| | 02:33 | text. and I now see a blinking
insertion point on the path itself. I can now
| | 02:38 | start to add some text. So I
will type in Bermuda Buttercup.
| | 02:44 | I can make my text little bit bigger by
pressing Command+A to select all my text
| | 02:48 | and then I will use the keyboard
shortcuts Command+Shift+> to actually
| | 02:53 | increase the point size.
| | 02:55 | Now, I mentioned earlier that working
with type on a path is very similar to
| | 02:59 | working with area text and let me explain why.
| | 03:02 | I'm going to switch now to my Direct
Selection tool and you could see now that
| | 03:06 | I have several user interface elements
that appear on this object. Besides the
| | 03:10 | path itself and the anchor points that
I created in order to define that path,
| | 03:14 | I now have a line that appears over
here, a line that appears over here and one
| | 03:19 | in the middle as well.
| | 03:20 | I also have two boxes.
| | 03:22 | If you remember what it was like
working with area text objects and I'll go
| | 03:25 | ahead now and I will click over here to
select one of them, you'll see now that
| | 03:29 | the bounds of the path itself define
where the text falls inside of it and I
| | 03:33 | also have the in and the out ports.
| | 03:35 | Let's go back to our path in a text
object now and I'll click on the text
| | 03:39 | itself so I can now see
these user interface elements.
| | 03:42 | The lines that I see on the far left and
on the far right actually establish a
| | 03:47 | boundary from where that
text can flow inside of it.
| | 03:49 | It's the same thing as actual
rectangle that I may have used when creating
| | 03:53 | an area text object.
| | 03:54 | To describe what I mean, if I were to
now actually click on this line right here
| | 03:58 | and drag to the left, you'll see that
Illustrator no longer has room to display
| | 04:03 | the word Buttercup. Even though the
path is definitely long enough to show that word,
| | 04:07 | I've only told Illustrator that I
want text to appear within this point,
| | 04:12 | and this point on that path.
| | 04:14 | So you might think about these
lines as the start and end points or the
| | 04:18 | boundaries for where this text
can now live on the path itself.
| | 04:22 | The line that appears in the middle is
actually the center point and if I click
| | 04:25 | and drag, I can move the entire text
elements along the path. But this line that
| | 04:31 | appears in the middle
also serves a second purpose.
| | 04:34 | Right now I have an open path and my
text appears along the top part of the path.
| | 04:39 | However, if I take this line now and I
click on it and I drag down so that my
| | 04:44 | cursor now falls on the other side of
the path, I can flip the text so that it
| | 04:49 | now appears along the other side of the
path,. Likewise, I can click and drag to
| | 04:53 | adjust things along this side of the path.
Just by moving my cursor to the other
| | 04:57 | side of the path flips
the text back to this side.
| | 05:00 | Now we also have these squares or
the ports in a type on a path object as well.
| | 05:04 | Remember that this is the in port or
where my text starts and this is the out port.
| | 05:08 | Noticed that I now have an overset icon.
That's because the word Buttercup cannot
| | 05:13 | fit within this area. Remember that
with area text objects I can create threads,
| | 05:18 | meaning I can start text inside of
one frame and have it flow into another.
| | 05:22 | Well, when you working with type on a
path objects, you can also has text start
| | 05:26 | on one path and then flow to completely
different path, using the same methods
| | 05:31 | and working with both the in and the out ports.
| | 05:33 | Now in this case I would like Bermuda
Buttercup to sit nice and centered on the
| | 05:37 | path itself, so I will drag out
the end toward somewhere over here.
| | 05:41 | I can actually have it snap to the
anchor point and I can do the same thing
| | 05:44 | over here on the left side, have it
snapped to this anchor point. I can now
| | 05:48 | choose my paragraph settings
to align my text to the center.
| | 05:52 | Now I know my text is exactly
centered on the path itself.
| | 05:55 | Now when working with the Direct
Selection tool, I have the ability to still make
| | 05:59 | modifications to the path itself.
| | 06:02 | I am going to deselect my text right
now by click and a blank area of my
| | 06:05 | artboard and you will notice that if I
click on the text itself, I see all the
| | 06:09 | text user interface elements.
| | 06:11 | However, I'm going to deselect once
again and come back here. If I click just on
| | 06:15 | the path itself and if I have smart
guides turned on, it's that much more
| | 06:20 | easier for me to do this.
| | 06:21 | I can now click on just the path and
edit the path the same way that I would
| | 06:25 | edit any other anchor
points inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting text along a closed path| 00:00 | So we know that inside of Illustrator,
we can create a type on a path object
| | 00:04 | where the type flows along a path.
| | 00:07 | We've done that so far with open paths,
but let's take a closer look at working
| | 00:12 | with closed paths because a few
things are somewhat different.
| | 00:15 | First of all note that in this
example I have the word CULTIVATE appear
| | 00:19 | across the top, but the word YOUR GARDEN
goes in a different direction across the bottom.
| | 00:24 | In order to create this type of design
inside of Illustrator, you actually need
| | 00:28 | to create two type on a path objects.
| | 00:32 | To see how to create that, let's first
begin with drawing a circle. I am going
| | 00:35 | to use the regular Ellipse tool and I
will hold down the Option key or Alt on
| | 00:39 | Windows and also the Shift key so I can
draw perfect Circle out from the center.
| | 00:45 | Next, I'm going to want to
add some text here to this path.
| | 00:48 | So to make things easier, I can
actually set some of these settings in advance.
| | 00:52 | I will go to the Window menu here,
scroll down to where it says Type, and I will
| | 00:57 | choose open up the Character panel.
In fact I want to work with the Paragraph
| | 01:01 | panel as well, so I am simply going to
take the tab of the Character panel and
| | 01:05 | drag it out so it is own separate panel.
| | 01:07 | Let me position these right about over
here, so now I have both the Character
| | 01:11 | and Paragraph panel visible.
| | 01:13 | I want my text to be centered, so I am
going to click on the Align Center option.
| | 01:18 | And I want is Chaparral Pro Bold for my
typeface, so from the popup over here I am
| | 01:23 | going to choose Chaparral Pro and I
will now choose Bold and I'll use the typeface
| | 01:29 | little bit bigger, maybe around 24 points. Great.
| | 01:32 | Now I am ready to add my type to this
circle and create a type on a path object.
| | 01:37 | Now, I will start by first coming
over here to my Tools panel and I will
| | 01:41 | select the Type tool.
| | 01:42 | While we know that there are several
type tools here which I can access by
| | 01:45 | clicking and holding the mouse button
down on the type tool, I can use certain
| | 01:49 | keyboard shortcuts so that I don't have
to keep switching between these tools.
| | 01:53 | For example when I am on the artboard
with my regular Type tool, I know that if
| | 01:57 | I click once, I'll create a point
text object. If I click and drag, I will
| | 02:01 | create an area text object.
| | 02:03 | If I click on an open path, that path
will turn into a type on a path object, but
| | 02:09 | I also know that if I move my cursor
over a closed shape, Illustrator actually
| | 02:13 | turns into the cursor with those parentheses,
indicating it's going to turn that into
| | 02:17 | an area text object.
| | 02:19 | In other words, Illustrator thinks that
I might want to put text inside of this
| | 02:22 | circle and treat a circle like a
container for the text. I don't want to do that here.
| | 02:27 | I actually want this to turn into
a type on a path object where the text
| | 02:31 | runs along the perimeter or
the outside of the circle.
| | 02:34 | So to do that I am going to press the
Option key or the Alt key on my keyboard.
| | 02:39 | Now you will notice that my cursor
changes to the Type on a Path tool.
| | 02:43 | Now remember I had my text now set to
centered, so I want my text to be centered
| | 02:49 | right at the top of the circle right here.
| | 02:51 | So I could type the word CULTIVATE.
| | 02:53 | So with my Option key held down,
I am now going to click on this area and
| | 02:57 | watch what happens.
| | 02:58 | Yes, it did now convert this to a type
on a path object but my blinking cursor
| | 03:03 | now is at the bottom of the circle.
In fact, if I start typing the word
| | 03:07 | CULTIVATE I see that that text right
now is perfectly centered at the bottom.
| | 03:12 | Why did that happen?
| | 03:14 | Well, let's switch to the Direct
Selection tool and will get a better
| | 03:17 | understanding of what just happened.
| | 03:19 | You see when we're working with an
open path and I click at one point to
| | 03:24 | create my type on a path object, the place
where I click actually becomes my start point.
| | 03:29 | However, a quick look now at the circle
reveals that at the top of my circle I
| | 03:33 | now see both the start and the end points.
I also see both the in and out ports.
| | 03:39 | This is because on a closed path,
the same place that I click not only
| | 03:44 | defines my start point.
| | 03:46 | It also defines the endpoint.
| | 03:48 | That's because we are dealing
with a continuous path here.
| | 03:51 | So when I click at this point, I have
indeed created my start point, but if I
| | 03:55 | then travel 360 degrees around the circle,
my endpoint is right back where I started.
| | 04:01 | Since I specified my text to be centered,
this point at the bottom of the circle
| | 04:05 | is now the center point
between my both start and end points.
| | 04:09 | So to fix this problem, all I need to do
is move down over here, grab the center
| | 04:14 | point, and drag it up towards the top.
| | 04:16 | If I am using Smart Guides, it's really
easy to snap it right in to position.
| | 04:20 | However, at this point I now want the
words YOUR GARDEN to appear along the
| | 04:25 | bottom part of the circle, but remember
inside of Illustrator, I can only have
| | 04:30 | text travel in one direction along a
path and it can only be on one side of that
| | 04:35 | path, in this case either
the outside or the inside.
| | 04:39 | In order for text to travel in this
direction, I would need the text to be
| | 04:43 | traveling on the inside of that path.
| | 04:45 | So to do that I'm now going to create
a second type object. I'll hold down my
| | 04:49 | Option key on my keyboard or Alt on
Windows and I will click and drag to create
| | 04:53 | a copy of this type on a path object.
| | 04:56 | Now I can double click on the text to
change my type cursor, hit Command+A to
| | 05:01 | select all of my text within this
particular text object, type in the words
| | 05:06 | YOUR GARDEN, and then using my Direct
Selection tool move the center point of
| | 05:11 | this one not only towards the bottom of
the circle, but also towards the inside
| | 05:16 | of the circle as well.
| | 05:17 | So I have created two basic elements I
need in order to complete my construct here.
| | 05:22 | To align them correctly, I am going to
use my Selection tool to select both of
| | 05:27 | these elements and then from the
Control panel I will click a line to bring
| | 05:31 | up the Align options and I will align it both
vertically and horizontally by their centers.
| | 05:36 | At this point though I still need to
make one other adjustment because if I
| | 05:39 | select this, you'll see that the word
CULTIVATE appears along the outside of the path,
| | 05:43 | but the word YOUR GARDEN
appears along the inside of the path.
| | 05:47 | So I am not really getting the visual
look that I'm going for. I really need the
| | 05:50 | tops of the letters here of YOUR GARDEN
to align up here with the path itself,
| | 05:55 | not the bottom of that text.
| | 05:57 | So to make that adjustment I'm going
to be using Baseline Shift. I'll take my
| | 06:02 | Type tool, I'll click to insert my
icon here inside of this text, and press
| | 06:05 | Command+A and I can now use the
Baseline Shift option, I will go here using
| | 06:10 | negative values, to actually push my
text out so that it aligns correctly.
| | 06:15 | I could then use additional settings
here inside a Character panel, for example
| | 06:18 | a point size and tracking, to get my
text to look exactly as I need it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting text into paths| 00:00 | Text inside of Illustrator
is a special type of object.
| | 00:04 | Type itself is vector in nature,
meaning that you can scale it to any size
| | 00:08 | without losing any detail.
| | 00:09 | However, you can't actually
edit any of the anchor points.
| | 00:13 | Of course one of the nice things about
working with text in general is that you
| | 00:17 | can change that text from a copy perspective.
| | 00:20 | For example fixing typos, or
just generally editing words.
| | 00:24 | However, there may be times when you
want to make some modifications to text
| | 00:28 | from a graphical perspective.
| | 00:30 | In order to do that, you'll have
to convert your text into paths.
| | 00:35 | Inside of Illustrator, we refer
to that process as creating outlines.
| | 00:40 | So for example, I can select this text
element right here are on my artboard
| | 00:44 | and I could then go up to the Type menu and
I can choose this option called Create Outlines.
| | 00:50 | The keyboard shortcut is Command+Shift
+O. Now before I actually select this,
| | 00:54 | let's take a moment to think
about what's about to happen.
| | 00:57 | This text object, which has editable
text attributes inside of it and things
| | 01:02 | like point size settings and typography
settings like font styles and kerning,
| | 01:08 | will no longer have those attributes
once I've converted them to outlines.
| | 01:12 | The benefit though is that I'll be able
to access any of the individual anchor
| | 01:15 | points for each of these characters.
| | 01:17 | So let's choose this option now and see
what happens. Notice now that it's all
| | 01:21 | been converted to anchor points. I can
use my Direct Selection tool to highlight
| | 01:26 | individual anchor points and select them
and then make adjustments to them.
| | 01:30 | This is obviously something that
I can't do with live type.
| | 01:33 | Now there are other reasons why you
might want to convert your text to outlines as
| | 01:36 | well and that discussion comes down
to type itself and working with fonts.
| | 01:41 | For example, if I set a document now,
using a certain typeface and I then want
| | 01:46 | to transfer that document to
somebody else for them to open up on their
| | 01:48 | computer, they need to have that
typeface in order for this to display
| | 01:53 | correctly on their computer.
| | 01:54 | However, if I turn this text into
outlines, I can now transfer this file to
| | 01:59 | any other computer, and it will display just
perfectly without requiring additional fonts.
| | 02:04 | The downside is that once I've converted
to outlines, I can no longer change the
| | 02:09 | spelling or adjust the type itself.
| | 02:11 | While it looks like text, all it
really is, is a bunch of anchor points
| | 02:15 | making up these shapes.
| | 02:16 | I'll tell you that in general, when I'm
creating logos, which are files that I
| | 02:20 | know are going to be distributed
amongst many, many different computers, I'll
| | 02:24 | usually convert all of my text
inside my final logo to outlines.
| | 02:28 | This will not only ensure that
everyone else who opens that file will see the
| | 02:32 | correct logo without getting any font errors.
| | 02:35 | It also ensures that the branding that
I worked so hard to create will appear
| | 02:39 | correctly no matter where or how it's used.
| | 02:42 | There is one thing to note though
about converting your text to outlines.
| | 02:45 | Besides the obvious loss in editability,
if you have a lot of text that can add
| | 02:50 | a lot of anchor points to your document.
| | 02:52 | So for things like headlines, logo type,
maybe a masthead for magazine, those
| | 02:57 | are all great candidates for actually
converting your text in to outlines.
| | 03:01 | However, I'd be wary about turning
entire paragraphs of text, like for example
| | 03:06 | ad copy or text across a brochure, into
outlines unless absolutely necessary.
| | 03:13 | Otherwise I may be faced with file
sizes that are incredibly large and files
| | 03:17 | that take a really long time to print.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Quick Project: Building a LogoCreate a logo mark| 00:00 | So you've already gone through several
chapters about learning how to use Illustrator.
| | 00:05 | Let's stop for a moment now and
actually apply some of the knowledge
| | 00:08 | that we've learned.
| | 00:09 | Let's create a very basic project
from scratch, say maybe creating a logo
| | 00:14 | mark for a company.
| | 00:15 | Now until now we've been using
examples from this fictional company called
| | 00:19 | Hansel and Petal, a flower shop.
| | 00:22 | So let's go ahead now and
create a logo for this flower shop.
| | 00:26 | Let's begin by choosing Print Document
here from the Welcome screen, and where
| | 00:30 | it says New Document Profile, I'm
going to choose Print and click OK.
| | 00:35 | Now for this logo, I'd like to create
some kind of an abstract flower shape.
| | 00:40 | Rather than struggle with the Pen tool
and drawing this flower from scratch,
| | 00:44 | I'm going to use some very basic shapes,
in this case just a whole bunch of circles.
| | 00:49 | I'll use those circles to build my
final shape using the Shape Builder tool.
| | 00:54 | So to get started, I'll
need to create some circles.
| | 00:57 | In the Tools panel, I'm going
to choose now the Ellipse tool.
| | 01:00 | Of course, I could simply click and
drag and also hold down the Shift key
| | 01:05 | to create perfect circles, but I know the
exact size that I want to create my circle at.
| | 01:10 | So instead of wasting time trying to
eyeball it and get it perfect on the
| | 01:14 | screen, I'm going to press Undo now.
| | 01:17 | To do that, instead of clicking and
dragging, I'll simply click and release the
| | 01:21 | mouse to bring up the Ellipse dialog box.
| | 01:23 | Since I want to create a perfect circle,
I'll enter a value of 100 points for the Width.
| | 01:28 | Hit the Tab key and 100 points for the Height.
| | 01:32 | Now I'll click OK to create that
perfect circle here on my screen.
| | 01:37 | I want to zoom in a little bit closer
here so I could see better what I'm doing.
| | 01:40 | So I'm going to press and hold the
Command and Spacebar or Ctrl+Spacebar to just
| | 01:45 | temporarily toggle to the Zoom tool.
| | 01:47 | I'm not going to click and drag to
draw a marquee around this circle.
| | 01:52 | Then release the mouse and
then release the keyboard keys.
| | 01:56 | So now I've created one circle,
but I need to create a few more.
| | 01:59 | Rather than draw additional circles,
I could simply make copies of my existing one.
| | 02:05 | So I'm going to go now and choose
to select my regular Selection tool.
| | 02:08 | I'll position my cursor just about anywhere
inside of the boundary of the circle here.
| | 02:13 | I'm going to click and drag
and drag it towards the right.
| | 02:17 | As I do so, I'm going to hold down
the Shift key on my keyboard. That will
| | 02:21 | constrain movement to be just exactly to the
right here, not allowing me to go up or down.
| | 02:26 | At the same time, I'm also going to hold
down the Option key or the Alt key on Windows.
| | 02:32 | You can see now that my cursor changes
to a double arrow, which means that I'm
| | 02:35 | now not dragging the original.
| | 02:37 | Instead, I'm now dragging a copy of that circle.
| | 02:40 | I'm going to drag it all the way to
the right and because I have my Smart
| | 02:43 | Guides turned on, the intersect
indicator allows me to know that right now both
| | 02:48 | circles intersect each
other at that particular point.
| | 02:51 | So I'm going to go ahead now
and first release the mouse.
| | 02:54 | Then I'll release the keyboard
keys that I was holding down.
| | 02:57 | By the way, if your Smart Guides
do not show up, they may not be on.
| | 03:00 | Press Command+U on your keyboard
or Ctrl+U to activate Smart Guides.
| | 03:06 | So I now have two circles that touch each
other just at this one point right here.
| | 03:11 | I want to create two other additional circles.
| | 03:13 | So what I'm going to do is click and
then drag to marquee select these two, so
| | 03:18 | now both circles are selected.
| | 03:20 | Now I need to create two more circles,
but again instead of drawing them, I'm
| | 03:24 | simply going to take the ones
that I have right now and copy them.
| | 03:27 | However, the two new circles that I
want to create have to be rotated to a
| | 03:31 | different orientation.
| | 03:32 | So to do that, I'm going to use the Rotate tool.
| | 03:35 | Inside of the Tools panel here is
this tool called the Rotate tool.
| | 03:39 | The keyboard shortcut for that is the R key.
| | 03:41 | While we're going to spend some time
learning how to use this tool in depth
| | 03:44 | later on in our title,
| | 03:46 | for now I want to do very simple action.
| | 03:48 | I'm just going to go ahead now and
double-click on the Rotate tool itself.
| | 03:52 | Doing so brings up the Rotate dialog box,
which allows me to rotate my selected
| | 03:57 | elements numerically.
| | 03:59 | I want to change the angle here
from 45 degrees to 90 degrees.
| | 04:03 | Instead of clicking OK, which would
rotate both of these circles right now
| | 04:07 | 90 degrees, I'm going to click on the
Copy button, which would now rotate copies
| | 04:12 | of these two circles.
| | 04:13 | So at this point right now, I have
four different circles in my document.
| | 04:18 | It may not look like much right now,
but we're going to use this as a basis to
| | 04:22 | create our abstract flower for the logo design.
| | 04:25 | The circles that we've created are using
attributes of white fills and black strokes.
| | 04:29 | We'll talk more about fills and
strokes later on in our title.
| | 04:33 | But for now, it's going to be easier
to work with this if I set the fills for
| | 04:36 | these circles to be none instead of white.
| | 04:39 | So once again, I'm going to
switch back to my Selection tool.
| | 04:41 | I'll click and drag to
marquee select all four circles.
| | 04:46 | Then up in the top left over here in
the Control panel, I'm going to click on
| | 04:49 | this pop-up right here,
which is the fill indicator.
| | 04:52 | I'm going to choose the None option,
which is in the upper left of that dialog box.
| | 04:57 | So now you can see how these four
circles actually overlap each other.
| | 05:01 | In reality, I've created these four
different circles because I simply want to
| | 05:05 | you to get to these overlapping areas.
| | 05:07 | As you can see, these four sections
right over here are going to act as the
| | 05:13 | basis for our flower.
| | 05:15 | If I wanted to now go ahead and use a
Pen tool to draw them from scratch, it'll
| | 05:19 | be much more difficult to do so.
| | 05:21 | However, by using the Shape Builder tool,
I can very quickly get at the shapes
| | 05:26 | I'm trying to create.
| | 05:27 | All these shapes are currently selected,
so I'm going to move over here now to
| | 05:31 | the actual Shape Builder tool and select it.
| | 05:34 | I'll move my cursor now
over these existing shapes.
| | 05:37 | You can see that right now, the Shape
Builder tool is ready to start working with them.
| | 05:41 | In this case, I don't want to use the
Shape Builder tool to add objects together.
| | 05:45 | I'd actually like to remove everything
except for these four petals for my flower.
| | 05:51 | So remember, to subtract areas when
using the Shape Builder tool, I'm going to
| | 05:55 | hold down the Option key or
the Alt key on my keyboard.
| | 05:59 | Notice now my cursor changes to a minus sign.
| | 06:01 | If I click and drag right now into
this area, that area becomes removed.
| | 06:06 | While still holding down that
Option key, I'm simply going to click in
| | 06:10 | these other areas here to remove them,
leaving me just with the four petals that I need.
| | 06:15 | So as you can see right now,
I started out by drawing a very simple circle.
| | 06:19 | I made a few copies of it, but now I've
ended up with something far more complex.
| | 06:24 | But wait, we're not done just yet.
| | 06:26 | I want to make this even
a little bit more complex.
| | 06:28 | These shapes are still selected.
| | 06:30 | So I'm going to go back to the Rotate
tool and once again double click on it
| | 06:34 | to bring up the Rotate dialog box.
| | 06:36 | But this time, I'm going to
change the angle to 45 degrees.
| | 06:41 | Once again, click on the Copy button.
| | 06:43 | So what I've now done is
I've taken those four petals and
| | 06:47 | I've rotated a copy of those four petals.
| | 06:50 | Now, my result is eight petals
| | 06:52 | and I have a far more complex
looking flower. What's more?
| | 06:56 | Because of the shape of these petals,
some of those actually overlap in certain
| | 07:00 | areas as you can see in here.
| | 07:02 | I actually like those overlapping areas.
| | 07:04 | I'm going to take advantage of using them
to make a far more interesting logo mark.
| | 07:09 | So at this point, I've created
basic shapes that I needed.
| | 07:13 | Now I want to add some color and
really bring all of this together.
| | 07:16 | So I'm going to do a few things here.
| | 07:18 | First, I'm going to come all the way
up over here to this dock and expand it.
| | 07:22 | That will allow me to see all the
swatches that I have here, all the colors that
| | 07:26 | exist in this document.
| | 07:28 | Where do these colors come from?
| | 07:29 | Well, they're here by default inside of
the Print profile, which we used when we
| | 07:33 | first created this document.
| | 07:35 | Next, I'm going to come
over here to the Tools panel.
| | 07:38 | I'm going to double-click
on the Shape Builder tool.
| | 07:41 | This brings up the Shape
Builder Tool Options dialog box.
| | 07:45 | And since I now want to use the Shape
Builder tool not only to actually combine and
| | 07:49 | build shapes, I also want the tool to
be able to color my objects as well.
| | 07:54 | So where it says Pick Color From in the
Options section right here, I'm going to
| | 07:59 | choose to check this option
here called Cursor Swatch Preview.
| | 08:04 | When I click OK, you can now see that
as I move my cursor around, a little box
| | 08:09 | appears or actually three
boxes appear right above my icon.
| | 08:14 | Now I'm going to come over to my Swatches panel.
| | 08:16 | I'm going to click on the
yellow option right here.
| | 08:19 | You notice that right now above my
cursor, a large yellow square appeared.
| | 08:23 | Immediately to the left of that
yellow square is a red square.
| | 08:27 | Immediately to the right
of it is a green square.
| | 08:29 | In fact, if you look at my Swatches panel,
you could see the same exists right here.
| | 08:34 | To the left, I have a red swatch.
| | 08:36 | To the right, I have a green swatch.
| | 08:38 | So right now, these three boxes are
showing me a small snapshot if you will
| | 08:43 | of my Swatches panel.
| | 08:46 | I have the ability to actually navigate
between different colors by using the
| | 08:50 | arrow keys on my keyboard.
| | 08:52 | So if I hit the Right Arrow, if you
look at my Swatches panel, each of the
| | 08:56 | colors moves towards the right.
| | 08:58 | If I hit the Left Arrow key on my
keyboard, I move towards the left.
| | 09:03 | I toggle between the
different swatches that way.
| | 09:06 | In this case, I want to start by
coloring in the outer leaves using a very light
| | 09:10 | or bright green color.
| | 09:12 | So I'm going to hit the Right Arrow key
until I navigate to this green color right here.
| | 09:17 | It's about a 20% cyan and 100% yellow.
| | 09:20 | Now remember, in order to use the Shape
Builder tool on objects, I need to have
| | 09:24 | all those objects selected.
| | 09:26 | Right now, only four of my petals are
selected, but I would need to actually
| | 09:30 | select all eight of them.
| | 09:32 | Now because, I have nothing else at all
inside of my document, the fastest way
| | 09:36 | to select everything here is to actually press
Command+A or Ctrl+A on Windows to Select All.
| | 09:43 | Notice that right now, all the objects
or shapes are selected in my document.
| | 09:47 | I can now get started coloring my
artwork and building it using the
| | 09:51 | Shape Builder tool.
| | 09:52 | So I'm going to start by bringing my
cursor over to the top petal right here.
| | 09:55 | I'm going to go to click.
| | 09:57 | That's now going to go ahead now and
fill that with my selected color, which is
| | 10:01 | this nice bright green color.
| | 10:03 | I'm now going to continue to do that
with the other outer petals as well.
| | 10:06 | Again, each time that I click here,
the Shape Builder tool is automatically
| | 10:10 | figuring out that I only want to fill in
this one region right here, not all the
| | 10:14 | overlapping areas, and it's filling
it with the color that I've selected.
| | 10:19 | So now, I have all the outer petals colored.
| | 10:21 | I now want to fill all the inner petals
with a little bit of a darker green color.
| | 10:26 | So I'm going to hit the Right Arrow on
my keyboard just once to move over to a
| | 10:30 | little bit of a darker shade
or brighter shade of green.
| | 10:33 | I'm not going to do the same
for the inner petals right here.
| | 10:37 | I'm just simply clicking, moving my
cursor over, so that I now have all of these
| | 10:41 | smaller petals now filled with
the green color that I want to use.
| | 10:45 | At this point, I've actually
successfully built my object and I've colored it
| | 10:50 | as well, but I really don't want to
see all these black outlines or strokes
| | 10:54 | applied to these shapes.
| | 10:55 | So in the Tools panel, I'm going to
switch to my regular Selection tool.
| | 11:00 | From the Control panel up over here,
I'm going to click on the stroke indicator
| | 11:04 | and set the stroke to None.
| | 11:06 | Now I'll simply come to my
artboard and click on a blank area to
| | 11:09 | deselect everything.
| | 11:11 | At this point, I've successfully
created this flower icon that we're going to
| | 11:15 | be using for the logo.
| | 11:17 | In our next step, we're going to
add some text to complete our logo.
| | 11:20 | But at this point, you should really
have a good idea on how to draw and create
| | 11:24 | graphics inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Add type to your logo| 00:00 | So at this point we've created a really cool
flower icon to use as a logo for our company.
| | 00:06 | But now we need to add the name of the
company, Hansel & Petal, to complete our logo.
| | 00:11 | Now I want the text to actually
appear on the right side of this icon.
| | 00:15 | So I am going to hold down the
Spacebar to activate my Hand tool.
| | 00:19 | And I am simply going to click and drag
while holding down the Spacebar just to
| | 00:23 | reposition this over to the side.
| | 00:24 | Next, I am going to go ahead
now and choose my Type tool here.
| | 00:28 | And I am going to be
creating a point text object now.
| | 00:31 | So I am simply going to click once and
release the mouse so that I get a blinking cursor.
| | 00:36 | I could type in the name of the company.
In this case here it's Hansel & Petal.
| | 00:39 | So I'll type in Hansel.
| | 00:42 | Now because of the design that I am
going to using, I am actually not going to
| | 00:46 | put a space in between these characters here.
| | 00:48 | I want it to read as one long word.
| | 00:50 | So I am going to hit an ampersand here,
and then type in Petal for Hansel&Petal.
| | 00:56 | And now I want to style this text.
| | 00:58 | So I am going to switch now for a
moment here to my Selection tool.
| | 01:02 | And then right here from Control
panel, I am going to switch the font.
| | 01:06 | And I'll maybe use something, like maybe
Chaparral Pro is a nice typeface to use.
| | 01:10 | I'll leave it set right
now to the Regular style.
| | 01:14 | And I'll change the point size here to 72 point.
| | 01:17 | It's pretty big and it kind of runs
off the screen now, but don't worry
| | 01:20 | about that for now.
| | 01:21 | I can actually press Command+Minus or
Ctrl+Minus, to zoom out just a little bit
| | 01:25 | so I could see more of this and
kind of reposition this on my screen.
| | 01:29 | But I'd like to make some
adjustments to how the text actually appears.
| | 01:32 | You'll notice that the spaces
between each of the characters are not
| | 01:36 | necessarily even or the same.
| | 01:38 | Many times when creating a logo,
a designer needs to go in and adjust the
| | 01:42 | kerning, or the amount of space that
appears between each of the characters,
| | 01:47 | to get a better look.
| | 01:48 | I want to get a head start here with
a setting that appears inside of the
| | 01:51 | Character panel inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:54 | A quick way to access to Character
panel is to simply click on the word
| | 01:57 | Character right here
inside of the Control panel.
| | 02:00 | The kerning is actually controlled by
this setting right here where it says AV.
| | 02:03 | And I am going to click on this
little pop up here and choose Optical.
| | 02:08 | This is basically an automatic
setting where Illustrator will go in and
| | 02:12 | automatically distribute all
the spaces between the characters
| | 02:15 | so that they are somewhat
similar from an optical perspective.
| | 02:19 | However, I still may want to make small
adjustments. For example right here
| | 02:23 | the P and the e have a little
bit of an extra space between them.
| | 02:26 | And I might want to adjust that manually.
| | 02:28 | So to do that I am going to
switch now back to my Type tool.
| | 02:32 | And I am going to click so that my
cursor now appears blinking right in between
| | 02:36 | the letters P and e. I am going to
press and hold down the Option key on my
| | 02:40 | keyboard or Alt on Windows.
| | 02:42 | And at the same time, I am
also going to tap the left arrow.
| | 02:45 | And notice that when I do that, it
moved the e, t, a and l or basically
| | 02:50 | anything after that cursor,
kind of nudged it to the left.
| | 02:53 | So now, I have less space that appears
between the P and the e, and I am much
| | 02:57 | happier with that result.
| | 02:59 | Even though I wanted the Hansel&Petal
to kind of read as one whole word, I do
| | 03:03 | want add just a little bit
more space around the ampersand.
| | 03:07 | Now I didn't want full spaces.
| | 03:08 | But what I could do is use kerning to
just add a little bit extra space here.
| | 03:12 | So I am going to move my cursor
right here between these two characters.
| | 03:16 | Hold down my Option key but now hit
the right arrow once or maybe even twice.
| | 03:20 | Then I move my cursor right about over
here, click, and then Option+Right Arrow
| | 03:24 | about once right there.
| | 03:26 | And now I have the extra space that I
need on either side of that ampersand.
| | 03:30 | Getting the kerning right is really
important when setting text for logos.
| | 03:35 | The main reason why is because you want
logos to be easily recognizable and readable.
| | 03:39 | So you want to make sure that just at
a quick glance you can easily read and
| | 03:43 | understand what that word is.
| | 03:46 | Now to make this logo fit just a
little bit more nicely together with this
| | 03:49 | flower, let's change the color of the text.
| | 03:52 | I'll switch to my regular Selection tool.
| | 03:54 | Notice that right now the text
object is automatically selected.
| | 03:58 | And since I am using the theme here
of green colors, I am going to use just
| | 04:01 | little bit of a darker green for this text.
| | 04:04 | For that added touch I am also
going to use a lighter color just for
| | 04:07 | the ampersand itself.
| | 04:09 | I could switch back to the Type
tool to just select that one character.
| | 04:13 | But here is a great shortcut.
| | 04:15 | Since I have my Selection tool
currently active and I know that I want to go
| | 04:18 | ahead and make a text
selection inside of that text object,
| | 04:22 | I can just double click on the text
object and Illustrator will automatically
| | 04:26 | switch me from the
Selection tool to the Type tool.
| | 04:29 | I can now click and drag to highlight
just the ampersand itself and change its
| | 04:34 | color by choosing a different
color in the Swatches panel.
| | 04:37 | So at this point I could switch back now to
the regular Selection tool, deselect this,
| | 04:43 | and I'll zoom out just a little bit
here and reposition my artboard a little
| | 04:46 | bit so I can assemble
and position the final logo.
| | 04:50 | I am going to press Command+A or Ctrl+A
just to select everything and position
| | 04:55 | them so they all fit now inside the page itself.
| | 04:58 | I'll click on a blank area to deselect.
| | 05:00 | And we haven't learned about groups yet.
| | 05:02 | But since I want to make it easy to
go ahead now and select these different
| | 05:06 | elements at any one time,
| | 05:07 | I'm going to click and drag to marquee
select all of the elements now inside
| | 05:11 | of the flower itself.
| | 05:12 | I am going to go to the Object menu
| | 05:14 | and I am going to choose Group.
| | 05:16 | This now gets treated as if it were one
object whenever I select it, which makes
| | 05:21 | it easier to move it around.
| | 05:22 | Since the text is really one text
object, it kind of acts as a group anyway.
| | 05:27 | And I'm simply going to
reposition this text now.
| | 05:29 | Just about right over here where I want
it to fall right about where the flower is.
| | 05:34 | I'll then press Command+A to select all
the elements right here, basically the
| | 05:38 | group and the text object.
| | 05:40 | And I want to group these two together as well.
| | 05:43 | I am going to press Command+G or
Ctrl+G to basically create a group using the
| | 05:48 | keyboard shortcut, instead of the menu command.
| | 05:50 | And now I have completed my logo.
| | 05:53 | I now have a single group that is
made of a beautiful flower and some text.
| | 05:58 | Remember to create that flower we started
off by just creating some simple circles.
| | 06:03 | We used the Shape Builder tool to both
simultaneously color and combine those
| | 06:08 | elements together in a way that we
wanted to and then we simply added some
| | 06:12 | text, put it in to position, and we are
left with a beautiful logo that we can
| | 06:16 | now use for artwork.
| | 06:18 | We are almost done here we just want to
go ahead now and save this logo, so that
| | 06:22 | we can easily use it.
| | 06:24 | To do so, let's go to the File
menu here. Let's choose Save.
| | 06:27 | I am going to choose to place
this on my desktop over here.
| | 06:31 | And I am going to make sure that where
it says Format I have my file saved as
| | 06:36 | the Adobe Illustrator or native file format.
| | 06:39 | I'm going to give it a name.
| | 06:40 | I am going to call it Hansel_petal_logo.
| | 06:44 | And I am going to click on the
Save button, which brings up the
| | 06:47 | Illustrator Options dialog box.
| | 06:49 | We are going to go through
these options later on in our title.
| | 06:53 | But for now I just want to make
sure that I am saving this as a native
| | 06:56 | Illustrator CS5 version,
which it says right here.
| | 06:58 | And I am going to click OK
using the Default settings.
| | 07:02 | At this point my logo was ready
to be used just about anywhere.
| | 07:05 | I could take this logo and I'll
place it into InDesign into a layout.
| | 07:09 | I could bring it to Photoshop.
| | 07:10 | I could send it to Flash if I
want to use it for a web design.
| | 07:14 | And I can even bring it into Premiere Pro or
After Effects if I'm working on a video project.
| | 07:18 | In fact, this is one of the main
reasons why many people choose to create their
| | 07:22 | logos here inside of Illustrator.
| | 07:24 | Because once you create it here you
can use that logo virtually anywhere else.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Applying Appearances and EffectsUsing the Appearance panel| 00:00 | Back in chapter 1, when we were
discussing key Illustrator concepts, we learned
| | 00:05 | about something called an appearance.
| | 00:08 | In Illustrator, we create
objects by defining paths,
| | 00:11 | however, those paths don't have any appearance.
| | 00:14 | They don't look like anything.
| | 00:15 | They are invisible.
| | 00:17 | They're used to define a shape.
| | 00:19 | However, if you want a shape to look
like something, you want it to have a
| | 00:22 | color, or some kind of border
around it, we need to apply attributes
| | 00:27 | called Fills and Strokes.
| | 00:29 | Well, these are called appearances.
| | 00:31 | By applying Fills and Strokes to an object,
you are applying an appearance to that object.
| | 00:37 | So far, we've created some
basic shapes inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:41 | And we've even applied some basic
attributes like Fills and Strokes.
| | 00:45 | However, the real way to control the
appearance of artwork is through something
| | 00:50 | in Illustrator called the Appearance panel.
| | 00:52 | You can find that over
here, the Appearance panel.
| | 00:55 | But in reality, I find that panel so
important that many times I grab the
| | 01:00 | tab itself and rip it out so that I now
have the Appearance panel standing on its own.
| | 01:04 | Let me close the Graphic Styles panel
here because we don't need to see that.
| | 01:09 | But I'll extend this just a little bit,
so we can see the information here.
| | 01:12 | And for the most of this chapter right
now, we are going to focus on using the
| | 01:16 | Appearance panel inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:18 | I'll be honest with you.
| | 01:19 | I believe that the Appearance panel is
probably one of most important panels
| | 01:23 | inside of Illustrator, not only
because it helps you define the appearance of
| | 01:27 | artwork, but more importantly, it allows
you to see the settings of appearances
| | 01:32 | that I've already been applied to artwork.
| | 01:34 | What do I mean by that?
| | 01:35 | Well, many times when working inside
of Illustrator, you may get artwork that
| | 01:39 | was created by someone else, not yourself,
but maybe you got a file given to you
| | 01:44 | from a client or from another designer.
| | 01:46 | If you want to be able to work with that
file, and see and understand all of its
| | 01:49 | settings, you'll need to start
learning how to use the Appearance panel.
| | 01:54 | To really get understanding of what the
Appearance panel does, we need to review
| | 01:58 | two basic concepts inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:01 | One of them is something called stacking order.
| | 02:04 | We know that in
Illustrator, I work with objects.
| | 02:06 | Each time that I draw a new object, by
default, Illustrator adds that object to
| | 02:11 | the top of the stacking order.
| | 02:13 | Likewise, when I have layers, each
time that I add a new layer, that layer
| | 02:17 | appears above the previous layers.
| | 02:20 | In fact, if I take this object here,
and by holding down the Option key, I
| | 02:24 | create a copy of it, you can notice
that this shape right now is sitting on top
| | 02:29 | of this other shape.
| | 02:30 | Sure, I can go to the Object menu,
and I can choose Arrange, Send to Back.
| | 02:35 | And this will now take the object that's
currently sitting at the top of my stacking order,
| | 02:39 | and it will send it to the back
of the back of the stacking order.
| | 02:42 | So now the new object that I've just
created appears beneath the previous object.
| | 02:46 | Well, I'm going to delete that object for now.
| | 02:49 | But I just wanted to go over to
that concept there that being something
| | 02:52 | called the stacking order inside of
Illustrator, objects or either above or
| | 02:56 | beneath other objects.
| | 02:58 | Now we also now that there's another
attribute that you can apply to Illustrator
| | 03:01 | besides a Fill, something called the Stroke.
| | 03:04 | And the Stroke is the appearance
that you apply to the path itself.
| | 03:08 | Some may think of it as a border,
but really it's the attribute that gets
| | 03:12 | painted directly on the path itself.
| | 03:15 | In this case, for this object right
here, by looking at the Appearance panel, I
| | 03:19 | see that I have a two-point
stroke applied to this object.
| | 03:22 | Two-points refer to the thickness,
or what we call the weight of that stroke.
| | 03:27 | I will talk more about strokes in
another chapter later on in this title.
| | 03:31 | But for now, just to make things a
little bit easier to understand, I'm going to
| | 03:34 | increase the weight of the Stroke.
| | 03:36 | And I can do that directly through the
Appearance panel by clicking on the value
| | 03:40 | right here and changing with the
something like 20 points, for example.
| | 03:45 | Now you can see the path right here,
but this thickness of the Stroke is
| | 03:49 | actually distributed evenly
on either side of that path.
| | 03:53 | This is Illustrator's default behavior.
| | 03:55 | Every time you define a stroke with
some thickness to it, that thickness gets
| | 03:59 | evenly distributed along
the centerline of the path.
| | 04:02 | So in this case here, since I've applied
a 20-point Stroke, I have basically 10
| | 04:07 | points of Stroke applied on one side of
the path and 10 points of stroke weight
| | 04:12 | applied to the inside of that path.
| | 04:14 | Now in Illustrator, it is possible
with closed shapes, to align that stroke
| | 04:19 | completely to the inside or the outside.
| | 04:21 | However, Illustrator's default setting
is to apply that Stroke evenly along the
| | 04:25 | centerline of the path.
| | 04:27 | So now that we understand these two
concepts in Illustrator, that of stacking
| | 04:31 | order and that Stroke Weights are always
distributed along the centerline of the
| | 04:35 | path, we can take another closer look at
what the Appearance panel is doing and
| | 04:39 | how we can better use it to understand
how appearances are applied to objects
| | 04:44 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:45 | First, as you can see, what I've just
done with the Stroke, the Appearance panel
| | 04:49 | not only shows me the attributes that
are applied to my object, the panel also
| | 04:54 | allows me to apply or change attributes.
| | 04:56 | For example, if I want to change the
Fill color of this object, I don't need to
| | 05:00 | go all the way over here with my
mouse to this part of the interface.
| | 05:04 | And I certainly don't need to also
open up my Swatches panel right here.
| | 05:07 | I can simply click on the square, and then
click to bring up the Swatches panel directly.
| | 05:13 | If I hold down the Shift key while I
click on this, it brings up the Color panel.
| | 05:17 | I can do the exact same
thing here for the Stroke color.
| | 05:20 | So I'm able to actually apply
attributes directly through the Appearance panel.
| | 05:24 | But let me click here on the bottom,
and let's take a closer look at
| | 05:27 | what's happening here.
| | 05:28 | Illustrator is letting me know that
right now this object has default Opacity.
| | 05:32 | And has this Fill color applied.
| | 05:35 | And it has a 20-point Stroke
applied as well using this color.
| | 05:39 | But the order in which these appear inside
of the Appearance panel is also significant.
| | 05:44 | We had just finished discussing this
concept of having something called the
| | 05:46 | stacking order inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:49 | However, the stacking order applies to
not only objects themselves but even the
| | 05:54 | attributes within objects.
| | 05:55 | For example, in my document
right now, I only have one object.
| | 06:00 | However, this object itself has
a stacking order inside of it.
| | 06:04 | We always read things from the
bottom up inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:07 | So what the Appearance panel is
telling me is that Illustrator first applied
| | 06:11 | default Opacity to this object.
| | 06:13 | Illustrator then painted this colored Fill.
| | 06:16 | And then it applied a 20-point black
stroke on top of that in that specific order.
| | 06:21 | In other words, right now the
Stroke is sitting on top of the Fill.
| | 06:26 | This is the default behavior of Illustrator.
| | 06:28 | Why does Illustrator always paint
the Fill of an object first and then
| | 06:32 | the Stroke afterward?
| | 06:33 | Well, as we've discussed before, the
weight of the stroke is always distributed
| | 06:38 | on both sides of the path.
| | 06:40 | However, the Fill itself goes all
the way up to the path edge itself.
| | 06:44 | So, for example, right now here's my path.
| | 06:48 | My Fill really goes all the way up that part.
| | 06:50 | However, since the Stroke itself was
painted on top of the Fill, I'm not seeing
| | 06:56 | the color the Fill that kind of
bleeds all the way up to the path itself.
| | 07:00 | If I were to tell Illustrator to paint
the Stroke first and then the Fill on top
| | 07:04 | of it, I would see this green color go
all the way to the line here, but I would
| | 07:09 | not be able to see the
inside part of the Stroke,
| | 07:11 | meaning I wouldn't be able to see the
full weight or the thickness of the stroke.
| | 07:15 | So that's why Illustrator always
paints the Fill first and the Stroke second.
| | 07:20 | However, through the Appearance
panel, if I want to, I can change that.
| | 07:25 | To do so, I would simply
click on the Stroke right here
| | 07:28 | and drag it so that it appears beneath the Fill.
| | 07:31 | Notice that I see the Fill goes all the
way up to the path, but I don't see that
| | 07:35 | inner part of the stroke weight
because it's being covered right now by the
| | 07:39 | Fill, which appears on top of the Stroke.
| | 07:42 | So at this point, we're really
starting to understand a little bit more about
| | 07:45 | the power that lies within the Appearance panel.
| | 07:48 | I can use it to both view and also
apply different attributes to my objects.
| | 07:54 | But as we are starting to see, the
Appearance panel treats the Fill and Stroke as
| | 07:58 | if they were their own objects themselves.
| | 08:01 | Through the Appearance panel, we are
going to have complete control over every
| | 08:06 | single attribute of each
object inside of Illustrator.
| | 08:10 | It's a level of the control you can
only get through the Appearance panel, and
| | 08:13 | in the next movie, we'll see how it
can really start to break apart both the
| | 08:17 | Fills and Strokes of objects
and treat them individually.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Targeting object attributes| 00:00 | Back in chapter 4, we learned all about
making selections inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:06 | In other words, if I click on this
object with my Selection tool, I can say that
| | 00:10 | I've now selected that object.
| | 00:12 | However, when it comes to
appearances, we're going to learn a new term,
| | 00:16 | something called Targeting.
| | 00:18 | When I make a selection, I'm
referring to the path itself.
| | 00:22 | But when I'm targeting something, I'm
talking about the appearance of that object.
| | 00:28 | In this case, with this object that would
mean I'm targeting the Fill and the Stroke.
| | 00:33 | So let's understand what that means.
| | 00:35 | When I click on an object to select it
with my Selection tool, I'm selecting the
| | 00:40 | path, meaning if I now hold down my
Option key and create a copy of that path,
| | 00:45 | I am doing so, or if press Command+C, go
to another document and press Command+V
| | 00:51 | to copy and paste that object,
| | 00:54 | I'm dealing with the path itself.
| | 00:57 | However, say I wanted to
change the opacity of this object.
| | 01:01 | I wanted to make it transparent.
| | 01:03 | Well, I'm not making that path transparent.
| | 01:05 | Remember, the path itself has no appearance.
| | 01:08 | So what I'm doing is I'm making the
Fill and Stroke attribute transparent.
| | 01:13 | So while I have the path selected, I
need to have the Fill and the Stroke
| | 01:17 | targeted for me to make that opacity change.
| | 01:20 | The good news is is that you don't
need a separate tool, or you don't even
| | 01:23 | have to do anything to target these
attributes because Illustrator does it automatically.
| | 01:29 | Whenever you select an object,
Illustrator uses some kind of internal
| | 01:33 | intelligence, something called Smart
Targeting where Illustrator figures out
| | 01:38 | what needs to get targeted.
| | 01:39 | In this case here, since I've clicked
on this path to select it, Illustrator
| | 01:44 | also went ahead and targeted both the
Fill and the Stroke of that object so that
| | 01:49 | should I make some kind of a
change to the appearance, I can do so.
| | 01:52 | For example, in this case here,
I'm going to go to my opacity slider.
| | 01:56 | I'm going to change to
about 50% and click Return.
| | 01:59 | And now you can see that my entire
object, or in this case here, the Fill and
| | 02:03 | Stroke, now have an opacity setting of 50%.
| | 02:07 | However, what would happen if I only want to
change the opacity of one of those attributes?
| | 02:12 | For example, I want the
stroke to be full strength.
| | 02:16 | But I want to be able to see
through just the fill of my object.
| | 02:21 | I would need some kind of a way to
select the path but then only target just the
| | 02:26 | fill without targeting the stroke.
| | 02:29 | We can actually do this
directly through the Appearance panel.
| | 02:32 | So I'm going to press Undo and then
taking a look at the Appearance panel,
| | 02:36 | I'm going to click right here
on the Fill to select the Fill.
| | 02:40 | What I've actually done right now is not
selected the Fill, but I have targeted the Fill.
| | 02:45 | So remember, my object,
the path itself is selected.
| | 02:49 | I used the Selection tool to click on it.
| | 02:52 | But I then went to the Appearance panel.
| | 02:54 | And I targeted
specifically the Fill of the object.
| | 02:57 | What this means is if I make an
appearance change now, that appearance change
| | 03:02 | only happens to whatever is
targeted, in this case, the fill.
| | 03:07 | So with the Fill right now targeted, I'm now
going to go to the Opacity slider. Change it to 50%.
| | 03:13 | And you'll notice that right now
just the Fill itself became transparent.
| | 03:17 | However, the Stroke remains
unchanged and at full strength.
| | 03:22 | You can see that in the Appearance
panel by clicking on these little triangles
| | 03:25 | that appear next to the Fill and the Stroke.
| | 03:28 | You can see here the Stroke has Default Opacity.
| | 03:31 | However, the fill has its own separate
opacity setting, which is currently set to 50%.
| | 03:37 | I was able to do this, because
I targeted just the Fill itself.
| | 03:42 | Now this concept of targeting
is going to be very important,
| | 03:46 | and it's really going to become more
easy to understand as we start using the
| | 03:49 | appearances more and more.
| | 03:51 | But at this point, you should have a
solid understanding that even though we
| | 03:55 | have separate objects inside of Illustrator,
| | 03:57 | we can also treat each attribute, or the
appearance of every object, completely on its own.
| | 04:04 | So I can have one setting applied to the
Fill and a completely different setting
| | 04:08 | applied to the Stroke.
| | 04:10 | And I'm not referring to Color here, but
I'm referring to other attributes as well.
| | 04:14 | In the next movie, we'll see why this
is so important because we'll find out
| | 04:18 | that inside of Illustrator, a single
object can contain multiple attributes.
| | 04:23 | And I don't mean just one Fill and one
Stroke, but maybe two or three strokes,
| | 04:29 | or two or three fills,
or a combination of those.
| | 04:33 | So remember, we can select objects.
| | 04:35 | and we can also - manually, if we want
to - target individual attributes for
| | 04:41 | those objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding multiple attributes| 00:00 | So we know that in Illustrator we
can apply attributes, such as Fills
| | 00:04 | and Strokes, to objects.
| | 00:06 | But did you know that you can apply
more than one fill or more than one
| | 00:10 | stroke to a single object?
| | 00:11 | Well, with the Appearance panel, you can.
| | 00:14 | So, for example, in this case right
here, I have a single object which I'm
| | 00:18 | now going to select.
| | 00:19 | This object, as we see clearly in the
Appearance panel, has a green fill and a 20
| | 00:24 | point black stroke applied to it.
| | 00:26 | I also see that the stroke appears on
top of a fill in the stacking order.
| | 00:30 | But I can come down here towards the
bottom of the Appearance panel, and I can
| | 00:33 | click on this button to add a new stroke.
| | 00:36 | What I've just done now is I've
added a second stroke to this one object.
| | 00:41 | So I still have one object in my
document, but this one object has default
| | 00:45 | opacity, a green fill and
now two 20-point black stroke.
| | 00:50 | Why would ever want to do that?
| | 00:51 | I mean, after all, I have two 20 point
black strokes stacked on top of each other.
| | 00:56 | So, my object really doesn't look anything.
| | 00:58 | I can't even see that second 20-
point black stroke, because it's hidden
| | 01:02 | beneath the first one.
| | 01:03 | Well, remember that with the
Appearance panel I have the ability to target an
| | 01:07 | individual attribute.
| | 01:09 | So I can make a change to one
stroke without affecting the other.
| | 01:14 | So, you can see that right now when
I added that new stroke, Illustrator
| | 01:17 | automatically targeted the topmost stroke here.
| | 01:20 | I'm going to change that
stroke color here to red.
| | 01:25 | I'm also going to change the Stroke
Weight to something not as thick, maybe
| | 01:28 | around 8 points instead of 20.
| | 01:30 | Now you can see that I've a single object
that has one fill, but it has two strokes.
| | 01:36 | It has a thick black stroke and a red
stroke that's a little bit more narrow, so
| | 01:41 | I have a more interesting border, if
you will, around this piece of art.
| | 01:45 | In fact, I can even click over here on
the word Stroke to bring up the Stroke
| | 01:48 | panel and turn on the Dashed Line setting.
| | 01:52 | Maybe I'll specify a dash of around
18 points and maybe a gap of around 6.
| | 01:58 | So, I get a nice looking pattern
now that's applied to the stroke.
| | 02:01 | So, I'm going to click over
here to close that right now.
| | 02:04 | You can clearly see in the
Appearance panel that I have two strokes with
| | 02:08 | different settings apply to a single object.
| | 02:11 | Many people, inside of Illustrator, are
familiar with using tools that are, for
| | 02:15 | example, in these panels like the
Color panel, or the Swatches panel.
| | 02:20 | You can see over here even at the
bottom of the Tools panel that I have a Fill
| | 02:23 | indicator and a Stroke indicator.
| | 02:25 | Well, this object now has two strokes
applied to it, but I only see right now
| | 02:30 | that I have a red color applied to the stroke.
| | 02:32 | If I wanted to change that black stroke
to a different color, say maybe blue or
| | 02:36 | purple, how would I do that?
| | 02:39 | If I change the color directly here
inside of the Swatches panel, I see that's
| | 02:42 | changing the red to that color, but
I want the other stroke to change.
| | 02:46 | So, I'm going to go back here to red
for a moment, and we need to understand
| | 02:50 | that outside of the Appearance panel,
all other panels only see the topmost fill
| | 02:57 | and the topmost stroke of an object.
| | 02:59 | My color indicator for the stroke right
now is telling me red because that's the
| | 03:03 | color of the topmost stroke.
| | 03:05 | If I wanted to change the color of
the black stroke to something else, I
| | 03:09 | would need to first come to the Appearance
panel and click on that stroke to target it.
| | 03:14 | Notice that now since that stroke is
targeted, the indicator here changes to black.
| | 03:20 | Likewise, it is the same thing down over here.
| | 03:23 | By the way, a little indicator here
inside of the Control panel let's me know
| | 03:27 | that right now this object has multiple strokes.
| | 03:31 | It's even telling me right now that
the topmost fill or stroke is not active.
| | 03:35 | It's just a helpful indicator to
help me avoid making mistakes, but since
| | 03:40 | right now my black stroke is targeted,
by changing the color here I'm changing
| | 03:44 | the color to the stroke that I want.
| | 03:46 | Now, all the rules that we have spoken
about until now still apply here, of course.
| | 03:50 | So, if I wanted to, I could change the
stacking order for each of these strokes,
| | 03:55 | meaning I could send the red stroke
beneath the blue stroke, or I can put the
| | 04:00 | fill in between the two strokes, any way
that I want to work to be done directly
| | 04:04 | inside of the Appearance panel.
| | 04:05 | For example, I could take the Fill
right here and drag it so it appears beneath
| | 04:10 | both of the strokes.
| | 04:11 | So, I can see right now the Fill appears
above the blue stroke, but beneath the red stroke.
| | 04:18 | It's only through the Appearance
panel that I have this level of control to
| | 04:22 | adjust the appearance of my objects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying Live Effects| 00:00 | Until now, we've been discussing two
different types of attributes that you can
| | 00:05 | apply as an appearance to an object;
those have been a Fill and a Stroke.
| | 00:11 | However, there is another kind of
appearance attribute, something called an Effect.
| | 00:15 | In fact, in Illustrator, we refer to
them as Live Effects, because once you have
| | 00:20 | applied an effect, you're still
to make changes to that effect.
| | 00:23 | For example, let's say I want to
apply a soft Drop Shadow to this object.
| | 00:28 | Well, I can click on it to select it,
and then I can go over here to the Effect
| | 00:33 | menu, choose Stylize and then Drop
Shadow, and I'll just apply the default
| | 00:39 | settings here and click OK.
| | 00:42 | Now, you can see that my object
has a soft Drop Shadow applied to it.
| | 00:46 | More importantly, however, if we look at
the Appearance panel I now see that the
| | 00:50 | Drop Shadow appears listed here as one
of the attributes applied to this object.
| | 00:56 | Now, remember everything in the
Appearance panel always comes down to the
| | 01:00 | stacking order in which they're applied.
| | 01:02 | So, again, we read from the bottom.
Illustrator first applied Opacity, then it
| | 01:07 | created the Drop Shadow and
then the Fill and the Stroke.
| | 01:11 | Obviously, we want the Drop Shadow to be
at the bottommost part of the object to
| | 01:15 | give it its correct appearance.
| | 01:18 | Now, as I've said before, it is called a
Live Effect because I can click on the
| | 01:22 | word Drop Shadow here and then bring up that
same dialog box and change some of its settings.
| | 01:27 | For example, right now, I may feel
the Drop Shadow is a bit too strong.
| | 01:31 | So I may want to reduce that
Opacity to around 40% instead of 75.
| | 01:35 | I'll click OK, and now I can see that that
Drop Shadow has been updated on the object itself.
| | 01:42 | Another reason why we call this a Live
Effect is because if my shape changes,
| | 01:46 | that Drop Shadow also
adjusts to fit the new shape.
| | 01:51 | So if I switch, for example, here to
my direct Selection tool and I click on
| | 01:55 | this anchor point right here and I
click and drag, when I do so, the Drop Shadow
| | 02:01 | also updates on that object.
| | 02:03 | But I'll press Undo here to go back to
its original shape, and I'll select the
| | 02:06 | entire object again using
the regular Selection tool.
| | 02:10 | Now, when I apply the Drop Shadow I
went up here to the Effect menu, and as you
| | 02:14 | can see, there are many other
effects that Illustrator has also.
| | 02:17 | So, Drop Shadow is just one of almost
a hundred effects that you can apply
| | 02:21 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:23 | A shortcut, or another way to get
this Effect menu, is directly through
| | 02:27 | the Appearance panel.
| | 02:29 | Notice the bottom here this little icon
that says fx, and if I click on it I get
| | 02:33 | the exact same menu that I saw above.
| | 02:36 | It's important to remember that all the
concepts that we've spoken about so far
| | 02:40 | in regards to appearances
applies, likewise, to fx.
| | 02:45 | Remember how we were able to apply an
Opacity value to only the fill of an
| | 02:48 | object, but not the stroke of an object?
| | 02:51 | Well, we can do similar things like
apply effects to only one part of an object.
| | 02:57 | Let me show you what I mean.
| | 02:58 | I'm going to take this black stroke
right now, which is set to 20 points, and
| | 03:01 | I'm going to change this color
to like this color right here.
| | 03:05 | Next, I'm going to create
a duplicate of that stroke.
| | 03:08 | In the past, we've used this button
over here to add a new stroke, but I just
| | 03:12 | want to show you if you already have
an attribute selected, in this case here
| | 03:15 | at this stroke, I can click on this button
to duplicate it, meaning make a copy of it.
| | 03:20 | I'll change the color of this to maybe
this color right here, and I'll reduce
| | 03:24 | its Stroke Weight to around 7 points.
| | 03:27 | Now, I may want to apply some kind of a
rounded appearance to the thicker stroke
| | 03:31 | here so I don't see it come exactly to
a point here, but I don't want to apply
| | 03:34 | that soft appearance to this stroke on top.
| | 03:38 | So, what I can do is I can target the
20-point stroke, then choose to apply an
| | 03:43 | Effect, and I'll go back to Stylize
here, and I will choose Round Corners.
| | 03:47 | There is a Preview button here, and if
I choose a value of about 2%, I see that
| | 03:52 | I've kind of rounded off, or blunted,
basically, those corners on that stroke.
| | 03:57 | But it hasn't affected any of
the other attributes of this object.
| | 04:00 | If I click OK and I click on the twirl
down now for this Stroke, I can see that
| | 04:05 | a Rounded Corners effect has been
applied specifically to just this Stroke.
| | 04:10 | If I decide later I really want this
Round Corners effect to be applied to all
| | 04:13 | the attributes of my object, I can
click on this right here and drag it out so
| | 04:18 | that it appears above all the others.
| | 04:21 | Now, it gets applied uniformly
across all the attributes. Why?
| | 04:25 | Because, again, if we read from the
bottom up over here - let me close the
| | 04:28 | Stroke here - Illustrator first applies
the Default Opacity, it then paints the
| | 04:33 | Drop Shadow, then it applies the Fill,
the two Strokes, and then afterwards it
| | 04:38 | applies around that Corners
effect everything beneath it.
| | 04:41 | So, that's how Live Effects
work inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:45 | Now, as I said before, there are a
tremendous amount of effects that apply here
| | 04:49 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:50 | We have things like 3D.
| | 04:52 | We have Distort & Transform Effects.
| | 04:54 | We have Rasterize Effects and a whole
range of Photoshop effects, things like
| | 05:00 | Gaussian Blur, and
things like Mezzotint Effects.
| | 05:03 | There is plenty here to experiment
with, but as I said, the important thing
| | 05:07 | to realize here about Live Effects is
that they aren't necessarily applied to
| | 05:11 | an overall object. You can apply them
individually to different attributes
| | 05:15 | within an object as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Expanding appearances| 00:00 | In earlier versions of Illustrator, and
by that I mean anything up to version
| | 00:05 | 8, we've only had the ability to apply
a single Fill and a single Stroke as an
| | 00:09 | attribute to an object.
| | 00:11 | It's only in version 9 and forward
that Adobe added this capability to have
| | 00:16 | appearances, meaning multiple Fills,
multiple Strokes, and also Live Effects,
| | 00:22 | be applied to objects.
| | 00:23 | In fact, when we're working inside of
Illustrator, there are two ways that we
| | 00:27 | refer to objects that have
appearances applied to them.
| | 00:30 | When an object has a single Fill and a
single Stroke and no Effects applied to
| | 00:35 | it, we refer to that object
as having a Basic Appearance.
| | 00:39 | However, once we start adding
multiple fills and multiple strokes, once we
| | 00:44 | start changing the stacking order of
fills and strokes within an object, and
| | 00:49 | once we start adding Live Effects,
those objects are referred to as having a
| | 00:53 | Complex Appearance.
| | 00:55 | So inside of Illustrator, an object
either has a Basic Appearance or a
| | 01:00 | Complex Appearance.
| | 01:02 | In this example here, I have an object
that has a Drop Shadow, a Rounded Corners
| | 01:07 | effect, and Two Strokes.
| | 01:09 | So obviously, this shape right here
has a Complex Appearance applied to it.
| | 01:15 | Now, if I wanted to, I can come over
to the Appearance panel, and from the
| | 01:19 | flyout menu, choose an option here
called Reduce to Basic Appearance.
| | 01:24 | This would now, when I choose it, reduce
the object to have no Effects applied to
| | 01:28 | it, and leave it with just a
single Fill and a single Stroke.
| | 01:32 | So my object now has a Basic Appearance.
| | 01:36 | Likewise, I can also click on this
button, which says Clear Appearance.
| | 01:40 | This would obviously remove
all Fill and Stroke attributes.
| | 01:43 | See here, they're all set to None.
| | 01:44 | Now, I'm going to press Undo two times
to go back to my original shape here.
| | 01:49 | Because there is yet another way to
reduce an object from having a Complex
| | 01:53 | Appearance to a Basic Appearance, but
without it losing its look as it appears
| | 01:58 | right now, and that's something
called expanding an Appearance.
| | 02:01 | For example, right now I have a single object
| | 02:04 | that's made up of multiple attributes.
| | 02:06 | I could go to the Object menu, and choose
something here called Expand Appearance.
| | 02:11 | When I do so, Illustrator creates as
many objects as necessary, and all these
| | 02:17 | objects all have Basic Appearances,
yet the result is going to look the same.
| | 02:22 | So what do I have over here?
| | 02:24 | If I use my Direct Selection tool,
because I actually have a group over here,
| | 02:28 | I'll see that I have one object
right here, I have another object here, I
| | 02:33 | have another object here, and then I
have the Drop Shadow, which was turned
| | 02:36 | into a raster image.
| | 02:38 | So basically, all those elements
were expanded into their own shapes.
| | 02:42 | Each of those shapes have basic appearances,
but all combined together as one group,
| | 02:47 | they look as if they're a single shape,
the same way that I had my original
| | 02:51 | object as a Complex Appearance before.
| | 02:54 | Now, there may be times when you want
to really expand appearance on your own.
| | 02:57 | For example, I'm going to
press Undo a few times here.
| | 03:00 | If for some reason I wanted to make one
adjustment to just this one stroke right
| | 03:04 | here, because that stroke before was
part of an appearance, I had no way to edit
| | 03:09 | just that one part of the stroke
and not change the other parts.
| | 03:13 | So by expanding it now to a separate
object, I can make this type of edit.
| | 03:17 | However, by and large, you probably
will never manually go ahead and expand an
| | 03:22 | appearance by yourself inside of
Illustrator, because you always want the
| | 03:25 | effects and the appearances to
remain live and in an editable state.
| | 03:30 | For example, right now, I have no way
to modify or change that Drop Shadow.
| | 03:35 | In fact, when you see now that I've made
this adjustment to the stroke, the Drop
| | 03:39 | Shadows are not updated.
| | 03:40 | The Drop Shadow now has kind of been
flattened into an un-editable state.
| | 03:44 | It's just important to realize though,
kind of in the back of your mind, that
| | 03:48 | when you're taking artwork from
Illustrator and sending it out to other
| | 03:51 | places, for example, taking Illustrator
artwork and copying and pasting it into InDesign,
| | 03:57 | InDesign does not have the capability
to create Complex Appearances or Live
| | 04:02 | Effects like Illustrator has.
| | 04:04 | Now, you want your art to
maintain the same appearance.
| | 04:07 | So what happens in the background is
that when I copy an object with a Complex
| | 04:11 | Appearance from Illustrator and I
then passed it into InDesign, that object
| | 04:15 | automatically becomes expanded, so
that it looks correct inside of InDesign.
| | 04:20 | However, it won't be editable.
| | 04:22 | It'll have the same capability here
where I could take each individual object to
| | 04:26 | make a change to it.
| | 04:27 | But things, for example, like drop
shadows or other effects are no longer live
| | 04:31 | and in an editable state.
| | 04:33 | Even if you never end up expanding
appearances, it's still helpful to know the
| | 04:37 | difference between a Basic
Appearance, and a Complex Appearance.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Appearance panel settings| 00:00 | So now that we have an understanding of
the differences between something that
| | 00:03 | has a basic appearance and a complex
appearance, I want to show you a setting
| | 00:08 | that appears inside of the Appearance panel,
which can help you in drawing your artwork.
| | 00:12 | I'll start off by creating a very basic shape.
| | 00:15 | I'm going to take just the regular
circle here, and I'm going to crank up the
| | 00:19 | Stroke just a little bit here to make
it easier to see, maybe around 6 points.
| | 00:23 | I'm going to apply a Drop
Shadow effect to this object.
| | 00:28 | I'm just going to use the basic settings here.
| | 00:30 | We know that the behavior of
Illustrator normally is that whenever I draw a
| | 00:34 | shape, the next shape that I draw is
going to pick up the appearances that I've
| | 00:39 | used in that shape that I
just previously created.
| | 00:42 | In fact, it really goes
one step further than that.
| | 00:44 | When you're using Illustrator, every
time you draw an object, Illustrator picks
| | 00:48 | up the settings in the last
object that you've had selected.
| | 00:51 | So let me show you a
really quick example of that.
| | 00:54 | If I created some rectangles over here,
and I give these rectangles different
| | 00:57 | colors, let's say this one right here.
| | 00:59 | Let's give this one a
different color like a blue.
| | 01:02 | Then let's create one more here
and give this one a red color.
| | 01:05 | So now I have three different rectangles here.
| | 01:08 | So I'm just going to now
click on this Yellow one.
| | 01:11 | Now, I'm going to create a new Rectangle.
| | 01:13 | This new Rectangle is now going to pick
up the settings from that Yellow Rectangle.
| | 01:17 | If I now want to create a shape
that's going to be Red, I can hold down the
| | 01:20 | Command key to return to my Selection
tool, simply click on the Red Rectangle.
| | 01:26 | Now the next time that I draw a
shape, that shape is going to be Red.
| | 01:29 | So Illustrator always picks up the
settings, or the appearances, from an object
| | 01:33 | that I have selected,
| | 01:34 | then when I create a new object, it
starts drawing, basically, that new object
| | 01:40 | using the same Appearance
settings from that last object.
| | 01:43 | However, watch what happens here.
| | 01:45 | I'm going to click on this circle right here.
| | 01:47 | Now I'm going to start
creating a new Rectangle now.
| | 01:50 | What would you expect this new
Rectangle to be colored with?
| | 01:53 | Well, yes, a white Fill and a black
Stroke, but this circle also has a Live
| | 01:57 | Effect applied to it.
| | 01:59 | It has a Drop Shadow applied to it.
| | 02:01 | So when I draw a new shape, is
that shape also going to have a Drop
| | 02:05 | Shadow applied to it?
| | 02:06 | Well, let's take a look and see.
| | 02:07 | I'm going to click and drag, and you
can see that while the object does have a
| | 02:11 | white Fill and a black Stroke, it
does not have a Drop Shadow on it.
| | 02:16 | The reason for that is that, by default,
when I draw new objects, the attributes
| | 02:21 | that Illustrator picks up from
previous objects is only a basic appearance.
| | 02:25 | In other words, when I click on an
object and I select it, Illustrator only
| | 02:29 | picks up the basic appearance, meaning
one Fill and one Stroke and no Effects.
| | 02:34 | So that when I draw a new shape,
that new shape only picks up the Basic
| | 02:38 | Appearance settings of the
previously selected object.
| | 02:41 | Nine times out of ten, this
is probably what you want.
| | 02:44 | I mean after all, when you apply Drop
Shadow to a single object, it doesn't mean
| | 02:48 | that you want every new object
to also have a Drop Shadow on it.
| | 02:51 | However, there may be times
when you do want that behavior.
| | 02:55 | So let's head over now to the Appearance panel.
| | 02:58 | In the flyout menu of the Appearance
panel is an option here called New Art
| | 03:02 | Has Basic Appearance.
| | 03:04 | This setting is checked on, by
default, inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:07 | That's the behavior that we've seen until now.
| | 03:10 | Every time I draw a new object, the new
object picks up the basic appearance of
| | 03:15 | the previously selected object.
| | 03:17 | But let's say I don't want it.
| | 03:19 | Let's say I want to actually pick up the
full complex appearance of my previous object.
| | 03:24 | Well, in that case, I'm going to
uncheck this option right here.
| | 03:28 | Now, I'm going to Command+
Click on this circle right here.
| | 03:32 | I'm just using Command, because
I'm currently in my Rectangle tool.
| | 03:35 | So I'm just temporarily switching
back using Command or Ctrl on Windows to
| | 03:40 | temporarily access my Selection tool.
| | 03:42 | So I've now selected this circle,
which does have a complex appearance on it.
| | 03:47 | Since now I've unchecked that option in
the Appearance panel, when I do draw a
| | 03:51 | new shape, that new shape does
pick up the Drop Shadow as well.
| | 03:56 | So when I'm working inside of
Illustrator, and I'm drawing a whole bunch of
| | 03:58 | shapes, and I know that let's say,
for example, I create an object that has
| | 04:02 | three or four different Stroke
attributes applied to it, rather than have to
| | 04:06 | manually add all those additional
strokes to every new shape that I create, I
| | 04:10 | could turn off that option inside of the
Appearance panel, the setting that says
| | 04:14 | that New Art Has basic appearance, so
that now, every time I draw a new object,
| | 04:19 | it'll pick up the full, complex
appearance of the previously selected object.
| | 04:23 | For now however, to avoid confusion
throughout the rest of the training,
| | 04:27 | I'm going to go back to the flyout
menu of the Appearance panel and turn
| | 04:30 | this setting back on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Copying appearances| 00:00 | There are plenty of times when you
already have an object that has some kind of
| | 00:04 | an Appearance applied to it, and you
have another object, and you want that
| | 00:08 | other object to pick up the same
appearances from another object.
| | 00:12 | For example, in this document, I have a
whole line of flowers on the left side
| | 00:17 | here that has some kind of
nice Appearance applied to them.
| | 00:20 | On the right side, I have plain flowers.
| | 00:23 | I really want to move the same
Appearance that appears to this flower onto this
| | 00:28 | one, meaning I want this flower to
look identical to this one right here.
| | 00:33 | Well, there is a tool inside of
Illustrator called the Eyedropper tool, which
| | 00:37 | can help you do this.
| | 00:39 | Let's see how that works.
| | 00:41 | The first thing you need to do is to select
the artwork that you want to have changed.
| | 00:46 | So right now, this artwork looks plain.
| | 00:48 | I want it to change in Appearance to
make it look more like this one right here.
| | 00:52 | So I'm going to select this
piece of artwork right here.
| | 00:56 | Next, I'm going to switch to my
Eyedropper tool, which is right here.
| | 01:00 | The keyboard shortcut is
the I key for Eyedropper tool.
| | 01:05 | With it selected, I can now take the
Eyedropper tool, and basically pick up
| | 01:10 | the settings, the same way that you might
with a regular Eyedropper, from this object.
| | 01:14 | It will automatically be applied
to my selected piece of artwork.
| | 01:18 | So again, I first selected the artwork
that I want to have changed, which is
| | 01:22 | this one right here.
| | 01:23 | I then use the Eyedropper tool to
click on another object that I want to
| | 01:28 | copy the settings from.
| | 01:29 | So in this case, it's here.
| | 01:30 | I'm going to click and instantly now,
this artwork looks just like this one.
| | 01:36 | Now it's not picking up the settings
of the Path, all it's doing is it's
| | 01:39 | sampling the Appearance of that artwork,
meaning it's taking the same Fill and
| | 01:43 | Stroke, and it's
assigning it now to this object.
| | 01:47 | I can do the same thing with the next
object right here, but however, I can't
| | 01:51 | just click on this because it's going
to modify which object, not this one.
| | 01:55 | This is the one that's currently selected.
| | 01:57 | So what I need to first
do is select this object.
| | 02:00 | I don't want to keep switching back
and forth between tools to go back to the
| | 02:03 | Tool panel over here.
| | 02:04 | So I'm just going to use the
keyboard shortcut, the Command key, to now
| | 02:08 | temporarily switch to my Selection tool.
| | 02:10 | I'm now going to click over here,
again that'd be Ctrl if you're Windows, but
| | 02:14 | Command inside of Mac.
| | 02:17 | I now have this one selected.
| | 02:19 | I will release the Command or Ctrl key.
| | 02:21 | Now I'm back to the Eyedropper tool.
| | 02:23 | I can now click on this object.
| | 02:26 | Now, this object that I had selected
picks up the settings from this object here.
| | 02:30 | But now, let's move to these
two examples right down over here.
| | 02:34 | These objects have Complex
Appearances applied to them.
| | 02:38 | You see until now, we've been applying
settings from one object to another, but
| | 02:42 | the objects that we've been sampling
from have Basic appearances, a single Fill
| | 02:47 | and a single Stroke.
| | 02:48 | Well, watch what happens when I
start dealing with objects that have
| | 02:52 | Complex Appearances.
| | 02:53 | If I hold down my Command key and
select this piece of artwork, because this
| | 02:58 | is the piece of artwork I now want
to have changed, I will now use the
| | 03:01 | Eyedropper tool to click on this object, which
has multiple Stroke appearances applied to it.
| | 03:07 | When I click on it, you'll see that
it only picks up a Basic Appearance.
| | 03:12 | It takes the topmost Stroke,
and it takes the topmost Fill -
| | 03:16 | in this case here, the Stroke
uses a Two Point Red Dashed Stroke -
| | 03:20 | and that's what I'm left with on my object.
| | 03:23 | Why didn't it pick up both of the strokes?
| | 03:25 | Why did it not take that thicker black Stroke?
| | 03:28 | Well, the answer is that, by default,
inside of Illustrator, the Eyedropper tool
| | 03:33 | only samples the Basic Appearance of an object.
| | 03:37 | So if I were to go ahead now and
Command+Click or Ctrl+Click on this object
| | 03:40 | to select it, and then click over here, notice
that while the Fill and the Stroke moved over,
| | 03:45 | the Drop Shadow did not, because the
Drop Shadow is part of a Complex Appearance
| | 03:50 | of that piece of artwork, and I
only sampled the basic Fill and Stroke.
| | 03:55 | I can change that setting, however.
| | 03:57 | If I go to the Eyedropper tool inside
of the Tools panel and I double-click on
| | 04:02 | it, I get an Options dialog box.
| | 04:04 | You can see that I can really specify
exactly what the Eyedropper Picks Up
| | 04:08 | and what it Applies.
| | 04:10 | Now in this case here, I want it to
pick up the full complex appearance.
| | 04:14 | So I'm going to check on the Appearance
button on what the Eyedropper Picks Up,
| | 04:18 | and also what it Applies. I'll click OK.
| | 04:21 | Now, let's see what happens.
| | 04:23 | I'm going to press Undo twice over
here to go back to our original shape.
| | 04:27 | This object is now selected.
| | 04:29 | If I click here, you can see that
now this object picks up the full
| | 04:33 | complex appearance.
| | 04:35 | Again, I'm going to Command+Click or
Ctrl+Click on this object to select it.
| | 04:39 | I'll use the Eyedropper tool to click
on this object with the Drop Shadow.
| | 04:43 | Notice now, this object picks up not
only the Fill and the Stroke, but the full
| | 04:47 | complex appearance that
also includes the Drop Shadow.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving appearances as graphic styles| 00:00 | So, we know that when using Illustrator,
if I want to copy the appearance of one
| | 00:05 | object and apply it to another, I
could use the Eyedropper tool to do that.
| | 00:09 | However, if I have many objects that I
want to copy attributes to, using the
| | 00:14 | Eyedropper tool repeatedly can be quite tedious.
| | 00:17 | More so, if I then realize, after I
have applied many objects with the
| | 00:21 | Appearance panel, in addition, if I
later decide that I want to make a small
| | 00:25 | modification to all those objects, I would
need to reapply all the appearances again.
| | 00:30 | That's why, inside of Illustrator,
there is a far more efficient way of
| | 00:34 | managing appearances.
| | 00:35 | And that's using
something called Graphic Styles.
| | 00:39 | Graphic Styles is a way to save, or
capture, the full appearance of any artwork
| | 00:44 | and then apply that
appearance to any other artwork.
| | 00:47 | In addition, you could always
make modifications to those styles.
| | 00:51 | Any object that has those styles
applied to them will update accordingly.
| | 00:56 | Let's see how that works.
| | 00:57 | I'm going to start out by going to
the Window menu and opening up my
| | 01:01 | Graphic Styles panel.
| | 01:03 | In fact, quite often, I use the Graphic
Styles panel together with my Appearance panel.
| | 01:08 | So for now, I'm just going to kind of
pull it out here ad even have it attached
| | 01:11 | towards right here at the bottom of the
Appearance panel, so they kind of act as
| | 01:15 | if they are one big panel.
| | 01:17 | Here's the way how to define a Graphic Style.
| | 01:21 | I have this shape right over here.
| | 01:22 | It has a simple Fill and a Stroke applied to it.
| | 01:26 | I want to capture that appearance.
| | 01:28 | Remember, I'm not saving the path right now.
| | 01:30 | All I'm thinking about are the
attributes that are applied to that path, in this
| | 01:34 | case, a green fill and a 2-point black stroke.
| | 01:37 | I'm going to go to my Appearance panel,
and right next to where it says the
| | 01:41 | Object, which is currently a
Compound Path, I have this little icon here.
| | 01:46 | We call this a thumbnail.
| | 01:47 | It basically gives me a small
preview of what the appearance looks like.
| | 01:51 | I'm going to take that thumbnail, click
on it and drag that thumbnail into the
| | 01:56 | Graphic Styles panel.
| | 01:58 | Now I've created a Graphic Style.
| | 02:00 | I've captured all of the
appearance settings of that object.
| | 02:04 | I'm going to double-click
on it to give it a name.
| | 02:06 | Let's call this one green flower.
| | 02:09 | I'll click OK, and you could see now
this object is currently selected.
| | 02:14 | In the Appearance panel,
| | 02:16 | not only is the Appearance panel telling
me that I have a Compound Path selected;
| | 02:20 | it's also telling me that the green flower
Graphic Style is currently applied to that object.
| | 02:26 | Let's now create, or
define, another Graphic Style.
| | 02:30 | For example, this one down here has
the exact same attribute as the one
| | 02:34 | above, with one addition.
| | 02:36 | This one has a Drop Shadow applied to it.
| | 02:39 | Once again, I'll just take the
thumbnail, drag it into the Graphic Styles panel,
| | 02:43 | and I'm going to double-click on it.
| | 02:44 | I'm going to call it green flower with shadow.
| | 02:48 | So right now, we've defined two Graphic Styles.
| | 02:52 | Let's apply them to our objects.
| | 02:55 | So remember before, if I wanted to click
on this object and have it pick up some
| | 02:59 | other appearance settings, I
may have used the Eyedropper tool.
| | 03:02 | Well, now instead, I'm just going to select
this object, and then click on one of the styles.
| | 03:07 | If I wanted to use the Drop Shadow style,
I'll click on this one right here and
| | 03:11 | now the object picks up the Drop Shadow.
| | 03:13 | I can click on these over here and do the same.
| | 03:16 | Now I'm going to deselect my objects here.
| | 03:19 | The real benefit of using a Graphic
Style is not that I can just quickly apply a
| | 03:24 | similar style across multiple objects;
| | 03:27 | it's that I can now modify or
make changes to that style as needed.
| | 03:31 | Let's see how we can modify that style.
| | 03:33 | I'm going to come over here
to my Graphic Styles panel.
| | 03:36 | You'll see that as I click on the
styles, I have no artwork selected on
| | 03:40 | my artboard right now.
| | 03:41 | So you can see my
Appearance panel says, No Selection.
| | 03:44 | But it does tell me that it's
currently displaying the settings for the green
| | 03:48 | flower Graphic Style, because right
now my Graphic Style is selected in the
| | 03:52 | Graphic Styles panel.
| | 03:54 | You see when using the Graphic Styles
panel and the Appearance panel together,
| | 03:58 | each time I click on a style, I see
the appearance settings for that style.
| | 04:04 | So in this case here, we've applied
Drop Shadows to all of these objects.
| | 04:08 | Now remember, none of them are selected
right now, but let's say my client comes
| | 04:12 | back and tells me that that Drop
Shadow is a little bit too extreme.
| | 04:16 | And you know something?
| | 04:17 | This Stroke setting is
also a little bit too thick.
| | 04:19 | So we want to make some
adjustments to the style.
| | 04:23 | I had the style selected now, in the
Graphic Styles panel, so I see all of its
| | 04:27 | settings in the Appearance panel.
| | 04:29 | I'm going to change to Stroke
setting here to about half a point.
| | 04:33 | I'm also going to click on the Drop
Shadow and change its Opacity value to 40%.
| | 04:38 | I'm now going to click OK.
| | 04:41 | Now at this point, I
haven't made any changes yet.
| | 04:44 | However, if I go to the flyout menu
here, there is a setting at the bottom
| | 04:48 | called Redefine Graphic
Style "green flower shadow".
| | 04:53 | You see, Illustrator knows that I had
first clicked on this icon here to load
| | 04:57 | the settings of this Graphic
Style into the Appearance panel.
| | 05:01 | And now, it saw me make
some changes to those settings.
| | 05:05 | So maybe I want to actually have those
changes be incorporated back into the style.
| | 05:09 | So, I'm going to choose Redefine
Graphic Style "green flower with shadow".
| | 05:14 | When I do so, all the objects of my
artboard will automatically update to
| | 05:18 | reflect that change in the style,
without me having to select them to begin with.
| | 05:23 | So, it's a way for me to make changes to
my document without having to actually
| | 05:27 | physically go into my document, select
those objects and make those changes.
| | 05:31 | This is an incredibly powerful way of
working with Illustrator and managing
| | 05:35 | changes throughout the
course of working on a document.
| | 05:39 | So, when you're working on a file, it's
best to think about where you might be
| | 05:42 | able to apply and use Graphic Styles,
so that you can save a tremendous amount
| | 05:47 | of time and be more productive.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Using Color in IllustratorApplying color to artwork| 00:00 | The two most common types of
attributes that you apply to an object inside of
| | 00:04 | Illustrator are things called Fills and Strokes.
| | 00:09 | Using these Fills and Strokes, we can
begin to apply color to our artwork.
| | 00:13 | Now, as you can see here inside of
the Swatches panel, there are plenty of
| | 00:17 | swatches that come with Illustrator that are
here when you start creating a new document.
| | 00:22 | However, there are two things that you
need to do first before you can apply a
| | 00:26 | color to Illustrator.
| | 00:27 | First of all, you need to make a selection.
| | 00:30 | Right now, I don't have any artwork selected,
so clicking a color won't do me any good.
| | 00:34 | Second of all, I need to tell
Illustrator whether or not I want that color to be
| | 00:38 | applied to the Fill or the Stroke of my object.
| | 00:43 | Let's take a look at the
Tools panel down over here.
| | 00:45 | Right here at the bottom part of it
is something which we call the Fill
| | 00:49 | and Stroke Indicator.
| | 00:50 | This big square here refers to the Fill,
while this other square here, which
| | 00:55 | looks like kind of a box with a box
inside of it, is the Stroke Indicator.
| | 01:01 | At anytime, I could look at this
Indicator here to know what my current Fill
| | 01:05 | and Stroke settings are.
| | 01:07 | In other words, right now, if I were
to start drawing a new object, that new
| | 01:10 | object would take on an attribute of
a Fill of none and a Stroke of black.
| | 01:16 | This Fill and Stroke Indicator can also
be seen here inside of the Color panel.
| | 01:21 | The way that it works is if I want
to now apply a color to the Fill of an
| | 01:25 | object, I would click on the Fill
Indicator to make sure it's currently in the front.
| | 01:29 | That means that right now the Fill is targeted.
| | 01:33 | If I now choose a color, that
color would be applied to the Fill.
| | 01:37 | However, if I click on the Stroke
Indicator, notice that right now the
| | 01:41 | Stroke Indicator comes to the front,
letting me know that right now it's
| | 01:44 | active, or it's in focus.
| | 01:47 | With the Stroke Indicator in focus,
whenever I choose a color, that color gets
| | 01:52 | applied to the Stroke.
| | 01:54 | It's best to memorize the keyboard
shortcut X on your keyboard, which when you
| | 01:59 | hit it, toggles the focus
between the Fill and the Stroke.
| | 02:03 | Notice that each time I
hit the X key on my keyboard,
| | 02:06 | I'm now bringing the Fill into focus.
| | 02:08 | Tapping it again brings the Stroke into focus.
| | 02:10 | Well, for now, I'm going to make sure that I
hit the X key to bring the Fill into focus.
| | 02:16 | Next, I'm going to click on this
middle flower here to select it.
| | 02:20 | Note that since the object right now is
filled with none, I can't click on the
| | 02:24 | inner part of the region here,
because there's no Fill selected.
| | 02:27 | So I need to click on the path, in
this case, in order to select the object.
| | 02:32 | If I wanted to fill it with a color,
say a light blue, for example, I can
| | 02:35 | come here to the Swatches panel and
click on this swatch right here to fill
| | 02:40 | it with that color.
| | 02:41 | If I wanted to change the Stroke Color
to be something like red, for example, I
| | 02:45 | would hit the X key on my keyboard
to bring the Stroke now into focus.
| | 02:50 | And now I would choose the red swatch.
| | 02:52 | So now, I've been able to apply a red
stroke and a blue fill to my artwork.
| | 02:58 | As a little tip, I always make sure
that I keep the Fill in focus, because nine
| | 03:03 | times out of ten, I'm applying a
different color to my Fill of an object.
| | 03:08 | I don't change the color of Strokes
nearly as frequently as I do Fills.
| | 03:13 | So it just saves me a few
steps from doing it later.
| | 03:16 | Another keyboard shortcut
to memorize is the D key.
| | 03:19 | So right now this middle flower is selected.
| | 03:22 | If I press D on my keyboard, it will
reset this object back to its default
| |
|
|
