IntroductionWelcome to One-on-One| 00:00 |
(SOUND).
Hi, this is Deke McClelland.
| | 00:06 |
Welcome to Illustrator One-on-One
Fundamentals.
| | 00:09 |
Part one in a series of four video courses
devoted to your ultimate mastery of the
| | 00:14 |
world's most powerful vector-based drawing
software.
| | 00:19 |
Adobe Illustrator recently turned 25 years
old.
| | 00:22 |
I began using the program when it first
came out, back when I was 25 years old.
| | 00:28 |
I like to joke, that makes Illustrator and
I about the same age.
| | 00:32 |
But the truth is, I'm been using program,
writing books about it and recording
| | 00:36 |
videos about it for more than half my
life.
| | 00:40 |
Which is why I feel uniquely suited to
make you this promise, give me your time
| | 00:45 |
and attention.
And I'll mentor you through every facet of
| | 00:48 |
the software you need to know in the order
you need to know it.
| | 00:52 |
No crowded classroom, and no scheduling
conflicts.
| | 00:56 |
It's just you and me, one on one.
Any time that is convenient for you to learn.
| | 01:02 |
This course is devoted to project based
learning, meaning you're going to make stuff.
| | 01:07 |
You'll create professional quality artwork
from scratch using nothing more than a
| | 01:12 |
line and shape tools.
You'll trace a piece of skin line arc and
| | 01:17 |
scale it to any size you like.
You'll paint an elaborate mosaic design,
| | 01:22 |
again from scratch, using some of
illustrator's simplest tools.
| | 01:26 |
You'll create a beautifully formatted text
document, and you'll experience the
| | 01:31 |
unbridled power of the pen tool.
The result is a contextualized learning program.
| | 01:37 |
Illustrator's features will make sense
because you'll apply them to a clearly
| | 01:42 |
defined task.
And you'll leave each chapter with a sense
| | 01:46 |
of accomplishment.
I really hope there are moments when you
| | 01:49 |
feel, I rule, I did this, and I can do
more.
| | 01:52 |
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1. Making a DocumentOpening from the Windows desktop| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to open a
document inside Illustrator by double
| | 00:04 |
clicking on it at the Windows desktop.
Now, obviously this is not a hard thing to master.
| | 00:09 |
We all know how to double click.
But the trick is making sure that your
| | 00:13 |
documents are associated with Illustrator,
so they don't open in a wrong program.
| | 00:18 |
If you're working on the Mac, by the way,
go ahead and skip ahead to the next movie
| | 00:21 |
in which I show you how to do the same
thing from the Macintosh Finder.
| | 00:25 |
Now, notice I'm looking at the contents of
my Exercise Files folder which are
| | 00:29 |
available to those of you who are premium
members.
| | 00:33 |
And there's this subfolder called
01_make_doc.
| | 00:36 |
It contains three files, all of which
apear to be called Welcome.
| | 00:39 |
They're actually Welcome.ai, Welcome.eps,
and Welcome.svg.
| | 00:44 |
The problem is, that extensions are hidden
by default.
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So what you want to do, to bring those
extensions back, is tap the Alt key.
| | 00:53 |
In order to bring up the old style menu
bar then click on tools and choose folder options.
| | 00:59 |
Then inside the folder options dialogue
box switch to the view tab and notice down
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here this check box, hide extensions for
known file types, go ahead and turn that
| | 01:09 |
off And then click OK, and now you'll be
able to see those extensions.
| | 01:15 |
Now, this first one, Welcome.ai, that ai
stands for Adobe Illustrator, so that's
| | 01:20 |
Illustrator's native file format, meaning
that it's a safe bet that if you
| | 01:24 |
double-click on that file It's going to
open inside Illustrator automatically, as
| | 01:29 |
it's doing for me.
Now, notice if you end up seeing this
| | 01:32 |
reduced version of the program, you can go
ahead and click on the Maximize button in
| | 01:37 |
the upper right corner of the screen, in
order to fill the screen with this document.
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However, I'm going to go ahead and
minimize Illustrator.
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So that I can try out the next document
here, welcome.eps.
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EPS stands for encapsulated post script.
And the idea is that EPS allows you to
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share your vector based graphics with
other programs, with print programs specifically.
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I'll go ahead and double-click on that
file.
| | 02:03 |
And in my case it once again opens inside
Illustrator.
| | 02:06 |
Now that may or may not happen for you.
Chances are good it will, but if not,
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here's how you solve the problem.
I'll go ahead and minimize Illustrator
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again, because notice this final file
Welcome.svg, that stands for scalable
| | 02:20 |
effector graphics.
And that's a format for sharing your
| | 02:23 |
vector based artwork on the web.
When I double click on this file, it ends
| | 02:28 |
up opening inside Internet Explorer.
Which is great, because it looks beautiful
| | 02:33 |
and everything.
However, the problem is if I want to edit
| | 02:35 |
this document inside Illustrator then I
need to open it inside Illustrator.
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So I'll go ahead and close Internet
Explorer.
| | 02:42 |
If you want the file to open in
Illustrator from now on, then you right
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click on it, choose Open With and then
select this command, Choose Default Program.
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Now you should see the most recent version
of Illustrator listed up here with the
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recommended programs.
If you don't, then click on this little
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down pointing arrowhead to reveal a list
of additional programs.
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Then you should be able to find it there.
If you still can't find Illustrator,
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you'll need to click on the Browse button
and locate the program manually.
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But in my case, it's conveniently located
right here at the top.
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Next, you want to make sure that this
checkbox, always use the selected program
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to open this kind of file Is turned on,
and then click OK.
| | 03:24 |
And now, Windows goes ahead and opens the
SVG file inside of Illustrator, as you can
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see here, and if I minimize the program,
you'll note that the icon has updated as
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well to indicate That SVG files from now
on will open inside Adobe Illustrator.
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And that, friends, is how you open the
primary three file formats: AI, EPS, and
| | 03:47 |
SVG, inside of Illustrator, just by
double-clicking on the files from the
| | 03:51 |
Windows desktop.
| | 03:52 |
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| Opening from the Macintosh Finder| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to open a
document inside Illustrator by double
| | 00:04 |
clicking on it from the Macintosh finder.
If you're working on a PC, go ahead and
| | 00:08 |
skip ahead to the next movie in which I
show you how to create a new document
| | 00:12 |
inside Illustrator.
If you're a premium member then you have
| | 00:16 |
access to my exercise files folder which
contains a subfolder called 0 one make doc.
| | 00:21 |
Now, I'm looking at the contents of the
folder in the icon view which you can get
| | 00:25 |
to by going up to the view menu and
choosing as icons.
| | 00:29 |
And notice that I've got three files all
of which are called welcome with different extensions.
| | 00:35 |
If you can't see those extensions, then go
up to the finder menu and choose the
| | 00:39 |
preferences command.
And then you want to click on this
| | 00:42 |
advanced icon right there.
And go ahead and turn on this check box
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show all file name extensions.
And this is a really great function,
| | 00:50 |
because what it does is display
extensions, even if they're not actually
| | 00:54 |
part of the file name.
And that way, you can just keep track of
| | 00:57 |
what file format you've used to save a
file.
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I'll go ahead and close that window,
because my option was already turned on.
| | 01:04 |
Now what we want to do is test out each
one of these major formats, all of which
| | 01:09 |
should be associated with Illustrator, by
the time we're done with this movie.
| | 01:12 |
So we'll start things just by
double-clicking on Welcome.ai.
| | 01:16 |
That .ai stands for Adobe Illustrator.
So this is the program's native file format.
| | 01:22 |
Which means you can pretty much rest
assured that it is going to poen inside
| | 01:27 |
the program.
And sure enough, for me It does, so you
| | 01:30 |
should see the most recent version of
Illustrator up on screen.
| | 01:33 |
Once you've confirmed that that works,
then go to the finder, and choose Hide
| | 01:38 |
Illustrator, in order to switch back to
the finder.
| | 01:41 |
Next, I'm going to double click on
Welcome.EPS, EPS stands for Encapsulated Post-Script.
| | 01:47 |
It's a very common vector-based file
format used to share graphics between
| | 01:52 |
different layout programs, especially when
you're going to print.
| | 01:56 |
When I double click on this file it
doesn't open an illustrator.
| | 02:00 |
It ends up opening a preview and preview
goes there and converts the EPS file to a
| | 02:06 |
PDF file as we're seeing right there which
is not even sort of what I want.
| | 02:11 |
So I'll go ahead and close the file.
And then I'll switch back to the finder,
| | 02:15 |
and then I'll go ahead and right-click on
this Welcome.eps file and choose Get Info
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in order to bring up the Get Info window
right there.
| | 02:24 |
And you want to skip down to Open With,
make sure it's twirled open.
| | 02:28 |
Like so, and then go ahead and switch the
application from Preview in my case to the
| | 02:35 |
most recent version of Illustrator.
So you may see a lot of different options
| | 02:39 |
available to you.
But we want Illustrator of course, then
| | 02:43 |
click Change All.
In order to change all the EPS files so
| | 02:47 |
they open in Illustrator as well.
The Mac OS will go ahead and bring up an
| | 02:51 |
alert message asking you if you really
want to do this, in which case go ahead
| | 02:54 |
and respond by clicking on the continue
button.
| | 02:57 |
And then, you can go ahead and close that
info panel, and double-click on a
| | 03:02 |
welcome.eps file.
And it should once again now, open inside Illustrator.
| | 03:07 |
Alright, I'm going to go back to the
Illustrator menu, and choose hide
| | 03:10 |
Illustrator to return to the finder.
Next we've got welcome.svg.
| | 03:14 |
SVG stands for scalable vector graphics,
and this is a format for sharing your
| | 03:19 |
vector graphics online.
Which is why if you double click on it,
| | 03:23 |
chances are very good that it's going to
open inside your default browser, which on
| | 03:28 |
this particular MAC, happens to be Safari.
Now, the file looks great inside Safari.
| | 03:35 |
And it is truly scalable, so you could
zoom in on it and gain greater clarity.
| | 03:39 |
But obviously, if you want to edit the
document inside Illustrator, then Safari
| | 03:44 |
is not the way to go.
So, I'm just going to go ahead and close
| | 03:46 |
this window.
Switch back to welcome.svg right click on
| | 03:50 |
it, choose get info.
So, we're going through the same steps
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then switch open with from Safari to the
most recent version of Illustrator.
| | 03:59 |
Go ahead and click on the change all
button and then click continue.
| | 04:02 |
Now, you can hide the info window and then
double click and welcome.svg and it should
| | 04:09 |
once again Open inside adobe illustrator.
And that friends, is how you open the
| | 04:14 |
three primary file formats, .ai, .eps, and
.svg inside illustrator, just by double
| | 04:20 |
clicking on a file from the Macintosh
finder.
| | 04:27 |
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| Creating a new document| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to create
a new document, inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:04 |
Now, from this point on, I'll be primarily
working on the PC.
| | 00:08 |
But all these movies are cross-platform,
so that your experience, and mine will be
| | 00:12 |
the same.
I'm going to start things off by
| | 00:14 |
maximizing my window, here, on the PC.
And by the way, if you're working on a
| | 00:19 |
Mac, and you want to hide all the
background applications, so that you can
| | 00:23 |
just focus on Illustrator, and nothing
more.
| | 00:26 |
Then go onto to the Window menu and you'll
find this command that's not available on
| | 00:30 |
the PC called Application Frame.
Go ahead and choose that command and
| | 00:35 |
you'll end up filling the entire screen
like so, and your experience will now look
| | 00:40 |
a lot more like mine.
Alright, so meanwhile back on the PC, I'm
| | 00:44 |
going to go up to the file menu, and
choose the new command.
| | 00:47 |
Or you can press Ctrl + N, or on the MAC,
Cmd + N, in order to bring up the new
| | 00:52 |
document dialog box.
Illustrator starts things off by allowing
| | 00:56 |
you to name your new document.
You don't have to name it at this point,
| | 01:00 |
you really name the file when you save it.
But you can throw in a name if you like.
| | 01:04 |
I went ahead and copied a name in advance,
so I'll just go ahead and paste it in,
| | 01:08 |
because I'm a terrible typist.
Notice that we have these profiles that we
| | 01:12 |
can choose from.
So, you can create a print document
| | 01:15 |
Ostensibly for a commercial reproduction.
You can create a document for the web,
| | 01:20 |
which will be measured in pixels.
You can create a document for a device
| | 01:23 |
such as an iPad for example.
An then you'll see down here a list of
| | 01:28 |
various sizes that you can choose from.
So we've got the iPad, iPad mini and so
| | 01:33 |
forth, its very possible that your list
will actually be longer than this, because
| | 01:38 |
Adobe is going to continue to update these
items.
| | 01:41 |
I'll go ahead and switch my profile back
to print because I am interested in
| | 01:45 |
creating a print document and I wanted to
have total of six artboards.
| | 01:49 |
Now, Artboards are a lot like pages.
So you may wonder why in the world
| | 01:54 |
Illustrator calls them Artboards.
Well there's two reasons.
| | 01:57 |
First of all, an Artboard can be any size
you want.
| | 02:00 |
So it can be a letter size page for
example, or it can be any size that you
| | 02:05 |
decide to dial in.
Second, each and every artboard in your
| | 02:09 |
document can be different.
So they can all be different sizes, and
| | 02:13 |
orientations if you want.
So you're just not bound by the printed
| | 02:17 |
page, in other words.
next you have the option as specify how
| | 02:21 |
the all ports are laid out most likely
here in the state you can grid by row but
| | 02:26 |
you could easily arrange all the air ports
in the single row or a single column you
| | 02:30 |
can also switch the order so that you can
arrange right to left instead of left to right.
| | 02:36 |
But bear in mind you're just deciding how
the artboards are arranged in the first place.
| | 02:39 |
You can always rearrange the artboards any
time you like.
| | 02:43 |
I'm going to stick with the default column
settings, which is three, so that means
| | 02:46 |
I'm going to have two rows and three
columns for a total of six artboards.
| | 02:50 |
Next, let's go ahead and drop down to
units here.
| | 02:53 |
Now notice if I click on this option, I've
got three imperial measurements, inches,
| | 02:58 |
picas, and points.
And these are units that designers have
| | 03:02 |
been working with for years and years now,
and here's how they work in case you're
| | 03:06 |
not familiar with them.
A point is a seventy-second of an inch.
| | 03:11 |
So 72 points fit in an inch, making points
wonderful for measuring very small things
| | 03:16 |
like type, for example.
Picas fall in between.
| | 03:20 |
There's total of six picas in an inch,
which is to say 12 points inside of a pica.
| | 03:27 |
We also have the metric measurements,
millimeters and centimeters, and if you're
| | 03:31 |
creating a document for the web or for a
device, then most likely you'll want to
| | 03:35 |
set the units to pixels.
I'm going to simplify things for now.
| | 03:39 |
By switching to inches, and I'm going to
dial in some custom settings here.
| | 03:43 |
I want a width of six inches, and a height
of eight inches, like so.
| | 03:47 |
Notice you can also change the
orientation, so if I click on this
| | 03:51 |
landscape icon, then I'm going to swap the
width and height values.
| | 03:55 |
Now that's not what I'm looking for, but I
want you to know that's option.
| | 03:58 |
I'll go ahead and click on the upright
page to switch it back.
| | 04:01 |
I'm also going to specify a spacing value.
I'm going to take that out to 0.5 inches,
| | 04:06 |
that's just the space in between the
artboards.
| | 04:09 |
And then finally we have these bleed
options that are available to us.
| | 04:14 |
All the bleed is, is wiggle room.
So, imagine that we're going to
| | 04:18 |
commercially reproduce this document.
Meaning, that I'm going to take it to a
| | 04:21 |
commercial printer.
And I want the artwork to print all the
| | 04:25 |
way to the edge of the trim size, that is
the way the page is trimmed or cut.
| | 04:30 |
Then I need a little bit of bleed, I need
to extend my artwork beyond the trim size,
| | 04:35 |
so that I've got the wiggle room I need
just in case the registration's off a
| | 04:40 |
little bit.
Notince that by default each one of the
| | 04:42 |
bleed values is linked together, so
changing any one of em is going to change
| | 04:46 |
all of em.
I am going to change this first value to
| | 04:49 |
0.25 which is a big bleed I have to say,
but you know I want to be safe.
| | 04:54 |
And then at that point you just want to go
ahead and click okay in order to create
| | 04:59 |
the new document, and now I notice what we
have here is the total of six artboards
| | 05:05 |
each indicated by these white rectangles.
The active artboard has a black outline
| | 05:09 |
around it, and then we've got these red
outlines, which indicate the bleed.
| | 05:14 |
This dark gray area around the artboards
is known as the paste board.
| | 05:18 |
And you can use the paste board to keep
objects that you don't actually want to print.
| | 05:22 |
You just want to keep them around.
So you can think of it as being the table
| | 05:25 |
top in back of your pages.
And that's how you create a new document
| | 05:29 |
in our case a multi-page print document
here inside Illustrator.
| | 05:34 |
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| Advanced document controls| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll introduce you to the
advanced controls that are available to
| | 00:04 |
you when creating a new document.
They're not really any more advanced than
| | 00:08 |
what we've seen so far.
They just happen to reside in an area of
| | 00:11 |
the dialogue box called advanced.
I'll go up to the File menu, and choose
| | 00:16 |
the New command.
Bring up my New Document dialogue box.
| | 00:19 |
And I'll go ahead and call this document 8
page newsletter because that's what it's
| | 00:23 |
going to be.
And I'll go ahead and change the number of
| | 00:26 |
art boards to 8 as well.
And change the number of columns to 4.
| | 00:31 |
So that the art boards are arranged in 4
columns, and 2 rows.
| | 00:34 |
Now I'm going to switch back to the
default unit of measure points just so
| | 00:38 |
that I can show you that you can overide
the unit of measure anytime you like.
| | 00:43 |
So, notice that Illustrator's gone ahead
and converted all of my ink settings back
| | 00:47 |
to points.
Which is why now my art boards are
| | 00:49 |
going to be 432 points wide, and 576
points tall.
| | 00:54 |
I'm kind of thinking the spacing value is
going to be a little bit too high.
| | 00:57 |
I'd like to change it to a quarter inch,
but, let's say I don't know what a quarter
| | 01:01 |
inch is in points.
Well all you have to do is dial in 0.25
| | 01:05 |
in, like that and then press Tab, it'll
automatically convert to a different unit
| | 01:11 |
of measure or I could even dial in
millimeters if I want, 100 mm, for
| | 01:16 |
example, then press Tab and Illustrator
goes ahead and converts it to 283.46 Points.
| | 01:22 |
Who would have known?
But a quarter inch is probably closer to
| | 01:26 |
what I want.
Another way to do it is to dial in 0.25
| | 01:30 |
double quote and then press the Tab key.
Converts it over to eighteen points.
| | 01:35 |
So pretty much anything you think you
should be able to do, you can.
| | 01:39 |
There are so many different ways to
indicate these units of measure.
| | 01:42 |
I can even dial in a fraction if I wanted
to.
| | 01:45 |
Like one third double quote.
That will go ahead and give me a third of
| | 01:48 |
an inch and that converts over to 24
point.
| | 01:52 |
Here are the Advanced options.
To see them you just click on this
| | 01:56 |
arrowhead in order to expand the dialog
box.
| | 01:59 |
And notice that we've got a total of four
new options in all.
| | 02:02 |
The first allows me to change my color
space.
| | 02:05 |
CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and
the key color black, which are the inks
| | 02:11 |
most commonly used in commercial printing.
RGB stands for red, green blue, which is a
| | 02:17 |
color space employed by your monitor.
So typically it works like this.
| | 02:21 |
If you're creating a document for print,
you want CMYK.
| | 02:24 |
If you're creating a web graphic,
something that's going to be displayed on
| | 02:28 |
a screen or an illustration that you want
to bring over into Photoshop or Flash,
| | 02:33 |
then you want to select RGB.
I'm going to stick with CNYK.
| | 02:38 |
Next we have our raster effects.
Now, raster means pixels, and the most
| | 02:43 |
common raster effect, we'll see lots of
them in future chapter, but the most
| | 02:46 |
common one is the drop shadow.
And it's just more efficient to render a
| | 02:50 |
drop shadow using pixels instead of
vector-based outlines.
| | 02:54 |
So you want to specify what the resolution
of your Drop Shadows and other typically
| | 02:59 |
soft effects are going to be.
Now, if you're creating screen art, then
| | 03:03 |
72 ppi is fine.
If you're creating a print document,
| | 03:07 |
presumably you'd want higher resolution
imagery.
| | 03:09 |
The problem is it'll take longer for
Illustrator to render those Drop Shadows
| | 03:13 |
and other pixel effects.
in which case the progress behaves in
| | 03:17 |
sluggishly if you want to switch that to
medium a 150 ppi and you are not going to
| | 03:22 |
probably see that lower resolution
,because you are working with the softer
| | 03:26 |
effect like a drop shadow,so you don't
need lot of pixels in the first
| | 03:29 |
place,that's what I am going to do, switch
over to medium here next we have the
| | 03:34 |
preview mode and by default you're just
going to see a standard illustration
| | 03:38 |
preview on screen just as you would
expect.
| | 03:39 |
If you're creating graphics for the web or
for devices like the iPad, iPhone and so
| | 03:45 |
forth then you probably want to see a
pixel preview.
| | 03:48 |
That way you can see how your vector art
aligns to the actual pixels that it will
| | 03:52 |
ultimately become.
And then finally, for some commercial
| | 03:56 |
output, you may want to switch to
overprint.
| | 03:59 |
What that mean is if you overprinting a
cyan object on top of a magenta object,
| | 04:03 |
for example, you can see that there will
overprint to produce a deep blue.
| | 04:07 |
But, if don't use overprinting, it's just
an option available to you You might as
| | 04:12 |
well leave the preview mode set to default
and then finally we've got this check box,
| | 04:16 |
align new object as a pixel grid which is
perfect if you're creating web designs,
| | 04:21 |
that kind of thing, anything that's going
to the screen ultimately.
| | 04:24 |
If you're not going to the screen, this is
a print document after all then you don't
| | 04:28 |
need to worry about it.
And now I'll go ahead and click OK in
| | 04:32 |
order to create that new eight page
document with the art boards arranged in
| | 04:36 |
four columns and two rows.
And that's how you take advantage of the
| | 04:40 |
more advanced settings inside the New
Document dialog box.
| | 04:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modifying your document| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll take those art boards
that you created in the previous movie,
| | 00:04 |
and we'll turn it into the document that
you see before you now.
| | 00:07 |
And the reason is I think it's really
important to have an early sense of accomplishment.
| | 00:13 |
And this is a pretty easy document to
create And you'll get a sense of just how
| | 00:17 |
amazing Illustrator really is.
So if you're working inside this document
| | 00:22 |
which I've called 8 page newsletter.ai,
then just go ahead and select everything
| | 00:27 |
across all the art boards which you do by
going up to the Select menu and choosing
| | 00:31 |
the Alt command.
Or you can just press Ctrl + A or Cmd + A
| | 00:35 |
on a Mac.
And that goes ahead and selects all eight
| | 00:39 |
of these massive numbers.
Then press the Backspace key on the PC or
| | 00:43 |
the Delete key on the Mac to get rid of
them because we're going to create them
| | 00:47 |
from scratch.
Then you'll want to switch to the Type
| | 00:50 |
tool, which incidentally for you will be
located farther down the tool box because
| | 00:55 |
on your screen you're probably seeing the
single column tool box as you are now.
| | 01:00 |
But, because my screen is so short, a
couple of the tools and a a few options
| | 01:05 |
get cut off down here at the bottom of the
screen.
| | 01:07 |
And you can switch between the one and two
column tool boxes by clicking on this
| | 01:12 |
little double arrow icon.
Anyway, go ahead and click on the Time
| | 01:15 |
tool which looks like a t, then click
anywhere inside the first art board.
| | 01:20 |
Just click like so and then type the
number 1.
| | 01:23 |
Now you're barely going to be able to see
it from this vantage point, but that's okay.
| | 01:28 |
And then you want to press the Esc key in
order to accept your change.
| | 01:31 |
So now you have an itty, bitty number one
right there.
| | 01:35 |
We want to make it several times more
massive and you can do that by going up to
| | 01:39 |
the Control panel.
You should see Myriad Pro selected as your
| | 01:42 |
font by default.
And it should be set to the regular style.
| | 01:45 |
We want this third option right there,
which is the point size.
| | 01:49 |
By default it's 12.
We want it to be 608.
| | 01:53 |
So go ahead and enter 608, and then press
the Enter key, or the Return key on the
| | 01:58 |
Mac, to create this massive number 1.
That is so tall that we can't see all of it.
| | 02:02 |
I'll just go ahead and drag it down a
little bit, like so, to make it a bit more visible.
| | 02:07 |
And, then we want to change its color as
well.
| | 02:10 |
And you do that by going up to the Window
menu and choosing Color.
| | 02:14 |
And that'll bring up the color panel over
here on the right hand side of the screen.
| | 02:17 |
We want to see more options, so click on
this little item right there which is the
| | 02:22 |
fly out menu icon.
And choose Show Options.
| | 02:26 |
And that should display the CMYK values.
If it doesn't, you can return to the Fly
| | 02:32 |
Out menu, and choose CMYK.
And now I want you to change the values as follows.
| | 02:37 |
We want to select the M value.
So just go ahead and drag across it, and
| | 02:42 |
change it to 20.
And then press the Tab key to advance to
| | 02:46 |
the Y option, which is yellow, and change
it to 100.
| | 02:50 |
And then press Tab to advance to the K
value, which is black.
| | 02:53 |
And change it to 0.
And you'll end up getting this bright
| | 02:57 |
yellow number like so.
Then you want to go ahead and hide the
| | 03:01 |
color panel.
And you do that by clicking on this little
| | 03:04 |
double-arrow icon in the upper-right
corner of the panel.
| | 03:08 |
Now we want to center this guy on the
artboard.
| | 03:10 |
And you can do that by clicking on the
word Align in this horizontal Control
| | 03:15 |
panel, by the way.
That's what this thing on the menu bar is called.
| | 03:18 |
Go ahead and click on a line.
And then drop down to Align To, click on
| | 03:24 |
its icon, and choose Align to Art Board.
So that we're aligning to this active Art
| | 03:28 |
Board right there.
Which is the first one, by the way.
| | 03:31 |
And it's very important that we're
aligning to that art board.
| | 03:33 |
That you see a black outline around it.
Then you want to click on Horizontal Align
| | 03:38 |
Center, up here at the top.
And then click on the fifth icon in,
| | 03:42 |
Vertical Align Center.
Now that still looks a little high for me.
| | 03:45 |
I'm going to press the Enter key, or the
Return key on the Mac, to hide that panel.
| | 03:49 |
And so I'm going to press Shift down
arrow, twice in a row.
| | 03:53 |
So one, two.
That's shift and down arrow together, and
| | 03:57 |
we'll end up with this effect here which
looks pretty darn good.
| | 04:01 |
Looks like we have some real vertical
centering going on.
| | 04:03 |
Then, go up to the Edit menu and choose
the Cut command or you can press it's
| | 04:09 |
universal keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + X here
on the PC, or Cmd + X on the Mac.
| | 04:14 |
Now that may seem like a really strange
thing to do.
| | 04:16 |
To create a thing and then essentially get
rid of it.
| | 04:20 |
But, what I've done is I've taken the one
and I've sent it to this thing called the
| | 04:24 |
clip board.
Which effectively means it's gone to your
| | 04:27 |
computer's memory.
Now, we want to take that one and paste it
| | 04:31 |
on to all of the art boards inside of this
document.
| | 04:34 |
And you do that by going back to the edit
menu and choosing paste on all art boards.
| | 04:41 |
And you'll end up getting this effect
here, which is absolutely amazing.
| | 04:45 |
And notice that it's matching the
placement and everything.
| | 04:48 |
Now it's just a matter of changing the
numbers.
| | 04:50 |
And we'll do that once again using the
Type tool.
| | 04:53 |
So go ahead and click on it to select it.
Then drag across the second one, change it
| | 04:57 |
to a two, drag across the third one,
change it to a three.
| | 05:01 |
I bet you're beginning to get the idea
here.
| | 05:03 |
And, I'll just drag across these last
guys, finally changing the very last
| | 05:08 |
number to an 8.
And then to accept my changes I'll press
| | 05:12 |
the Esc key.
And notice that not only takes me out of
| | 05:15 |
the text entry mode, but it also returns
me to the black arrow tool, which
| | 05:19 |
Illustrator calls the Selection tool.
I just call it the black arrow because,
| | 05:22 |
after all that's what it is.
And that in a nutshell is it.
| | 05:27 |
If you want to deselect your text by the
way just click off of it some place in the pasteboard.
| | 05:31 |
And that is how you create a quick and
dirty document here inside Illustrator.
| | 05:36 |
In the next movie I'll show you how to
save your changes.
| | 05:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving changes| 00:00 |
Alright, now that we've made some changes
to this file we need to save our changes
| | 00:04 |
which is the topic of this movie.
Notice up here in the Title tab that my
| | 00:08 |
document appears as
eightpagenewsletter.ai*.
| | 00:11 |
That asterisk indicates that I have
unsaved changes.
| | 00:16 |
Associated with this document.
Couple different ways to save those changes.
| | 00:20 |
One is to go up to the File menu and
choose the Save command, or you can press
| | 00:24 |
Ctrl + S or Cmd + S on the Mac.
But if you do that, you'll most likely get
| | 00:28 |
this warning that's telling you that
you're saving to a legacy format.
| | 00:32 |
And the reason this is coming up is
because I saved this file just to make it
| | 00:36 |
as backward compatible as possible.
I saved it to the Illustrator's CS4 format.
| | 00:41 |
Now it's still compatible with your
version of the software.
| | 00:44 |
That just means that folks with older
versions of the program can use it as well.
| | 00:48 |
If you see this warning, then I recommend
you go ahead and turn on the Don't Show
| | 00:52 |
Again check box.
And then you can click OK.
| | 00:55 |
And that way you won't see this warning
anymore.
| | 00:57 |
However, I'm going to cancel out.
because what I want to do is save this
| | 01:01 |
document under a different name.
By going up to the File menu and choosing
| | 01:06 |
the Save As command or you can press Ctrl
+ Shift + S or Cmd + Shift + S on the Mac
| | 01:11 |
and I will go ahead and name this guy.
My New Document not including this file
| | 01:15 |
for you by the way I am just creating it
here on the fly.
| | 01:17 |
And I leave Save As type set to Adobe
Illustrator with the need of AI format,
| | 01:23 |
and then I will click in the Save button.
And that'll bring up a much larger
| | 01:27 |
document that at first looks pretty darn
confusing because there's quite a few
| | 01:30 |
options here.
But if you like, you can just make sure
| | 01:33 |
the most recent version of the software
selected up here at the top of the
| | 01:37 |
dialogue box and then click OK, because
it's completely acceptable to just stick
| | 01:42 |
with the default settings.
But if you want to understand what's going
| | 01:44 |
on I'll go ahead and switch the version
here from CS4, which is the way it's set
| | 01:50 |
right now, the previously saved version of
the document.
| | 01:53 |
I could step back to much older versions,
as you can see right here.
| | 01:57 |
Including something like CS3, but as you
step back, you're going to lose certain features.
| | 02:03 |
You're also going to get this warning.
Notice that the warning is documented not
| | 02:07 |
very well, but down here at the bottom of
the dialogue box you'll see one helpful item.
| | 02:12 |
Any hidden appearance attributes will be
discarded.
| | 02:15 |
And I'll explain what's going on with
appearance attributes in a future chapter.
| | 02:19 |
But there's a lot more that we're going to
lose than that.
| | 02:21 |
It'd be nice if Illustrator went ahead and
documented everything, it doesn't.
| | 02:26 |
In our case, what we're going to lose, is
the multiple artboards because CS3 didn't
| | 02:31 |
not support multiple artboards, that
feature wasn't introduced till CS4.
| | 02:36 |
So in this case, if I was going to save to
an older version here, I would need to
| | 02:39 |
turn on this check box, save each artboard
to a separate file and I would either save
| | 02:44 |
all of the artboards or I could specify
range for example, I could enter 2, 5
| | 02:49 |
through 7.
So this could be our ports 2, 5, 6, and 7
| | 02:54 |
in that case, but I want to preserve my
all ports, so I am going to ahead and
| | 02:59 |
switch to the illustrator CS4 format and
I'm still going to get the warning as you
| | 03:04 |
can see here.
But this format does support everything
| | 03:06 |
inside this document.
Assuming that I go ahead and turn off this
| | 03:09 |
check box right here, so that I'm saving
all of the Artboards together.
| | 03:13 |
Now you don't need to worry about the
subset Font option.
| | 03:16 |
But you do want to pay attention to this
guy right there.
| | 03:19 |
Create PDF Compatible File.
That's turned on by default.
| | 03:22 |
And it's a really great option, because
what it means is that you don't need
| | 03:26 |
Illustrator to open this file.
You need Illustrator to edit this file,
| | 03:30 |
but you can give it to someone who doesn't
have Illustrator, and as long as they have
| | 03:34 |
the free Adobe Reader, which you can
download from adobe.com, then they can
| | 03:39 |
open the file and take a look at it.
You also need to have this checkbox turned
| | 03:43 |
on if you plan on importing the file into
InDesign, because InDesign requires the
| | 03:49 |
PDF definition.
The only reason you'd ever turn this off,
| | 03:52 |
and it's a little bit dangerous I have to
say, but you might turn it off in the
| | 03:56 |
event that you wanted to reduce the size
of the file, because including that PDF
| | 04:00 |
information does make the file larger.
Next drop down to embed icc profiles.
| | 04:05 |
You definitely want that turned on, so
that you're saving the color information
| | 04:09 |
associated with this file.
And that does not increase the size of the
| | 04:12 |
file by much of anything, it's just a few
k.
| | 04:15 |
And then we've got this use compression
check box turned on.
| | 04:18 |
This is lossless compression.
So it's not (UNKNOWN) compression like
| | 04:22 |
JPEG has nothing to do with that.
It's not going to harm anything inside the document.
| | 04:27 |
You want to leave this check box turned on
so that you reduce the file size as much
| | 04:31 |
as possible, and then you would go ahead
and click OK in order to create that file.
| | 04:37 |
One more thing to note about saving, we'll
go up to the File menu and choose Save As
| | 04:41 |
once again.
And notice that you also have other file
| | 04:45 |
types that you choose from.
Don't really need 'em very often, by the
| | 04:49 |
way, because the .ai file, that's
altogether compatible with InDesign and
| | 04:54 |
modern layout programs.
PDF, I was telling you, there's already a
| | 04:58 |
PDF version of the file.
Inside a .AI file by default.
| | 05:02 |
We've got EPS, the only reason you choose
EPS is if you're trying to create a file
| | 05:07 |
that's way backward compatible, with an
old version of Cork Express for example.
| | 05:11 |
And then you've got SVG for your scalable
vector graphics.
| | 05:16 |
And that's all there is to it.
I'll just go ahead and cancel out, because
| | 05:19 |
I've already saved this file.
And that, folks, is how you save changes
| | 05:23 |
to your artwork here inside Illustrator.
| | 05:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Closing all open documents in Windows| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to close
all open documents on the PC specifically.
| | 00:06 |
If you're a Macintosh user, there's enough
differences that you'd be better served by
| | 00:10 |
the next movie.
Now notice that I have a total of 3
| | 00:12 |
documents open in all.
As you can see, by the appearance of the 3
| | 00:16 |
title tabs at the top of the screen.
Let's make changes to each one before we
| | 00:20 |
close them out.
And I'll just make random changes.
| | 00:23 |
I'm just going to click on this one here
and press the Backspace key in order to
| | 00:26 |
get rid of it.
Then I'll press Ctrl+Tab to advance to the
| | 00:29 |
next document and I'll just select this
group that contains my name.
| | 00:33 |
And press the backspace key.
And then, I'll switch over to this new
| | 00:37 |
document that I haven't done anything
with, and I'll just select the rectangle tool.
| | 00:41 |
What the heck, doesn't matter what.
And I'll go ahead and draw a rectangle.
| | 00:44 |
And you can now see that we have asterisks
after each one of the document names.
| | 00:49 |
Thereby indicating that we have unsaved
changes.
| | 00:52 |
Now, the last thing you want to do, this
is just a bit of advice, is walk away from
| | 00:56 |
your computer for an extended period of
time with a bunch of files open that have
| | 01:00 |
unsaved changes.
Because chances are good, especially if
| | 01:04 |
it's at work, that someone's going to come
along, an want to close your documents.
| | 01:08 |
An they're going to end up getting this
message right here.
| | 01:11 |
Should I save the changes or not?
Now, what I've found, is that nine out of
| | 01:16 |
ten people are going to just click the yes
button.
| | 01:19 |
They're going to figure you know, Joe or
Sarah, or whomever, must of wanted those
| | 01:24 |
changes to be saved.
And this could be the only copy of your
| | 01:26 |
document, and you may have actually gotten
rid of things like I did.
| | 01:30 |
And that would be a real problem.
One out of 10 people is going to do the
| | 01:34 |
right thing, which is to cancel out of
that message and then go up to the File Menu.
| | 01:39 |
And choose the Save As command, so that
they don't ruin the original document.
| | 01:44 |
But that's a rare person, by the way.
The thing nobody does, is close a document
| | 01:48 |
and say, nah, I'm not going to save the
changes if they're not you.
| | 01:52 |
So the point is, you need to make that
determination.
| | 01:54 |
When you walk away from your computer, you
need to make sure that you close
| | 01:58 |
everything that's open.
That's my advice.
| | 02:01 |
Now, there really is no close all command.
If you go up to File menu, you'll see that
| | 02:05 |
there's a Close command, but we'd have to
choose it repeatedly to close all these documents.
| | 02:10 |
You do have an exit command, but that not
only closes all the open documents, but it
| | 02:15 |
quits the software as well.
Turns out there's a hidden keyboard shortcut.
| | 02:19 |
So instead of pressing Ctrl+W, you add the
Alt key, so you press control Alt+W.
| | 02:24 |
And let me show you what that looks like.
We'll go ahead and press control Alt+W,
| | 02:28 |
and Illustrator will ask me, do I want to
save my changes for my commercial document?
| | 02:33 |
If the answer is yes, obviously I'll click
on the yes button.
| | 02:36 |
If the answer's no, I'll click no, which
would mean I would go ahead and close the
| | 02:40 |
document without saving the changes.
>> So I would forever lose those changes,
| | 02:44 |
and if I think better of it and I don't
want to close the document after all, I'll
| | 02:48 |
click on the cancel button.
And notice, if I click cancel that cancels
| | 02:52 |
the closing of all documents, so I'm going
to press the keyboard shortcut again, Ctrl+Alt+W.
| | 02:57 |
There's also keyboard shortcuts for each
one of these guys, which is Y for yes, N
| | 03:02 |
for no, and Esc, the escape key, for
cancel.
| | 03:04 |
Now, in my case, this is just a demo
document.
| | 03:07 |
I have no interest in saving it, so I'll
just click in the no button.
| | 03:12 |
And for this document, I deleted my name,
so I definitely don't want to save it, so
| | 03:15 |
I'll press the N key this time around.
And then I'll get one final warning for
| | 03:20 |
this document in which I removed the one,
so I'll press the N key again in order not
| | 03:25 |
to save those changes.
And now I can savfely walk away from my
| | 03:29 |
computer for any length of time, without
worrying about whether my documents will
| | 03:34 |
survive the way I want them to.
And that's how you go about closing all
| | 03:38 |
open documents inside Illustrator.
If you're a PC user, you can go ahead now
| | 03:43 |
and skip to the next chapter.
| | 03:45 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Closing all open documents on the Mac| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to close
all open documents, specifically on the Mac.
| | 00:05 |
If you're a PC user, go ahead and skip to
the next chapter.
| | 00:09 |
Now, notice that I have three open
documents, as indicated by these three
| | 00:13 |
title tabs at the top of the screen.
And just for the sake of demonstration,
| | 00:17 |
I'm going to make ad hoc change to each
one of these documents.
| | 00:20 |
So I'll start by selecting the one, by
clicking on it with the black arrow, and
| | 00:24 |
then I'll press the Delete key to get rid
of it.
| | 00:26 |
And now I'll press Cmd + tilde to advance
to the welcome file here.
| | 00:31 |
And I'll click on a group of letters that
contains my name, and I'll press the
| | 00:35 |
Delete key to get rid of it as well.
And then I'll advance to this final
| | 00:39 |
document, which is that one I created, but
I didn't really do anything with.
| | 00:43 |
So I'll just go ahead and select the
Rectangle tool.
| | 00:46 |
Let's say, and draw a rectangle on it.
What the heck.
| | 00:50 |
Now, notice that every one of the title
tabs contains an asterisk at the very end
| | 00:55 |
of the file name, which indicates that I
have unsaved changes.
| | 01:00 |
This is a very dangerous way to leave your
computer.
| | 01:04 |
For example, lets say you decided you're
going to leave for the day and this is a
| | 01:08 |
work computer.
It's very likely that somebody could come
| | 01:11 |
by and decide that they want to close a
document.
| | 01:13 |
They could go to this first document for
example, and decide that they want to
| | 01:17 |
close it.
In which case, they're going to get this warning.
| | 01:20 |
That's asking if they want to save the
changes.
| | 01:22 |
Now, in my experience, 9 out of 10 people
are going to go ahead and click that Save button.
| | 01:28 |
Because they're going to think, if you
actually did that work, you would want
| | 01:31 |
those changes saved.
Now, 1 out of 10 people, the careful
| | 01:36 |
person, is going to click on the Cancel
button, and then they're going to go up to
| | 01:40 |
the File menu and choose the Save As
command, in order to protect your original.
| | 01:45 |
But nobody's is going to close your file
without saving it.
| | 01:48 |
And that might be very well the thing you
want to do is close without saving,
| | 01:52 |
because you might have been touring around
inside of a very important file.
| | 01:56 |
Which is why you should make sure to close
all open documents and make the decision
| | 02:02 |
as to whether save the changes or not,
before you leave the computer.
| | 02:05 |
The thing is, there's not really a close
all command.
| | 02:09 |
If you go up to the File menu, you'll see
that there's a Close command, and of
| | 02:13 |
course under the Illustrator menu, there's
the Quit command.
| | 02:16 |
But the Quit command in addition to
closing all open documents, also closes
| | 02:20 |
Illustrator, which may not be what you
want to do.
| | 02:24 |
So there's a couple of different ways to
work.
| | 02:26 |
One is to go into the Window menu, and
turn off the Application Frame.
| | 02:30 |
And that'll house all of the documents in
independently floating windows.
| | 02:35 |
Next, you return to the Window menu,
choose a range, and choose Consolidate All Windows.
| | 02:40 |
And that will go ahead and place all of
the documents into a single window like so.
| | 02:45 |
And then you just go ahead and close that
big Uber window and that will close all of
| | 02:50 |
your documents.
So that's one way to work.
| | 02:53 |
And then you'll be asked if you want to
save your changes or not.
| | 02:56 |
I'll come to that in just a moment.
What I'm going to do is click on the
| | 02:59 |
Cancel button.
And notice when I click cancel, that, that
| | 03:02 |
goes ahead and cancels the entire process.
Because I want to show you there's another
| | 03:06 |
way to work.
Lets say that you prefer to stay inside
| | 03:10 |
the application frame, which is what I
recommend that's the way I work.
| | 03:14 |
Then you can take advantage of a keyboard
shortcut, so this is a hidden feature.
| | 03:17 |
Notice here under the File menu, the close
command has a shortcut of Cmd + W and that
| | 03:23 |
is a very old shortcut that dates back to
the days of Mac paint, the original
| | 03:27 |
graphics program on the Mac.
If you had the option key to that
| | 03:31 |
shortcut, then you will close everything,
so that's Cmd + Opt + W, and let me show
| | 03:36 |
you what that looks like.
I'll go ahead and press Cmd + Opt + W and
| | 03:40 |
I will be asked by Illustrator if I
want to save my changes, if I do want to
| | 03:44 |
save the changes before I close the file,
I click the Save button.
| | 03:47 |
If you don't, you just want to close the
file and want to forever abandoned your
| | 03:51 |
changes, you click on Don't Save.
And as you saw just a moment ago, if you
| | 03:55 |
want to cancel the entire process, you
click the Cancel button.
| | 03:58 |
And the idea there is that allows you to
choose the Save As command instead in
| | 04:03 |
order to protect this specific file.
Each one of these buttons also has a
| | 04:07 |
keyboard shortcut, its S for save, its D
for don't save, and its Esc or escape for cancel.
| | 04:13 |
In my case, I actually ruining this file
by getting rid of my name, so I don't
| | 04:18 |
want to save the changes.
So I'll go ahead and click on the Don't
| | 04:20 |
Save button, this file was just a demo
file I don't care about it.
| | 04:24 |
So this time, I'll take advantage of the
keyboard shortcut, which is just the D
| | 04:27 |
key, not Cmd + D or anything like that
just D.
| | 04:30 |
And even though I don't care about this
file, Am not going to save exchange it
| | 04:34 |
either, so I will just press the D key
once again.
| | 04:37 |
and that (UNKNOWN) how you close all open
documents so that you are safe to leave
| | 04:41 |
your computer for the rest of the day here
inside illustrator
| | 04:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Working with ArtboardsPages of any size, at any angle| 00:00 |
Illustrator is an exceedingly flexible
program.
| | 00:03 |
It lets you create a single piece of
artwork or a multi-page design.
| | 00:07 |
Only Illustrator has a special word for
pages.
| | 00:10 |
It calls them Artboards because each
Artboard is less a page and more a digital canvas.
| | 00:17 |
Within a single document, each Artboard
can be any size you want.
| | 00:22 |
And you can spread the Artboards out,
anywhere, all across your desktop.
| | 00:26 |
This isn't page one, page two, page three,
page four.
| | 00:30 |
This is Artboard one, Artboard two,
Artboard three, Artboard four.
| | 00:35 |
Really, whatever you want.
In this chapter, I show you how to create
| | 00:39 |
Artboards, wherever you like.
Even if it means creating Artboards inside
| | 00:44 |
other Artboards.
And then I show you how to clean them up
| | 00:47 |
so that all of the Artboards fall into
perfect alignment.
| | 00:50 |
You can work however you like.
Illustrator knows its job is to keep up
| | 00:55 |
with you.
| | 00:56 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Moving and modifying artboards| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to modify
a document by moving its artboards to
| | 00:04 |
different locations.
This works a little differently inside
| | 00:08 |
illustrator than it does inside other
programs.
| | 00:10 |
Quite a bit differently than you would
reasonably think as well, but once you
| | 00:13 |
come to terms with it, it makes a fair
amount of sense.
| | 00:16 |
Working inside of a document called eight
page newsletter.ai.
| | 00:18 |
It's found inside the O2 artboards folder.
Notice if you go up here to the File Menu.
| | 00:25 |
You have a document setup command that
allows you to modify the existing document.
| | 00:30 |
There's a keyboard shortcut of Control P
or Command Option P on the Mac.
| | 00:34 |
I'll go ahead and choose a Command, and
notice that we have a whole slew of
| | 00:39 |
options that we did not see in the new
document dialogue box.
| | 00:43 |
And we're missing a lot of those options
as well, we have no control over page size.
| | 00:47 |
The only options we have that are the same
are these bleed values and the option to
| | 00:52 |
change the unit of measure.
But we do have this button right here
| | 00:56 |
called Edit Art boards, and you can either
click on it - which will take you to the
| | 01:00 |
Edit Art board mode or go ahead and cancel
out of this dialogue box.
| | 01:05 |
You also have the option of selecting the
Art Board tool.
| | 01:08 |
So you have to switch tools in order toe
edit the Art Boards and this tool has a
| | 01:12 |
keyboard shortcut of Shift O.
I'm going to go ahead and click on it in
| | 01:17 |
order to switch to the Art Board mode.
And notice now that the active art board
| | 01:21 |
is highlighted, and I can drag it to a
different location to move it.
| | 01:26 |
And this area back here, on which the art
boards rest, this area of gray, is known
| | 01:31 |
as the pasteboard.
Or, you sometimes see it called the canvas
| | 01:35 |
as well inside of Illustrator.
I prefer paste board, however, because you
| | 01:39 |
can move objects into the paste board if
you want to get them off the printed
| | 01:42 |
pages, just to keep 'em around for later.
Notice up here in the Options Bar, we have
| | 01:48 |
this icon that says Move Copy Artwork with
Art Board.
| | 01:52 |
And by default, it's turned on.
So that means if I drag this art board
| | 01:56 |
with a one in it.
The one moves along as well.
| | 01:58 |
And now that I've put the art board in
this location, it thinks that the 2, 4,
| | 02:03 |
and 6 are part of the gang.
And I would move them along with.
| | 02:06 |
Now I've got the 3 and 7 involved.
And ultimately I could get all the numbers
| | 02:10 |
onto this one art board if I like.
Of course there's no reason to do that.
| | 02:15 |
I've made a mess of this document.
Which is why it's fortunate that
| | 02:18 |
illustrator not only provides an Undo
command, but it also provides you with
| | 02:22 |
multiple undos.
And you perform the undos either by
| | 02:25 |
choosing this first command from the Edit
menu, or by pressing Ctrl + Z or Cmd + Z
| | 02:29 |
on the Mac.
And I'll just keep pressing that keyboard
| | 02:32 |
shortcut until I get my pages back to
where they were.
| | 02:37 |
Another option for restoring the
appearance of your artwork is to go upto
| | 02:40 |
the File menu and choose the Revert
Command.
| | 02:43 |
Now in my case Revert is dimmed, and
that's because I went ahead and undid
| | 02:47 |
everything that I've done since opening
the document.
| | 02:49 |
So, I'm going to go and redo the last
operation by going up the the Edit menu
| | 02:53 |
and either choosing the Redo command.
Or you can press Ctrl + Shift + Z, or Cmd
| | 02:57 |
+ Shift + Z on the Mac.
And again, we've got multiple re-dos as well.
| | 03:02 |
So if I press Ctrl + Shift + Z or Cmd +
Shift + Z again, then I go ahead and
| | 03:06 |
remove the 1, 2, 5, and 6.
Now let's say I want to get back to the
| | 03:10 |
original version of this artwork.
You'd go up to the File menu and choose
| | 03:14 |
the Revert command or you have a keyboard
shortcut of F12.
| | 03:18 |
When I choose this command I get a warning
that tells me hey, you are about to lose
| | 03:22 |
everything you've done that you didn't
saved associated with this document and
| | 03:26 |
this is not an unavoidable operation.
So, its something of a Defcon if you
| | 03:31 |
really mess things up.
This is a command that take care of things
| | 03:35 |
and then you click on the Revert button,
everything goes back to the way it was and
| | 03:38 |
notice up here in the edit menu the undo
command is dimmed because, as I say,
| | 03:42 |
reverting is not undoable.
So take care with that one.
| | 03:47 |
Now let's say you want to move an art
board, but you don't want to move the
| | 03:49 |
contents of that art board.
You want everything to stay where it is.
| | 03:53 |
Then you go up to the options bar and turn
off move copy artwork with art board.
| | 03:58 |
And then you drag the art board anywhere
you like.
| | 04:01 |
And notice that the contents of that art
board never move along with it.
| | 04:05 |
That's how you move an art board either
with or without the artwork.
| | 04:09 |
Just remember, anytime you want to change
your art boards, whether you're moving
| | 04:13 |
them or changing their size, as we'll see
in the next exercise, you want to go ahead
| | 04:17 |
and switch over to the Art Board tool,
which you can get by pressing Shift + O.
| | 04:21 |
To leave the art board mode you either
switch to any other tool here inside the
| | 04:25 |
tool box, or you just press the Escape
key.
| | 04:29 |
Which will take you back to your last used
tool, which in my case is the black arrow.
| | 04:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing the size and shape of artboards| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to change
the shape and size of your artboards.
| | 00:04 |
I've got (UNKNOWN) store the save version
of 8-page newsletter.ai, found inside the
| | 00:08 |
02_artboards folder.
Now the first thing I'd like you to do,
| | 00:12 |
just to make sure that you and I are on
the same page.
| | 00:14 |
Just go up to the View menu, and make sure
that the Smart Guides command is turned on.
| | 00:19 |
If you see a check mark everything's good,
if not go ahead and choose the command.
| | 00:23 |
You also have a keyboard shortcut of
Ctrl+U, that's Cmd+U on a Mac.
| | 00:28 |
And what Smart Guides do is they allow you
to align objects inside of your
| | 00:32 |
illustration as well as art boards on the
fly.
| | 00:35 |
The next step of course is to switch to
the Artboard tool, which you can get by
| | 00:39 |
pressing Shift+O, or you can just click on
it here inside the toolbox.
| | 00:42 |
But before I do that, I want you to notice
something.
| | 00:45 |
At this point you can see that page one is
active because it has a black outline.
| | 00:51 |
Whereas page two, or artboard two if you
prefer, is not selected, nor or any of the
| | 00:56 |
others because they have grey outlines.
If you click on, let's say, Artboard four,
| | 01:02 |
you can see that it gets the black outline
because it's now active, and the others
| | 01:05 |
are inactive.
You'll also see a number four down here in
| | 01:09 |
the bottom left corner of the window.
Illustrator goes ahead and numbers
| | 01:13 |
artboards automatically in the order you
create them.
| | 01:15 |
You can override that, however, as I'll
show you in the later movie.
| | 01:20 |
Now I'll go ahead and switch to the
Artboard tool, and notice that Artboard
| | 01:24 |
four is highlighted.
So, I just want you to see that the
| | 01:27 |
Artboard that's selected in the Standard
mode also becomes selected here, inside
| | 01:31 |
the Artboard mode.
I'm going to go ahead and switch back to
| | 01:34 |
Artboard one by clicking on it, and notice
that you have these handles that are
| | 01:38 |
surrounding the artboard.
If you drag one of the handles then you'll
| | 01:41 |
resize the artboard on the fly.
And see those green lines, those are the
| | 01:46 |
Smart Guides, so I've got one smart guide
on the far right side of the artboard.
| | 01:50 |
And another down there at the bottom
showing me that I have a center intersection.
| | 01:54 |
So I know that I'm exactly aligned to the
right side of pages two and six as well as
| | 02:00 |
the center of the bottom row of artboards.
Now I'm going to drag this bottom handle
| | 02:05 |
down until I get alignment with the bottom
of those artboards.
| | 02:09 |
And I now have this large art board that
includes one, two, five, and six.
| | 02:14 |
And has independent art boards inside of
it for two, five, and six.
| | 02:18 |
Which can be a very useful way to work if
you want to have one large artboard that
| | 02:21 |
includes all the artwork inside of a
document, for example.
| | 02:25 |
As well as independent art boards for each
item.
| | 02:27 |
That's a great way to organize and control
the output of your artwork.
| | 02:32 |
You also have some options that are
available to you up here in the Options bar.
| | 02:35 |
Notice I have these orientation icons.
So I can switch from Portrait to Landscape
| | 02:40 |
just by clicking on it.
You can also select from preset artboard
| | 02:44 |
sizes, such as the popular page sizes
letter here in the states and A4 in your
| | 02:49 |
pen elsewhere.
I'll go ahead and select A4 for now.
| | 02:52 |
You'll also have numerical control over
the size and location of your artboard.
| | 02:58 |
Let's say I want to go ahead and switch
mine back to six by eight inches.
| | 03:02 |
I'd go ahead and highlight the width
value.
| | 03:05 |
And you can do that, by the way, just by
clicking on the letter next to it.
| | 03:09 |
So I'll click on the W and I'll change it
to 6in, and then press the Tab key.
| | 03:14 |
And I'll change the height value, which is
now active, to 8in in order to reset the
| | 03:19 |
size of that page.
Notice, however, that Illustrator went
| | 03:22 |
ahead and resized the artboard with
respect to it's center.
| | 03:25 |
And that's because the center reference
point is selected up here in the Options bar.
| | 03:29 |
If I want to position the artboard with
respect to its upper left corner, I go
| | 03:34 |
ahead and click on the upper left point
inside of that reference matrix.
| | 03:39 |
And now I'll change the x value to 0.
And then I'll Tab to the Y value and
| | 03:43 |
change it to 0 as well.
And that goes ahead and restores the
| | 03:46 |
original location of the page.
In order to accept the work just press the
| | 03:50 |
Escape key in order to return to the black
arrow tool.
| | 03:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and copying artboards| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you a couple of
ways to create new art boards.
| | 00:04 |
And I'll also introduce you to some art
board editing tricks that hinge on
| | 00:07 |
pressing the Shift and Alt and Option
keys.
| | 00:10 |
I've once again restored my 8 page
newsletter.ai.
| | 00:13 |
I'm going to switch over here to the Art
Board tool.
| | 00:17 |
One way to create an art board is just to
drag somewhere in an empty portion of the
| | 00:23 |
paste board like so.
And let's say I want to create an art
| | 00:26 |
board that completely incompases all of
the other art boards.
| | 00:31 |
So I've got a new art board that's coming
in automatically called art board two.
| | 00:36 |
I'm going to click on the name item up
there on the options bar, and I'll change
| | 00:40 |
this guy to uberboard, let's say.
And then press the Enter key, or the
| | 00:44 |
Return key on a Mac.
We can now see that it's art board number
| | 00:47 |
nine up here in the upper left hand
corner, because after all it's the ninth
| | 00:51 |
art board I've created.
And we can see its name uber board as well.
| | 00:55 |
Now let's say I want this big art board to
exactly encompass all the other ones with
| | 00:59 |
a margin of an inch all the way around.
I'd start by reducing the size of the artboard.
| | 01:05 |
So I'm dragging the corner handles until
they snap into alignment with the top left
| | 01:09 |
corner of page 1, and the bottom right
corner of page 8.
| | 01:13 |
And then, I'll go up here to the options
bar, and I'll set the reference point back
| | 01:17 |
to the center.
I'll expand both the width and height
| | 01:20 |
values, by clicking first on the far right
side of that width value, and then I'll
| | 01:25 |
enter plus 1in.
Which will give me an additional inch.
| | 01:30 |
That's not really what I want.
If I want an inch all the way around, I
| | 01:33 |
need 2 inches.
So I'll go in and change that value from 1
| | 01:37 |
to 2 like so, and then press the Tab key.
So the remarkable thing is, I can not only
| | 01:43 |
do simple math in Illustrator, but I can
also do that math using different units of measure.
| | 01:49 |
So in this case for example, with the H
value.
| | 01:51 |
I'm adding 1212 points to 2 inches.
And then I press the Enter key, or the
| | 01:56 |
Return key on the MAC to accept that
change.
| | 01:59 |
The difficulty when you're working this
way is getting to the other art boards,
| | 02:03 |
because Illustrator considers art board 9
to be in front of 1 through 8.
| | 02:09 |
If I try to click on 1 to select it, I
won't end up selecting it.
| | 02:13 |
Instead, I'll create a new art board.
Just comes in at this arbitrary size.
| | 02:17 |
You can see the width value is 312.27
points.
| | 02:21 |
Where is this coming from?
I have no idea, but obviously it's not
| | 02:24 |
what we want.
Two ways to get rid of this artboard, or
| | 02:28 |
any other existing artboard.
When it's selected, you can just press the
| | 02:31 |
backspace key here on the PC, or the
Delete key on the Mac, or, notice that
| | 02:35 |
there's this little close box right there.
If you click on the X in the upper right
| | 02:39 |
hand corner, then you close the artboard,
which is to say, you delete it.
| | 02:44 |
All right, what I want to do though, as I
was saying, is select artboard 1.
| | 02:48 |
So here's how that works.
To cycle through art boards that are on
| | 02:51 |
top of each other, you press the Alt key,
or the Option key on a Mac, and you click.
| | 02:56 |
And that'll go ahead and select art board
one instead.
| | 02:59 |
What if I want to create a new art board
inside of an existing art board?
| | 03:03 |
Like I want to create this little tiny art
board inside of art board two.
| | 03:06 |
If I were to just start dragging.
In order to draw a new artboard, I
| | 03:11 |
wouldn't draw the artboard.
Instead I would move the existing artboard.
| | 03:15 |
So I'll press Ctrl + Z or Cmd + Z on the
Mac, to undo that movement.
| | 03:18 |
Here's what you do instead.
You press the Shift key, and you drag.
| | 03:22 |
Now notice, as long as I have the Shift
key down I go ahead and create an art
| | 03:27 |
board with the proportions of the other
art boards inside this image.
| | 03:30 |
If I don't want to constrain the
proportions then I would release the shift
| | 03:34 |
key as I'm drawing the art board.
So you just need to press it right at the
| | 03:37 |
outset of the drag in order to create tat
new art board like so.
| | 03:41 |
What if you want to duplicate an art
board?
| | 03:44 |
Well, if I want to move it, of course, I
just drag.
| | 03:46 |
If I want to duplicate it I press and hold
the alt key, or the Option key on a Mac.
| | 03:51 |
Notice that gives me the little clone
cursor there?
| | 03:53 |
Because I'm seeing two arrowheads, one on
top of another.
| | 03:57 |
Then you drag while the alt or option key
is down, and you go ahead and create a
| | 04:01 |
duplicate of that artwork.
You may ask, didn't I just say a moment
| | 04:04 |
ago that when you press the ALT key or the
option key on the Mac, and you click on an
| | 04:08 |
existing art board, you cycle back to one
of the other ones, and that's true.
| | 04:11 |
If I were to ALT or option click, I would
go ahead and select art board 2 right
| | 04:16 |
through art boards 9 and 11.
However, if you ALT drag, then you make a copy.
| | 04:22 |
Finally, I want to show you how to copy
not only the art board, but the art that's
| | 04:27 |
inside of it as well, and I'll demonstrate
that using art board 4.
| | 04:31 |
I want to select the art board right away,
without selecting the bigger one, so I'll
| | 04:35 |
just Alt click, or Option click on it, so
that I cycle right to it, then you go up
| | 04:40 |
to the Options bar, and you click on this
icon Move/Copy Artwork to Art Board to
| | 04:44 |
turn it back on.
And now, you go ahead and Alt drag or
| | 04:48 |
Option drag that art board.
And you'll copy both the art board and the
| | 04:52 |
number four inside of it, along with.
And that, friends, is how you create and
| | 04:57 |
copy art boards.
With the help of the Shift as well as the
| | 05:00 |
Alt and Option key.
| | 05:01 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introducing the Artboard panel| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to delete
and organize art boards from the Art
| | 00:04 |
Boards panel.
And then save the document, 12pagemess.ai
| | 00:07 |
because it is a 12 page mess after all.
Let's say I want to tidy things up here,
| | 00:10 |
so we end up with 10 identically sized art
boards, all of which are absolutely in order.
| | 00:22 |
Let's say I make some additional
modifications to what I've got so far.
| | 00:27 |
I'll go ahead and switch over to the Art
Board tool.
| | 00:29 |
And then I'll Alt + click or Option +
click on this art board 4 here in order to
| | 00:33 |
select it independently of the Uber board.
And I'll drag it down to the lower right corner.
| | 00:39 |
Then I'll Alt + click or Option + click on
art board 8 and move it up to this location.
| | 00:44 |
And now let's say I want to add another
art board, but I'm going to do so from the
| | 00:48 |
Art Board panel.
I'll go up to the Window menu which lists
| | 00:52 |
all the panels inside Illustrator which
we'll discuss in more detail in a later chapter.
| | 00:58 |
I'll drop down to this command right
there, Art Boards, and click on it.
| | 01:01 |
And that brings up the Art Boards panel
over here in the lower right region of the
| | 01:04 |
screen by default.
I'm going to drag up on the top of the
| | 01:08 |
panel so I can see every one of my twelve
Art Boards so far.
| | 01:11 |
Then I'm going to drop down to this little
page icon, which allows me to create a new
| | 01:14 |
Art Board that's exactly the same size as
the selected art board.
| | 01:19 |
So, I'll go ahead and click on it.
We end up with the new art board way over
| | 01:22 |
there on the top right section of the
screen.
| | 01:25 |
In order to see it better, I'll go up to
the View menu And choose Fit All In Window.
| | 01:30 |
Or you can press Ctrl + Alt + 0 or Cmd +
Option + 0 on the Mac.
| | 01:35 |
And that's one of the many navigation
functions that's available to you in
| | 01:37 |
Illustrator, all of which we'll discuss in
more detail in the next chapter.
| | 01:41 |
And I'm going to go ahead and drag this
art board into its new location.
| | 01:45 |
Now what I want to do is get rid of the
uber board here.
| | 01:48 |
As well as these two little art boards.
I'll go ahead and Alt + click a couple of
| | 01:52 |
times, so it'd be an Option + click a
couple of times, there on the one that's
| | 01:55 |
number 11, but it's reading as art board
four.
| | 01:59 |
And I'll just call it mini board one so
that we can keep track of it.
| | 02:03 |
I'll do the same with this one.
I'll go ahead and Alt click on it, Option
| | 02:06 |
click on the Mac.
And change its name to miniboard2 and
| | 02:11 |
that's just so we can make sense of these
art boards here inside the art boards panel.
| | 02:15 |
What you think you might be able to do is
with one of the boards selected, you could
| | 02:18 |
shift click on anotehr art board to add it
to the selection because shift clicking
| | 02:23 |
does add to a selection elsewhere inside
Illustrator.
| | 02:26 |
Doesn't work here however inside the art
board mode.
| | 02:29 |
Instead you end up drawing a new very tiny
art board which obviously is not what we
| | 02:34 |
want, however you can select multiple art
boards from the art boards panel.
| | 02:38 |
If I click on Uber board and then Shift +
click on mini board too, notice that I
| | 02:43 |
select that range of art boards right
there.
| | 02:46 |
And then I can add the non adjacent art
board eight which is a tiny thing i crated
| | 02:51 |
a moment ago by Ctrl + clicking on it.
That would be a Cmd + click on the Mac so
| | 02:56 |
Shift + click in our ports inside the
panel, selects multiple adjacent art
| | 03:01 |
boards where as Ctrl + clicking or Cmd +
clicking adds a non-adjacent art boards to
| | 03:05 |
the selection.
Now rather than pressing the Backspace key
| | 03:08 |
or the Delete key on the Mac which would
select just the one arc port that appears
| | 03:12 |
to be selected here inside the document
window instead you go ahead and drag
| | 03:17 |
anyone of the selected art ports on to the
trash can and that we will go ahead and
| | 03:22 |
get rid of that Now lets make some sense
of this document here.
| | 03:26 |
Obviously the numbers are fairly wrong at
this point and we're missing one so I'm
| | 03:31 |
going to click on the type tool to select
it or I could press the T key and then
| | 03:34 |
I'll go ahead and select the eight and
make it a four, select the four and make
| | 03:37 |
it a five, select the five make it a six.
So a lot of busy work here.
| | 03:41 |
Select the 6 make it a 7, the 7, make it
an 8, go ahead and select that final 4 and
| | 03:45 |
make it a 0.
And then, I'll return to my Black Arrow
| | 03:48 |
tool, just by clicking on it, and you can
see that the 0 remains selected, so I'm
| | 03:53 |
going to go up to the Edit menu and choose
the Copy command, or press Ctrl + C, or
| | 03:57 |
Cmd + C on the Mac, and then I'll click on
this ninth page right there, and I'll go
| | 04:02 |
up to the Edit menu, and I'll choose this
command, Paste In Front which has a
| | 04:07 |
keyboard shortcut, a Ctrl + F, Cmd + F on
the map.
| | 04:10 |
That goes ahead in the lines, and number
two that art board.
| | 04:12 |
And then I'll press the T key to switch
back to my Type tool.
| | 04:15 |
Go ahead select that 0 change it to a 9.
Then let's similarly modify the art board.
| | 04:21 |
So I'll go ahead and click on the art
board tool.
| | 04:23 |
To switch away from the Type tool we
understand we have art board 1 through 3
| | 04:27 |
just fine but then everything becomes a
mess as of this art board 8 it should be 4
| | 04:33 |
so I will go ahead and click on it to make
it active and I will change its name to
| | 04:36 |
art board 4.
Then I will click on this art board 4 copy
| | 04:39 |
2 and I will change its name to art board
5 and I'll click on art board five and
| | 04:44 |
change its name to art board 6.
I know, a lot of busy work but this is the
| | 04:48 |
kind of stuff you do routinely when you're
working with multiple art boards inside of illustrator.
| | 04:52 |
Can be a little cumbersome, a little labor
intensive as well, but you do have a great
| | 04:56 |
deal of flexibility.
So I'm changing the names of all these art boards.
| | 05:00 |
To match their numbers, essentially.
But that doesn't really take care of my
| | 05:03 |
problem because I've got Art Board 1, 2,
and 3 according to the little numbers, up
| | 05:08 |
there in the upper left hand corner,
followed by 8, 10, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 4.
| | 05:14 |
So, the Art Boards aren't in the right
order.
| | 05:17 |
And this can be a problem.
I'm going to double click on art board 1
| | 05:21 |
here inside the art boards panel which
will zoom me in on that page and then I
| | 05:25 |
can advance to the next page by clicking
on this little next button down here in
| | 05:29 |
the lower left hand corner of the window
that will take me to 2 and then to 3 and
| | 05:33 |
then if I click that next button and again
I will go to what I'm thinking is art
| | 05:37 |
board 10 but it's really numbered 4.
Now I should mention you also have a
| | 05:41 |
previous button if you want to go back.
If you want to do this from the keyboard
| | 05:45 |
you press Shift and Page down to go to the
next page.
| | 05:50 |
Or you press Shift and Page Up to go to
the previous page.
| | 05:53 |
But for any of this to work, the pages
need to be in the right order.
| | 05:58 |
What I'm going to do is go back up to the
View menu, and again choose Fit All in
| | 06:01 |
Window, in order to zoom out from my
artboards.
| | 06:05 |
Notice that they appear in this wrong
order here inside the Artboards panel.
| | 06:09 |
And it's the order inside the panel that
determines the real order of those pages.
| | 06:13 |
So if I want 10 to be the last page.
I need to go ahead and drag Art Board 10
| | 06:18 |
to the end of the list.
Notice you can also select an Art Board
| | 06:21 |
such as 9, which is out of place.
And I can nudge it down by just clicking
| | 06:25 |
on the Move Down icon here at the bottom
of the art board panel.
| | 06:28 |
4 and 5 are adjascent to each other, so
I'll click on one, Shift click on the
| | 06:33 |
other, Then I'll drag one of these pages.
And notice this is being interpreted as a
| | 06:37 |
double-click for some reason, which is why
we just zoomed in on the page.
| | 06:40 |
But I'll go ahead and drag both of them up
the list, so we now have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
| | 06:45 |
in sequential order.
And so that means now that I'm looking at
| | 06:49 |
page 4, I can press Shift + PageDown to
advance to page 5.
| | 06:54 |
Shift page down again to go to 6, 7, 8, 9
and ten which has a 0 on it.
| | 07:01 |
Again, a little bit labor intensive, a lot
of busy work going on there, but that's
| | 07:05 |
how you delete and manage your artboards
from the artboards panel.
| | 07:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Autoarranging artboards| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you among other
things how to auto arrange our artboard,
| | 00:04 |
so that there in regular alignment, once
again.
| | 00:08 |
I've saved my progress as
tenpagejumble.ai.
| | 00:11 |
Again it's found inside the 02 artboards
folder.
| | 00:14 |
The reason I save these progress files by
the way, is just in case you're dropping
| | 00:18 |
in on a single movie and you don't have a
progress file of your own.
| | 00:22 |
I'm going to start by getting my art
boards panel out of the way, by clicking
| | 00:25 |
on this little double arrow icon there.
Now I'll switch back to the Artboard tool.
| | 00:30 |
And notice that Artboard 10 is selected in
my case.
| | 00:34 |
I want to show you a couple of other
options that are available to you.
| | 00:37 |
If you go up to the Object menu and you
choose Artboards.
| | 00:41 |
Look at the sub menu of commande,
including this one here, Fit To Artwork Bounds.
| | 00:45 |
And that's going to go ahead and expand
the art board so it encompasses every bit
| | 00:49 |
of artwork inside your document.
Now that's not the effect I want, but I
| | 00:53 |
wanted to show you that that command is
here.
| | 00:55 |
I'll go ahead and press Control Z, or
Command Z on a Mac, to undo that change.
| | 01:00 |
Here is another options that's available
to you, if you want to scale an artboard,
| | 01:04 |
so what exactly encompasses this stuff
inside of it you double click on it like it.
| | 01:09 |
So, now you may ask well how is that
artboard exactly encompassing that 0, when
| | 01:15 |
you are working with type inside of
illustrator the program is always
| | 01:19 |
consulting essentially all the characters
in that font.
| | 01:22 |
Well, lowercase g for example, would have
a descender that comes farther down, and
| | 01:27 |
there might be other characters that have
ascenders that go higher up.
| | 01:31 |
And the way you can confirm this is to
switch back to the black arrow tool here,
| | 01:35 |
and then I would just go ahead and click
on the base line of the zero, and notice
| | 01:39 |
that I get this big bounding box.
And that bounding box shows me exactly how
| | 01:44 |
big Illustrator thinks that character is.
I'm going to press Shift + 0 in order to
| | 01:49 |
switch back to the Artboard tool, and I'm
going to press Ctr + Z or Cmd + Z on the
| | 01:53 |
Mac to undo that change.
Here's what I really want to do I want to
| | 01:57 |
go ahead and automatically arrange all of
these artboards.
| | 02:01 |
And I can do that by once again going up
to the object menu, choosing the artboards
| | 02:05 |
command, and then choosing rearrange.
And I'll get this dialogue box here that
| | 02:11 |
features those same options that we saw
inside the new document dialogue box.
| | 02:15 |
So I can change the arrangement of my r
ports if I want to, but I'm happy with the
| | 02:19 |
existing layout.
What I want, is to have five columns
| | 02:23 |
instead of four so that I'll have five
columns in two rows of course, and then
| | 02:27 |
I'm just going to go ahead and increase
the spacing values as well to one half
| | 02:31 |
inch like that.
So one slash two double quote meaning that
| | 02:36 |
you have to press Shift along with the
Quote key.
| | 02:38 |
I do want to move the art work along with
the art boards so I'll leave this check
| | 02:41 |
box on and then I'll go ahead and click OK
and that takes care of my problems automatically.
| | 02:48 |
And just so then you know, if I bring back
up the artboards panel which I can by
| | 02:53 |
clicking on what is by default the lowest
icon here in this column of panels, and
| | 02:58 |
then I click on what's known as the fly
out menu icon in the upper right corner of
| | 03:03 |
the panel.
I also have access to the rearrange
| | 03:06 |
artboards command here.
It's a little more convenient many times.
| | 03:09 |
And that brings up the same dialogue box
that we saw just a moment ago.
| | 03:13 |
All right, I'm going to cancel out,
because I don't want to mess things up now
| | 03:16 |
that I've gotten everything perfect.
That is how you take advantage of
| | 03:19 |
automatic artboard modifications here
inside Illustrator.
| | 03:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Artboards and rulers| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how art boards
and rulers interact with each other inside Illustrator.
| | 00:05 |
I'd say my progress is nice and tidy.ai.
I'm going to once again switch to the art
| | 00:11 |
board tool.
And then, I'll bring up my rulers by going
| | 00:14 |
up to the view menu, choosing rulers, and
then choosing the show rulers command.
| | 00:19 |
And what that does is it shows me about
the horizontal ruler at the top of the
| | 00:22 |
screen, and a vertical ruler over here on
the left hand side.
| | 00:26 |
And we can see that the unit of measure is
points and the reason we can see that is
| | 00:30 |
because they are very dinky units.
If you want to switch out the unit of
| | 00:34 |
measure, the easiest option is to right
click on either one of the rulers.
| | 00:39 |
And then, choose a different unit, such as
inches, and then both rulers will update
| | 00:43 |
in kind.
Now, notice this zero-zero point right there.
| | 00:48 |
So, there's the zero point for the
vertical ruler, and there's the zero point
| | 00:51 |
for the horizontal ruler.
I'm going to go ahead and put a couple of
| | 00:54 |
guides at those locations by dragging out
from the vertical ruler, and I'm going to
| | 00:58 |
press the Shift key as I drag, in order to
snap into alignment with the tick marks.
| | 01:04 |
I've snapped into alignment with zero on
the horizontal ruler.
| | 01:06 |
Now, I'll Shift drag down from the
horizontal ruler in order to snap into
| | 01:11 |
alignment with the zero point there on the
vertical ruler.
| | 01:14 |
So, that's our zero-zero point right now.
Used to be the zero-zero point was at the
| | 01:19 |
upper left corner of the first art board,
but that was before I went and made all
| | 01:23 |
these modifications.
The reason I'm showing you this, a couple reasons.
| | 01:27 |
I just want you to see what's going on.
Artboard ten is still selected and those
| | 01:31 |
we're seeing is x and y coordinates.
And if I go ahead and change the reference
| | 01:35 |
point to the upper left point there, then
I'll see that the page is 24.25 inches to
| | 01:42 |
the right of and 8.92 inches down from
that zero-zero point.
| | 01:48 |
If I wanted to move this artboard into
alignment with the zero-zero point, I
| | 01:51 |
would start by turning off that move copy
art work with artboard option.
| | 01:55 |
Because I want to move just the artboard,
lets say.
| | 01:58 |
And then I will change the x value to zero
and the y value to zero as well and that's
| | 02:02 |
snaps that exactly into alignment.
Now, I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z, a couple
| | 02:06 |
of times, in order to reinstate the
position of that artboard.
| | 02:10 |
Because, let's say that's not what I want
to do.
| | 02:12 |
What I do want to do is, I want to go
ahead and move the zero-zero point into
| | 02:18 |
exact alignment with the top left corner
of artboard ten.
| | 02:22 |
Well, one way to move the zero-zero point
is to go ahead and drag from the
| | 02:27 |
upper-left corner where the tow rulers
intersect each other, and then you can
| | 02:31 |
just drop that zero-zero point in the
place.
| | 02:34 |
And now, my zero-zero point is right about
there, as you can see in the horizontal
| | 02:38 |
and vertical rulers.
If you want to snap it into alignment with
| | 02:42 |
an artboard, however, you just
double-click on that point.
| | 02:45 |
And now, notice the zero zero point is
aligned with the upper left corner of
| | 02:50 |
artboard ten.
If I want it to be aligned with the upper
| | 02:52 |
left corner of artboard one instead, I'll
go ahead.
| | 02:55 |
And click on artboard one and double-click
on that ruler intersection point up there
| | 03:00 |
in the upper-left hand corner.
I don't need those guides anymore.
| | 03:03 |
So, I'll go to the View menu.
Choose guides and then choose the clear
| | 03:07 |
guides command to get rid of them.
One more thing I want you to know about rulers.
| | 03:11 |
When you're working inside the art board
mode, you have whats known as global
| | 03:16 |
rulers, which are aligned to all the art
boards.
| | 03:19 |
So, in other words we have one zero-zero
point, that's aligned to the upper-left
| | 03:23 |
hand corner of the first artboard.
And all the other tick marks are aligned
| | 03:27 |
to that point, regardless of which of the
art boards is selected.
| | 03:31 |
Compare that to the behavior when we're
out of the artboard mode.
| | 03:34 |
I'm going to press the Escape key here in
order to switch back to my black arrow tool.
| | 03:39 |
And now notice that my zero-zero point
appears at the upper-left corner of
| | 03:44 |
artboard three.
When artboard three is active.
| | 03:47 |
If I were to click on artboard two, then I
would switch the zero-zero point to its
| | 03:51 |
upper-left corner and so on.
So, each and every artboard has its own
| | 03:55 |
independent ruler system.
That's the way it works in every
| | 03:59 |
application out there.
However, you can switch this behavior
| | 04:02 |
inside of illustrator by going up to the
View menu, choosing the rulers command,
| | 04:08 |
and then notice this guy, change to global
rulers.
| | 04:10 |
Ctrl+Alt+R or Cmd+Option+R on a Mac, and
that will go ahead and switch you to a
| | 04:16 |
uniform global ruler system, regardless of
which of the artboards is selected.
| | 04:21 |
So notice I'm clicking on different
artboards here, and that is not changing
| | 04:25 |
the behavior of the rulers at all.
And that is the exciting world of rulers
| | 04:30 |
and artboards, working in tandem with each
other here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Getting AroundNavigating your artwork| 00:00 |
This chapter is all about getting around
in Illustrator.
| | 00:03 |
Magnifying your art work, panning to
another location and managing your work space.
| | 00:09 |
I've spent nine movies on this topic,
which is a lot, for the simple reason that
| | 00:14 |
there's a lot to know.
I want you to be able to move around
| | 00:17 |
inside Illustrator without even thinking
because that's how everything about the
| | 00:22 |
program is going to make sense.
Better still, you'll be able to focus less
| | 00:26 |
on the mechanics of the software, and more
on the task of creating great artwork.
| | 00:32 |
Allow me to help you feel at home in
Illustrator.
| | 00:36 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The basics of the Illustrator interface| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll introduce you to a few
basic concepts where the Illustrator
| | 00:04 |
interface is concerned.
First of all, you'll notice that its quite
| | 00:08 |
notice by default but you don't have to
accept it that way if you don't like.
| | 00:13 |
If you want to change the brightness of
the interface, then go up to the Edit
| | 00:17 |
menu, this would be the Illustrator menu
on the Mac.
| | 00:20 |
Drop-down to the Preferences command,
which is not nearly so far down the list
| | 00:24 |
on the Mac.
And then choose User Interface.
| | 00:27 |
And that will bring up this dialog box
right here, and you can see that you can
| | 00:30 |
choose from other Interface options.
For example, you can switch to Light,
| | 00:35 |
which is the way things were back in the
days of Illustrator CS5 and earlier.
| | 00:40 |
And you can switch to Dark, and by the
way, we've been able to do this for a
| | 00:45 |
long, long time.
It's just that in the olden days If you
| | 00:48 |
switch to a Dark Interface, the text
remained dark as well.
| | 00:52 |
So that it didn't automatically invert,
which made it completely illegible.
| | 00:56 |
You also have the option of dialing in
your own custom interface value if you like.
| | 01:02 |
So I could set it to medium, by dragging
on this little slider triangle, and at
| | 01:08 |
some point, once you cross the threshold,
like so.
| | 01:11 |
You're going to dramatically increase the
brightness of the interface, and that's
| | 01:14 |
because at some point Illustrator needs to
invert the type from white to black.
| | 01:20 |
You would never want for example, to have
gray text against a gray background.
| | 01:24 |
I'm going to go ahead an dial this guy
down to about 20%, which darkens up the
| | 01:29 |
interface a little more than its default.
An then I'll go ahead an click OK, to
| | 01:34 |
accept that change.
Now, you also have the option of changing
| | 01:37 |
the brightness of this area behind your
document, outside of the art boards.
| | 01:42 |
And what I have incidentally is five art
boards, as you can see here.
| | 01:47 |
One big one and then four smaller ones
with these big Pen tool cursors, inside of
| | 01:52 |
an even larger art board.
So the area outside the art board, I'm
| | 01:56 |
going to zoom out a little bit here by
pressing Ctrl+minus, Cmd+minus on the Mac.
| | 02:01 |
It's known as the pasteboard.
And notice, if I go ahead and grab this
| | 02:05 |
cursor right there, and I drag it out into
the pasteboard, that empties that art
| | 02:10 |
board right there.
And it allows me to keep this artwork
| | 02:13 |
without, say, throwing it away.
So you can throw all kinds of trash out
| | 02:16 |
here on the pasteboard.
And it gets saved along with the document.
| | 02:20 |
The problem is it's easy to lose dark
objects against the dark pasteboard.
| | 02:24 |
It's great for bright objects, but for
darkish objects not so much.
| | 02:28 |
If you want to brighten the paste board,
then, this time I'll press the keyboard
| | 02:32 |
shortcut which is Ctrl+K, or Cmd+K on the
Mac, for the Preferences command.
| | 02:37 |
And then I'm going to switch to User
Interface right there.
| | 02:39 |
And notice this item canvas color.
Between you and me, I don't know anybody
| | 02:44 |
who calls it the canvas, everybody calls
it the pasteboard.
| | 02:46 |
But in any case, notice that you can set
it to white.
| | 02:50 |
You can't make it any other color.
It's either white or match user interface
| | 02:54 |
brightness, in which case it brightens up
along with the interface, like so.
| | 02:59 |
Anyway, I'm going to leave it dark, so
I'll just go ahead and cancel out.
| | 03:03 |
One final thing, notice my two-column
toolbox.
| | 03:07 |
Over here on the left side of the screen.
Most likely it's not going to popup that
| | 03:11 |
way for you, unless you have a pretty
small screen.
| | 03:13 |
Otherwise, you're going to see a single
column toolbox, and you can switch back
| | 03:17 |
and forth between them by clicking on this
little icon right here.
| | 03:20 |
So If it's a double left icon, you can
switch to a single column tool box like so.
| | 03:25 |
If it's double right, you can switch to a
double column.
| | 03:28 |
I'm going to keep it single throughout
these movies, because that's more likely
| | 03:32 |
to match your screen.
And that way you'll be able to better
| | 03:35 |
track which tools I'm using.
The one thing you have to bear in mind is.
| | 03:39 |
I will go ahead and switch to double
column again, I am losing a few tools and
| | 03:43 |
some functionality down here at the bottom
of the tool box.
| | 03:46 |
Notice that the last tool I see is that
slice tool, right there and only barely
| | 03:52 |
see it.
So I am missing a few tools which is why
| | 03:54 |
every once in a while I'll need to switch
back and forth between the single and
| | 03:58 |
double column tool box.
And those are the basics of working with
| | 04:02 |
the interface here inside Illustrator.
| | 04:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Macintosh interface differences| 00:00 |
This movie is especially designed for you
Macintosh folks.
| | 00:03 |
If you're working on the PC, you can skip
to the next movie.
| | 00:06 |
And it's all about the various differences
in the Illustrator interface on the Mac.
| | 00:12 |
Starting with up here at the top of the
screen.
| | 00:14 |
Whereas we generally have a dark
interface.
| | 00:17 |
We've got a light Menu Bar.
And that's a function of the Macintosh
| | 00:20 |
Operating System, there's nothing you can
do about it.
| | 00:24 |
Below the Menu bar is what's known as the
Application bar.
| | 00:28 |
It only appears on the Mac, not on the PC.
And it's kind of a waste of space, because
| | 00:32 |
it contains just two icons here.
One of which allows you to launch Bridge,
| | 00:37 |
which is an independent application, that
allows you to browse your files and manage
| | 00:42 |
them as well.
And then we've got this guy, Arrange
| | 00:45 |
Documents, which lets you change the way
multiple documents are arranged on screen.
| | 00:49 |
Now, if you'd like to capture back that
screen real estate, then you can hide the
| | 00:54 |
application bar by going to the Window
menu, and choosing Application Bar.
| | 00:58 |
A command that doesn't even exist on the
PC.
| | 01:00 |
And that'll make it go away.
Problem is, we lose those two icons which,
| | 01:05 |
incidentally, are located in the Menu bar
on the PC.
| | 01:08 |
So if you decide you want to bring back
the Application Bar, all you have to do is
| | 01:13 |
click on Window again and then choose that
command.
| | 01:16 |
I mentioned this before in Chapter One,
but I'll mention it again.
| | 01:20 |
By default, you're going to see each
document open in an independent floating
| | 01:24 |
window, with a light title bar at the top.
And you'll also be able to see your other
| | 01:29 |
applications running in the background.
In my case, I'm just seeing the finder desktop.
| | 01:34 |
If you'd like to cover that area with the
application so that your version of
| | 01:37 |
Illustrator looks more like mine.
Then, go up to the Window menu and choose
| | 01:42 |
application frame, and the active document
will grow to take up the entire screen.
| | 01:48 |
Notice however, that we lose a command, if
I go to the window menu you can see that
| | 01:53 |
Application Bar is dimmed.
Because when I'm working with the
| | 01:57 |
Application Frame, I cannot hide the
Application Bar.
| | 02:00 |
Have no idea why that is, by the way.
Another thing to note is that the close
| | 02:06 |
boxes are located on the opposite of what
is now this dark title tab.
| | 02:12 |
So instead of seeing an X, on the
right-hand side, as you do on the PC, It
| | 02:16 |
appears on the left-hand side.
An that's how you close your documents.
| | 02:19 |
We also have the Quit, Minimize, and
Maximize buttons, located in the upper
| | 02:24 |
left corner instead of the upper right
corner, as they are on a PC.
| | 02:28 |
Now, I happen to find these multi-colored
buttons a little distracting.
| | 02:32 |
If you do as well, you can change them by
going up to the Apple menu and choosing
| | 02:37 |
the System Preferences command.
Then click on the first icon, General in
| | 02:43 |
order to switch to the General Options.
And changes first item from blue to graphite.
| | 02:49 |
And then if you close out, like so, by
clicking in the little close box.
| | 02:53 |
You can see that we have these more
neutral buttons.
| | 02:55 |
They serve the exact same purpose, but
they aren't quite screaming for your
| | 02:58 |
attention to the same extent.
And those are the slight differences
| | 03:02 |
associated with the Illustrator interface
here on the Mac.
| | 03:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Zooming a document and its artboards| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to zoom
in and out from a document inside Illustrator.
| | 00:05 |
And the idea is this, sometimes you're
going to want to zoom in, so that you can
| | 00:09 |
take in greater detail and make fine tune
adjustments to your illustration.
| | 00:13 |
And other times you're going to want to
zoom out to take in the entire thing at a time.
| | 00:18 |
And you can do so, by choosing commands
from the View menu.
| | 00:21 |
So, if you go up to the View menu, you'll
see that you've got a series of Zoom
| | 00:25 |
commands right here at the top.
And you also have a bunch of keyboard shortcuts.
| | 00:30 |
Now, where shortcuts are concerned, I find
that folks fall into one of two camps.
| | 00:35 |
Either you love them, and you use them all
the time, which is the case for me, by the way.
| | 00:39 |
Or you hate them and you feel like it's a
bunch of clutter to try to memorize.
| | 00:43 |
Either way, is fine by the way, however, I
do recommend you that you memorize this
| | 00:48 |
group right here, under any circumstance,
because it's going to make your life allot easier.
| | 00:53 |
For example, if you choose the zoom in
command, which has a keyboard shortcut of
| | 00:57 |
Ctrl + Plus or Cmd + Plus on the Mac,
you're going to zoom in incrementally as
| | 01:02 |
you see here.
But it's so much easier to take advantage
| | 01:05 |
of the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + Plus once
again or Cmd + Plus on the Mac.
| | 01:10 |
If you want to zoom out, then you just
press Ctrl + Minus or Cmd + Minus on a Mac.
| | 01:15 |
And we're zooming incrementally, by the
way.
| | 01:17 |
We just zoomed into 150%, and now we're
zoomed out to 100%.
| | 01:22 |
And 100% is ostensibly how large the
illustration is going to actually print.
| | 01:28 |
Here is the thing though.
Illustrator is assuming that your screen
| | 01:32 |
resolution is 72 pixels per inch, as with
the original Macintosh computer.
| | 01:37 |
That hasn't been true for ages now, for
just decades.
| | 01:42 |
Your screen is more likely to have a
resolution of 100 to 120 pixels per inch.
| | 01:48 |
And if you're working with a retina
display, or other high dpi device, then
| | 01:52 |
you may have resolutions of 200 ppi or
even higher.
| | 01:56 |
Which means, that your document's going to
actually print larger than it appears onscreen.
| | 02:01 |
Doesn't really matter though, whether
you're seeing it the size it's going to
| | 02:05 |
print or not.
You can always check that by printing the document.
| | 02:09 |
And the reason it doesn't matter that
much, is because you can always zoom in.
| | 02:12 |
And as you zoom in, which I'm doing by
pressing Ctrl + Plus or Cmd + Plus on the
| | 02:17 |
Mac, we are getting better and better
details.
| | 02:20 |
So unlike a program such as Photoshop for
example, where if you zoom beyond 100% you
| | 02:25 |
are going to see bigger pixels.
In Illustrator, the artwork is always
| | 02:29 |
rendered out at the full resolution of
your screen.
| | 02:32 |
And you can zoom all the way in.
Notice that we're seeing the zoom ratio up
| | 02:37 |
here in the Title Tab, as well as down
here in the lower-left corner of the window.
| | 02:41 |
You can zoom all the way in to 6400%, that
is 64x, which is big enough to see a large bacteria.
| | 02:51 |
Which is why I've gone ahead and drawn a
scale-sized large bacteria here inside
| | 02:56 |
this punctuation mark.
Now, let's say you're this far zoomed in
| | 02:59 |
and you want to zoom out very quickly.
Well, you have the option of pressing Ctrl
| | 03:04 |
+ 1 or Cmd + 1 on a Mac to zoom back out
to 100% as I've done here.
| | 03:10 |
You also have the option of zooming from
the Artboards panel, as I was
| | 03:15 |
demonstrating in the previous chapter.
You get to it by going to the window menu
| | 03:19 |
and choosing the Artboards command.
And notice what we've got here, we've got
| | 03:24 |
this central Welcome Artboard, which is
the one that we're looking at in the
| | 03:27 |
center of the screen.
And then, we have this series of artboards
| | 03:31 |
that represent the different states of the
pen tool cursor.
| | 03:34 |
Just because the Pen Tool is such a
prominent tool inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:38 |
And then, we have this other artboard that
contains everything.
| | 03:42 |
And you may recall, if I double click on
any one of these artboards, I will center
| | 03:47 |
and zoom that artboard on screen.
So right now, I'm looking at the inactive
| | 03:51 |
version of the Pen Tool cursor.
This is the so-called continue version,
| | 03:56 |
which allows you to take an inactive path
and make it active again.
| | 03:59 |
We'll be talking all about that in a
future chapter.
| | 04:02 |
And then we've got this big one, All
Elements, which is this sixth artboard
| | 04:07 |
that surrounds everything right here.
Another way to zoom in on a specific
| | 04:12 |
artboard is to click on it.
For example, I'll click on the inactive
| | 04:16 |
pen tool cursor anywhere inside that
artboard.
| | 04:19 |
And then, you press Ctrl + 0 or Cmd + 0 on
a Mac in order to center that artboard on screen.
| | 04:27 |
Now, I'm going to go and hide the
Artboards panel.
| | 04:29 |
One other thing you can do, is view all of
the artboards at a time.
| | 04:34 |
And you can do that by pressing Ctrl + Alt
+ 0 or Cmd + Opt + 0 on the Mac.
| | 04:40 |
Now, I realize that's a lot of keyboard
shortcuts to take in a total of five.
| | 04:45 |
But if you ever need to remember them,
then just go back to the View Menu and you
| | 04:49 |
will see each of those keyboard shortcuts.
Ctrl + Plus to zoom in, Cmd + Plus on the
| | 04:54 |
Mac, Ctrl + Minus or Cmd + Minus to zoom
out.
| | 04:57 |
To fit the artboard in the Windows, that's
Ctrl + 0 or Cmd + 0 on the Mac.
| | 05:01 |
To fit everything, all artboards inside
the Windows is Ctrl + Alt + 0 or Cmd + Opt
| | 05:07 |
+ 0 on the Mac.
And then finally, to switch to actual
| | 05:10 |
size, that is 100%, you press Ctrl + 1 or
Cmd + 1 on the Mac.
| | 05:15 |
And that's how you zoom incrementally both
using command and from the keyboard, here
| | 05:20 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 05:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Honing in on a specific detail| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to zoom
in and out on a specific detail using the
| | 00:05 |
Zoom tool.
So the idea is every time you zoom in by
| | 00:10 |
pressing control plus or command plus on
the Mac, you're zooming in on the center
| | 00:15 |
of whatever it is that you're looking at.
Which is why I chose to stick my bacteria
| | 00:20 |
in the top dot of this colon, which is
located, by the way, right in the center
| | 00:27 |
of this art board.
But let's say you want to zoom in on
| | 00:30 |
something else, which you frequently do.
Why then, you need to select a Zoom tool,
| | 00:34 |
and in my case, the Zoom tool's so far to
the bottom of the toolbox, I can't get to
| | 00:38 |
it, so I'll switch to the double-column
toolbox.
| | 00:41 |
And there it is right there.
It'll be located at the very bottom of the
| | 00:44 |
list of tools.
You can also get to the Zoom tool by
| | 00:47 |
pressing the Z key.
And notice the great thing about using
| | 00:50 |
this tool is you can click on a specific
detail, like over here, and that centers
| | 00:55 |
it inside the newly zoomed view.
And you can even click on a totally
| | 01:00 |
different location, like way up here And,
or to center that region and so forth and
| | 01:05 |
so forth.
Similarly if you want to zoom out from a
| | 01:08 |
specific area, then you press the Alt key
or the Option key on the Mac and click on
| | 01:13 |
a detail and that becomes the newly
centered region, just as if I Alter option
| | 01:19 |
click up there.
Or in the center of this o for example.
| | 01:22 |
That o is now centered inside of the
window.
| | 01:25 |
The thing is though, you're going to be
doing this so often that you really want
| | 01:30 |
to memorize another keyboard shortcut.
And so whenever any other tool is selected
| | 01:36 |
inside of Illustrator, for example, I
switched back to my black arrow tool here
| | 01:40 |
at the top.
Then you can press Ctrl + Spacebar that
| | 01:44 |
would be Cmd + Spacebar on the Mac, and
then click to zoom in.
| | 01:48 |
And as soon as you release those keys,
you'll switch back to the Active tool.
| | 01:51 |
Or you can press Control + Alt + Spacebar,
that would be Cmd + Option + Spacebar in
| | 01:56 |
the Mac, and click to zoom out.
Now, if you're working on the Mac, you may
| | 02:01 |
find that the keyboard shortcuts I just
gave you don't work as advertised.
| | 02:04 |
For example, by default, Cmd + Spacebar
brings up Spotlight in the upper right
| | 02:09 |
corner of the screen, and Cmd + Option +
Spacebar brings up a search folder inside
| | 02:15 |
the Finder.
Assuming you don't want to work that way,
| | 02:18 |
here's what you do.
Go up to the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.
| | 02:23 |
And then swtich over to the Spotlight
icon.
| | 02:25 |
And notice down here at the bottom of the
screen we've got those shortcuts listed.
| | 02:30 |
And we have little warning icons.
And even though they don't have hints what
| | 02:34 |
it means is that these keyboard shortcuts
interfere with similar shortcuts in other applications.
| | 02:39 |
Namely, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign,
and a bunch of other Adobe apps as well.
| | 02:45 |
To change them you've got one of two
options.
| | 02:47 |
You can just turn them off if you don't
use Spotlight.
| | 02:49 |
Or you can change the shortcuts.
And you do so by clicking inside the
| | 02:53 |
shortcut, for example, Cmd + Space.
And I'm going to press Cmd + Ctrl + Space.
| | 02:58 |
And that little Caret icon indicates the
Control key.
| | 03:01 |
Then I'll click in the next option and
I'll press Cmd + Ctrl + Options + Spacebar.
| | 03:06 |
And that little guy right there, that
little doohickey indicates the Option key.
| | 03:10 |
And that's all there is to it.
Now, you can switch back to Illustrator
| | 03:13 |
and you can zoom in on a specific location
by Cmd + Spacebar clicking, like so.
| | 03:18 |
Or you can zoom out from a specific
location by Cmd + Option + Spacebar clicking.
| | 03:24 |
Another way to work.
Check this out, I'll go ahead and press
| | 03:27 |
Ctrl + Alt + 0, or Cmd + Option + 0 on a
Mac.
| | 03:30 |
In order to fit all of the art boards on
screen.
| | 03:32 |
Let's say you want to zoom way in on a
specific detail.
| | 03:36 |
And you press and hold the Ctrl + Spacebar
keys.
| | 03:39 |
Once again, Cmd + Spacebar in a Mac, and
then you just drag around the little area
| | 03:44 |
like so, and suddenly, you zoom in to that
specific portion of the document.
| | 03:49 |
Another way to zoom that you might find
helpful is to use the Scroll Wheel on your Mouse.
| | 03:54 |
So, if I go ahead and zoom way out once
again by pressing Ctrl + Alt + 0 or Cmd +
| | 03:58 |
Option + 0 on a Mac.
Then I can press the Alt key or the Option
| | 04:02 |
key on a Mac.
And I can hover my cursor over a detail
| | 04:05 |
such as the Creative Cloud logo here.
And then I can scroll up to zoom in on it.
| | 04:10 |
And if I have the Alt key down or the
Option key on a Mac and I scroll down with
| | 04:14 |
my Mouse, then I'll zoom out from that
location.
| | 04:17 |
So perhaps a lot to take in.
But just remember, if nothing else, that
| | 04:20 |
you press control and space bar on the PC
and that's command and space bar on the
| | 04:25 |
Mac and click to zoom in on a specific
detail And if you want to zoom out, then
| | 04:30 |
you can add the alt or option key, by
which I mean that I'm control alt space
| | 04:34 |
bar clicking here on the pc, or command
options space bar clicking on the mac.
| | 04:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scrolling (or panning) a document| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
scroll, or if you prefer, pan inside of a document.
| | 00:05 |
Which is great for finding details when
you're zoomed in.
| | 00:08 |
So let's say I press Ctrl+A bunch of times
to zoom in to the 600% view size.
| | 00:14 |
Which I can see once again up here in the
title tab and down in the bottom left
| | 00:18 |
corner of the window.
Well, let's say I want to see the words
| | 00:22 |
Part 2.
Well, I could definitely take advantage of
| | 00:24 |
the scroll bar over here on the far right
side.
| | 00:27 |
But as you can see, I end up overshooting
things.
| | 00:29 |
And I don't have a ton of control.
You could also click in the scroll bar the
| | 00:34 |
usual stuff.
However, the better way to work is to take
| | 00:37 |
advantage of the Hand tool, again located
at the bottom of the toolbox.
| | 00:41 |
Which is why I'm using the two column
display.
| | 00:44 |
And notice that it has a keyboard shortcut
of H.
| | 00:47 |
Through what that's worth, and now I
notice I can directly drag my art work
| | 00:51 |
inside of the screen.
And its important to note I am not moving
| | 00:54 |
anything, I am just panning around.
Well obviously, that's something you're
| | 00:58 |
going to do incisively so we need a better
way of working then switching back and
| | 01:02 |
forth between tools.
So I am going to switch back to my Black
| | 01:06 |
Arrow tool, and the keyboard shortcut.
By the way, again, it works inside of
| | 01:11 |
Illustrator and Photoshop and InDesign and
a bunch of other Adobe apps, is to press
| | 01:15 |
and hold the Spacebar.
And now, by spacebar dragging inside of my
| | 01:21 |
document, I'm able to pan the artwork
inside of the window.
| | 01:24 |
And then when you're done, just release
the spacebar in order to return to the
| | 01:28 |
Active tool.
You can also scroll, using the scroll
| | 01:31 |
wheel on your mouse.
So you can scroll down or up like so, and
| | 01:35 |
if you want to move more quickly, you add
the Shift key.
| | 01:39 |
Now, you may well ask, what do you do if
you want to scroll to the right or to the
| | 01:43 |
left using your mouse.
Well, if you have a Mighty Mouse on a Mac,
| | 01:46 |
or you've got a track pad, or some other
laptop gizmo, then you can just move back
| | 01:51 |
and forth using that.
If you've got an old style scroll wheel on
| | 01:54 |
your mouse then you can press the Ctrl key
or the Cmd key on a Mac.
| | 01:58 |
And scrolling down will take you to the
right, scrolling up will take you to the
| | 02:02 |
left, and if you want to move more quickly
you add the Shift key like so.
| | 02:08 |
All right, I'm going to go to the Window
menu and choose Artboards.
| | 02:10 |
Because I want to show you one more thing
by double-clicking on the inactive art
| | 02:14 |
board to center it inside my window.
And I've created some editable text in advance.
| | 02:20 |
Most of the text, I'll zoom out again,
most of this text right here is not editable.
| | 02:25 |
I've converted it to path outlines,
because I was using font sets probably
| | 02:28 |
aren't included on your system.
But if you were to go up to the Window
| | 02:32 |
menu, and choose Layers, then you will see
that there's this complex layer in a stack here.
| | 02:37 |
And by the way you can see see layer names
by dragging on the edge of this panel.
| | 02:42 |
You can also drag up on this edge if you
want to see all the layers.
| | 02:46 |
But notice, this first layer, More text is
turned off.
| | 02:49 |
Go ahead and turn it on by clicking in
this eyeball column, and then you can hide
| | 02:53 |
the layers panel.
And now notice that you can see names
| | 02:56 |
associated with each of these cursors.
And these are editable text objects by the way.
| | 03:01 |
So I'll press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on a Mac, in
order to zoom in on that second artboard
| | 03:06 |
and I'm going to zoom in even further here
by Ctrl+Spacebar+Clicking.
| | 03:10 |
That's a Cmd+Spacebar+Click on a Mac, and
this is all by way of saying what do you
| | 03:15 |
do if you want to scroll when you're
working with active text?
| | 03:19 |
I'll go ahead and switch to the Type tool
which is the one that looks like a letter T.
| | 03:23 |
And then I'm going to click inside of my
text.
| | 03:26 |
And you can see that I now have my
blinking insertion marker.
| | 03:30 |
If I wanted to scroll to a different
location, I couldn't press the spacebar,
| | 03:34 |
because after all that's going to go ahead
and add a space character.
| | 03:38 |
So I'll go ahead and press the Backspace
key or the Delete key on the Mac to get
| | 03:41 |
rid of it.
Instead what you do is you press and hold
| | 03:44 |
the Alt key or the Option key on the Mac.
And this trick, by the way, Alt+Dragging
| | 03:49 |
or Option+Dragging to scroll, only works
when text is active inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:55 |
So notice if I press the Escape key, so my
text is no longer active, and I press and
| | 04:01 |
hold the Alt key, I get nothing at this
stage in the game.
| | 04:05 |
So to sum things up, your best options are
these.
| | 04:08 |
Press and hold the Spacebar+Drag when you
want to scroll inside of a document.
| | 04:13 |
If you have active text then you press and
hold the Alt key or the Option key on a Mac.
| | 04:19 |
And then, of course as always, you can
scroll using either your mouse, your
| | 04:22 |
trackpad, or some other gadget associated
with your portable computer.
| | 04:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Page Up and Page Down keys| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you a bunch of
different ways to navigate inside of a
| | 00:03 |
document using the Page Up and Page Down
keys.
| | 00:07 |
Now, if you're not a shortcuts enthusiast,
save yourself from pain and skip to the
| | 00:10 |
next movie.
This is not stuff you absolutely have to know.
| | 00:13 |
And even if you're an absolute shortcuts
junkie, I don't expect you to remember all
| | 00:18 |
of these.
All you need to bear in mind is that in
| | 00:21 |
Illustrator, Page Up and Page Down
combined with all of the modifier keys
| | 00:26 |
does something.
So, I am going to go ahead and zoom way in here.
| | 00:30 |
And then, notice if I press the Page Down
key.
| | 00:33 |
I scroll down a large increment, half a
screen to be exact.
| | 00:37 |
And if I press Page Up, I scroll up half a
screen, which is the very same thing that
| | 00:42 |
happens by the way, when you press the
Shift key while scrolling down or up using
| | 00:47 |
the scroll wheel on your mouse.
If you want to scroll in smaller
| | 00:50 |
increments, you press Alt+Page Down or
Option+Page Down on the Mac, and you can
| | 00:56 |
press and hold that keyboard shortcut if
you like.
| | 00:59 |
if you want to scroll upward a small
increment, then you can press Alt+Page Up,
| | 01:03 |
or Option+Page Up on a Mac.
And again, that's a keystroke you can
| | 01:07 |
press and hold.
To move to the right you press Ctrl+Page
| | 01:11 |
Down, or Cmd+Page Down on a Mac.
And again we're moving in half-screens.
| | 01:16 |
Pressing Ctrl+Page Up or Cmd+Page Up on
the Mac, scrolls to the left.
| | 01:21 |
To scroll in smaller increments you press
Ctrl+Alt+Page Down or Cmd+Option+Page Down.
| | 01:27 |
Again, that's something you can press and
hold.
| | 01:30 |
And then you can press and hold
Ctrl+Alt+Page Up, or Cmd+Option+Page Up in
| | 01:34 |
order to scroll in small increments to the
left.
| | 01:38 |
That leaves just the Shift key.
And as you may recall from the previous
| | 01:41 |
chapter, that takes us from one Artboard
to the next.
| | 01:44 |
So, by pressing Shift+Page Down, I go to
the second Artboard, and then the third
| | 01:49 |
Artboard, and then the fourth, and so on.
By pressing Shift+Page Up, I go to the
| | 01:54 |
previous Artboard.
If you want to go all the way to the last
| | 01:57 |
Artboard, then you press Ctrl+Shift+Page
Down, and the last Artboard happens to be
| | 02:03 |
the big one, that contains the other five.
And then, if you want to go to the first
| | 02:07 |
art board then you press Ctrl+Shift+Page
Up.
| | 02:10 |
That's Cmd+Shift+Page Up on the Mac.
So, not necessarily the most exciting bag
| | 02:15 |
of tricks, but I would be remiss if I
didn't show you every way there is to
| | 02:20 |
navigate, using the Page Up and Page Down
keys here inside Illustrator.
| | 02:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Navigating numerically and from a panel| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to zoom in
to custom increments using this Zoom Value
| | 00:05 |
down here in the bottom left corner of the
window.
| | 00:07 |
As well as the Navigator panel.
So here's the thing, when you're pressing
| | 00:11 |
Ctrl++, or Cmd++ on a MAC, you're zooming
in pretty big increments.
| | 00:16 |
We went from about 100% to a 150 and then
200 and then 300 and so forth.
| | 00:22 |
And that goes for all the other zoom
options that we've seen so far, with the
| | 00:26 |
exception, by the way, of Ctrl+Spacebar or
Cmd+Spacebar dragging around an area.
| | 00:31 |
Which will give us a custom Zoom Value.
As you can see in my case, it's 2595.6.
| | 00:38 |
Well let's say you're looking for
something different.
| | 00:40 |
I'll press Ctrl+Alt+0, or Cmd+Option+0 on
a Mac, to fit all the artboards on screen.
| | 00:46 |
And notice that gives me an awful lot of
pasteboard.
| | 00:49 |
What if I want to zoom in so all the
pasteboard at least on the left and right
| | 00:53 |
sides is gone?
Then I'd click down here in this Zoom
| | 00:57 |
Value in the lower-left corner of the
window.
| | 00:59 |
And I could select it and enter my own
value, but the more practical way to work
| | 01:03 |
is to highlight that value and then press
the Up Arrow key.
| | 01:07 |
In order to zoom in in increments of 1%,
and you can also press the Down Arrow key
| | 01:13 |
in order to zoom out, in 1% increments.
And I find by fooling around here that at
| | 01:19 |
about 80%, I get the document as big as it
can be while still fitting here onscreen.
| | 01:25 |
You can also press Shift+Up Arrow by the
way or Shift+Down Arrow if you like.
| | 01:30 |
In which case you're going to zoom in 10%
increments.
| | 01:34 |
And at about 120% where this screen is
concerned, I can see most of the elements,
| | 01:39 |
all the text elements anyway, here, on the
first artboard.
| | 01:43 |
All right, that's one way to customize
your zoom.
| | 01:45 |
Another option is to take advantage of the
Navigator panel, which comes in really
| | 01:50 |
useful when you're trying to get your
bearings.
| | 01:52 |
For example, let's say I select this value
and I enter something ridiculous, like
| | 01:55 |
3,163.78, and then I press the Enter key,
and here I am at that bacteria again.
| | 02:03 |
But I want to scroll to a totally
different location inside of my document.
| | 02:08 |
Well I'm going to do a lotta Spacebar
dragging to get anyway.
| | 02:11 |
Or I could go up to the Window menu and
choose the Navigator command.
| | 02:15 |
Which is going to bring up this tiny
Navigator panel.
| | 02:18 |
And notice that it shows me.
A preview of my entire illustration, that
| | 02:23 |
updates on the fly by the way.
And then we have this tiny little red
| | 02:26 |
rectangle that represents the portion of
the illustration that I'm seeing onscreen.
| | 02:31 |
Now, that's a little bit too tiny to work
with, so I'm going to zoom out.
| | 02:35 |
And you can zoom out incrementally by
clicking on these little mountain icons,
| | 02:40 |
so this guy zooms out, this guy zooms in.
Think that's pretty self evident, but you
| | 02:44 |
can also drag this slider, and here's the
thing, you're not going to get a
| | 02:47 |
continuous smooth preview.
But if you want to get a sense whether the
| | 02:51 |
location that you've dragged to is what
you're looking for, then just hold for a moment.
| | 02:56 |
And Illustrator will catch up with you.
And now at this point, I can drag this red
| | 03:01 |
rectangle around to scroll to a different
portion of my document.
| | 03:05 |
And if I want to scroll even more quickly,
I can just click inside the Navigator panel.
| | 03:09 |
And notice that throughout, by the way,
we're still working with a very precise
| | 03:14 |
Zoom Value.
Another way to zoom and scroll at the same
| | 03:17 |
time, which is something you can only do
here inside the Navigator panel, is the
| | 03:21 |
press the Ctrl key, or the Cmd key on the
Mac.
| | 03:24 |
Which is going to change your cursor to a
magnifying glass.
| | 03:27 |
And then with those keys down, that is to
say Ctrl on the PC, Cmd on the Mac.
| | 03:31 |
Go ahead and drag around an area, the
little rectangle is always constrained to
| | 03:35 |
the proportions of your screen view.
And as soon as you release, you will not
| | 03:40 |
only scroll to this location, you'll zoom
in on it as well and now we've got a Zoom
| | 03:45 |
Value of 509.05%.
The final thing to note, for those of you
| | 03:50 |
who either have ginormous screens, lots of
room to work, or you're working with two
| | 03:54 |
screens at the same time.
Then you can increase the size of the
| | 03:58 |
Navigator panel to any size you like.
Either by dragging the down left corner
| | 04:04 |
here or by dragging one of the sides.
Either vertical side, or a horizontal.
| | 04:09 |
And you can just imagine how useful this
is if you're working with the second screen.
| | 04:13 |
If the panel becomes too big, obviously,
you can go ahead and shrink it down to a
| | 04:17 |
more reasonable size.
And even move it to a different location.
| | 04:21 |
And that's how you zoom and scroll with
absolute precision using the Zoom Value
| | 04:26 |
down here in the lower left corner, and
the Size Changing Navigator panel.
| | 04:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with multiple open documents| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to work
with multiple open documents inside Illustrator.
| | 00:05 |
And what I've got going here is the
document we've been working on, the
| | 00:09 |
multi-artboard doc.
And then each one of the documents divided
| | 00:14 |
into its own independent illustration.
And if you're wondering how I did that, I
| | 00:19 |
went up to the File menu and choose the
Save As command and then I entered a new
| | 00:23 |
name for this document, Busted Up and
that's it .ai and I chose the Save command.
| | 00:29 |
And I went ahead and switched the version
to Illustrator CS6.
| | 00:32 |
I've been telling you that I tried to make
these files as backward compatible as possible.
| | 00:37 |
Couldn't go any further back because if I
did I'd end up losing the drop shadows
| | 00:42 |
behind the Creative Cloud icon and this
frame.
| | 00:45 |
And that's because CS6 updated the blur
engine and that's just an FYI that I find
| | 00:51 |
through a great deal of pain.
And then I turned on to save each art
| | 00:54 |
board to a separate file selected range
and change the range to 1 through 5
| | 00:59 |
because we don't need that big 6th art
board and then I clicked OK.
| | 01:04 |
In my case I'm going to click cancel.
Just wanted you to see how I did it.
| | 01:07 |
Now there's a variety of different ways to
switch between documents.
| | 01:10 |
The most obvious way of course is to just
click on a tab and it will take you there.
| | 01:14 |
But you can also cycle between the
documents if you like, so if you want to cycle.
| | 01:19 |
Forward to the next document, you press
Ctrl + Tab here on the PC or Cmd + Tilde
| | 01:26 |
on the Mac.
The Tilda key by the way is that wavy line
| | 01:30 |
key that's found above the =Tab key and
below the Esc key on an American keyboard.
| | 01:35 |
If you want to move backwards you press
Ctrl + Shift + Tab or Cmd + Shift + Tilde
| | 01:40 |
on the mac.
Now this is a very handy keyboard shortcut
| | 01:44 |
and if for some reasons it doesn't work,
for example I am pressing Ctrl + Tab right
| | 01:48 |
now and nothing is happening and this is
me pressing Ctrl + Shift + Tab.
| | 01:52 |
The culprit is the Caps Lock key.
You need to make sure Caps Lock is turned
| | 01:57 |
off or it will interfere with things, at
least on the PC.
| | 02:00 |
It doesn't seem to have that effect on the
Mac.
| | 02:03 |
You can also set things up so that you can
see multiple documents at the same time.
| | 02:08 |
For example, I'll press Ctrl + Shift + Tab
or Cmd + Shift + Tab on a Mac, to switch
| | 02:11 |
back to the first open Illustration.
And then, I'll go up to the arrange
| | 02:15 |
documents icon.
Notice you'll find it up here in the menu
| | 02:18 |
bar in the PC, on the Mac it's located
over here in the Applications bar.
| | 02:24 |
In anyway, click on it and you'll see a
bunch of two up and three up and so forth displays.
| | 02:30 |
I'm going to switch to this guy, two up
horizontal.
| | 02:33 |
And notice that the active document
remains here in the left hand window while
| | 02:38 |
the last document in the list appears in
front of the right hand window.
| | 02:42 |
And I'm going to click in that right-hand
window to make it active, because only one
| | 02:45 |
document can be active at a time.
And then I'll press Control 0, or Command
| | 02:49 |
0 on a Mac, in order to center that zoom.
And now, notice that I can still cycle
| | 02:54 |
between the various documents here by
pressing Control Tab.
| | 02:58 |
Or Cmd > Tilda.
If I can't see the Title tab for a
| | 03:02 |
document, I can click on this Double Arrow
icon to bring up a list of all the
| | 03:06 |
documents that are open in this specific
window and I'll go ahead and choose the
| | 03:10 |
last one, Busted Up Join which is the only
one I couldn't see and I'll press Ctrl + 0
| | 03:15 |
or Cmd + 0 on a Mac to center it as well.
Now currently all of our documents are
| | 03:20 |
anchored into their respective windows.
But I can move 'em around, too.
| | 03:24 |
For example, I could click on the previous
document.
| | 03:27 |
Press Ctrl 0 or Cmd 0 on the Mac to center
it's zoom.
| | 03:29 |
And drag it over into the second window,
like so.
| | 03:33 |
And if you want to do that, it's very
important that you see some blue.
| | 03:37 |
Notice now, I'm not seeing any blue.
Whatsoever.
| | 03:40 |
So if I were to drop this document at this
location it becomes a floating window.
| | 03:45 |
And it becomes a floating window that
covers everything as you can see here.
| | 03:49 |
Not only the panels and the toolbox and so
forth, but it even covers up the Menu bar
| | 03:54 |
here on the PC, on the Mac you can't cover
the Menu bar.
| | 03:58 |
You can also scale the window if you like
by dragging the bottom left corner or one
| | 04:03 |
of the edges.
If you want to move it back in because
| | 04:07 |
most of the time that's not what you
want to do.
| | 04:09 |
If you want to anchor it down into one of
these groups here, then just go ahead and
| | 04:14 |
make sure that you can see blue.
And you see blue when you drag the
| | 04:19 |
document into the title tab region right
there.
| | 04:22 |
An then you could drop it in place, an now
these two documents share this common window.
| | 04:27 |
If you want to combine everybody back into
a single window, then go up to Arrange
| | 04:32 |
Documents, and choose Consolidate All.
An in my case it's really messed up the
| | 04:37 |
order as you can see here.
But that's okay, cause you can change the
| | 04:40 |
order if you like by dragging these tabs
around, like so.
| | 04:44 |
You can see that I'm moving, this document
to a new location.
| | 04:47 |
But here's the trick and this can be very
irritating at times.
| | 04:52 |
You want to make sure that you're dragging
the tab inside of this horizontal space
| | 04:58 |
because if you do this number, close here
has to go all the way to the back, right.
| | 05:02 |
If you do this number where you slip which
happens like incessentaly, if you just
| | 05:06 |
slip a pixel out then when you try to put
the thing back in, and you can see the
| | 05:11 |
blue so that's a good sign but it's
automatically going to go to the end.
| | 05:14 |
Of the group, which in my case is OK, but
I just want you to know that that can be a problem.
| | 05:20 |
And now, when I press control tab or
command tab on the mac, I'm still cycling
| | 05:24 |
through the various documents in the order
they appear on the title tab.
| | 05:28 |
I'm going to end things by returning to
that arranged documents icon and I'm going
| | 05:33 |
to choose this guy, tile all in grid.
Which will create as many windows as I
| | 05:38 |
need to see all of the documents.
And so, the first document appears here at
| | 05:42 |
the beginning, I'll press Ctrl + 0 or Cmd
+ 0 to center it.
| | 05:45 |
And then the next document appears below
and then I'm just clicking in just one of
| | 05:50 |
these guys and pressing Ctrl + 0 or Cmd +
0 on the Mac In order to fit each one of
| | 05:56 |
the documents inside its respective
window, and so that, friends, is a variety
| | 06:01 |
of ways to work with multiple open
documents here inside Illustrator.
| | 06:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Panels and workspaces| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll show you how to
reorganize Illustrator's panels, so that
| | 00:04 |
we can gain easy access to the most
important ones.
| | 00:07 |
And then we'll go ahead and save out the
result as what's known as a workspace.
| | 00:12 |
Now, as you're probably aware by now,
Illustrator is a vast and complicated program.
| | 00:18 |
With thousands of options, many of which
are housed inside the panels.
| | 00:23 |
Which are available to you here on the
right-hand side of the screen.
| | 00:26 |
So by default, we've got a strip of 13
icons.
| | 00:30 |
Each of which represents a panel, and if I
click for example, on the top icon color,
| | 00:35 |
I'll bring up the Color panel.
And notice this little Up, Down Arrow icon
| | 00:39 |
to the right of the word color.
If you click on it, you're going to expand
| | 00:42 |
the panel to display more options.
Problem with this set up is, that you can
| | 00:47 |
only see one panel at a time.
So, if I drop down to the layers icon and
| | 00:52 |
click on it, then that not only brings up
the Layers panel, but it closes the Color
| | 00:56 |
panel as well.
Meanwhile, these 13 icons only skim the
| | 01:00 |
surface of Illustrator's panels.
There are many other panels that are
| | 01:04 |
equally important that are hidden by
default.
| | 01:07 |
And you get to them by going to the Window
menu and choosing the command starting
| | 01:11 |
with actions and going down.
And if I choose Actions for example, I
| | 01:15 |
will bring up this Floating Actions panel
combined with the Links panel.
| | 01:20 |
Well, what we're going to do is we're
going to reorganize things.
| | 01:22 |
So as I say, you can get to the best stuff
fast.
| | 01:25 |
And then we'll save out the result as this
one on one work space.
| | 01:29 |
It doesn't exist for you yet.
It will by the time we're done.
| | 01:32 |
But it's going to end up looking like
this.
| | 01:34 |
With the exception of the fact that we'll
have a single column toolbox.
| | 01:38 |
Like so, and as you can see, we've got
many panels that are open together, and
| | 01:44 |
then we've got another, second column of
additional panels.
| | 01:47 |
So let me show you how that works.
I'm going to click on this option just to
| | 01:51 |
the left of the little magnifying glass.
In order to reveal a list of default work
| | 01:56 |
spaces and I'll choose Essentials.
And notice that brings up my last modifications.
| | 02:00 |
If you don't want that.
If you want to reset everything you go up
| | 02:04 |
to Essentials and choose Reset Essentials
and that's going to hide those extra
| | 02:09 |
panels as we're seeing there.
Alright.
| | 02:12 |
Next thing you want to do is click this
little double pointing arrow icon to
| | 02:15 |
expand the panels up here in the upper
right corner of the screen.
| | 02:19 |
I of course want the two column tool box
so, I'll click this double arrow icon in
| | 02:23 |
the upper left corner of the screen.
Now, the very first panel that comes up
| | 02:26 |
here, Cooler, is arguably Illustrator's
most ancillary panel.
| | 02:31 |
Adobe's highlighting it because it's new
but we're really not going to need it for
| | 02:35 |
a long time here.
I'll be discussing it In a chapter in a
| | 02:38 |
future course.
But for now what I recommend you do just
| | 02:41 |
to cut down on screen clutter is drag it's
tab out here into the image window and
| | 02:46 |
drop it and that'll turn it into a
floating panel like so.
| | 02:49 |
And then click it's closed box to hide it.
You can always regain access to the panel
| | 02:54 |
by going to the window menu and choosing
cooler if you like.
| | 02:57 |
So it's not gone for good.
Next drag the Swatches panel up and drop
| | 03:02 |
it inside of this group right here, the
top group.
| | 03:05 |
And you want to make sure you drag into
the horizontal tab area and you want to
| | 03:09 |
see a blue rectangle around all the panels
as well.
| | 03:11 |
And incidentally, I'm seeing larger
swatches because I went to the little
| | 03:15 |
fly-out menu icon riught there, clicked on
it.
| | 03:18 |
And shows medium Thumbnail view.
By default, it's small.
| | 03:22 |
I'm just going to leave it set that way,
though.
| | 03:23 |
All right, next, I'll switch back to the
Color panel.
| | 03:26 |
Notice that we have this huge field.
You can reduce the size of the Color panel
| | 03:30 |
by dragging up.
And now I want to take the brushes and
| | 03:33 |
symbols panels and I want to move them
into a second column.
| | 03:36 |
And you do that by Dragging from this
empty area right there to the right of the
| | 03:41 |
word Symbols.
That way you'll move Symbols and Brushes
| | 03:44 |
together and then you want to Drop them
when you see that vertical blue line, and
| | 03:48 |
that'll create a second column of panels
and I recommend you turn these into icons
| | 03:53 |
by clicking on this Double Arrow icon.
That'll go ahead and collapse things.
| | 03:56 |
And by the way, if you want a little bit
more specificity, then these hints, right here.
| | 04:01 |
Notice that if you hover over the brushes
icon you see brushes.
| | 04:05 |
Same with symbols as well.
If you want to see them labelled all the
| | 04:08 |
time you can just drag this vertical bar
over and then you'll see names associated
| | 04:13 |
with each one of these icons.
That's not what I want though.
| | 04:16 |
I've got a really tiny screen to work with
here.
| | 04:18 |
So I'll drag that thing back.
Now I'm going to take the Graphics Styles
| | 04:21 |
panel and I'm going to move it into this
icon group right there.
| | 04:25 |
So you want to drag it and drop it until
you see the blue surrounding the icons.
| | 04:29 |
And as soon as you drop, you'll see a new
icon for Graphics Styles.
| | 04:33 |
Then I'm going to take the appearance
panel, drag its tab and drop it into the
| | 04:37 |
lowest group, the one that contains layers
and art boards, like so that gives me a
| | 04:41 |
huge color field.
Once again that's exactly what I'm trying
| | 04:44 |
to avoid, so go ahead and drag that guy up
there.
| | 04:47 |
And I want the appearance panel to be
right next door to layers.
| | 04:49 |
So I'll go ahead and drag it's tab over
like so.
| | 04:52 |
And that will switch the positions of the
Appearance and Network panels and then I
| | 04:57 |
want layers to be up by default, so I'll
just go ahead and click on it.
| | 05:00 |
And I actually we want this panel to be a
little wider so that I can see all of the
| | 05:05 |
names of the layers inside this document
without any dot dot dot truncation.
| | 05:10 |
Okay, we still need more panels.
So go up to the Window menu and choose Align.
| | 05:16 |
And that'll bring up three panels,
Transform, Align, and Pathfinder, all
| | 05:22 |
essential panels inside this program.
We wanta move them into the column group.
| | 05:27 |
So go ahead and drag the bar, the Title
Bar, it's empty, but the title bar for
| | 05:31 |
this group of panels and drop it right
there when you see the horizontal line
| | 05:36 |
below the other icon group and you'll have
a separate group as we're seeing here.
| | 05:40 |
Next go to the Window menu and drop all
the way down.
| | 05:43 |
And if you can't see type you may have to
drag farther down to in focus scroll, like so.
| | 05:48 |
Anyway I'll go ahead and choose type.
That brings up a sub menu of seven more
| | 05:52 |
panels, and the one you want is character.
It's like one of the most absolutely
| | 05:57 |
essential panels inside of Illustrator,
because it contains all of the character
| | 06:01 |
level four manning attributes that you
assign to type.
| | 06:04 |
And we've got the paragraph in open type
panels as well.
| | 06:07 |
Drag the title bar, drop it right there.
Next, return to the Window menu, choose
| | 06:12 |
Type again, and I want you to choose
Character Styles, which brings up both of
| | 06:16 |
the character and paragraph styles panels.
Drag them and drop them to that location
| | 06:22 |
Then return to the window menu, we'll be
doing this a few more times.
| | 06:25 |
And choose the info command.
And that brings up both the info and
| | 06:29 |
Navigator panels.
I'm going to grab just the info tab and
| | 06:32 |
drop it down to the bottom here.
And you should get a little ball with an
| | 06:37 |
eye inside of it.
Then go up to the window menu and choose
| | 06:40 |
the attributes command.
And that brings up both document info and attributes.
| | 06:44 |
Drag that title bar and drop them, not
there, where you see a blue line, but
| | 06:49 |
there where you're seeing the blues around
the info icon.
| | 06:53 |
And that way you're combining these three
together.
| | 06:55 |
Because info, document info, and
attributes, although all minor panels
| | 07:01 |
definitely go together.
Now grab Navigator, which doesn't really
| | 07:05 |
go with anything, and drag it and drop it
down at the bottom in its own little group there.
| | 07:10 |
And finally, go up to the Window menu,
scroll up the list if necessary, and
| | 07:14 |
select Actions.
And that brings up both the actions and
| | 07:17 |
the links panel.
Drag that title bar down to this location
| | 07:21 |
and drop.
And we now have a custom work space that
| | 07:24 |
gives you access to 26 panels, twice as
many as we had access to before.
| | 07:30 |
Now, you want to save that off as a work
space just in case you want to switch back
| | 07:33 |
and forth between work spaces.
So click on the word essentials to the
| | 07:37 |
left of the magnifying glass.
And choose new work space.
| | 07:42 |
Then, go ahead and name it one on one, or,
you know, anything else you want to name it.
| | 07:47 |
In my case that name already exists, but
that's okay I can click the OK button in
| | 07:51 |
order to overwrite the original and that's
how you update your workspaces as well.
| | 07:56 |
And now notice anytime I like, I can
switch back to Essentials in order to
| | 08:00 |
bring back seemingly nothing.
And that's because Illustrator has
| | 08:04 |
remembered the last way you left the
Essentials workspace.
| | 08:07 |
And that will happen with any workspace,
incidentally.
| | 08:09 |
In order to restore the saved version.
Of that workspace.
| | 08:13 |
You click on it, and then choose reset
essentials from that pop-up menu.
| | 08:18 |
Anyway, I want one-on-one, so I'll go
ahead and switch back to it, up here at
| | 08:22 |
the top of the list, and now collapse my
toolbox to a single column.
| | 08:26 |
An that folks, based on my half lifetime
of experience, is the best way to organize
| | 08:32 |
your panels, an save out a custom
work-space, here inside Illustrator.
| | 08:37 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cycling between screen modes| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to cycle
between the so-called screen modes.
| | 00:04 |
As well as how to hide and show interface
elements inside Illustrator.
| | 00:09 |
I'll start by expanding my tool box to the
two column view.
| | 00:12 |
So I can call your attention to this
bottom icon.
| | 00:15 |
If I click and hold on it, you can see
that we're currently working in the normal
| | 00:18 |
screen move as by default.
Which means that in addition to the active
| | 00:23 |
document, we're seeing a wide variety of
interface folder all.
| | 00:27 |
Including a Toolbox over here in the left
hand side, a Menu Bar, a Control Panel,
| | 00:32 |
and a bunch of Title Tabs up here at the
top.
| | 00:36 |
And our collection of 26 panels over on
the right hand side.
| | 00:40 |
But as you become more familiar with
Illustrator, there will be times where you
| | 00:44 |
really want to hone in on the document and
get rid of some of the other stuff on screen.
| | 00:49 |
Which is why, in addition to the normal
Screen mode, we have two others that begin
| | 00:53 |
with the words Full Screen.
And I want you to take note of that,
| | 00:57 |
because full screen is where the screen
modes derive their keyboard shortcut.
| | 01:02 |
Notice if I hover over this icon, it tells
me I can cycle between the screen modes by
| | 01:06 |
pressing the F key.
So notice at the top here, that we've got
| | 01:10 |
a bunch of Title Tabs and our document is
housed inside of a window that does not
| | 01:16 |
encroach on the Toolbox or the panels.
And these Title tabs represent that six
| | 01:20 |
documents that I opened a few movies ago.
If I choose that second command from the
| | 01:25 |
bottom of the toolbox or just press the F
key.
| | 01:28 |
I'll expand the size of the active
document window, so that we're no longer
| | 01:32 |
seeing the title tabs at the top.
And the window itself actually tucks in
| | 01:36 |
back of the panel.
So you can see that the window goes in
| | 01:39 |
back of the tool box over here on the left
hand side.
| | 01:41 |
And its scroll bar continues behind the
right side panels as well.
| | 01:45 |
And I can even drag the bottom of the
Layers panel in order to expose more of
| | 01:49 |
those scroll bars if I like.
Now, you can still switch between the
| | 01:54 |
active documents from the keyboard just by
pressing Ctrl + Tab here on the PC, or Cmd
| | 02:00 |
+ Tilde on the Mac.
And you can go backwards just by pressing
| | 02:04 |
Ctrl + Shift + Tab or Cmd + Shift + Tilde
on the Mac.
| | 02:08 |
So I'll return to that first document
here, and notice if you click and hold on
| | 02:12 |
that bottom icon this time around, it's
telling us Full Screen Mode with Menu Bar.
| | 02:16 |
Well, it's a lot more than the Menu Bar.
We've got the toolbox, we've got the
| | 02:20 |
Control Panel and we've got our collection
of 26 panels, as well.
| | 02:24 |
If we want to get rid of all that stuff,
you want to select the Final option, Full
| | 02:28 |
Screen Mode or I'll press Esc, and just
press the F key again.
| | 02:32 |
And then you can see that, virtually
everything disappears on screen, except
| | 02:37 |
the active document.
The scroll bars, and the zoom and Artboard
| | 02:41 |
values down here, in the lower left
corner.
| | 02:44 |
Now, this mode gets a lot of people a
little bit nervous, because all of a
| | 02:47 |
sudden, everything's gone.
How do you get it back?
| | 02:50 |
Well, there's a couple of ways to work.
I'm just going to go ahead and press Ctrl
| | 02:53 |
+ 0 or Cmd + 0 in a MAC to zoom in on the
active document.
| | 02:57 |
If you want to gain temporary access to
the toolbox, then you'll hover your cursor
| | 03:02 |
over the far left side of the screen, and
then you can click on tools, in order to
| | 03:07 |
switch between them like so.
And then once you finished, you can just
| | 03:11 |
move your cursor away from the toolbox and
it'll disappear.
| | 03:14 |
If you want to bring back the right side
panels.
| | 03:17 |
You hover over the far right hand of the
screen like so, and then I could go ahead
| | 03:22 |
and switch between layers if I liked, or,
I could either bring up some other panel,
| | 03:27 |
like the Brushes panel, and work inside of
it as well.
| | 03:30 |
And then, if I move my cursor away from
the panels, those panels disappear.
| | 03:35 |
Now, what if you really just want to go
back to the normal screen mode so you've
| | 03:38 |
got access to the full interface?
Then you can take advantage of that same
| | 03:42 |
keystroke that got us here in the first
place, which is the F key.
| | 03:46 |
By the way, this isn't Ctrl or Cmd + F,
this is the F key by itself.
| | 03:51 |
Or you can press that key that you would
naturally think would get you outta here,
| | 03:54 |
which is the Esc key.
And that goes ahead and restores
| | 03:58 |
everything, including my Open Brushes
Panel.
| | 04:00 |
Now, this is a little frustrating to me,
the fact that the color field gets
| | 04:04 |
expanded every time we do this.
But just something to bare in mind, I am
| | 04:08 |
going to go back and tweet it back and
close there.
| | 04:10 |
Another key stroke you might find helpful
is the Tab key, when you tab the Tab key
| | 04:15 |
you get rid of all of the panels, which
include the toolbox by the way, and the
| | 04:20 |
Control Panel, which is normally below the
Menu Bar and we get rid of right side
| | 04:24 |
panels as well.
But we do see the menu very important, so
| | 04:28 |
you still have access to the menu, and you
see all of your Title tabs as well.
| | 04:32 |
Same goes so, if you hover of the right
hand side, you bring back your right hand panels.
| | 04:37 |
And if you hover your cursor on the far
left hand side, you bring back your toolbox.
| | 04:42 |
If you want to bring back everything
permanently, then you press that same key
| | 04:46 |
that got us here in the first place, the
Tab key.
| | 04:48 |
And that'll bring everything back.
You can also hide just the right side
| | 04:53 |
panels by pressing Shift + Tab, to bring
him back, you press Shift + Tab again.
| | 04:58 |
Now, all these keystrokes can be terribly
useful when you're working in the full
| | 05:02 |
screen mode.
So I'll go ahead and press the F key a
| | 05:04 |
couple of times in order to once again
enter the full screen mode or press Ctrl +
| | 05:09 |
Alt + 0 or Cmd + Opt + 0 on the Mac, in
order to zoom out so we can take in all of
| | 05:14 |
the Artboards.
And I just want to demonstrate.
| | 05:16 |
I can bring everything back at this point
by pressing the Tab key.
| | 05:21 |
And I can hide everything as well by
pressing the Tab key again.
| | 05:25 |
And if you want to bring back the right
side panels it's just Shift + Tab and to
| | 05:28 |
hide them it's Shift + Tab once again.
Which makes this full screen mode by the
| | 05:33 |
way, ideally suited to showing off your
art.
| | 05:36 |
And I could even still zoom in
incrementally if I liked by clicking
| | 05:40 |
inside the Zoom Value down here in the
lower left hand corner, and pressing the
| | 05:44 |
Up Arrow key until I hide as much as the
paste board.
| | 05:48 |
As I possibly can, and then I could show
this off to an art director or a client.
| | 05:53 |
And that's how you cycle through the
screen modes, as well as how you hide and
| | 05:57 |
show interface elements here inside
Illustrator.
| | 06:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Making Line ArtNow, we draw| 00:00 |
Illustrator offers five simple line tools.
One draws a straight line, another draws a
| | 00:06 |
smooth arc and the other three draw spiral
and a couple of grids.
| | 00:10 |
They may not sound terribly exciting but
rest assured there is no end to what you
| | 00:16 |
can do with these seemingly benign tools.
For example, you can draw a heart, you can
| | 00:21 |
make a target, you can put the target into
the heart and then you can fire an arrow
| | 00:26 |
into the target.
This may look like a complex project but
| | 00:30 |
it's not.
It's easy.
| | 00:32 |
You can do this.
Asleep, you can do this.
| | 00:35 |
Click on the next movie and learn how.
| | 00:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Meet the line tools| 00:00 |
Here is the final piece of line art that
we will create over the course of this chapter.
| | 00:04 |
And w'll do so using the simplest tools in
all of Illustrator which are the Line tools.
| | 00:10 |
And you can get go the Line tools by
dropping down to this tool that looks like
| | 00:14 |
a diagonal line.
Notice that it has a little corner marker
| | 00:17 |
in its lower right corner.
That indicates that if you click and hold
| | 00:21 |
on that tool icon it will bring up a fly
out menu of all of the Line tools.
| | 00:26 |
Also notice over here on the far right
side we've got this bar.
| | 00:30 |
If you release on the bar, you'll go ahead
and create a free floating panel of those
| | 00:34 |
Line tools.
And this works with any of the tools with
| | 00:37 |
the markers by the way.
So if I click and hold on the rectangle to
| | 00:41 |
bring up its fly out menu of shape tools,
and then release on it's bar, I'll get a
| | 00:45 |
floating panel of shape tools.
We'll see how those work in the next chapter.
| | 00:49 |
For now I'm going to go ahead and close
this panel by clicking on the little x.
| | 00:54 |
Now in this movie what I want to do is
just briefly run though each of these
| | 00:57 |
tools so you know they're there.
We will be using each and every one of
| | 01:02 |
them in the creation of this design.
So for starters we've got the Line Segment
| | 01:07 |
tool which draws straight lines.
Couldn't be more simple.
| | 01:10 |
Next, we have the Arc tool which draws
arcing lines.
| | 01:15 |
It's more accurate to say, however, that
they're quarter ellipses, because that's
| | 01:19 |
what they are.
They don't have to be quarter circles, in
| | 01:21 |
other words.
They can stretch to become quarter ellipses.
| | 01:24 |
And Arcs are great for laying down basic
curving shapes.
| | 01:29 |
As you'll see, we'll be creating this
heart outline exclusively using that tool.
| | 01:34 |
Next we've got the Spiral tool which draws
spiraling lines.
| | 01:37 |
You can see examples of those down here at
the bottom of the design.
| | 01:41 |
The fourth tool is the Rectangular Grid
tool which could be great for laying down guidelines.
| | 01:46 |
Which is exactly what we'll be doing with
that tool in the very next exercise.
| | 01:49 |
And then finally we've got the Polar Grid
tool.
| | 01:52 |
We'll be using that tool to create this
red and white target inside of the heart.
| | 01:57 |
So there you have it.
The five basic Line tools, a remarkably
| | 02:01 |
powerful and undeniably easy to use bunch
that we'll begin putting to work in the
| | 02:07 |
very next movie.
| | 02:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating basic ruler guides| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you a few
different ways to create guidelines in Illustrator.
| | 00:04 |
And guidelines are just what you'd think
they'd be.
| | 00:06 |
They're non-printing lines that help you
snap your artwork into alignment.
| | 00:11 |
And they're really super useful for
creating structured illustrations like this.
| | 00:16 |
And in fact, this final version of the
artwork contains tons of guidelines.
| | 00:20 |
It.
It's just that they're hidden.
| | 00:21 |
To bring it back up, go to the view menu,
chose Guides and then chose Show guides.
| | 00:26 |
Notice that the command has a keyboard
shortcut of Ctrl + Semi Colon or Cmd +
| | 00:30 |
Semi Colon on a Mac, which is not terribly
memorable, but you gotta bear in mind that
| | 00:36 |
you're going to be choosing this command
all the time inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:40 |
So you may want to memorize this shortcut.
And you could think of the semicolon as
| | 00:44 |
being a kind of dot followed by a dash in
a dashed outline.
| | 00:48 |
Now, as soon as you choose the command,
you don't get dashed outlines.
| | 00:52 |
You did back in the old days of
Illustrator 1 when everything was black
| | 00:55 |
and white.
You get cyan guides instead.
| | 00:58 |
And let's see how to create those.
I'll go ahead and switch over to the
| | 01:02 |
starter document which doesn't contain any
guides at all.
| | 01:05 |
I do want you to select the guides layer
down here at the bottom of the Layers panel.
| | 01:09 |
If you're working along with me that's
very important.
| | 01:13 |
These lines, however, I drew with the Line
Segment tool.
| | 01:17 |
And we'll see why, before we're done with
this movie.
| | 01:20 |
But I'm going to start things out by
showing you how to create the simplest
| | 01:23 |
form of a guideline, which is a ruler
guide.
| | 01:26 |
To bring up the rulers, go to the view
menu, choose rulers, and then choose show
| | 01:31 |
rulers, which has to be a ubiquitous
shortcut in the design industy.
| | 01:36 |
Which is Ctrl + R or Cmd + R on the Mac.
Now you just drag guides out from the rulers.
| | 01:42 |
So to create a horizontal guide you drag
down from the top ruler and to create a
| | 01:47 |
vertical guide you drag to the right from
the left hand ruler.
| | 01:50 |
You have a bunch of tricks that are
available to you as well and if you drag
| | 01:54 |
down from the horizontal ruler and think
better of it, you can press and hold the
| | 01:58 |
Alt key, or the Option key on the Mac, in
order to achieve a vertical ruler.
| | 02:02 |
And you can do the same thing with the
vertical ruler.
| | 02:05 |
If you change you mind you can press and
hold the Alt key or the Option key on the
| | 02:08 |
Mac to create a horizontal ruler.
But it's very important with all these
| | 02:12 |
tricks I'm about to share with you that
you keep the key down.
| | 02:16 |
Because notice if I release the key I go
back to a vertical guide.
| | 02:20 |
So I've got to keep the Alt or Option key
down to rotate the guide so it's perpendicular.
| | 02:24 |
If I zoom in here a little bit you can see
these tick marks.
| | 02:29 |
And the rulers get bigger and bigger.
Notice, if I just drag down, then I'm
| | 02:35 |
moving my guideline freeform, so there's
no constraints.
| | 02:38 |
What if you want to snap into alignment,
exactly into alignment with one of these
| | 02:42 |
tick marks?
Then you press and hold the shift key, and
| | 02:45 |
now you're going to snap From one tick
mark to the next, like so.
| | 02:48 |
And it works the same way if you press and
hold, keep that "shift" key down, when
| | 02:54 |
creating vertical lines, you snap to the
tick marks on the horizontal ruler.
| | 02:58 |
Illustrator also allows you to
double-click on a ruler to create a
| | 03:02 |
guideline, and you do that by
double-clicking on a horizontal ruler,
| | 03:06 |
which creates a vertical guideline, or you
can double click on a vertical ruler...
| | 03:10 |
To create a horizontal guideline.
You can even create two guides at the same
| | 03:14 |
time, one vertical and one horizontal, and
you do that by dragging out from the
| | 03:19 |
intersection of the two rulers.
Now you don't just drag I need to make
| | 03:24 |
this clear because if I just drag to a new
location like I'll drag to the
| | 03:28 |
intersection of these two guides right
there And release.
| | 03:31 |
Then I'm moving the zero zero point.
Notice the zero point on the horizontal
| | 03:34 |
ruler occurs at this location and the zero
point for the vertical ruler occurs at
| | 03:39 |
this location.
That's not what I want.
| | 03:41 |
So I'll press Ctrl + Z or Cmd + Z on a Mac
to undo.
| | 03:44 |
Instead what you do is you press and hold
the Ctrl key or the Cmd key on a Mac and
| | 03:49 |
then you drag out and notice that I'm
going to end up with both a horizontal and
| | 03:53 |
vertical ruler as soon as I release.
Now why didn't it happen?
| | 03:57 |
Because I didn't keep the key down.
It's so important.
| | 04:01 |
So, what you've gotta do is press the Ctrl
key or the Cmd key on a Mac, drag out from
| | 04:06 |
that ruler intersection up there in the
upper left corner of the screen.
| | 04:09 |
Keep the key down, release the Mouse
button and then you can release the Ctrl
| | 04:13 |
or Cmd key.
Alright, now I'm going to zoom out by
| | 04:16 |
pressing Ctrl + 0 or Cmd + 0 on a Mac.
You can see that I've got a total mess.
| | 04:20 |
I don't want any of these guys.
What I do want you to notice, just for a
| | 04:24 |
moment here, is that guidelines extend
well outside of the Artboard .
| | 04:28 |
They extend all the way to the ends of the
Paceboard, in fact, both the vertical
| | 04:33 |
guides and the horizontal guides as well.
Any way, I want to get rid of them all.
| | 04:38 |
So, after zooming in, I'm going to go up
to the view menu...
| | 04:41 |
Choose guides and choose clear guides and
that will delete all the guide lines but
| | 04:46 |
none of the other objects inside the
illustration.
| | 04:49 |
Now at this point I have a very specific
location where I want to put a guide line
| | 04:53 |
but I've messed up my rulers.
That time I dragged out from the ruler
| | 04:57 |
intersection and let go of the Ctrl key or
the Cmd key on the Mac I goofed everything up.
| | 05:01 |
Fortunately I can reset things by double
clicking right at the intersection of
| | 05:06 |
those two guides.
And now notice if I scroll down a little
| | 05:09 |
bit, there's my zero point and there's my
zero point there.
| | 05:12 |
So, in other words zero, zero is right
there in the top left corner of the art board.
| | 05:16 |
And what I want to do instead, I'm
going to scroll down a little bit here and
| | 05:19 |
then I'm going to zoom in by changing the
zoom value down in the lower left corner
| | 05:23 |
of the screen to 800%.
I just happen to know that works for me.
| | 05:26 |
And I want to find the numbers in the
vertical ruler 498 and 504.
| | 05:32 |
There they are right there.
And at this point, each tick mark
| | 05:35 |
indicates a full.
Full point.
| | 05:37 |
So this guy right there, is 499, and this
one is 500 points.
| | 05:42 |
And, I want to create a horizontal guide
at exactly 500 poitns.
| | 05:46 |
But if I double click right about there,
well, it's not quite in register, is it?
| | 05:50 |
I didn't get it exactly right.
So I'll press Ctl + Z, or Cmd + Z on a
| | 05:54 |
Mac, to undo that change.
Instead what you do is you press the Shift
| | 05:57 |
key and double click, and as long as
you're close to that tick mark as I am,
| | 06:02 |
then you will snap into alignment.
Again, with the nearest tick mark.
| | 06:06 |
And that happens to be at exactly 500
points.
| | 06:09 |
Alright, I'm done with the ruler so I'll
go up to the view menu and chose rulers
| | 06:13 |
and chose hide rulers.
Which has that exact same keyboard
| | 06:16 |
shortcut, Control R, Command R on a Mac.
Press Control 0 to zoom out.
| | 06:20 |
Now, at this point, you may wonder, well,
what are we doing with all these other lines?
| | 06:24 |
Well, I drew these lines because I wanted
to create some guides.
| | 06:28 |
That were only as wide and as tall as the
Airport and you can't do that with ruler
| | 06:32 |
guides, you have to do that with lines.
And just to give you a sense of what I
| | 06:36 |
did, I grab the line segment toll there.
I started dragging from the left hand side
| | 06:41 |
of the airport.
Press the shift key and with all the way
| | 06:44 |
to the right hand side.
And the Shift key constrains the angle of
| | 06:47 |
my line to perpendicular, either vertical
or horizontal.
| | 06:51 |
I don't want that guy.
I just wanted you to see how I made it.
| | 06:54 |
So I press the Backspace or the Delete key
on the Mac in order to get rid of it.
| | 06:58 |
Instead we're going to take all these
lines that I've already drawn in advance
| | 07:00 |
and turn them into guidelines by going up
to the Select menu and choosing All.
| | 07:04 |
Or you can just press Ctrl+A or Cmd+A on
the Mac.
| | 07:08 |
That's one of those shortcuts everybody
memorizes and now we'll have all these
| | 07:12 |
lines selected as you can then go to the
View menu, choose Guides, choose Make Guides.
| | 07:18 |
It has a keyboard shortcut I am not even
going to pretend you need to remember.
| | 07:21 |
It's just there in case you want to.
I'll go and choose the command and we end
| | 07:25 |
up with these criteria and you can see now
that we've got series of guides that are
| | 07:30 |
only as big as the art board, and then we
have one very special guide that's as wide
| | 07:35 |
as the pasteboard, just so we can tell
them apart, because I have a very special
| | 07:39 |
use for that special guide in the next
special movie.
| | 07:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating custom guidelines| 00:00 |
In this movie, I will show you how to
create some custom guides using the
| | 00:03 |
Rectangular Grid Tool.
And the reason we're working this way is,
| | 00:07 |
I want to create a horizontal guide and a
vertical guide that are exactly center.
| | 00:11 |
So, the vertical guide is going to be at
the exact center of the artboard, whereas
| | 00:16 |
the horizontal guide is going to be
centered between the top of the document
| | 00:20 |
and that very special ruler guide that we
created in the previous movie.
| | 00:25 |
And so, what you want to do if you're
working along with me, is click and hold
| | 00:29 |
on the line tool, and select the
Rectangular Grid Tool from the Flyout menu.
| | 00:34 |
And by the way, you want to make sure that
your Smart Guides, under the View menu,
| | 00:38 |
are turned on.
So, we want to start dragging from the top
| | 00:42 |
left corner of the artboard.
Or if you're more comfortable, you can
| | 00:45 |
start from the top right.
And then drag down like so, until you snap
| | 00:49 |
into alignment with that 500 point ruler
guide.
| | 00:52 |
And if you take a look at the tiny heads
up display down into the right of my cursor.
| | 00:57 |
You can see that the width of this polar
grid thing that I'm drawing is 800 points
| | 01:01 |
and the height is 500 points.
So in other words, we got that guideline
| | 01:05 |
exactly where we wanted it.
And now, I'll release, and I can see that
| | 01:09 |
I've got a ton of lines.
Yes, I've got this line that represents
| | 01:12 |
the exact vertical center.
And I guess this guy here represents the
| | 01:16 |
center horizontal guideline at 250 points,
but we have all these extra lines as well
| | 01:21 |
and that's no good.
So, go ahead and press the Backspace key
| | 01:25 |
or the Delete key on the Mac to get rid of
it.
| | 01:27 |
It may seem that we've wasted a bunch of
time here, but we haven't.
| | 01:30 |
Because notice if you move your cursor to
the top left corner of the artboard and
| | 01:34 |
click, you'll bring up this big
rectangular grid tool options dialogue box.
| | 01:39 |
And it already knows that you want to
create something that's going to be 800
| | 01:43 |
points wide and 500 points tall.
And that's because, all of Illustrators
| | 01:47 |
line tools and shape tools remember the
last thing you did.
| | 01:51 |
That's a very common thing throughout
Illustrator, in fact.
| | 01:54 |
And now, we can just define just how many
dividers we want.
| | 01:58 |
Which is one.
Right?
| | 01:59 |
We want one horizontal divider in the
middle, and then we want one vertical
| | 02:03 |
divider in the middle of the entire
artboard.
| | 02:06 |
And these two checkboxes down here are
just fine as is.
| | 02:09 |
So now, click OK and we have exactly the
shape that we're looking for.
| | 02:13 |
So, we have a rectangle around the
outside, which is fine, and then we have a
| | 02:17 |
horizontal line and a vertical line right
through the center.
| | 02:21 |
All right.
So that's one way to work, is just to click.
| | 02:24 |
Any time you click with one of the line or
shape tools, you're going to bring up a
| | 02:27 |
dialog box that allows you to work by the
numbers.
| | 02:29 |
But here's another way to make changes on
the fly.
| | 02:32 |
Go ahead and press the Backspace key or
the Delete key on Mac.
| | 02:36 |
And you know we want to be working on
guides layer, by the way, here inside the
| | 02:39 |
layers panel.
That way we can keep all our guide lines together.
| | 02:42 |
And now, I will drag from the upper left
corner of the artboard down until I snap
| | 02:47 |
into alignment, with the intersection of
the 500 point horizontal guide and the
| | 02:52 |
right edge of the art board.
And now, as long as you keep your mouse
| | 02:56 |
button down, you can add and subtract
divider lines.
| | 02:59 |
So for example, if I press the up arrow
key, I'm adding horizontal divider lines.
| | 03:04 |
If I press the down arrow key, I'm getting
rid of them.
| | 03:06 |
If I press the right arrow key, I'm adding
vertical divider lines.
| | 03:11 |
And if I press the left arrow key, I'm
subtracting them.
| | 03:14 |
What I want is just a single vertical line
as you see here, and a single horizontal
| | 03:20 |
line as well.
You can get rid of them entirely if you go
| | 03:23 |
too far.
By the way, as I have here.
| | 03:25 |
So, I don't have any divider lines
whatsoever.
| | 03:28 |
Which means I need to press the up arrow
key to create a horizontal line.
| | 03:32 |
And the right arrow key to create a
vertical line.
| | 03:35 |
And then, I'll move my cursor back down
until it snaps into alignment there.
| | 03:39 |
I can tell its right because I've got a
width of 800 points and a height of 500 points.
| | 03:43 |
At which point I will release.
Then, of course, we want to turn that
| | 03:47 |
thing into guidelines, and you do that by
going up to the View menu, choosing
| | 03:52 |
Guides, and choosing Make Guides.
Or you can press Ctrl+5, or Cmd+5 on a Mac.
| | 03:57 |
I just couldn't help myself.
Anyway, that ends up creating those
| | 04:01 |
non-printing snapping guides right there.
In any event, that's how you create custom
| | 04:06 |
guides using the Rectangular Grid Tool.
In the next movie, we'll begin to draw the
| | 04:12 |
heart using the Arc Tool.
| | 04:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing a heart with the Arc tool| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to begin
creating the hard outline using the Art Tool.
| | 00:05 |
I've saved my changes as All guides.ai,
found inside the 04_line_ art folder.
| | 00:10 |
Let's go ahead and switch to the Art Tool.
And it's a pretty easy concept.
| | 00:15 |
When you drag with a tool, you can see
that you create, as I was saying before, a
| | 00:19 |
quarter ellipse.
And you might imagine that this is
| | 00:22 |
going to serve us well for the first hump
in our heart, but we're not going to start
| | 00:27 |
at this arbitrary location.
We're going to start right there at the
| | 00:30 |
intersection of the central vertical guide
and the second horizontal guide down.
| | 00:35 |
So I'll go ahead and press the Backspace
key or the Delete key on the Mac in order
| | 00:38 |
to get rid of that bad arc.
And now I'll drag up and to the left like
| | 00:43 |
so, which pressing the Shift key.
And you want to drag until you snap to
| | 00:48 |
that guideline up there.
And you kind of want to inch it back a
| | 00:51 |
little bit to the right, so that the
head's up display says a width of 112
| | 00:56 |
points and a height of 112 points.
And by virtue of the fact incidentally,
| | 01:01 |
that we're pressing the Shift key, we're
getting a perfect quarter circle.
| | 01:05 |
So you want to keep that Shift key down
the entire time and then you want to
| | 01:08 |
release your mouse button and then release
the Shift key.
| | 01:12 |
Now you want to drag from that anchor
point so make sure that your cursor sets
| | 01:16 |
the word anchor on it.
And you want to drag down into the left
| | 01:20 |
until you intersect with the first
vertical guide line and the second
| | 01:24 |
horizontal guide.
Now the arc will definitely go in the
| | 01:27 |
wrong direction just as you see on my
screen.
| | 01:30 |
To flip it, what you do is, you keep your
mouse button down and you just tap the F key.
| | 01:35 |
Then, you go ahead and release the mouse
button in order to create the second arc.
| | 01:40 |
Next we need to go and draw the bottom
portion of the heart and you might be
| | 01:44 |
tempted to do one of these numbers.
Where you draw the outer lump here and you
| | 01:49 |
press the F key in order to flip it.
And then you draw a final arc, and you
| | 01:52 |
press F again once to flip it.
But that would result in one ugly looking heart.
| | 01:58 |
So that's not what we want.
Let's go ahead and get rid of those path outlines.
| | 02:01 |
By switching to the black arrow tool, and
notice, by the way, the black arrow has a
| | 02:05 |
keyboard shortcut of V.
All you have to do is just tap the V key.
| | 02:09 |
And you might think of V as being an
upside down arrow.
| | 02:13 |
So, we've got the black arrow that's got
an upside down arrow for a keyboard
| | 02:17 |
shortcut, that is the V key.
And then we've got a wide arrow, I'll tell
| | 02:21 |
you how it works later, that's got a
right-side up arrow for it's keyboard
| | 02:25 |
shortcut, which is the A key.
Which, of course, also happens to stand
| | 02:28 |
for arrow.
Alright, I'm going to go ahead and switch
| | 02:31 |
to the black arrow, which allows me to
select entire path outlines.
| | 02:35 |
Which is what these things are called
inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:37 |
Notice that at this point, I'm seeing a
bounding box around my selected arc.
| | 02:43 |
The bounding box ostensibly makes it easy
to scale and rotate a graphic.
| | 02:48 |
But in my experience, it gets in the way
of getting actual work done.
| | 02:52 |
And there are better ways to scale and
rotate, as I'll show you in a future chapter.
| | 02:56 |
So I'm going to advise that you turn the
Bounding Box off.
| | 02:59 |
And I'm definitely doing so.
By going up to the View menu and choosing
| | 03:04 |
the Hide Bounding Box command.
If you ever need the binding box in
| | 03:08 |
future, just choose this command again,
and off course its got to keep or
| | 03:11 |
shortcut, Ctrl+Shift+B or Cmd+Shift+B on
the Mac.
| | 03:15 |
Now, I am going to draw this dotted
marquee in order to partially select these
| | 03:19 |
two path outlines.
And that will select them both, and then
| | 03:22 |
I'll press the Backspace key or Delete key
on the Mac to get rid of them.
| | 03:26 |
Instead what we want to do, is go ahead
and switch back to the Art Tool here.
| | 03:31 |
And you want to drag from the last anchor
point there, all the way down to the
| | 03:36 |
intersection of the middle vertical guide
and the 4th horizontal guide down.
| | 03:41 |
So it's not the long guide, it's the
shorter one just above it.
| | 03:44 |
You want to make sure you see the word
intersect.
| | 03:47 |
So you're intersecting those guidelines.
And then tap the F key if necessary in
| | 03:51 |
order to send the arch in the other
direction and then release.
| | 03:54 |
Now, of course, where our heart is
concerned, that doesn't look any better
| | 03:57 |
than when I showed you before.
We're going to make it look way better by
| | 04:01 |
manually modifying this arc in the very
next movie.
| | 04:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting control handles| 00:00 |
I'd say my progress is ugly, lumpy, half
heart.ai found inside the 04_line art folder.
| | 00:05 |
Fortunately, we're going to fix this half
a heart, and we're going to do so by
| | 00:09 |
manually modifying the control handles,
that are associated with the arc.
| | 00:14 |
Let me show you what I mean.
Now, they're a little hard to see,
| | 00:17 |
especially when the guidelines are turned
on.
| | 00:18 |
So, let's go ahead and hide the guides, by
right-clicking somewhere inside the
| | 00:22 |
document window.
And choosing the hide guides command.
| | 00:25 |
Naturally, this doesn't get rid of the
guides, it just turns them off on screen.
| | 00:29 |
You also have a keyboard shortcut for this
command, which is Ctrl-semicolon or
| | 00:34 |
Cmd+semicolon on the Mac.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and choose the command.
| | 00:39 |
Now, you may recall I was telling you
there's a black arrow, the Selection tool,
| | 00:43 |
and there's a white arrow, which
Illustrator calls the Direct Selection tool.
| | 00:46 |
I've got the black arrow selected.
And I'll go ahead and demonstrate, that if
| | 00:50 |
you click on one of these arcs, you select
the entire thing.
| | 00:53 |
So, if you drag it around, you're going to
move that entire arc.
| | 00:57 |
They're currently separated from each
other.
| | 00:59 |
We will join them shortly.
I'm going to press Ctrl+z, or Cmd+Z on the
| | 01:03 |
Mac, in order to undo that move.
Compare that to the behavior of the White
| | 01:07 |
Arrow tool, which you can get by pressing
the A key.
| | 01:10 |
If I were to click on this bottom arc,
notice that the anchor points at either end.
| | 01:16 |
So, this is one anchor point at the
beginning, one anchor point at the end.
| | 01:20 |
They're appearing not as filled
squares,like we saw in just a moment ago,
| | 01:24 |
but is hollow squares, indicating that
they are not selected.
| | 01:28 |
We also have this balls on this levels of
the path outline.
| | 01:33 |
These are known as control handles, and
what they allow you to do is modify the
| | 01:38 |
curvature to the path.
So check this up, if I go ahead and grab
| | 01:43 |
this handle and start dragging on it, I am
actually stretching the curvature of the
| | 01:48 |
path outline.
Its almost as if there is some sort of
| | 01:50 |
magnetic attraction between this ball
right here and the path itself.
| | 01:55 |
And if I keep dragging the ball, I keep
stretching it.
| | 01:59 |
If I drag the control handle the opposite
direction, like so, then I end up curving
| | 02:04 |
the path outline in the other direction.
So, it's really only flat when the control
| | 02:10 |
handle's directly on top of that path
outline.
| | 02:13 |
Otherwise, it's curving to some degree.
And it might be curving pretty darn far
| | 02:17 |
depending on how far you drag that handle.
Anyway, I'm going to take it back there.
| | 02:22 |
This looks pretty darn good to me.
And I didn't give you any guidelines for
| | 02:26 |
these control handles because I figured,
you know, if you want to get a sense of
| | 02:29 |
how they work and you might want to go
your own way.
| | 02:32 |
Now, I also want to make this curve a
little shallower.
| | 02:35 |
It seems to me that's coming down too far.
So I'm going to drag this handle up.
| | 02:40 |
If I were to drag it down, by the way, I
would increase the roundness of that curve
| | 02:44 |
because, again, it's trying to get to that
handle.
| | 02:47 |
It's got that magnetic attraction to it.
I'm going go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or
| | 02:51 |
Cmd+Z on a Mac, however, and drag it
upwards.
| | 02:54 |
And notice that that gives me a shallower
curve, as you can see.
| | 02:58 |
I could also once again send it the other
direction if I wanted to.
| | 03:02 |
Naturally, I don't.
Now, if you want to constrain the angle of
| | 03:06 |
the control handle to exactly vertical or
horizontal, you press and hold the Shift
| | 03:10 |
key as you're dragging.
So, I want to keep this guy exactly
| | 03:14 |
vertical, as he is, so that I'm matching
the curvature of the arc above.
| | 03:19 |
So, I have a nice, smooth curve at this
location.
| | 03:21 |
So, that means I am going to keep the
Shift key down until after I release the
| | 03:25 |
handle, and then I can release the Shift
key.
| | 03:28 |
All right.
Now, we want to join all these path
| | 03:30 |
outlines together.
And we'll do that by switching back to the
| | 03:33 |
black arrow tool, and I am just going to
go ahead and partially mark key all three
| | 03:38 |
of these path outlines in order to select
all of them.
| | 03:41 |
And then we will go on to the Object menu,
choose Path and choose Join, and this is
| | 03:46 |
one of those Cmd that you use all the time
inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:49 |
So, remember it's keyboard shortcut,
that's Ctrl+j or Cmd+j on a Mac.
| | 03:54 |
The path won't look any different after I
choose the comman, but now all the points
| | 03:58 |
are fused together.
And I can show you that, that's the case
| | 04:01 |
by switching back to the white arrow tool.
Then I will click off the path outline in
| | 04:05 |
order to deselect it.
I will click on that top anchor point and
| | 04:09 |
notice if I drag it around, it's now fused
into one.
| | 04:12 |
The same goes for this anchor point over
here, so we've got one continuous path
| | 04:17 |
outline, that I've messed up terribly.
So I will go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or
| | 04:21 |
Cmd+Z on the Mac a couple of times in
order to reinstate my smooth half a heart.
| | 04:27 |
Of course, it is half a heart.
We need to turn it into a full heart, and
| | 04:30 |
we'll do so by copying and flipping that
half a heart in the next movie.
| | 04:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reflecting and completing a shape| 00:00 |
In this movie we're going to take our half
a heart, we're going to Copy it, we're
| | 00:03 |
going to flip it, and we're going to join
it into a full heart shape.
| | 00:07 |
I've saved my progress, this Perfect half
heart.ai.
| | 00:10 |
Now I've gone ahead and switched back to
the black arrow tool, which of course is
| | 00:14 |
going to let me select the entire path
outline.
| | 00:17 |
Go ahead and click on it to make it
active.
| | 00:19 |
And then I'll go up to the Edit menu and
choose the Copy command..
| | 00:22 |
Or press Ctrl+C, Cmd+C on a Mac.
Then we want to Paste a copy of that
| | 00:28 |
heart, and we want to Paste it to this
exact same location.
| | 00:31 |
And you do that by going to the Edit menu
and choosing Paste in Front, or you can
| | 00:36 |
press Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on a Mac.
Now it doesn't look any different because
| | 00:40 |
the two path outlines are directly on top
of each other.
| | 00:43 |
But we now have two paths.
Alright, I'll go ahead an press Ctrl+Z or
| | 00:47 |
Cmd+Z to Undo that move.
The next step is to flip the line.
| | 00:51 |
And where Adobe products are concerned,
things like Scaling, an Rotating, an
| | 00:57 |
Flipping, are all considered forms of
transformations.
| | 01:01 |
So you'll notice the word Transform up
here in the Control panel.
| | 01:05 |
If you click on that word, then you'll
bring up this pop up panel.
| | 01:08 |
And then, you could go to the little fly
out menu right there, and choose Flip Horizontal.
| | 01:13 |
Problem is, if you do that (LAUGH), then
you're going to get this wacky shape right here.
| | 01:18 |
Because you flipped around the center of
the path outline, that's not what we want.
| | 01:23 |
So I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z, or
Cmd+Z on a mac and then I'll bring back
| | 01:27 |
the Transform panel.
I need to set a reference point and it
| | 01:30 |
needs to be over here on the right hand
side.
| | 01:32 |
So I'll click this middle right reference
point.
| | 01:35 |
And then I'll choose that command again.
I'll go to the fly out menu icon and
| | 01:39 |
choose Flip Horizontal.
And now we have the proper effect.
| | 01:43 |
Now I want to go ahead and give this heart
a thicker outline.
| | 01:46 |
So I'll partially marquee the lines
choosing my black arrow tool to select
| | 01:50 |
both of them.
And then I'll go up to this stroke item in
| | 01:53 |
the control panel and I'll change the
value from one point to ten point.
| | 01:58 |
So where Illustrator is concerned, if you
want to change the outline that's called
| | 02:03 |
the Stroke.
And if you want to change the interior of
| | 02:05 |
a shape, that's called the Fill.
All right, we now have a thicker stroke.
| | 02:10 |
Problem is, I'm going to go ahead and zoom
in here, notice that we don't have a
| | 02:14 |
proper corner here down at the bottom.
The reason being that these are two
| | 02:18 |
independent path outlines.
Need to join them together, so they're
| | 02:21 |
both selected, all we need to do is go up
to the Object menu, choose Path and then
| | 02:26 |
choose Join again.
Or you can just press Ctrl+J or Cmd+J on
| | 02:30 |
the MAC, and notice now we have a single
path and we can tell that's the case.
| | 02:34 |
Because we have this nice sharp so called
miter joint.
| | 02:39 |
Problem is however that we're not seeing
that kind of miter join up here at the top.
| | 02:43 |
We're just getting this flat beveled edge.
And the reason for that is if you take a
| | 02:48 |
look at the severe curvature, notice that
these two portions, these two segments
| | 02:54 |
right here, are meeting each other.
At such an angle that there's no way to
| | 02:58 |
reconcile that miter.
It would go infinitely deep, so we're just
| | 03:03 |
going to leave the corner the way it is.
And in fact we're going to end up
| | 03:06 |
carvering it up with that target that
we're going to draw and paste inside the
| | 03:10 |
heart, starting in the next movie.
| | 03:12 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing a target with the Polar Grid tool| 00:00 |
In this movie we'll create these
concentric red and white rings inside of
| | 00:04 |
the heart using the Polar Grid Tool.
I'm going to switch over to my file in
| | 00:07 |
progress, which I've called Classic
heart.ai.
| | 00:09 |
And I'll select the Polar Grid Tool which
is the final tool in this little fly up panel.
| | 00:15 |
And I need to bring up my guidelines as
well, so I'll right click inside the
| | 00:18 |
Document window and choose Show Guides not
the grid, but the guides.
| | 00:23 |
Or you can press Ctrl+; or Cmd+; on the
Mac.
| | 00:27 |
We want to center our rings at this point
here, were the third horizontal guide
| | 00:32 |
intersects with the central vertical
guide.
| | 00:35 |
And so, I am going to drag from that
location, but unfortunately I am creating
| | 00:40 |
this thing whatever it is.
It's concentric rings with pie wedges,
| | 00:44 |
from corner to corner, that is the
entirety of the rings fits inside of a
| | 00:47 |
Bounding Box that I'm drawing from corner
to corner.
| | 00:50 |
That's not what I want, I want to draw
from the center outward.
| | 00:54 |
And to make that happen with any tool, by
the way, as you're drawing with that tool,
| | 00:59 |
you press and hold the Alt key, or the
Option key on a Mac.
| | 01:02 |
And you keep that key down.
Now I also want to constrain my rings to
| | 01:06 |
perfect circles, so I want to press and
hold the Shift key as well.
| | 01:10 |
So I have both Shift+Alt down that would
be Shift+Option on a Mac.
| | 01:15 |
Now I need to change these pie wedges and
the number of rings and I do that while
| | 01:21 |
I'm drawing by pressing the Arrow keys.
Well, you know, I'm not an octopus (LAUGH).
| | 01:25 |
So I don't have any fingers left to jump
over to the other side of the keyboard and
| | 01:29 |
play with the arrow keys.
So, I'm going to have to release Shift+Alt.
| | 01:33 |
Or Shift+Option for a moment.
I still have my mouse button down, and
| | 01:37 |
what I'm going to do here is if you press
the up arrow, you're going to increase the
| | 01:42 |
number of concentric rings.
If you press the down arrow, you're
| | 01:45 |
going to reduce the number of rings, and I
want one, two, three, four, five, six
| | 01:50 |
rings altogether.
So that's what this thing should look like.
| | 01:53 |
And if you want to increase the number of
pie wedges, that is those rays going
| | 01:57 |
outward, you press the right arrow key.
And if you want to reduce the number of
| | 02:01 |
them, you press the left arrow key, and I
don't want any, so I want this effect
| | 02:06 |
right there.
Then, still got the mouse button down,
| | 02:09 |
I'll press the Shift+Alt keys, or the
Shift+Option keys on a Mac.
| | 02:14 |
And if you look at that heads-up display
down there, you'll see that my Width and
| | 02:17 |
Height values are 522.
That's exactly what I'm looking for, by
| | 02:21 |
the way.
Now I'll go ahead and, and release the
| | 02:23 |
mouse button.
Alright, I want to increase the thickness
| | 02:26 |
of the stroke a little bit, so I'll change
that stroke value to four.
| | 02:30 |
And then, notice these two swatches right
here.
| | 02:33 |
The first one controls the color of the
fill.
| | 02:35 |
And the second one controls the color of
the stroke.
| | 02:37 |
I'm going to go ahead and click on the one
associated with Fill.
| | 02:41 |
And then I'm going to select as a first
red swatch right here in order to assign
| | 02:45 |
it to the Fill of the rings.
Problem is, it goes ahead and fills in all
| | 02:50 |
the rings.
I wanted alternating, so we have a red
| | 02:52 |
ring followed by a white ring.
And to accomplish that I need to basically
| | 02:57 |
redraw the rings.
So, I'm going to press the Backspace key,
| | 03:00 |
or the Delete key on a Mac to get rid of
the rings.
| | 03:03 |
And then, you may recall how we clicked
with the Rectangular Grid Tool in order to
| | 03:09 |
bring up that dialog box.
And we can do the same thing with the
| | 03:13 |
Polar Grid Tool as well.
However, if we do, we'll be creating the
| | 03:17 |
Polar Grid down and to the left.
Just as when I was originally drawing it.
| | 03:21 |
I don't want that.
So I'll cancel out.
| | 03:23 |
Instead what you want to do is press and
hold the Alt key, or the Option key on the Mac.
| | 03:28 |
And click at that guide intersection right
there, and that way you can see my cursor changes.
| | 03:33 |
When I have the Alt or Option key down it
shows me that I'm going to be creating
| | 03:37 |
this shape from the center outward.
So basically, you can think of the Alt or
| | 03:41 |
Option key as just kind of like reversing
the behavior of anything inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:47 |
All right, so we're seeing the setting
associated with the last grid that we drew.
| | 03:50 |
The width and height values should both be
522.
| | 03:54 |
The number of Concentric Dividers should
be six, if it isn't go ahead and change it.
| | 03:58 |
We don't want to skew that would make the
rings all different sizes as they go outward.
| | 04:03 |
Radial Dividers we definitely want to set
to zero, we don't need any skew there even
| | 04:07 |
though its not going to make any
difference.
| | 04:09 |
Because with 0 dividers we are not
going to see anything, what we really
| | 04:12 |
want to do, assuming all these other
settings there the way they should be.
| | 04:16 |
Is turn on both of these check boxes,
Create Compound Path From Ellipses.
| | 04:20 |
That will allow every other ring to be
invisible, or appear white against the
| | 04:25 |
white page.
And then we should also turn on Fill Grid
| | 04:28 |
so we get the red rings, then click OK.
And we get the exact effect we're looking for.
| | 04:33 |
And when I say the exact effect, I mean,
of course, we don't want the rings to be
| | 04:38 |
in front of the heart, we want them to be
inside the heart.
| | 04:41 |
And I'll show you how we accomplish that
in the next movie.
| | 04:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Pasting one shape inside another| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to take these
concentric rings and we're going to paste
| | 00:03 |
them inside the heart I've saved my
progress as the target.ai.
| | 00:07 |
And I'm going to switch to the Black Arrow
tool, so I can get by pressing the V key.
| | 00:12 |
And then I'll go ahead and click on any of
the rings to select all of them.
| | 00:16 |
Now, let's to up to the Edit menu and
choose the Cut command.
| | 00:20 |
Or you can press Ctrl+X or Cmd+X on the
Mac.
| | 00:23 |
Now, go ahead and click on the heart to
select it.
| | 00:26 |
What we're going to be creating here is a
mask.
| | 00:28 |
So in other words, the heart will be
masking the rings.
| | 00:31 |
And we do that by forcing the rings inside
the heart.
| | 00:35 |
So, if you drop down to the bottom of the
tool box, you'll notice these icons that
| | 00:40 |
say draw something.
So, we've got draw normal, which is the
| | 00:43 |
way things are set up normally inside of
the software.
| | 00:46 |
And the idea is just you go ahead and draw
one shape on top of the one before.
| | 00:51 |
So, each path is stacked on the next one.
If you want to change that, so you draw a
| | 00:56 |
shape behind the active shape, then you
turn on draw behind.
| | 01:00 |
And then if you want to put one shape
inside of another, you switch to draw inside.
| | 01:05 |
And you can draw shapes directly inside of
each other if you want to, or you can
| | 01:09 |
paste them.
Notice that you can switch between these
| | 01:12 |
modes by Shift+D.
The D being for draw of course.
| | 01:15 |
But I'm just going to go ahead and click
on Draw Inside in order to make it active.
| | 01:20 |
And you can see that now we have these
dashed corners surrounding the shape.
| | 01:24 |
Now all you need to do is go up to the
Edit menu and choose Paste In Place.
| | 01:29 |
And that goes ahead and puts the rings
inside the heart.
| | 01:32 |
Now, I want to show you what's going on
over here inside the Layers panel.
| | 01:35 |
If you can't see the Layers panel, go up
to the Window menu and choose the Layers command.
| | 01:40 |
You also have a keyboard shortcut of F7.
Notice that each one of these layers here
| | 01:46 |
has a little triangle in front of it, and
if you click on that triangle, you'll
| | 01:50 |
expand the contents of the layer.
Because the angle of the triangle changes,
| | 01:54 |
some folks say that you're twirling open
the layer.
| | 01:58 |
I'm going to expand my layers panel a
little bit.
| | 02:00 |
Directly below, you can see that we have
this thing called a Clip Group, which is
| | 02:05 |
actually short for Clipping Group, for
whatever that's worth.
| | 02:07 |
And you can twirl that open as well, and
it contains the path outline.
| | 02:12 |
Which is the mask, by the way.
And the target inside of it.
| | 02:16 |
Which is a group.
And we can go ahead and twirl that item
| | 02:19 |
open as well, if we want to the contents
of the group.
| | 02:22 |
Actually, we don't really need a group for
a single item like this.
| | 02:25 |
So, you can just drag the item out of the
group, like so.
| | 02:29 |
By ragging it upward.
Just a little bit of housekeeping.
| | 02:31 |
You don't have to do it because the groups
not hurting anything.
| | 02:34 |
But the point I'm kind of trying to make
here, is that the layers panel inside of
| | 02:38 |
illustrator is amazingly powerful.
You can see every single item in your
| | 02:45 |
entire illustration, and you can name the
items too.
| | 02:47 |
Like, if I were to double click on the
existing name, notice it does not bring up
| | 02:52 |
the dialog box, like it has in the past.
We have direct access to the name.
| | 02:56 |
And I am going to go ahead and call this
guy a target.
| | 02:59 |
And then, I will double-click at the name
of the heart above, and I'll go ahead and
| | 03:03 |
call it outline.
And then, I'll will double-click and Click
| | 03:06 |
Group here and I will just call it heart.
And so, you have this amazing level of
| | 03:12 |
control, if you want to organize your art
work.
| | 03:14 |
Now, you may look at this and think, well,
that's for people who have a great time
| | 03:18 |
organizing their sock drawer or something
like that.
| | 03:21 |
But, it actually can be very useful.
Especially, if you're sharing files with
| | 03:24 |
other people, if the files are
sufficiently complicated, they'll really
| | 03:28 |
be glad that you took the time to name a
few things, and it's often times very
| | 03:33 |
helpful for your own purposes.
If you find yourself working in an
| | 03:36 |
illustration you created a couple of years
ago, you too will be grateful that you
| | 03:40 |
took the time to name a few things.
All right.
| | 03:43 |
Now, I'm just going to click off the
object in order to deselect it, and I'll
| | 03:47 |
switch back to the Draw Normal mode.
And the result is a target successfully
| | 03:52 |
pasted inside the heart.
In the next movie, we're going to begin
| | 03:55 |
work on the arrow.
| | 03:56 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing an arrow with the Line tool| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to draw
the arrow using what has to be the
| | 00:04 |
simplest tool in all of illustrator the
line tool.
| | 00:08 |
I've saved my progress as clipping mask
dot ai found inside the o four like art
| | 00:12 |
folder, and notice if you hover over the
line tool which illustrator calls the line
| | 00:16 |
segment tool that it has a keyboard
shortcut of backslash, just FYI.
| | 00:21 |
Anyway, I'm going to select the tool to
make it active, and then I'm going to
| | 00:26 |
change this stroke value up here in the
control panel to ten points.
| | 00:30 |
Then I'll drag from the center of the
heart.
| | 00:34 |
All the way over here to the left, so I'm
creating a horizontal line.
| | 00:38 |
Now you may think that's weird, that I'm
not creating a line at the right angle at
| | 00:43 |
the angle of the arrow, but I've gotta
build all those feathers and everything
| | 00:46 |
else, so it's going to be easier if we
build the arrow horizontally, and then we
| | 00:51 |
rotate it in place.
So over time you'll get a sense of how to
| | 00:55 |
save yourself work inside the program.
Anyways, I'm looking for a distance value
| | 00:59 |
there in that heads up display of,
somewhere around 318 points, so 317.5
| | 01:05 |
works just great.
I will mention, by the way, if you want to
| | 01:08 |
create a perpendicular line, that is a
horizontal line or a vertical line or
| | 01:13 |
diagonal line, then you press and hold the
Shift key.
| | 01:17 |
As you're dragging with the tool.
So you might think I should press the
| | 01:20 |
Shift key, but because I'm dragging along
a guide line it doesn't really matter.
| | 01:24 |
Anyway I'll go ahead and release when I
get and arrow about yay long.
| | 01:27 |
Now I'm going to press Ctrl + Semicolon or
Cmd + Semicolon on a Mac to hide my
| | 01:32 |
guides, and I'm going to zoom in here a
bit.
| | 01:35 |
Notice that we've got a couple of rough
transitions.
| | 01:37 |
First of all, this line shouldn't just end
like this.
| | 01:41 |
It should have a little bit of curve,
because it's going into that target.
| | 01:45 |
And I can achieve that effect, by clicking
on the word stroke, to bring up this
| | 01:49 |
pop-up panel.
And then selecting the second cap icon,
| | 01:53 |
which gives my line a round cap.
So, I end up getting this effect, here.
| | 01:57 |
I'm also noticing the top of my heart
isn't properly aligned with the target.
| | 02:02 |
So, I'm going to go ahead and press the
Esc key, to hide the stroke panel.
| | 02:05 |
And I am going to switch to my wide arrow
tool which I get by pressing the A key and
| | 02:09 |
I'll click on this anchor point to select
it.
| | 02:12 |
And notice that the anchor point is right
there in the center of the stroke by the
| | 02:16 |
way, and then I'll press the Down Arrow
key a couple of times in order to nudge
| | 02:21 |
that anchor point in the place.
All right, so now we have the shaft of the arrow.
| | 02:25 |
We need to go ahead and draw the feathers.
So I'm going to press Control + Semicolon.
| | 02:29 |
Command Semi Colon, once again, in order
to bring back my guides.
| | 02:33 |
And I'll go ahead and select line tool.
This time from the toolbox, doesn't really matter.
| | 02:38 |
And I'm going to drag down from that
anchor, while pressing the Shift key, so
| | 02:43 |
that I get diagonal line like so and I am
looking for line that's about 55 points
| | 02:49 |
long again I don't expect to get it
exactly right, but I seem to have at it
| | 02:52 |
55.15 which is just fine.
And now I will drag from this anchor point
| | 02:57 |
well pressing the Shift key over to the
right, until I have a line that's about 90
| | 03:03 |
points long and I seemed to have nailed
that one.
| | 03:05 |
Great and then I'll drag from this final
anchor point back up while pressing the
| | 03:10 |
Shift key and I hope to snap into
alignment with that guide line right
| | 03:15 |
there, but snapping doesn't always work,
so well with certain tools and it might be
| | 03:20 |
because I have the Shift key down that its
not quite working.
| | 03:23 |
So, I'll create a shorter line, but I do
want to press Shift.
| | 03:27 |
I'll just create a shorter line like that
one right there.
| | 03:30 |
And then I'll go ahead and switch to the
wide arrow tool, I'll click off the path
| | 03:34 |
to deselect it, I'll go ahead and sort of
marquee around that point in order to
| | 03:38 |
select the anchor point, and I'll drag
while pressing the Shift key once again,
| | 03:41 |
and this time, I get a snap, I can see
that snapping to the guide lines, so
| | 03:45 |
that's good news.
Now, I'm going to grab my black arrow tool
| | 03:48 |
and I'm going to click on this path right
here and I'm going to drag it over while
| | 03:53 |
pressing the Shift key.
So, you want to press this Shift key after
| | 03:56 |
you begin dragging.
That way you'll drag in a perpendicular direction.
| | 04:01 |
In this case, horizontally and you also
want to press and hold the Alt key or the
| | 04:06 |
Opt key on a Mac.
So, start dragging first, then press Shift
| | 04:09 |
+ Alt or Shift + Opt on a Mac.
Shift constrains, the Alt or Opt key will
| | 04:14 |
create a duplicate.
And you can see I've got that double
| | 04:17 |
cursor there, which indicates that I'm
going to clone this line.
| | 04:21 |
And so now I'll just drop it into place.
I want this line to be 4.6, so I'll change
| | 04:26 |
the stroke value up there in the control
panel to 4.
| | 04:29 |
And now, I'm going to duplicate this path
again.
| | 04:32 |
But I'm going to automate the process.
You can do that by going to the Object
| | 04:36 |
menu, choosing Transform and the choosing
the Transform Again command.
| | 04:40 |
Or you can just press the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl + D or Cmd + D on the Mac.
| | 04:45 |
The D being for duplicate.
And as soon as I choose the command or
| | 04:48 |
press Ctrl or Cmd + D, I get a second copy
of this feather line.
| | 04:53 |
Now obviously these lines aren't
distributed properly.
| | 04:55 |
Which is why I'm going to partially
marquee all four of these lines.
| | 04:58 |
And then, notice the word align up here in
the Control panel.
| | 05:01 |
Click on it to bring up this pop up panel.
And make sure that align to is set to selection.
| | 05:08 |
That's very important.
And then go ahead and click on this second
| | 05:12 |
to last icon, horizontal distribute
center.
| | 05:15 |
And that will go ahead and give you the
effect we're looking for.
| | 05:18 |
Alright, I'm going to click to hide that
panel.
| | 05:21 |
Alright, now let's go ahead and join these
paths.
| | 05:23 |
I'm looking to join the thick ones and
then the thin ones.
| | 05:27 |
So I'm going to shift click on each of
these thin lines in order to deselect them.
| | 05:31 |
And then I will Shift + Click on this
thick horizontal line in order to add it
| | 05:35 |
to the selection, so the Shift key always
reverses the selection when you are
| | 05:40 |
working with the Black Arrow tool and now
I will go up the Object menu, choose Path,
| | 05:45 |
and then choose Join or you can press Ctrl
+ J or Cmd + J on the Mac, and that goes
| | 05:50 |
ahead and joins the path and notice we get
these nice mitered corners as well.
| | 05:54 |
So, if I press Ctrl + Z or Cmd + X on a
Mac, these are the bad corners we had
| | 05:58 |
before because the paths were not joined
to each other.
| | 06:01 |
And if I press Ctrl + Shift + C or Cmd +
Shift + C on the Mac in order to redo the
| | 06:05 |
operation we now have the miters.
Alright, so we've managed to create a
| | 06:10 |
shaft for the arrow, half a feather.
In the next movie, we'll create the other
| | 06:14 |
half of the feather, and we'll rotate the
arrow into place.
| | 06:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rotating, filling, and stacking| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to copy and
flip the feathers, we're going to rotate
| | 00:03 |
the arrow into place, we're going to fill
the feathers, and we're going to adjust
| | 00:07 |
the stacking order in layers.
Just so you know what's coming.
| | 00:12 |
I saved my progress as half an arrow.ai
armed with a Black Arrow tool.
| | 00:16 |
I'm going to partially mark key all of
these (UNKNOWN) associated with the feather.
| | 00:20 |
With include this one four point path
along the outside, and each of the two
| | 00:25 |
thinner paths in between.
Now, we're going to copy and flip them.
| | 00:28 |
And we're going to do these operations
from the keyboard.
| | 00:30 |
because it's really common operations that
you'll be doing a lot.
| | 00:34 |
So, press Ctrl+C, Cmd+C on the Mac.
That copies the feathers to the clipboard.
| | 00:40 |
Then, I'll press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on the
Mac.
| | 00:43 |
That goes ahead and pastes those feathers
in the exact same location, and you can
| | 00:47 |
see then we now have two copies.
I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac, to
| | 00:51 |
undo that change.
Now, click on the word transform up here
| | 00:54 |
on the Control panel to bring up the
Transform panel.
| | 00:58 |
Select the top middle reference point.
Click on the Flyout menu icon and choose
| | 01:02 |
Flip Vertical.
In order to flip those feathers.
| | 01:06 |
Now, we need to go ahead and join the
feathers together.
| | 01:08 |
So, I'm going to Shift+Click on these two
thinner lines to deselect them.
| | 01:12 |
And then Shift+Click on the thicker bottom
line, in order to select it.
| | 01:16 |
Now, we want to join these paths together.
And we can do so, as easily as pressing
| | 01:20 |
Ctrl+J or Cmd+J on the Mac.
All right.
| | 01:23 |
Now, let's go ahead and rotate the feather
into place.
| | 01:25 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+1 or Cmd+1 on the
Mac in order to zoom out to a hundred percent.
| | 01:31 |
Then I'm going to partially marquee all of
the paths associated with this arrow, and
| | 01:35 |
I'm thinking I want to rotate the arrow 30
degrees.
| | 01:38 |
So, I will click on transform once again,
because rotation is a transformation.
| | 01:42 |
I'II will select this middle right
reference point, so that we are rotating
| | 01:47 |
with respect to this location here.
And notice this rotate value, third value
| | 01:51 |
down on the left.
I am going to change it to 30 degrees and
| | 01:55 |
press the Tab key.
Well, obviously, I rotated the arrow in
| | 01:58 |
the wrong direction.
Any time that happens to you, just press
| | 02:01 |
Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on a Mac, and instead of
entering a positive value, just change it
| | 02:07 |
to the exact same value to negative.
So, I'll enter negative 30 degrees and
| | 02:11 |
press Tab, and I get the result I'm
looking for.
| | 02:13 |
All right.
Now, let's go ahead and zoom in on this guy.
| | 02:15 |
Obviously, we've got some problems here.
The feather should be covering up the heart.
| | 02:20 |
So, click off the shapes to deselect them.
Click on the external feather shape.
| | 02:25 |
And then, go up to the Control panel and
click on this first swatch right there, in
| | 02:29 |
order to bring up the Swatches panel, then
select white as the fill color.
| | 02:34 |
We have another problem, which is one of
stacking order.
| | 02:37 |
The feather is in front of everything else
and it needs to be behind.
| | 02:41 |
So, the easiest way to address that
problem, is to go ahead and twirl open the
| | 02:44 |
Drawing layer here inside the Layers
panel.
| | 02:47 |
You can see by the preview there that this
top layer is our problem.
| | 02:52 |
I'm going to drag it below all of those
lines, just above the heart.
| | 02:57 |
And then drop it into place and that
changes the so called stacking order, so
| | 03:01 |
we get the effect we're looking for.
Finally, we might as well select these
| | 03:05 |
arrow shapes.
I'll go ahead and partially marquee them
| | 03:07 |
once again.
And group them together by going up to the
| | 03:10 |
Object menu and choosing the Group
command.
| | 03:13 |
Another keyboard shortcut for you, which
is Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on the Mac.
| | 03:18 |
And then, let's just go ahead and rename
this item arrow and press the Enter key or
| | 03:23 |
the Return key on the Mac, in order to
finish off the job.
| | 03:26 |
All right, Ctrl+1 or Cmd+1 on a Mac, click
off the arrow in order to deselect it.
| | 03:31 |
The only tool left is the Spiral tool and
I'll show you how to work with it on the
| | 03:35 |
next movie.
| | 03:36 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Spiral tool| 00:00 |
As promised, in this movie I'm going to
show you how to use the Spiral tool.
| | 00:03 |
And then, in the next movie, I'll show you
how to put it to work.
| | 00:07 |
I've saved my progress as Angled arrow.ai.
It's found inside the 04 Line Art folder.
| | 00:12 |
Just a bit of a word of warning up front
here.
| | 00:15 |
Just as the Line Segment tool is the
easiest of the Line tools to use, the
| | 00:20 |
Spiral tool is not only the weirdest but
it's also pretty difficult to predict.
| | 00:25 |
And I'll explain why that is in just a
moment, but it can be made to produce some
| | 00:30 |
very interesting effects.
Now, just so we don't have a lot of guides
| | 00:33 |
flashing on screen here, I'm going to go
up to the View menu and I'm going to
| | 00:37 |
choose the Smart Guides command to turn it
off or I could press Ctrl+U or Cmd+U on
| | 00:42 |
the Mac.
All right.
| | 00:43 |
Now, I'll select the Spiral tool from my
little Tool panel.
| | 00:47 |
And I'm going to start dragging at this
guide intersection right here.
| | 00:50 |
Four horizontal guides down, three to the
right.
| | 00:53 |
And the reason I'm starting there, is I
want you to see exactly the beginning of
| | 00:57 |
my drag.
So, I'll drag outward like so.
| | 01:01 |
And notice by default, I'm creating a
counter-clockwise spinning spiral.
| | 01:05 |
The endpoint of that spiral is right there
on my cursor, so that part's fairly easy.
| | 01:11 |
It's the beginning of the spiral that's a
problem.
| | 01:13 |
Notice that no point on the spiral
intersects those guides.
| | 01:18 |
So, it's difficult to know where to start
when drawing with this tool.
| | 01:21 |
Fortunately, you can press the apacebar as
you're dragging in order to move the
| | 01:27 |
spiral on the fly.
Now, you can do that with any of the tools.
| | 01:31 |
The Line tool, the Art tool, any of them.
It's just that where the Spiral tool is concerned.
| | 01:37 |
It's an essential trick to know, also
worth knowing, you can press and hold the
| | 01:41 |
Ctrl key or the Cmd key on the Mac, to
change the decay, as were seeing here.
| | 01:45 |
You can even flip the spiral the other
direction if you like, which means that
| | 01:50 |
now the inner point coincides with a
cursor.
| | 01:54 |
However, that doesn't make it any more
difficult to predict.
| | 01:56 |
And I think it makes it a little harder
frankly.
| | 01:58 |
So, I'm going to Ctrl drag or Cmd drag the
decay in the other direction.
| | 02:03 |
If you want to change the number of
segments, you press arrow keys.
| | 02:06 |
So, press the up arrow key in order to add
segments, press the down arrow key in
| | 02:11 |
order to reduce the number of segments.
And then finally, if you want to flip the
| | 02:15 |
spirals, so it goes clockwise instead of
counter clockwise, you press the R key for reflect.
| | 02:23 |
Did you get that?
When you're working with the art tool, you
| | 02:26 |
press the F key for flip.
When you're working with the spiral tool,
| | 02:30 |
you press the R key for reflect.
I guess you know, that the spiral tool is
| | 02:35 |
fancy or something.
I'm going to go ahead and release the
| | 02:38 |
mouse button because my finger's getting
very tired.
| | 02:41 |
And I'll press the backspace key or the
delete key on the mac in order to get rid
| | 02:44 |
of that spiral.
You can also click, just as you can with
| | 02:47 |
the other tools, in order to bring up a
dialogue box.
| | 02:50 |
And I'm going to go ahead and restate
these values to their defaults.
| | 02:53 |
Which is a radius of 80, a decay of 80 as
well.
| | 02:57 |
Segments are by default set to ten, and
the counter clockwise option right here is
| | 03:01 |
the style.
And then I'll go ahead and click OK and
| | 03:04 |
when I do.
I'll create a spiral right there on screen.
| | 03:07 |
Don't want that.
So, I'll press the backspace key or the
| | 03:09 |
delete key on a mac in order to get rid of
it.
| | 03:12 |
Here's what we're gong to do.
Notice this template layer, which is
| | 03:15 |
turned off right now.
I'm going to go ahead and turn it on.
| | 03:19 |
And what it is, is it's a layer that's set
to reduced opacity, so that we can try our
| | 03:23 |
hands at tracing these spirals and we'll
do exactly that in the next movie.
| | 03:28 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Try your hand at tracing existing spirals| 00:00 |
All right.
Who's ready to draw spirals?
| | 00:02 |
What we're going to do in this movie is
trace three of the spirals.
| | 00:05 |
Then we're going to flip them, of course.
Then, we're going to try to align them
| | 00:09 |
with the outline of the heart.
Which means that we should probably take a
| | 00:13 |
moment to turn that outline into a custom
guide.
| | 00:17 |
Working inside a file called
spiraltemplate.ai and I'm going to twirl
| | 00:21 |
open the drawing lay right there, and then
I'm going to twirl open this heart group.
| | 00:25 |
And as you may recall, we've got this mask
in the shape of a heart, and then we've
| | 00:30 |
got the target.
Now, I need to select that heart shape
| | 00:34 |
independently of the target, and the
easiest way to do that is to click on this
| | 00:38 |
little circular target icon right there
which Adobe internally calls the Meatball.
| | 00:44 |
Believe it or not.
And so, when you click on this circle,
| | 00:47 |
you're actually meatballing the object, so
it becomes a verb.
| | 00:50 |
And what it does, it is select this heart
shape independently of the target, which
| | 00:54 |
is essential.
Now, I'm going to go up to the Edit menu
| | 00:57 |
and choose the Copy command.
Or I could press Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on the
| | 01:02 |
Mac, then I'll go ahead and target this
guides layer by clicking on it's meatball.
| | 01:06 |
So, you can select an entire layer this
way.
| | 01:09 |
And then, I'm going to go up to the Edit
menu, and choose Paste and Back, or press
| | 01:14 |
Ctrl+B or Cmd+B on the Mac, in order to
paste that heart at the back of the layer.
| | 01:19 |
And then finally, in order to turn the
heart into a custom guide, I'll go up to
| | 01:24 |
the View menu, choose Guides and then
choose Make Guides.
| | 01:27 |
And now, we have a snapping guide in the
shape of the heart.
| | 01:31 |
All right.
Next, what we're going to do is twirl the
| | 01:33 |
heart back closed here.
I'm going to target it and then I want to
| | 01:36 |
draw the spirals behind it.
So, I'm going to go ahead and select the
| | 01:40 |
draw behind icon down here at the bottom
of the tool box.
| | 01:44 |
Now lets begin creating the spirals.
It's anyone's guess where you start.
| | 01:48 |
Somewhere approximately around here.
It seems like it should work to me and
| | 01:52 |
well, look at that.
After years and years of using this tool,
| | 01:55 |
I'm totally wrong.
So, I'm going to press the trusty space
| | 01:58 |
bar here in order to move the shape around
a little bit.
| | 02:02 |
And then ,I'll try to get it closer to the
right place and this looks pretty good.
| | 02:07 |
And between you and me, I'm not all that
interested in getting this spiral exactly
| | 02:12 |
aligned with the template.
So, good enough, is, actually, good enough.
| | 02:17 |
Notice that we've got an extra segment
hanging off the end, so I'll press the
| | 02:20 |
down arrow key to get rid of it, and then
I'll release, and then we've got ourselves
| | 02:23 |
a nice spiral.
The line weight should be ten, so the
| | 02:27 |
stroke option right here should be set to
ten points.
| | 02:29 |
Then, I'm going to click on the word
stroke, and I'm going to assign a round
| | 02:33 |
cap, by clicking on this icon.
Then I'll click on stroke again to hide it.
| | 02:37 |
All right.
Let's try our hand in another one of these.
| | 02:40 |
It's so fun drawing spirals.
Also, look I didn't get this right either.
| | 02:44 |
I seem to learning a thing as I'm working
here along with you.
| | 02:47 |
Hopefully, you are.
Maybe your results are turning out to be better.
| | 02:51 |
Could be you're just a spiral wizard.
Anyway, I'm going to draw to about this
| | 02:56 |
location here.
I had to use the spacebar to adjust the spiral.
| | 03:00 |
And I'm snapping into alignment with the
outline of the heart, of course.
| | 03:04 |
Now, I'm going to change the line weight
for that stroke to four points, and it
| | 03:08 |
should still have a round cap on the end
of it, and it appears that it does.
| | 03:13 |
And then I'll drag from here, that's not
going to work too well either.
| | 03:18 |
And I'll go ahead and snap into alignment
with the heart.
| | 03:20 |
But look at that.
I nailed that one much more quickly.
| | 03:23 |
I'm very proud of myself.
That appears to have an extra segment as
| | 03:26 |
well, so I'll press the down arrow key to
get rid of it.
| | 03:29 |
Did it need that?
Actually I'll press up arrow again to
| | 03:32 |
reinstate it.
It looks like its got some sort of partial
| | 03:35 |
thing going on there, which is fine.
All right.
| | 03:38 |
I'm going to change the stroke rate to two
points this time around, and that takes
| | 03:42 |
care of drawing those spirals.
I don't see any of the reason to blabber
| | 03:46 |
thing by redrawing the spirals on the left
hand side here.
| | 03:50 |
So, what I'm going to do is turn of the
template layer by clicking on the eye ball
| | 03:53 |
here inside the layer.
Then, I'll switch to Black Arrow tool and
| | 03:58 |
I'll go ahead and partially marquee these
spirals like so, and let's copy 'em by
| | 04:03 |
pressing Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on the Mac.
And then I'll press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on the
| | 04:08 |
Mac, to paste them in front.
I'll visit the Transform panel here.
| | 04:12 |
We want to flip these guys with respect to
this middle left point, so I'll go ahead
| | 04:18 |
and click on that.
And then, I'll go to the Flyout menu and
| | 04:21 |
choose flip horizontal in order to flip
those spirals to the other side.
| | 04:26 |
And the only thing left to do, in my
opinion, is to shift marquee the original spirals.
| | 04:31 |
Let's go ahead and group them together by
going up to the Object menu and choosing
| | 04:35 |
the Group command.
And we might as well, since we've been
| | 04:38 |
doing it so far, let's go ahead and
double-click on the name of that object.
| | 04:42 |
And call it spiral, and then I'll click
off the spirals in order to deselect them.
| | 04:47 |
And I'll press Ctrl+semicolon or
Cmd+semicolon on the Mac, to hide the guides.
| | 04:52 |
And that is our finished piece of line
art.
| | 04:55 |
An elegant design drawn from start to
finish using the five line tools, here
| | 05:00 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 05:01 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Drawing Geometric ShapesAnd now, we draw better| 00:00 |
Illustrator provides you with six shape
tools.
| | 00:03 |
Rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse,
polygon, star and flare.
| | 00:09 |
Again, they don't sound terribly exciting
but they are, terribly exciting.
| | 00:15 |
In this chapter, you'll use the Ellipse
tool to draw inset ovals, in which the
| | 00:20 |
innermost oval cuts holes in the outer
two.
| | 00:23 |
Then you'll adorn the ovals with stars and
other elements.
| | 00:26 |
Finally, you'll draw the arrow heart, at a
thirty degree angle with a Polygon tool.
| | 00:33 |
Along the way, you'll learn all about
compound paths, how to rotate the
| | 00:37 |
constraint axis and how to draw a few
hundred shapes in a single drag.
| | 00:42 |
Most Illustrator users don't even know
these features exist and yet you will,
| | 00:47 |
after having expended only the modest
energy required to learn the shape tools.
| | 00:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Meet the shape tools| 00:00 |
In this movie, I will give you a preview
of the art work that we'll be creating
| | 00:03 |
over the course of this chapter.
And I'll also introduce you to the each of
| | 00:06 |
the six shape tools included with
illustrator.
| | 00:08 |
So, what we're going to do, is take that
heart art work from the previous chapter ,
| | 00:12 |
and we are going to surrounded it with a
few eclipses, we'll add a couple of
| | 00:15 |
rounded rectangle ornaments here.
We've got some stars at the top and the
| | 00:19 |
bottom and I've also drawn an arrow head
in the background going through the heart.
| | 00:25 |
To get to the shape tools, you go to the
Rectangle tool.
| | 00:28 |
That's the default shape tool anyway
inside of the toolbox.
| | 00:31 |
Click and hold on it and you bring up a
fly-out menu of six shape tools.
| | 00:35 |
And then if you move your cursor over this
vertical bar and release, you'll create an
| | 00:40 |
independent panel of shape tools.
Now, they're not too difficult to use I
| | 00:44 |
have to say, and you'll see that there's a
lot of tips and tricks associated with
| | 00:48 |
each tool.
However, they can be extremely useful.
| | 00:52 |
So, we've got the Rectangle tool, which
allows you to draw either rectangles that
| | 00:57 |
are wider than they are tall or taller
than they are wide.
| | 01:00 |
Or you can draw perfect squares.
Next we've got the Rounded Rectangle tool,
| | 01:04 |
which does exactly the same thing except
you can round off the corners of the
| | 01:08 |
rectangles, and you can even do so on the
fly.
| | 01:11 |
We've got this Ellipse tool, which allows
you to draw standard, regular ovals or
| | 01:17 |
perfect circles.
Next is the Polygon, tool which allows you
| | 01:21 |
to draw regular polygons, that is polygons
whose sides are exactly the same length
| | 01:27 |
and the same angle from each other.
Things like pentagons and hexagons and
| | 01:31 |
octagons and even triangles.
Next we've got the Star tool, which allows
| | 01:36 |
you to draw stars.
And you can change both the number of
| | 01:39 |
points associated with the star, and the
pointiness of those points on the fly.
| | 01:44 |
And then finally we have the Flare tool,
which isn't technically speaking a shape tool.
| | 01:50 |
Instead, it's this wacky tool that allows
you to create synthetic lens flares.
| | 01:54 |
And it operates like no other tool on the
planet.
| | 01:57 |
I'm frankly skeptical how often you'll use
the tool, but I will show you how to use
| | 02:00 |
it toward the end of this chapter.
So, those are your six shape tools.
| | 02:04 |
In the next chapter, we'll begin using
these tools to create this piece of artwork.
| | 02:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Ellipse tool| 00:00 |
We're going to start things off, with a
look at how you use the Ellipse tool
| | 00:04 |
inside of Illustrator, which allows you to
draw regular ovals as well as circles.
| | 00:09 |
I'm working inside a file called big star
graphic.ai found inside the 05 shapes folder.
| | 00:15 |
And what I'm going to do is right-click
inside of the document window, and choose
| | 00:19 |
Show Guide.
So, we can see a few guides that have set
| | 00:22 |
up in advance.
All of these guides by the way are
| | 00:24 |
contained inside the Guides layer.
So, if you open up the Layers panel and
| | 00:29 |
twirl open that Guides layer, that is
click on that little triangle to expand it.
| | 00:34 |
You'll see that we have a series of
grouped guides labeled one through four.
| | 00:37 |
And right now we can only see guides one.
But we'll be turning that off and turning
| | 00:43 |
on two, and three, and four later.
It's just that, it's fairly confusing and
| | 00:47 |
have them all turned on at the same time.
All right, so I'm going to go ahead and
| | 00:51 |
drag along those eyeballs to turn em off.
So I'm just seeing guide one.
| | 00:56 |
And then I'm going to scroll up a little
bit and click on a drawing layer to make
| | 01:00 |
it active.
And I'm also going to turn off the layer
| | 01:03 |
called shapes, by clicking on it's eyeball
so that we have a clean slate to work with.
| | 01:07 |
So, in other words we're seeing only that
piece of art work that we created in the
| | 01:12 |
previous chapter, and nothing more.
Now, if you're working along with me, I'd
| | 01:16 |
like you to go ahead and select the
Ellipse tool, which is the third tool in,
| | 01:21 |
here inside of this floating tool box.
If you're working from the standard
| | 01:25 |
toolbox, you click and hold on Rectangle
Tool or one of the other shape tools.
| | 01:29 |
And select a third tool down here in the
Flyout menu.
| | 01:32 |
Now, there's a variety of ways to use the
Ellipse tool, and I'm going to show you
| | 01:36 |
every one of them in this movie.
First of all, you can drag essentially
| | 01:40 |
from corner to corner.
In other words the ellipse fits inside of
| | 01:45 |
the area described by your drag, because
that drag area is the bounding box.
| | 01:50 |
So, if I drag over to the right here, I'll
create a wide but short ellipse.
| | 01:55 |
If I drag down further like so, then I'll
create a tall but narrow ellipse.
| | 02:00 |
If I want to create a circle, then I'll
press and hold the Shift key.
| | 02:03 |
And it's very important that you keep that
Shift key down if you want a circle, until
| | 02:08 |
after you release the mouse button.
If you first release the Shift key, and
| | 02:12 |
then release the mouse button, you'll end
up with an ellipse.
| | 02:15 |
Also, by the way, and this one can be
very, very useful because it's difficult
| | 02:20 |
to anticipate exactly where an ellipse is
going to land on the page.
| | 02:23 |
You can press and hold the spacebar as you
drag in order to move that to different location.
| | 02:29 |
And that's exact same technique we used
for the spiral tool in the previous chapter.
| | 02:34 |
But it works with the line and shape tools
as well.
| | 02:37 |
All right.
So, what I like you want to do with this
| | 02:39 |
graphic is concerned.
I'll go ahead and release my mouse button
| | 02:42 |
and press Backspace key or the Delete key
on the Mac, in order to get rid of that shape.
| | 02:46 |
I want you to drag from one guide
intersection to the opposite guide
| | 02:52 |
intersection like so.
So, I don't care if you drag down and to
| | 02:55 |
the right like I am, or down and to the
left, or up and to the right.
| | 02:58 |
Anyway, you want to work is just fine.
And that way, we'll create the initial
| | 03:02 |
ellipse that we are looking for.
So, as you can see these guides describe
| | 03:06 |
the bounding box into which the ellipse
fits.
| | 03:10 |
And its very important when you are using
the tool because that's not the only way
| | 03:15 |
to work.
Let me show you different way.
| | 03:16 |
I'm going to go over to my Layers panel
here and I am going to turn off guides
| | 03:20 |
one, so its important that you have the
Guides layer expanded.
| | 03:24 |
And then I'll turn on guides two, so that
we have a different section of guides going.
| | 03:29 |
Let's say, you would prefer that the
beginning and end of your drag actually
| | 03:35 |
occur on the ellipse.
So, rather than having the ellipse fit
| | 03:38 |
inside of a boundning box, the ellipse is
better described by your actual drag.
| | 03:43 |
So, for example, if I begin dragging from
this point like so, so one of the guide
| | 03:48 |
intersections once again to the opposite
guide intersection.
| | 03:51 |
Notice right now that, that the beginning
of my drag is not actually anywhere on the ellipse.
| | 03:59 |
However, during my drag I press and hold
the Ctrl key or the Cmd key on the Mac.
| | 04:05 |
Notice now that the guide intersection
actually occurs on the ellipse, so this is
| | 04:09 |
the Ctrl key on the PC or the Cmd key on
the Mac.
| | 04:13 |
Again, you need to keep that key down the
entire time you're dragging.
| | 04:18 |
Then go ahead and release the mouse
button, and then release the key.
| | 04:23 |
Now, notice that the bounding box fits
inside of the ellipse as opposed to outside.
| | 04:28 |
So, basically, you can work either way.
You can choose your poison here.
| | 04:32 |
A lot of folks feel better by creating an
ellipse inside of the bounding box, what I
| | 04:38 |
call the corner to corner method.
Even though, obviously, an ellipse doesn't
| | 04:42 |
have any corners.
Other folks prefer for their drag points
| | 04:45 |
to actually occur on the outline of the
ellipse.
| | 04:50 |
One more way to work, and I'm going to
turn off guides two by the way.
| | 04:53 |
And I'm going to turn on guides three.
You can drag from the center outward.
| | 04:59 |
if you so desire.
And you do that by dragging like so.
| | 05:02 |
And as you drag, press and hold the Alt
key or the Option key on a Mac.
| | 05:07 |
And then drag outward, and what you want
is an ellipse that basically aligns at the bottom.
| | 05:13 |
So, all three of our ellipses should line
right there at the bottom point, as you
| | 05:17 |
can see on screen.
You want to keep that Alt or Option key
| | 05:21 |
down throughout your drag, if you want to
create the ellipse from the center outward.
| | 05:24 |
And then, go ahead and release the mouse
button.
| | 05:27 |
And then of course release the key.
And of course, if you're feeling
| | 05:30 |
particularly ambitious, you can use all of
these keyboard tricks at the same time.
| | 05:35 |
So, if I were to begin dragging at a point
here, I could press the Shift key in order
| | 05:39 |
to constrain the shape to.
A perfect circle.
| | 05:42 |
I could press the Alt or Option key in
order to create the ellipse from the
| | 05:46 |
center out.
I could press and hold the Ctrl key or the
| | 05:50 |
Cmd key, in order to ensure that the end
of my drag occurs somewhere on the outline
| | 05:55 |
of the shape.
Now, because the Shift key is also down,
| | 05:58 |
it may vary a little bit because
Illustrator's trying to make sure that
| | 06:02 |
you're creating a perfect circle at the
same time.
| | 06:04 |
But it bears mentioning that I now have
all of the modifier keys down, that is
| | 06:08 |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt on the PC, Cmd+Shift+Option
on a Mac.
| | 06:12 |
And then, if I have a spare pinky and I
want to press the spacebar as well, then I
| | 06:17 |
can go ahead and move that shape on the
fly.
| | 06:20 |
So, there you have it.
That's the Ellipse tool.
| | 06:22 |
Go ahead and press the Backspace key or
the Delete key on a Mac, to get rid of
| | 06:25 |
that shape.
A seemingly powerful tool.
| | 06:28 |
However, you have an awful lot of ways to
get exactly the results you're looking for.
| | 06:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating compound paths| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to take
the three ellipses we've created so far
| | 00:04 |
and convert them into what's known as
compound paths, which are paths that have
| | 00:09 |
holes inside of them.
So let me start off by explaining what
| | 00:13 |
compound paths are and then I'll show you
how to make them.
| | 00:17 |
Switch over to this demo file, which is
called Compound paths.ai found inside the
| | 00:21 |
05_shapes folder.
And you can see what we have here is the
| | 00:25 |
first four letters of the alphabet, A B C
D.
| | 00:27 |
And A is actually two path outlines
working together.
| | 00:30 |
So you've got one path outline describing
the outside of the A, and another one
| | 00:35 |
describing the inside of the A.
A B is actually three path outlines one
| | 00:40 |
describing the outside and two describing
the inside.
| | 00:43 |
A C is just one path outline so it doesn't
really apply to this discussion but it's
| | 00:47 |
interesting to see that some letters are
made that way.
| | 00:48 |
And then a D has one path outline and then
one path on the inside so two altogether.
| | 00:55 |
Now, if we take all of the paths and fill
them with this exact same shade of dark grey.
| | 01:01 |
We can still read the letters, especially
when they are stroked to or seeing the
| | 01:05 |
letters very large.
But, if we were to reduce the size of the
| | 01:08 |
letters, it wouldn't make any sense at
all.
| | 01:10 |
So, you might figure, I am going to go
ahead and (UNKNOWN) open this text
| | 01:14 |
(UNKNOWN) layers inside the layers panel,
and you can see that, just one item is
| | 01:18 |
displayed so far.
I'll go ahead an turn on the next group down.
| | 01:21 |
So you might figure what you do, is you
just go ahead an fill the inside paths
| | 01:26 |
with white.
An that's what I've done in this case.
| | 01:28 |
So the inside of the A, is filled with
white.
| | 01:30 |
The two inside paths in the B, they're
filled with white.
| | 01:33 |
And the inside of the D is filled with
white as well.
| | 01:37 |
However, here's the problem: what if the
background isn't white?
| | 01:40 |
I'll just go ahead and turn on a couple of
other objects down here at the bottom of
| | 01:44 |
the layers panel.
Let's just grab this fairly loud background.
| | 01:48 |
And you can see right away that filling
the insides of the letters with white just
| | 01:52 |
doesn't do us any good.
What we need instead is for the insides of
| | 01:55 |
the letters to be transparent as in the
case of this final line of type.
| | 01:59 |
And what's happening is that the inside of
the A for example, is cutting a hole In
| | 02:04 |
the outside of the A.
And the inside, paths of the B are cutting
| | 02:07 |
two holes, inside of the outside of the B,
and so forth, and that friends is what is
| | 02:14 |
meant by compound path.
So, let me show you how to make one.
| | 02:17 |
I'll go ahead, and switch over to our
illustration at hand, which I've named
| | 02:21 |
Initial ellipses.ai.
I'm going to go ahead and zoom in a little
| | 02:25 |
bit and scroll down.
Let's start things off by clicking with
| | 02:30 |
the black arrow tool, those I've got in
and switch back to the black arrow,which
| | 02:33 |
of course, you can get by pressing the V
key.
| | 02:35 |
And I'm going to start things off by
clicking on this innermost ellipse, the
| | 02:39 |
last one we drew, and then I'll go up to
the Edit menu and choose the Copy Command,
| | 02:44 |
or press Ctrl + C or Cmd + C on the map
because we'll need to bring it back later.
| | 02:49 |
Then I'll go ahead and Shift+Click on the
next ellipse outward which was the second
| | 02:53 |
ellipse we drew in order to select it as
well.
| | 02:57 |
Then I'm going to change the line wave of
both these paths, this value next to the
| | 03:00 |
word stroke up here in the Control panel,
to 4 points so we get some thicker outlines.
| | 03:04 |
And then I will go to the Fill Switch
which is the first switch in the Control
| | 03:08 |
panel, and I will change here from white
to black and then fills both those path
| | 03:13 |
with black.
But I want the forward path to cut a hole
| | 03:17 |
in the rear path, so I'll press the Enter
key or the Return key in the Mac to hide
| | 03:21 |
that pop-up panel and then I'll go up to
the Object menu, choose Compound Path and
| | 03:27 |
choose Make.
And that's what you do, this is kind of a
| | 03:31 |
weird process here to have to dig this
deep into the menu.
| | 03:35 |
So, it's not necessarily very intuitive I
must say.
| | 03:38 |
But what happens when you choose the Make
command is use the forward path in order
| | 03:42 |
to cut a hole in the rear path.
And, Illustrator automatically considers
| | 03:47 |
such a path to be a single path outline,
even though we see it to be two paths that
| | 03:52 |
is one big ellipse with a smaller ellipse
inside of it.
| | 03:56 |
If you were to twirl open this drawing
layer, you would see that this item is now
| | 04:00 |
a single item.
You can't twirl it open as if it were a
| | 04:03 |
group or something else.
It's a single Compound Path and that's the
| | 04:06 |
way Illustrator regards it.
All right, now, we want to do the same
| | 04:10 |
thing with the outside path.
We want a hole cut in it as well.
| | 04:14 |
So I need to bring the whole back by
selecting the shape first of all by
| | 04:19 |
clicking on the outermost ellipse and then
going up to the Edit menu and choosing the
| | 04:23 |
Paste in Front command.
Or you press Ctrl+F or Cmd+F on the Mac,
| | 04:28 |
and that goes ahead and pastes a copy of
the path, you can see it right here,
| | 04:32 |
inside the Layers panel.
Now, I'll go ahead and Shift+click on the
| | 04:36 |
outermost ellipse.
So we have two ellipses selected, the one
| | 04:38 |
we just pasted into place and the
outermost ellipse.
| | 04:41 |
Let's go ahead and once again change the
Stroke Weight.
| | 04:44 |
And you can do that by clicking on the
down-pointing arrowhead and choosing 4
| | 04:47 |
point from a menu if you prefer.
And let's also change the Fill Color,
| | 04:51 |
first Swatch up here in the Control panel
from white to red.
| | 04:54 |
That goes ahead and creates two ellipses
filled with red on screen.
| | 04:58 |
Turn them into a Compound Path.
Go back to the Object menu, choose
| | 05:02 |
Compound Path and choose Make.
Now, notice just FYI, there's a keyboard
| | 05:07 |
shortcut of Ctrl+8 or Cmd+8 on a Mac.
You might think off hand that makes no
| | 05:13 |
sense at all, just completely arbitrary
keyboard shortcut except for the fact that
| | 05:18 |
an eight is a classic number that's a
compound path right?
| | 05:22 |
Its got the outer path.
That's kind of a snow man, with no head.
| | 05:26 |
And then, it's got two circles on the
inside that are cutting holes.
| | 05:30 |
So anyway.
That's one way to remember that keyboard shortcut.
| | 05:32 |
Control 8 or Command 8 on a Mac.
And now, we have these two path outlines,
| | 05:37 |
you can see them listed right here inside
the Layers panel.
| | 05:41 |
We've got the inner on right there.
And notice that it's got a hole in it ao
| | 05:45 |
it's a ring.
And then we have another one, that's a
| | 05:47 |
ring as well.
All right.
| | 05:49 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the
Mac to undo that move.
| | 05:52 |
Just one more thing I want to do for the
sake of cleaning up this illustration.
| | 05:55 |
I'm going to Control+Spacebar+Click or
Cmd+Spacebar+Click at the Mac in order to
| | 05:59 |
zoom in.
And notice here, if I were to switch to
| | 06:02 |
the white arrow tool, which I can get by
pressing the a key, and I were to marquee
| | 06:06 |
or just draw a rectangular marquee around
these points.
| | 06:10 |
That there are an awful lot of points
going on and they are not coincident.
| | 06:15 |
That is, they're not exactly aligned with
each other.
| | 06:17 |
By coincident, I mean directly on top of
each other.
| | 06:21 |
They occupy the same exact space.
Well, we can align them.
| | 06:25 |
They're all currently aligned vertically
so we just need to align their horizontal locations.
| | 06:30 |
And you do that by going up to the Control
panel and you click on this icon right
| | 06:34 |
there, Vertical Align Center.
So it will bring them vertically to the
| | 06:38 |
same location.
So you want the Vertical Align Center icon.
| | 06:42 |
Go ahead and click on it and you'll now
have a series of four as it turns out
| | 06:47 |
coincident anchor points.
All right, now I'm going to press Ctrl+0
| | 06:51 |
or Cmd+0 on a Mac in order to center my
art work click off of it to deselect it.
| | 06:56 |
Aand that folks is how you create compound
paths, extremely practical objects that
| | 07:01 |
you will be using all of the time inside
illustrator
| | 07:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing a multipoint star| 00:00 |
In this movie I will show you how to draw
stars inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:03 |
And the Star Tool is actually in a awful
lot of fun.
| | 00:06 |
Not only this would allow you to change
the size and the angle of a star as you
| | 00:09 |
draw it.
But you can also increase or decrease a
| | 00:13 |
number of points and change the spikiness
of those points on the fly.
| | 00:18 |
I've saved my progress as Ellipses with
holes.ai, and before we set about using
| | 00:22 |
the Star Tool.
I want to turn the final version of the
| | 00:26 |
drawing into a kind of tracing template,
just so we can make sure that you and I
| | 00:30 |
are on the same page here.
And so here's what I'd like you to do.
| | 00:34 |
Inside the Layers panel, go ahead and turn
off the drawing layer by clicking on its eyeball.
| | 00:40 |
Then click where the eyeball should be in
front of the shapes layer in order to turn
| | 00:44 |
that layer on.
Now to serve as a tracing template, this
| | 00:48 |
shapes layer needs to be translucent,
almost as if it's set on a piece of paper,
| | 00:53 |
in back of a layer of velum.
So that we can easily distinguish it from
| | 00:58 |
our version of the drawing.
To make a layer translucent, here's what
| | 01:02 |
you do.
Go ahead and click on it to make it
| | 01:04 |
active, and then we need to target the
entire layer by clicking on that circle.
| | 01:09 |
What I was telling you Adobe calls a
meatball, back in the previous chapter.
| | 01:13 |
Go ahead and click on that meatball and
that selects the layer itself, not
| | 01:18 |
necessarily the items on the layer,
although they appear selected here inside
| | 01:22 |
the document window, but the entire layer.
Then you go up to the Control Panel,
| | 01:27 |
notice this Opacity value I want you to
select that value by dragging over it.
| | 01:32 |
And then change the value from 100% to
25%.
| | 01:36 |
And that reduces the Opacity of the layer
to 25% in kind.
| | 01:41 |
So in other words, anything that was
previously 100% black, now appears as 25%
| | 01:47 |
black and so forth.
I also recommend that you lock this layer
| | 01:51 |
down, so that you don't accidentally
modify it by, you know, dragging one of
| | 01:55 |
the objects.
And you do that by clicking in this second
| | 01:58 |
column, next to the eyeball.
And notice when you do so, you not only
| | 02:02 |
create a lock there, you lock down the
layer, but you also go ahead and deselect
| | 02:05 |
the contents of the layer.
So notice now, if I try to marquee around
| | 02:09 |
any of these objects here they steadfastly
refuse to become selected.
| | 02:14 |
All right, now I'm going to
Ctrl+Spacebar+Click on the star a couple
| | 02:17 |
of times to zoom in on it.
So I'm seeing this top star at the 100%
| | 02:20 |
view size.
And I'm going to go ahead and select the
| | 02:23 |
Star Tool up here in my little Shape Tool
panel.
| | 02:25 |
You can also select it from the Shape Tool
fly out menu here if you like.
| | 02:30 |
Notice in my case I end up getting what I
call the "ghostbusters" icon, that is,
| | 02:34 |
that little circle with the line through
it.
| | 02:36 |
Which is telling me that I cannot work on
this layer.
| | 02:40 |
And the problem is that my lock shapes
layer is selected, and you cannot draw,
| | 02:46 |
you cannot add to an existing lock layer
inside of your illustrator.
| | 02:50 |
So, what we need to do instead is turn on
the drawing layer, which is our version of
| | 02:55 |
the drawing.
And then go ahead and click on it in order
| | 02:57 |
to make it active and now you can see, you
get a standard cursor.
| | 03:00 |
Alright, another thing I'd like you to do
is twirl open the Guides layer, and let's
| | 03:05 |
go ahead and scroll down the list.
Turn off guides three right three, and
| | 03:09 |
turn on guides four so that you can see
the center-point of the star.
| | 03:13 |
Because here's the thing, the star tool
always draws from the center outward.
| | 03:17 |
That's just the way it works in
Illustrator.
| | 03:19 |
So go ahead and position your cursor at
the intersection of those guides, and drag
| | 03:24 |
outward like so.
And you'll, by default create a five
| | 03:28 |
pointed star from the center outward as I
save.
| | 03:31 |
Couple of things you can do here if you
like five pointed stars.
| | 03:34 |
You can press the Shift key as you drag in
order to align that star, so that it's upright.
| | 03:41 |
And then if you release the Shift key, you
returned to sort of a side way star what
| | 03:45 |
have you.
So, I'll go ahead and keep the shift key
| | 03:47 |
down for a moment.
If you want to go ahead and align the
| | 03:50 |
sides of the stars, so that you get a
perfect five pointed star as in a case of
| | 03:55 |
an American star for example.
A star in the American flag.
| | 03:58 |
Then you press and hold the Alt key or the
Option key on the Mac, and that way
| | 04:03 |
opposite sides align to each other.
For example, what I mean by that is this
| | 04:07 |
side right here and this side right here,
align to each other.
| | 04:10 |
Then this side goes ahead and aligns to
this side and this one aligns to this one
| | 04:15 |
and so forth.
And again that's a function of having the
| | 04:17 |
Alt key or the Option key down on the Mac.
So to draw a five pointed American star,
| | 04:23 |
once again you press both Shift+Alt on the
PC, Shift+Option on the Mac.
| | 04:28 |
Alright I'm going to get rid of that guy,
because that's not the kind of star I'm
| | 04:31 |
looking for.
And I'll go ahead and begin dragging from
| | 04:34 |
that center point again.
And as I drag I can press the Down Arrow
| | 04:39 |
key like so, so I still have my cursor
down in order to reduce the number of points.
| | 04:44 |
And if you go far enough you'll get a
triangle, which of course we don't want.
| | 04:48 |
So I'm going to press the Up Arrow key in
order to increase the number of sides, and
| | 04:52 |
I'm looking for a total of eight points.
I think I have nine right now, so I'll
| | 04:55 |
press the Down Arrow key, and sure enough
I did have nine points.
| | 04:57 |
So now I have eight.
All right, I'm going to go ahead and drag
| | 05:00 |
straight down so that my cursor is aligned
with the vertical guideline.
| | 05:05 |
Problem at this point, however, is that my
spikes aren't spikier enough.
| | 05:10 |
Turns out if you press the Ctrl key, or
the Cmd key on the Mac, while you have the
| | 05:15 |
cursor down, and you drag.
Then you're going to change the spikiness
| | 05:19 |
of those sides.
So you can either make them very spiky,
| | 05:22 |
or, rather unspiky.
Like so, for, you know, a kind of splash
| | 05:27 |
if you want to.
Some kind of graphic like that, what I
| | 05:29 |
want to do here, I'm going to Ctrl+Drag
outward just a little bit.
| | 05:33 |
And then I'll release the Ctrl key or the
Cmd key on a Mac, and I'll move inwards.
| | 05:37 |
So that the inside corners of each one of
the spikes is aligned to the inside
| | 05:43 |
corners of the spikes in my template star.
And once that happens, as you can see on
| | 05:48 |
screen right here.
Then I'll go ahead and press the Ctrl key
| | 05:51 |
or Cmd key on the Mac and drag downward
until I get a star that's more or less
| | 05:56 |
exactly aligned like so.
And then I will release in order to create
| | 06:00 |
that eight pointed star.
Alright, so far, so good.
| | 06:04 |
Now I need to be able to see through this
star to my template.
| | 06:08 |
So I'm going to change the Fill which is
the first swatch up here on the Control Panel.
| | 06:12 |
I'll click on that swatch and then I'll
change it to none to get rid of the fill.
| | 06:16 |
Alright, now I'm going to draw another
star, I'll just begin dragging like so.
| | 06:21 |
And notice that Illustrator goes ahead and
keeps the same spikiness level, it goes
| | 06:26 |
ahead and keeps eight points, as we're
seeing right here.
| | 06:29 |
I'll drag down to about this location.
And by the way, I'm trying to cut through
| | 06:33 |
the center of the strokes in the template.
And that will provide me with the exact
| | 06:38 |
alignment I'm looking for.
All right, now to change the line weights
| | 06:41 |
associated with these stars.
I'll go up to the Stoke option, in the
| | 06:44 |
Control Panel, and I'll click on that
down-pointing arrow head and change it to
| | 06:48 |
four point.
And then I'll switch to the black arrow
| | 06:51 |
tool which you get by pressing the V key.
And I'll click on the outer star in order
| | 06:55 |
to select it and I'll change this line
weight to ten points.
| | 07:00 |
And then I'll go ahead and marquee both of
the stars by dragging around any portion
| | 07:05 |
of them.
And go to the first color swatch here in
| | 07:08 |
the Control Panel, and change it from
transparent back to white so that we have
| | 07:13 |
opaque stars as you here.
All right, now click off the paths to
| | 07:16 |
deselect them.
That gives you a sense of how you create
| | 07:19 |
stars in Illustrator.
In a next movie, I'll show you how to
| | 07:22 |
align a star, or other shape, by adding a
center point from the Attributes panel.
| | 07:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding and aligning a center point| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to create the
red star at the bottom of the graphic, and
| | 00:03 |
by the way, I'm currently looking at the
finished version of the drawing, Big star graphic.ai.
| | 00:08 |
And that red star is exactly the same
size, although it's a slightly different
| | 00:13 |
orientation, than the inset white star at
the top of the graphic.
| | 00:16 |
But what we want to do, is we want to
exactly align that star, so that it is
| | 00:21 |
centered on those anchor points at the
bottom of the ellipse.
| | 00:26 |
And that's tricky because while you can
align one shape to another quite easily in
| | 00:30 |
Illustrator, and you can align a bunch of
anchor points to each other if you so desire.
| | 00:35 |
You can't align a full shape with an
anchor point, that doesn't work, so we
| | 00:41 |
were going to have to figure out a
different approach.
| | 00:43 |
I'm going to switch over to this file that
I'm calling Great white star.ai and
| | 00:48 |
(UNKNOWN) with the Black arrow tool.
I will go ahead and click and then insert
| | 00:51 |
start to select it and then I will go up
to Edit menu and I'll choose the Copy
| | 00:55 |
command or press Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on the
Mac.
| | 00:59 |
Now I'm going to scroll down my graphic
just (UNKNOWN) the scroll bar and the
| | 01:02 |
scroll wheel on my mouse because that's
the easiest way to work here.
| | 01:06 |
And I'll go up to the Edit menu, and
rather than choosing Paste in Front or
| | 01:10 |
Paste in Back or Paste in Place, any of
those commands, which aligns the pasted
| | 01:14 |
art work with its previous position.
I'm just going to go ahead and choose the
| | 01:19 |
Paste command, the standard Paste command,
or press Ctrl+V or Cmd+V on the Mac.
| | 01:23 |
And now we'll paste the star essentially
in the center of the screen.
| | 01:28 |
Now I'm going to move it off to the side
because it really doesn't matter where it
| | 01:31 |
appears initially, I need to align it to
these bottom points right there.
| | 01:35 |
And the easiest way to do that is to give
the star its own center point, which is
| | 01:41 |
something you can do inside Illustrator,
but it's a little hard to find, it's a
| | 01:44 |
hidden function.
You get to the center point option by
| | 01:47 |
going up to the Window menu and choosing
the Attributes command.
| | 01:51 |
And that brings up this tiny little panel.
By default it just shows off a couple of
| | 01:55 |
overprint checkboxes.
What you want to do is click on this up
| | 01:58 |
down arrow icon, right next to the word
Attributes, and that will expand the panel
| | 02:03 |
so that you can gain access to it's other
options.
| | 02:05 |
And you notice right here these first two
icons allow you to either show the center
| | 02:09 |
or don't show the center.
We want the center, so go ahead and turn
| | 02:13 |
on that center point and we get the exact
center of the star.
| | 02:17 |
Now, you don't always get the exact center
of the star.
| | 02:20 |
I want to stress something here.
Let's say I was to grab the Star tool
| | 02:24 |
again, and I'll just go ahead and draw a
star.
| | 02:27 |
Press the Spacebar to move it to a
different location here.
| | 02:29 |
That works with all the line and shape
tools of course.
| | 02:31 |
Press the down arrow key a few times until
we get our friend the five pointed star,
| | 02:36 |
and press and hold the Shift and Alt keys
or the Shift and Option keys on the Mac in
| | 02:40 |
order to get the American star.
Alright, then I'll go ahead and release.
| | 02:43 |
Now if I were to add a center point,
notice that, that is not the exact center
| | 02:50 |
of the shape.
It's weighted far closer to the top than
| | 02:54 |
it oughtta be.
The center of the star's right about
| | 02:55 |
there, if we were calculate it exactly.
What's happening here is Illustrator is
| | 03:01 |
showing us the center of the bounding box
that contains the star.
| | 03:04 |
So, if you were to draw a square around
this star shape that would be the center
| | 03:09 |
of the square.
I just want to make that clear, because
| | 03:13 |
sometimes the center point works away you
wanted to sometimes it does not.
| | 03:16 |
When you are working with the star that
has an odd number of points like an
| | 03:20 |
American star, then you are not going to
get it to a center point.
| | 03:23 |
So, I'll go ahead and press the backspace
key or the Delete key on the Mac.
| | 03:26 |
However, when you're working with a star
with an even number of points like this
| | 03:29 |
one here, then you will get an exact
center point.
| | 03:33 |
Alright I'm going to press the V key in
order to switch back to the Black Arrow
| | 03:37 |
tool and I'll go ahead and click on the
star to select it.
| | 03:40 |
And notice there's our center point.
And now, I have only to go ahead and drag
| | 03:44 |
this center point, and drop it at the
bottom of the ellipses and I want to see a
| | 03:49 |
white arrowhead, notice the difference
here.
| | 03:51 |
Here's the black arrowhead, which means
I'm just dragging along, and as soon as I
| | 03:54 |
see the white arrowhead, it means that I
have a snap of some sort going.
| | 03:59 |
And that works whether you have Smart
Guides turned on or off.
| | 04:03 |
Now I'm going to drag the star back for a
moment because I want to show you, I
| | 04:06 |
happen to have Smart Guides turned off at
the moment.
| | 04:08 |
If I turn them back on by going up to the
View menu and choosing Smart Guides and
| | 04:13 |
then drag from the center point, you can
see that I'll actually see an intersect
| | 04:17 |
line there as well as the white arrowhead.
So I have additional information available
| | 04:22 |
to me.
But in any case, I get that star centered exactly.
| | 04:26 |
Alright.
Now I want to rotate the star exactly so
| | 04:30 |
many degrees, so that it matches the angle
of the red star in the background.
| | 04:35 |
Well.
Here's how I figured out the angle of rotation.
| | 04:38 |
And this is going to make perfect sense to
some of you, and others might end up
| | 04:42 |
scratching your heads.
I'm going to go ahead and hide the
| | 04:44 |
attributes panel so it's not in our way.
But, the star has what's known as a
| | 04:49 |
periodicity associated with it.
And that's a big fancy word for the
| | 04:53 |
distance between one of these points.
So, the angle.
| | 04:58 |
Between each one of these points, so you
imagine 360 degrees describes the entire
| | 05:03 |
route, angle-wise, around the star -
around the circle, for example, that
| | 05:08 |
contains the star.
If we were going from one point to another
| | 05:13 |
point that would be 45 degrees because its
from here, measuring from here we go 45
| | 05:20 |
degrees then we go 90 degrees then we go
90 plus 45 which is 135 and then we get to
| | 05:26 |
a 180 degrees and then we do some
additional adding to get all the way back
| | 05:31 |
around to 360 degrees.
So from here to here is 45 degrees.
| | 05:36 |
I want to rotate the star exactly half
that distance, and I don't want to have to
| | 05:41 |
do the math.
I already did enough math so far to figure
| | 05:43 |
out that it's 45 degrees divided by 2.
So what you do is with the star selected,
| | 05:48 |
you go ahead and click on the Word
Transform up here in the Control panel.
| | 05:52 |
That brings up this pop up panel of
course.
| | 05:55 |
Make sure to select the center point
inside the reference point matrix right there.
| | 05:59 |
It happens to be selected for me.
And then you want to enter an angle value.
| | 06:04 |
Notice this Rotate option right here.
You want to change that angle value to 45
| | 06:09 |
divided by 2.
So 45 slash 2.
| | 06:13 |
And then press the Enter key, or the
Return key on a Mac, and you're going to
| | 06:16 |
exactly split the difference and rotate
that guy half-way around.
| | 06:22 |
Just like it oughtta be.
Then, I want you to go up to the Control Panel.
| | 06:26 |
Click on a Color Swatch up there.
The first color swatch.
| | 06:29 |
And change it from white to red and we
have got the exactly a line star we are
| | 06:34 |
looking for, we're going to go ahead and
click off the star to deselect it, so
| | 06:38 |
remember if you want to add a centre point
which is going to be exactly accurate for
| | 06:44 |
any symmetrical shape by the way which
includes a polygon or a star with an even
| | 06:50 |
number of size or points Then you want to
go ahead and add that center point from
| | 06:54 |
the Attributes panel here inside
Illustrator.
| | 06:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing rounded rectangles| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to draw these
little square ornaments that appear on
| | 00:03 |
either side of our artwork.
And we're going to do so using the rounded
| | 00:07 |
rectangle tool.
And then in the next movie we'll align
| | 00:10 |
them into place.
I'm going to go ahead and switch over to
| | 00:13 |
my Illustration in progress, which I've
called Centered red star.ai.
| | 00:16 |
And I'll scroll up to somewhere over here
on the left hand side of the graphic.
| | 00:20 |
It doesn't really matter where because
we're not necessarily going to draw our
| | 00:24 |
rounded rectangles in the right place,
right off the bat.
| | 00:27 |
All right, now what I'd like you to do is
switch to the rounded rectangle tool.
| | 00:31 |
The only difference between the Rounded
Rectangle tool and the Rectangle tool, is
| | 00:35 |
the Rectangle tool allows you to draw
rectangles and squares, and the Rounded
| | 00:39 |
Rectangle tool, you can do the same thing
but you can also round off the corners.
| | 00:43 |
So, I'm going to go ahead and select a
tool by clicking on it of course.
| | 00:47 |
And then I'l drag with the tool and or to
draw a rectangle.
| | 00:51 |
So, here's what's going on.
Imagine I'm just using the Rectangle tool
| | 00:54 |
or this tool.
It doesn't matter.
| | 00:56 |
As I'm dragging with the tool I can press
the Spacebar in order to move the shape to
| | 01:00 |
a different location on the fly.
Then I can release the Spacebar and
| | 01:04 |
continue sizing the graphic like so.
If I press the Shift key, I will create a
| | 01:09 |
perfect square, albeit with rounded
corners in this case.
| | 01:12 |
And by the way you have to keep that shift
key down until you're done drawing.
| | 01:15 |
So, notice if I release the Shift key then
I end up getting a rectangle again.
| | 01:19 |
If you want to draw the rectangle from the
center outwards you press the Alt key or
| | 01:23 |
the option key on the fly like so.
And then if you release the Alr or Option
| | 01:27 |
you will go back to the corner to corner
metaphor.
| | 01:30 |
And then finally, here is the big
difference between the regular Rectangle
| | 01:34 |
tool and Rounded Rectangle tool, if you
want to increase the roundness of corners
| | 01:39 |
i will make my size bigger so you can see
this happen.
| | 01:42 |
Then you press the Up Arrow key, and you
can even press and hold the Up Arrow key
| | 01:46 |
in order to make the process happen more
quickly, if you want to increase the
| | 01:49 |
sharpness of the corners.
And you press the Down Arrow key, or in my
| | 01:53 |
case, I'm pressing and holding the Down
Arrow key like so.
| | 01:56 |
All right, anyway, I just wanted to show
you everything that's going on with the tool.
| | 01:59 |
I'm going to get rid of the shape by
pressing the Backspace key.
| | 02:02 |
I happen to know the exact dimensions of
the shapes that I'm looking for, and any
| | 02:08 |
time that is the case, with any of these
tools by the way, you click with the tool
| | 02:12 |
inside the document window.
And that's going to go ahead and bring up
| | 02:16 |
a dialog box that's a numerical setting.
And that works with the Rectangle tool,
| | 02:20 |
the Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon,
Star as well.
| | 02:23 |
Works a little different as we will see
where the Flair tool is concerned.
| | 02:27 |
In my case I am looking for a width value
72 and a height value of 72 as well, so 72
| | 02:34 |
points by 72 points.
And I want the corner radius to be 9 points.
| | 02:39 |
Now, once you've established a square
incidentally or any other dimension, but
| | 02:44 |
it's easier to understand with a square,
you can turn on this link right here and
| | 02:48 |
then you can change a value.
For example, I might change the width to
| | 02:52 |
100 points and that's going to change the
height to 100 points as well.
| | 02:55 |
But, if I were to turn off the chain for a
moment and then I set the height to 200
| | 03:00 |
points for example, now I'll turn the
chain back on, so I've got the shape
| | 03:05 |
that's 100 points by 200 points.
If I change the width value, lets say to
| | 03:09 |
50 points, then that's going to reduce the
height value to 100 points because
| | 03:13 |
illustrators trying to maintain the
proportions of the shape.
| | 03:17 |
Just want you to see whats going on there,
where that chain is concerned.
| | 03:20 |
Anyway, I'm going to turn it off, because
I want to create a square, 72 by 72.
| | 03:25 |
A corner radius of 9 points.
I just happen to know this from working
| | 03:28 |
with this graphic in the past.
And I'll go ahead and click OK in order to
| | 03:32 |
create that shape.
And now, I'm going to increase the line
| | 03:34 |
weight by clicking on down-pointing
arrowhead up here in the Control Panel and
| | 03:39 |
selecting 10 points, like so.
All right, now, let's draw another one by,
| | 03:42 |
once again clicking inside the Document
window.
| | 03:45 |
This time, because I want another square,
I can turn on the chain icon, and I'll
| | 03:49 |
change width value to 98.
That changes the height value as well to
| | 03:53 |
98 points.
And then I'm going to change the corner
| | 03:55 |
value to 18 points.
And then click OK And I end up with this
| | 04:00 |
shape here.
The stroke is too thick, so I'll go up to
| | 04:03 |
the Line Weight Value up here in the
Control Panel.
| | 04:06 |
And I'll switch it from 10 point to 4
point, like so.
| | 04:10 |
Alright, that shouldn't be in front,
however, so I'm going to go ahead and send
| | 04:13 |
this shape to back.
And by the way, I have made a terrible
| | 04:16 |
mistake here.
I have been working on a Tattoo layer,
| | 04:19 |
which i don't want to do.
I should be working on this Drawing layer here.
| | 04:21 |
So I have got to make a couple of
modifications.
| | 04:23 |
I'm going to switch to my selection tool
and i am going to partially marquee this
| | 04:28 |
two shapes are the double selected.
Notice that I have this little square here
| | 04:32 |
inside the Layers panel.
That indicates all of the selected objects
| | 04:36 |
inside the document.
If I want to move them to a different
| | 04:39 |
layer, I just take that square, and I drag
it to a different layer like so.
| | 04:43 |
And that goes ahead and moves those two
objects to the Drawing layer, and I can
| | 04:47 |
see that they're now in the Drawing layer.
Because previously, they had green anchor
| | 04:52 |
points and outlines to indicate that they
were part of this green layer.
| | 04:55 |
And now, they're part of the blue layer as
indicated by the fact that they have these
| | 04:58 |
blue segments and anchor points.
Alright, now if I twirl open this layer
| | 05:03 |
like so I can see that the big path is in
front of the little path.
| | 05:07 |
That's not what I'm looking for.
So, what I'm going to do is click off the
| | 05:10 |
shapes and deselect them and then, click
on the larger of the two pads.
| | 05:14 |
And I want to set it all the way back in
the stack.
| | 05:17 |
And I can make that happen by
right-clicking on the shape, which brings
| | 05:21 |
up the Shortcut menu, and then, I'll
choose Arrange and I'll choose Send to Back.
| | 05:25 |
And that will send the shape to the back
of the active layer.
| | 05:29 |
And now, I've got more or less the effect
I'm looking for.
| | 05:32 |
Of course the alignments not right.
Ignore that for a moment.
| | 05:35 |
Okay, one more thing I want to do.
I'm going to click on this forward shape
| | 05:38 |
and move it down a little bit just so we
can keep better track of it.
| | 05:41 |
See that red line that cuts through the
shape?
| | 05:43 |
I want to add that red line on the inside
of the shape right here.
| | 05:47 |
So I'm going to switch my Drawing mode
from Draw Normal down here at the bottom
| | 05:51 |
of the toolbox to this final item, Draw
Inside.
| | 05:54 |
So that I can draw a line inside of the
shape.
| | 05:57 |
And notice that I get my dotted corners,
as you see here.
| | 06:01 |
Next, I'll go ahead and grab my Line tool.
Which might require me to select whatever
| | 06:05 |
tool is visible here, and then select Line
Segment tool from the File menu.
| | 06:10 |
And I will align my cursor with that
center point, so by the way, rectangles
| | 06:14 |
and ellipses automatically get center
points inside Illustrator.
| | 06:17 |
I'll go and align my cursor with that
center point and I will begin dragging,
| | 06:22 |
like so, and then I'll press, as I'm
dragging, I'll press the Alt key so that
| | 06:26 |
I'm dragging the line from the center
outward.
| | 06:28 |
That would be the Option key on the Mac.
I'll also press the Shift key, so that I
| | 06:32 |
have a diagonal line, like so.
So I've got both the Shift and Alt keys
| | 06:36 |
down, if you're working on a Mac, you
should have Shift and Option keys down,
| | 06:39 |
and drag your line so it's larger than the
shape, like so.
| | 06:43 |
Now, you can see that the line indeed
appears inside of the shape.
| | 06:46 |
Now, I want it to be a different color, so
I'll go ahead and click on this second
| | 06:50 |
color swatch.
Notice we have one color swatch up here on
| | 06:52 |
the Control Panel that has a slash through
it showing me that there is no fill
| | 06:57 |
associated with this line.
This second one tells me the stroke, the
| | 07:00 |
second swatch right there, so I'll click
on it to bring up the Swatches panel.
| | 07:04 |
And I'll switch to CMYK red in order to
create this effect here.
| | 07:09 |
All right, now, I'll press the Esc key in
order to hide that panel.
| | 07:12 |
Press the V key to switch back to my Black
Arrow tool and click off the shape.
| | 07:15 |
And just make sure that everything's back
to normal.
| | 07:18 |
I'll click on the Draw Normal icon down
here at the bottom of the toolbox.
| | 07:23 |
And now you know how to draw any old
rectangle or rounded rectangle inside Illustrator.
| | 07:28 |
In the next exercise, I'll show you yet
another method for aligning these shapes
| | 07:33 |
into place.
| | 07:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Aligning to a "split location"| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'm going to show you how
to align the center of a shape to an
| | 00:04 |
unspecified location.
This is a very helpful trick, the kind of
| | 00:09 |
thing you do all the time inside of
Illustrator.
| | 00:11 |
But to correctly understand what I'm
talking about, I need to set things up a
| | 00:14 |
little bit.
I've saved my progress as Two rounded rectangles.ai.
| | 00:17 |
I'm zoomed in on the left side of these
ellipses.
| | 00:19 |
And using my black arrow tool, I'm going
to partially marquis these ellipses.
| | 00:27 |
So then I select just the ellipses and
nothing more.
| | 00:30 |
Notice this anchor point right there,
which is the leftmost anchor point in the
| | 00:35 |
largest ellipse.
And next door here is the leftmost anchor
| | 00:40 |
in the next ellipse inward.
I want to align these rounded rectangles,
| | 00:45 |
the center of these two rectangles at
precisely this location.
| | 00:50 |
So in other words, midway between these
two anchor points.
| | 00:53 |
Problem is, there is nothing identifying
that location.
| | 00:57 |
There is no center point I can assign
there, there is no anchor point, there is
| | 01:01 |
no anything.
There is no automatic alignment function
| | 01:03 |
that's going to make that happen.
So what in the world do you do?
| | 01:06 |
And you can imagine this is the kind of
thing you might want to do a lot.
| | 01:09 |
Well we'll start things off by aligning
the rounded rectangles themselves.
| | 01:14 |
So make sure if you're working along with
me that Smart Guides is turned on here
| | 01:18 |
inside the View menu.
If not go ahead and choose the command.
| | 01:21 |
And then I'm going to click on the path
outline of the smaller of the two rounded rectangles.
| | 01:28 |
I can see the center point.
I'll go ahead and drag the shape, by its
| | 01:31 |
center point, until I see the word center
right there.
| | 01:35 |
And that tells me that I'm aligning to the
center of the larger shape.
| | 01:38 |
So you just want to draw one center point
into the other.
| | 01:41 |
And it's easiest to do when you have Smart
Guides turn on.
| | 01:45 |
As soon as you see the word center there
go ahead and release and you have two
| | 01:48 |
aligned shapes.
Alright, now what you want to do is
| | 01:51 |
partially marquee those two rounded
rectangles so that they're both selected.
| | 01:55 |
They shared a common center point at this
point.
| | 01:57 |
Now comes the tricky part, we want to drag
that center point until we find that point
| | 02:04 |
along the edge.
Seeing all this kind of good, you know,
| | 02:08 |
smart kind of action going on here.
So that indicates to me that I've made it work.
| | 02:11 |
However, just to make sure, I'm going to
partially marquee the ellipsis again.
| | 02:17 |
I can see I'm off, I'm looking for this
point right there.
| | 02:20 |
Alright, so I'll try again.
I know it's just a little higher than
| | 02:23 |
where I am.
So I'll go ahead and marquee the ellipsis
| | 02:25 |
again and drag it up until I get this
intersection.
| | 02:28 |
That looks like it's going to work to me.
So now I'll marquee the ellipses again and
| | 02:32 |
sure enough I got it.
Okay now, I want to go down to this point
| | 02:34 |
so in other words I am going to move the
center to the shapes from this anchor point.
| | 02:38 |
Along the outer ellipse to the this anchor
point along the inner ellipse and I can
| | 02:43 |
see this about yay far down.
Which is very important,this is the way
| | 02:48 |
you work inside the program all the time.
So I'm going to go ahead and marquee these
| | 02:52 |
two shapes, once again, grab the center
point, go about yay down until I get some
| | 02:56 |
sort of intersection information here.
From my Smart Guides to tell me that I'm
| | 03:02 |
probably in the right place.
Looks like that's going to be about right.
| | 03:07 |
So I'll go ahead and release the shapes in
that new location and then I'll marquee
| | 03:10 |
the ellipses again and sure enough, that
looks like a good match.
| | 03:15 |
Alright, now what do you do?
So basically, I told Illustrator to align
| | 03:19 |
the centers to one location and then I
told Illustrator to align the center
| | 03:24 |
points to another location.
And now I want to split the difference exactly.
| | 03:29 |
Here's how, go ahead and partially marquis
the rounded rectangles again to select them.
| | 03:34 |
Basically what's happening here is that
Illustrator is always recording your last transformation.
| | 03:40 |
And I mentioned earlier, the
transformations in Illustrator include
| | 03:43 |
things like scaling and rotating.
But it also includes moving, so any time
| | 03:48 |
you move an object, you're transforming
it.
| | 03:51 |
And that information is tracked by the
black arrow tool.
| | 03:55 |
So, if you want to see the information,
you double-click on the black arrow tool
| | 03:59 |
to bring up the Move dialog box.
Now this dialogue box allows you to
| | 04:02 |
performs any numerical movement you want
to.
| | 04:05 |
However, it also tracks the last movement.
So what its telling me is just that last
| | 04:09 |
time I moved from one anchor point to
another along the ellipses.
| | 04:13 |
I went ahead and moved around at
rectangles 20.8428 points whatever
| | 04:18 |
horizontally, that is to the right and
then vertically 15.8096 points downward.
| | 04:26 |
So any positive value is going to be
either to the right or downward.
| | 04:29 |
Any negative value is going to be either
to the left or upward.
| | 04:33 |
That's just the way it works inside the
program.
| | 04:35 |
So what we want to do to split the
difference, is change each one of these values.
| | 04:40 |
Both the horizontal value and the vertical
value to negative like so.
| | 04:46 |
Then if you turn the preview checkbox you
will see that the rounded rectangle is
| | 04:49 |
jumped back to the previous position.
Here is the trick ,now what you want to do
| | 04:54 |
is that a slash two after the horizontal
value and then add a slash two after the
| | 05:00 |
vertical value.
And you split the exact difference between
| | 05:04 |
those two anchor points.
Then click OK then you have those
| | 05:08 |
rectangles exactly aligned in place.
Alright, one more thing I want to do.
| | 05:13 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on Mac
in order to center my illustration.
| | 05:18 |
i need to take these two shapes and
reflect them on to the other side of the
| | 05:22 |
ellipses and i will show you how to
exactly do that in the next movie
| | 05:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reflecting across an axis| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to flip
selected objects across a guideline.
| | 00:05 |
For example, in this case I've got these
two rounded squares here.
| | 00:09 |
I'm going to go ahead and partially
marquee them with the black arrow tool to
| | 00:12 |
select them.
And what I want to do is both duplicate
| | 00:15 |
and flip them to the other side of the
artwork.
| | 00:18 |
So I want to flip the shapes with respect
to this vertical guideline right there.
| | 00:23 |
Now in the previous chapter I showed you
how to use the Transform panel, in order
| | 00:28 |
to flip objects.
And if I click on the word Transform, and
| | 00:31 |
then click in the fly out menu icon, I
have this Flip Horizontal command.
| | 00:35 |
And by virtue of the fact that I've
selected this right hand point in the
| | 00:39 |
reference hand matrix.
I will go ahead and flip the objects
| | 00:43 |
around the right-hand edge that does not
do any good.
| | 00:46 |
I want to flip them way over to the other
side of artwork.
| | 00:50 |
For that purpose Transform panel is not
going to help you.
| | 00:52 |
So rather than transforming from a panel,
what you want to do instead is transform
| | 00:58 |
using a Dedicated tool.
So I'm going to press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on a
| | 01:02 |
Mac to undo that change.
And just so you have a sense of where this
| | 01:06 |
tool's located, I'm going to switch back
to the single column tool box.
| | 01:10 |
Because more likely than not that's the
way you're working.
| | 01:12 |
Notice down here, I've got this Rotate
Tool.
| | 01:16 |
Well it has this corner marker, which
tells me if i click and hold I will get
| | 01:19 |
fly off menu of other tool.
Including in this case the Reflect Tool
| | 01:23 |
which has a key board shortcut of O.
Which is the most symmetrical letter in
| | 01:27 |
the alphabet that's why Adobe assigned it
as a keyboard shortcut.
| | 01:32 |
Now its all kinds of using tools, you can
Click and Drag the document window, we're
| | 01:36 |
not ready for that however.
That's pretty complicated stuff, instead
| | 01:40 |
we want to work with the dialog box.
So two different ways to bring up the
| | 01:44 |
Reflect dialog box inside Illustrator, one
is to just double-click on the Reflect
| | 01:49 |
Tool icon in the toolbox.
That brings up the Reflect dialog box, and
| | 01:53 |
notice, because the preview checkbox is on
We're seeing a reflected version of the
| | 01:58 |
object inside the illustration.
Again this isn't doing us any good however
| | 02:02 |
because by default you're reflecting
across the center of the selected objects
| | 02:07 |
and that's not what we want at all.
So I'm going to Cancel out of this dialog box.
| | 02:12 |
Now a little bit of an aside here, many of
you probably already know this.
| | 02:15 |
But you can tell whether a command name is
going to bring up a dialog box based on
| | 02:20 |
whether the name is followed by an
ellipses.
| | 02:24 |
By which I mean, if I go up here to the
Select menu and I choose the All command,
| | 02:27 |
then I'm just going to select all of the
artwork inside the illustration.
| | 02:31 |
No questions asked.
However, if I choose Save Selection which
| | 02:35 |
is followed by an ellipses that is a dot,
dot, dot.
| | 02:38 |
That's Illustrator and every other
computer application out there's way of
| | 02:43 |
saying we're striking up a conversation
using a dialogue box.
| | 02:48 |
Same thing happens with the old cursor,
here.
| | 02:51 |
Notice I've got this cross-shaped cursor
associated with the Reflect Tool.
| | 02:55 |
But if I press and hold the Alt key, or
the Option key on the Mac, I get a little
| | 02:59 |
dot, dot, dot next to the cursor.
Which means we're going to have a
| | 03:02 |
conversation via the dialog box.
So, in other words, dot, dot, dot means
| | 03:07 |
dialog box.
No dot, dot, dot means no dialog box.
| | 03:11 |
So press and hold the Alt key or the
Option key on Mac.
| | 03:13 |
And then click on this vertical guideline
any where along the vertical guideline is
| | 03:19 |
fine and that brings out the Reflect
dialog box.
| | 03:22 |
And you can see that by default its
going to flip the shapes to the other side
| | 03:27 |
of the artwork.
Now, then assumes into that Axis is set to Vertical.
| | 03:32 |
Now this is a real head-scratcher for most
people, because we're actually flipping
| | 03:37 |
the object horizontally.
Why does it say Vertical?
| | 03:41 |
If I was to select Horizontal instead,
then you'll see that the shape, which is
| | 03:47 |
now located down here in the bottom of the
illustration.
| | 03:49 |
You can barely see it anymore, we're now
flipping it Vertically to a new location.
| | 03:55 |
We're flipping vertically with respect to
that little target right there, which
| | 03:59 |
indicates the point at which I Alt or
Option click.
| | 04:02 |
The idea is this is the axis, so we're
flipping across and axis.
| | 04:05 |
Do you want to flip across a Horizontal
Axis?
| | 04:08 |
Well no you don't because we're trying to
flip across a vertical guideline.
| | 04:12 |
You want to go ahead and flip across that
vertical guideline by selecting Vertical,
| | 04:16 |
which means you're going to perform a
Horizontal flip across a vertical axis.
| | 04:23 |
Really, you just want to make sure you
have the Preview checkbox turned on.
| | 04:25 |
Very important of course, then you can
play around with these items and see which
| | 04:30 |
one works for you.
But, definitely before you leave and once
| | 04:33 |
you figure out everything's alright, go
ahead and click not on OK because that'll
| | 04:38 |
just flip the actual shapes themselves.
You want to click on Copy in order to flip
| | 04:42 |
a copy of those shapes like so.
Slight problem however, I'm going to go
| | 04:47 |
ahead and zoom in here so you can see what
I am talking about.
| | 04:51 |
Notice that both shapes appear at the
front of the layer and that's not what we want.
| | 04:56 |
We want that rear rounded square to appear
in back of the eclipses, go ahead and grab
| | 04:59 |
your black arrow tool once again.
Click off the shapes to deselect them,
| | 05:04 |
click on that rounder square in order to
select it.
| | 05:07 |
Right click inside the square to bring up
the shortcut menu, choose Arrange and then
| | 05:12 |
choose Sent to Back.
And you'll put the rounder rectangle at
| | 05:16 |
the back of the layer which is exactly
where it belongs.
| | 05:20 |
And that's how you both Copy, and Reflect
objects, across an axis inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:26 |
In the next exercise, we'll begin work on
the arrow.
| | 05:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modifying the constraint axes| 00:00 |
In this movie I'm going to show you how to
work with one of the oldest and least know
| | 00:05 |
features in all of Illustrator.
And that's the Constraint Axis, which
| | 00:09 |
allows you to set up an object, a selector
object in particular at a specific angle.
| | 00:14 |
I'm going to go ahead and zoom out.
You may recall, if you followed along with
| | 00:19 |
me in the previous chapter.
How we set up this arrow and feather
| | 00:23 |
coming into the heart.
I am going to go ahead and click on with
| | 00:26 |
the black arrow tool to select that entire
group.
| | 00:29 |
I'll go up to the Transform panel by
clicking the word Transform up here in the
| | 00:32 |
Control Panel.
And I've gone ahead and selected the
| | 00:36 |
bottom right reference point which is what
we wanted here.
| | 00:39 |
And I'm going to change the rotate value
to 30 degrees and press the Tab key.
| | 00:43 |
And I'm doing this because this is how we
drew the arrow and the feathers in the
| | 00:47 |
first place.
This way we could flip across the
| | 00:50 |
horizontal axis to create the feathers.
We could ensure that every single one of
| | 00:54 |
these feather lines is exactly 45 degrees
and so forth.
| | 00:57 |
And then, once we had done that, we went
back here to the Transform panel, selected
| | 01:04 |
the middle right reference point, very
important.
| | 01:06 |
And changed the rotate value there to
negative 30 degrees, so I want you to
| | 01:10 |
remember that, and then I'll press the
Enter key.
| | 01:14 |
This time what I want to do, instead of
having to create this arrow head perfectly
| | 01:19 |
horizontally and then rotated into place.
I want to create it rotated in the first place.
| | 01:25 |
And, you can do that by rotating the
entire constraint axis.
| | 01:29 |
Imagine here, if I were to drag this
selection around here.
| | 01:33 |
If I press the Shift key while I drag
down, then I'm performing a perfectly
| | 01:38 |
vertical drag.
If I drag to the left, still with the
| | 01:42 |
Shift key down, then I'm dragging in a
perfectly horizontal direction.
| | 01:46 |
If I drag down and to the left, again with
the Shift key pressed, then I'm dragging diagonally.
| | 01:52 |
So in other words, as long as you have the
Shift key down, you're dragging in a
| | 01:55 |
direction that is a multiple of 45
degrees.
| | 01:58 |
All right, I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z
or Cmd+Z on the Mac to undo that change.
| | 02:02 |
Imagine if the 45 degrees was not absolute
but relative to the angle of the entire
| | 02:09 |
constrained axis.
What we're going to do is, we're going to
| | 02:12 |
take this shaft right here.
We're going to duplicate it in order to
| | 02:16 |
create the rest of the arrow.
In order to select the shaft independently
| | 02:21 |
of the feathers, easiest thing to do is go
ahead and twirl open the tattoo layer there.
| | 02:26 |
And then I will twirl open the arrow
group, a very top path if I go ahead and
| | 02:31 |
meatball it.
That should show me the shafts selected by
| | 02:34 |
itself, which indeed it does.
Now I'll go up to the Edit menu, and I'll
| | 02:39 |
choose the Copy command, or you can press
Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on the Mac.
| | 02:43 |
Now let's go ahead and collapse that
layer, by clicking its triangle.
| | 02:47 |
Click on the drawing layer to make it
active, and then go up to the Edit menu
| | 02:51 |
and choose the standard Paste command,
Ctrl+V or Cmd+V on the Mac.
| | 02:54 |
And that just goes ahead and plops that
line into any old location.
| | 02:58 |
I'm going to drag it over a little.
Notice that I can select through objects.
| | 03:02 |
As long as an object is selected here
inside of Illustrator, then it will remain
| | 03:07 |
selected as you drag around.
The forward objects don't get in the way,
| | 03:12 |
as long as the object was selected in the
first place.
| | 03:15 |
Now I want to go ahead and move this
object so it's in perfect alignment with
| | 03:20 |
the original shaft.
So one portion of this shaft is going in,
| | 03:24 |
the other portion's coming out in the
background.
| | 03:26 |
So I'm going to make sure my Smart Guides
are turned on.
| | 03:29 |
They aren't in my case, so I'll go back to
the View menu and choose Smart Guides to
| | 03:33 |
turn them on.
Now go ahead and drag that first point,
| | 03:35 |
and it's very important by the way.
If you're working along with me that you
| | 03:39 |
have the Bounding Box turned off.
And if for some reason you're seeing a
| | 03:43 |
Bounding Box around this line, then go up
to the View menu and choose the Hide
| | 03:48 |
Bounding Box command.
Which will appear at this location.
| | 03:51 |
In any event, most of you should have
turned it off long ago.
| | 03:54 |
Now go ahead and drag this top left anchor
point.
| | 03:58 |
And then as soon as you see that little
intersect symbol, then you know that
| | 04:01 |
you've got things aligned exactly right.
Go ahead and drop the line into place.
| | 04:06 |
And now let's zoom in here.
And what I want to do is, I want to extend
| | 04:11 |
this shaft farther into the arrowhead.
Just to make sure that there's no chance
| | 04:15 |
that we have a gap at this location.
So I'll go ahead and grab my white arrow
| | 04:19 |
tool which I can get by pressing the A
key.
| | 04:21 |
I'll click off the line to deselect it.
And then I'll click on that anchor point
| | 04:25 |
to select it once again.
I could drag and in my case right now, I
| | 04:30 |
can see that I'm matching the template
layer, because I've Smart Guides turned
| | 04:34 |
on, but that's actually kind of cheating.
I'm going to press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on a
| | 04:40 |
Mac to undo that change.
And I'm going to hide the template for moment.
| | 04:43 |
I'm going to click on the eyeball in front
of the shapes layer, and now I'll start
| | 04:47 |
dragging this anchor point.
And I can, you know, sort of eyeball
| | 04:51 |
things, make sure that I'm dragging in a
good direction.
| | 04:55 |
But I don't really know, and I don't have
any way to absolutely establish a constraint.
| | 05:00 |
Because if I start pressing the Shift key
things are going to get pretty wonky
| | 05:04 |
indeed here.
All right, so this is a long set up to
| | 05:07 |
this really great function.
I'll press Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on a Mac, to undo
| | 05:12 |
that change.
And I'll go up to the Edit menu and choose
| | 05:15 |
the Preferences command.
On a Mac you would go to the Illustrator
| | 05:18 |
menu and choose Preferences and then
choose the very first command in the sub
| | 05:23 |
menu General.
Which has a keyboard shortcut by the way,
| | 05:26 |
which I'd like you to remember.
Because it's going to make your life a lot
| | 05:29 |
easier and that's Ctrl+K on the PC, CmdK
on the Mac.
| | 05:32 |
It is a consistent keyboard shortcut, a
classic creative suite, including
| | 05:36 |
Photoshop, InDesign and more.
Anyway, Ctrl+K or Cmd+K will bring up this
| | 05:41 |
dialog box, and notice the second option
down, Constraint Angle.
| | 05:45 |
We want to change that to the angle that
we rotated the feathers.
| | 05:49 |
And you may recall that was negative 30
degrees.
| | 05:52 |
That's exactly what we want in this case.
So we'll go ahead and enter negative 30
| | 05:55 |
degrees and click OK.
And now notice if I drag this point while
| | 06:01 |
pressing the Shift key that I'm exactly in
line, right where I want to be.
| | 06:06 |
So I'm extending this line in the exact
angle it was originally drawn.
| | 06:11 |
I'll go ahead and extend it about this far
here.
| | 06:13 |
So you want to start dragging the point
and then press the Shift key in order to
| | 06:17 |
constraint the angle of the drag.
And then release your mouse button and
| | 06:20 |
then release the Shift key in order to
constraint that movement.
| | 06:24 |
To a multiple of 45 degrees subject to the
entire Constrain Axis being rotated
| | 06:30 |
negative 30 degrees here inside
illustrator.
| | 06:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Turning a triangle into an arrowhead| 00:00 |
In this movie we're going to draw the
arrowhead using the Polygon Tool.
| | 00:04 |
And you'll see how the rotated Constrain
Axis really comes to my rescue.
| | 00:08 |
I've saved my progress as Extended arrow
line.ai.
| | 00:12 |
And we'll start things off by selecting
the Polygon Tool.
| | 00:15 |
Which is fourth in either the fly out menu
list or here in my little Shape Tool panel.
| | 00:21 |
And just so that we don't have a lot of
guides appearing on screen, I'm going to
| | 00:25 |
press Ctrl+U or Cmd+U on the Mac to turn
off the Smart Guides.
| | 00:30 |
I'll start by showing you how this tool
works, it's a lot like the Star Tool, by
| | 00:33 |
the way.
You draw shapes from the center outward as
| | 00:36 |
I'm doing here.
And you can press the Shift key in order
| | 00:41 |
to constrain the angle of the shape.
You can press the Spacebar in order to
| | 00:45 |
move the shape on the fly.
I'll go ahead and release both those keys
| | 00:48 |
for a moment.
You can press the up arrow key in order to
| | 00:51 |
increase the number of sides.
And you can press the down arrow key to
| | 00:56 |
reduce the number of sides, all the way
down to a triangle.
| | 00:59 |
And that's actually what I want, but I
want a triangle of a very specific size.
| | 01:04 |
So I'll go ahead and press the Backspace
key or the Delete key on a Mac to get rid
| | 01:08 |
of the current one.
And I'll just click with the tool in order
| | 01:11 |
to bring up the Polygon dialog box.
I'll change the radius to 50 points and
| | 01:16 |
I'll leave the sides value set to three
which after all, represents the number of
| | 01:20 |
sides associated with the last shape I
drew.
| | 01:23 |
Then I'll click OK.
And I end up with this upright equilateral triangle.
| | 01:28 |
Now I'm going to go ahead and press the V
key to switch to the black arrow tool.
| | 01:33 |
Then I'll drag the shape over a little
bit.
| | 01:35 |
I want my triangle to be filled with black
and have no stroke.
| | 01:39 |
So, the first thing I'm going to do, is
drop down to this little swap icon here.
| | 01:44 |
Notice it says Swap, Fill, and Stroke.
And it has a keyboard shortcut of Shift+X
| | 01:48 |
for exchange.
So I'm going to go ahead and click on that
| | 01:51 |
icon in order to swap my fill and stroke
colors.
| | 01:53 |
But I don't want to stroke, so I'll click
on that second swatch up here in the
| | 01:58 |
Control Panel, and I'll change it from
White to None.
| | 02:01 |
And now we have a filter angle with no
stroke whatsoever.
| | 02:05 |
All right, so this triangle happens to go
at exactly the right direction.
| | 02:11 |
So imagine this, imagine this top point
here, that's the point of the arrow.
| | 02:14 |
And we want to rotate that point down so
it matches the angle of the line.
| | 02:19 |
Well we would start by rotating it,
negative 90 degrees, which would be 90
| | 02:24 |
degrees to the right here.
And then, we would rotate it another
| | 02:27 |
negative 30 degrees, for a total of
negative 120 degrees?
| | 02:32 |
I hate to get too mathematical on you, but
these points are already 120 away from
| | 02:38 |
each other.
Because you divide a circle, which is 360
| | 02:41 |
degrees, by three and you get 120.
So the dawn of things already set up
| | 02:46 |
exactly the way we want it to be.
The only problem is we need a point right
| | 02:50 |
here in the center of this line with which
to align the arrow head with the end point
| | 02:58 |
of this shaft here.
And we can create a point in any place
| | 03:01 |
along the line, but to ensure that its
going to be right there in the center.
| | 03:05 |
The best command available to us is under
the Object menu, go ahead and click on
| | 03:09 |
Object then click on Path and then you
choose this guy Add Anchor Points.
| | 03:14 |
Which adds new anchor points at 50%
positions along each one of the segments.
| | 03:20 |
Alright, now I am going to turn my Smart
Guides back on by pressing Ctrl+U U or
| | 03:25 |
Cmd+U on the Mac.
And I'll drag by this anchor point right
| | 03:29 |
there, thus the entire shape is selected.
So I can drag by that anchor point until
| | 03:33 |
it snaps into alignment with this anchor
point, and I'll actually see a snap cursor.
| | 03:38 |
A whole snap cursor to tell me if I got
things exactly where I want them to be.
| | 03:43 |
Alright, now I want to turn my template
back on, so I see what i am doing.
| | 03:46 |
So I will go ahead and turn on the eyeball
from the Shapes layer.
| | 03:49 |
Again I can see him drawing wrong layer
again, I'm drawing on the tattoo layer.
| | 03:53 |
So, I will go ahead and drag that little
green square down into the drawing layer.
| | 03:58 |
So that I am working on layer I am looking
for.
| | 04:00 |
Now I can go go ahead and drag this arrow
head in place, while pressing the Shift
| | 04:06 |
key so that I'm aligning the new arrow
with the arrowhead here in the template.
| | 04:11 |
So, I actually want this guy to be all the
way forward.
| | 04:14 |
I'll drag him by his nose while pressing
the Shift key until I'm covering things up.
| | 04:18 |
And again by virtue of the fact that I
have a rotated Constraint Axis I get
| | 04:23 |
everything exactly where I want it to be.
Alright now, I need to get rid of these
| | 04:29 |
two anchor points right here, because
they're just going to mess things up.
| | 04:32 |
I could select an anchor point with the
white arrow tool and just press Backspace
| | 04:36 |
or Delete but that will leave a hole in
the path.
| | 04:39 |
If you want to delete an anchor point
without leaving a whole you'll use the Pen Tool.
| | 04:43 |
And we'll get the the Pen more in a later
chapter, but for now just go ahead and
| | 04:48 |
select the Pen, which you can get by
pressing the P key.
| | 04:51 |
And now hover over one of those anchor
points and you should see the Pen nib with
| | 04:56 |
a little minus sign next to it.
And that tells you as soon as you click
| | 05:00 |
you're going to delete that anchor point
without creating a break in the path outline.
| | 05:04 |
Now hover the Pen cursor over the other
anchor point and click and you'll get rid
| | 05:09 |
of it as well.
Alright, I'm going to switch back to my
| | 05:12 |
white arrow tool.
And I tell you what I starting to get a
| | 05:15 |
little sick of the smart guides again, so
I'm going to press Ctrl+U.
| | 05:19 |
Or Cmd+U on the Mac, to turn 'em off, so
that keyboard shortcut can be very handy.
| | 05:24 |
Now, I'm going to drag this point right
here, independently of the others, while
| | 05:28 |
pressing the Shift key until I get more or
less into place.
| | 05:32 |
And then I'll grab both this point, I'll
click on this point and then I'll
| | 05:36 |
Shift+Click on this point.
So only these two outer points should be selected.
| | 05:42 |
And I'll drag them while pressing the
Shift key until I move them into about
| | 05:48 |
this location here.
And this looks pretty darn good.
| | 05:51 |
So by virtue of the fact that I have the
rotated Constraint Axis and I'm pressing
| | 05:55 |
the Shift key.
I'm ensuring that I'm moving these points
| | 05:58 |
to the exact positions I'm looking for.
Alright so we don't need that template
| | 06:02 |
layer anymore.
So I'm going to turn off the Shapes layer,
| | 06:05 |
just so I'm not seeing any clutter in the
background.
| | 06:08 |
And the last thing I want to do is create
a kind of two toned arrowhead that's red
| | 06:13 |
on top and then black on the bottom.
So I'm going to click off of the path L,
| | 06:17 |
I'm going to deselect it.
And then, I'm still using the white arrow
| | 06:20 |
tool, I'll go ahead click on this topmost
point right there.
| | 06:25 |
Then I'll go up to the Edit menu and I'll
choose the Copy command.
| | 06:28 |
When you have a single anchor point
selected in Illustrator and you choose
| | 06:32 |
copy or press Ctrl+C, or Cmd+C on the Mac.
You copy not only the point but also the
| | 06:37 |
two segments next to it.
Now I'll go back up to the Edit menu and
| | 06:42 |
choose Paste in Front or press Ctrl+F or
Cmd+F on the Mac.
| | 06:47 |
And notice that goes ahead and Pastes a
two segment triangle right there.
| | 06:52 |
So, we don't have any line in between.
We can still fill that open path outline
| | 06:57 |
however, by going up to the very first
swatch here in the Control Panel, clicking
| | 07:01 |
on it and switching to CMYK red.
And we end up with this final effect here.
| | 07:07 |
Alright I'm going to click off the path
outline to Deselect it.
| | 07:10 |
Also go ahead and click on this X here to
Close that little Shape Tools panel and
| | 07:14 |
I'll press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on a Mac in
order to Zoom Out.
| | 07:18 |
And I'll even right click inside the
Document window and choose Hide Guides, so
| | 07:22 |
that we can focus on the artwork.
Now there's one last thing you should do
| | 07:27 |
and this is very important.
Notice if I were to say, grab the
| | 07:31 |
Rectangle Tool and start dragging inside
of the Document window.
| | 07:37 |
I might be a little surprised to see that
that rectangle's automatically rotated to
| | 07:42 |
negative 30 degrees.
The same holds for drawing with the
| | 07:45 |
rounded rectangle or Ellipse Tool.
And it also applies to creating text and a
| | 07:50 |
few other things inside Illustrator.
So, once you're done working with the
| | 07:54 |
rotated Constrained Axis, very important,
I'll go ahead and Backspace or Delete that rectangle.
| | 07:59 |
You want to press Ctrl+K or Cmd+K on a Mac
to bring up the preferences dialogue box.
| | 08:05 |
Tab to the Constrain Angle option, change
it to 0 degrees so everything's reset and
| | 08:10 |
then click OK.
Because that is a global setting that will
| | 08:14 |
apply to all of your documents.
And that, friends, is how you create a
| | 08:19 |
fairly complicated piece of artwork using
some of the simplest functions inside of Illustrator.
| | 08:26 |
The Geometric Shape Tools.
| | 08:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Flare tool| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll show you how to use the
last tool in the Shape Tool Flyout menu,
| | 00:04 |
which is the Flare Tool.
Technically speaking it's not a Shape
| | 00:09 |
Tool, because it doesn't allow you to
create a shape.
| | 00:11 |
Instead it allows you to create an
elaborate lens flare effect like the one
| | 00:15 |
that you're seeing on the screen right
now.
| | 00:17 |
Now, on the plus side, the Flare Tool
results in a dynamic flare object that you
| | 00:22 |
could edit any time you like.
Either by dragging inside the document
| | 00:26 |
window, or by adjusting some numerical
values.
| | 00:29 |
On the minus side, it produces kind of a
gimmicky effect, so I'm not sure how often
| | 00:33 |
you'll use it.
You'll have to judge that for yourself.
| | 00:36 |
I'm going to switch over to this document
called Flare me.ai, very simple file.
| | 00:42 |
If I twirl all open the night layer here
inside the layers panel, you can see that
| | 00:45 |
all we have is a black rectangle in the
background.
| | 00:48 |
And a white star shape, and that's it.
And I will tell you that the Flare Tool
| | 00:52 |
works best against dark backgrounds just
like this.
| | 00:56 |
To get to the tool, you click and hold on
the last Shape tool that you used.
| | 01:00 |
In my case it's the Polygon Tool.
And then you go ahead and select the final
| | 01:04 |
tool on the list, which of course is the
flair tool.
| | 01:07 |
Here's how you use the tool.
I'm going to start by dragging from the
| | 01:11 |
center of the star outward like so.
And you'll see two things where this
| | 01:16 |
preview is concerned.
You'll see all these lines coming outward,
| | 01:20 |
and those are the rays.
And then we have these two concentric circles.
| | 01:24 |
Which represent the size of the halo.
Now you can modify the behavior of this
| | 01:29 |
tool on the fly by pressing a few keys.
First of all you can press the Shift key
| | 01:34 |
and that'll go ahead and lock the rays
down so that their angle doesn't change.
| | 01:38 |
You can also press the Spacebar in order
to relocate the effects.
| | 01:42 |
So, right now I have both the Shift and
Spacebar keys down.
| | 01:45 |
If I were to release the Shift key as I
dragged the effect to a different
| | 01:49 |
location, so I still have the space bar
down.
| | 01:51 |
Why then, the angle of the rays is
going to change on you.
| | 01:55 |
If you want to change the number of rays
then you press the Up Arrow key.
| | 01:58 |
You can also hold the Up Arrow key down if
you like in order to add more rays more quickly.
| | 02:04 |
If you want to reduce the number of rays
you press the Down Arrow key, and again
| | 02:08 |
you can press and hold that key if you
like.
| | 02:10 |
To change the size of the halo, you press
and hold the Ctrl key, or the Cmd key on a Mac.
| | 02:17 |
With that key down if you drag outward,
you're going to increase the size of the
| | 02:20 |
halo, if you drag inward, you're going to
decrease the size of the halo.
| | 02:23 |
And again throughout pressing all of these
keys I have the mouse button down.
| | 02:29 |
So when you get an effect that you think
you like, don't stress over it too much
| | 02:33 |
because you can change everything about
this effect.
| | 02:36 |
Just go ahead and release and you'll end
up seeing what the effect looks like.
| | 02:42 |
It's hard to tell what's going on when we
have all of these anchor points and these segments.
| | 02:46 |
But you can hide all that selection stuff
if you like.
| | 02:49 |
By going up to the view menu and choosing
the Hide Edges command.
| | 02:52 |
Which has a keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+H or
Cmd+H on the Mac.
| | 02:57 |
So I'll go ahead and choose that command.
And you can see all the selection stuff
| | 03:01 |
disappears, which gives us a clearer idea
of what the effect looks like.
| | 03:05 |
Notice over here in the Layers panel that
this Flare object is still selected
| | 03:08 |
because its meatball is highlighted.
We have a little selection square next door.
| | 03:13 |
So again, we're just hiding the selection
interface.
| | 03:16 |
We're not deselecting the object.
At this point, we have all these halos and
| | 03:22 |
rays coming off of the star.
But we don't have the actual lens flare,
| | 03:27 |
that is, the rings of light that are
bouncing inside the camera lens.
| | 03:31 |
To position those you just go ahead and
click some place inside the document
| | 03:36 |
window, while the object is still
selected.
| | 03:39 |
Now, after you've drawn the object, and I
stress once again, the object remains selected.
| | 03:44 |
If you wanted to see the selection edges
you could just press Ctrl+H, or Cmd+H once again.
| | 03:49 |
I'm going to press that keyboard shortcut
to make those edges disappear.
| | 03:53 |
You may now modify this object by dragging
in one of two places with the Flare Tool.
| | 03:59 |
If you look very closely at my cursor, it
appears as a cross with some dots coming
| | 04:04 |
off of it.
If I move over to the end of the Flare
| | 04:07 |
Effect right there you can see tiny little
arrows at the outside of the cross.
| | 04:13 |
And that tells you ,you can actually drag
the end of the effect to a new location.
| | 04:18 |
So I'll go ahead and do so.
You may also drag the beginning of the
| | 04:22 |
effect so once once you see this little
arose dragging the effect like so.
| | 04:26 |
And you will modify the point from where
the flare effect emanate.
| | 04:30 |
Anyway, I am going to go ahead and place
that point inside the sour.
| | 04:34 |
If you want to enter your flare effect by
the numbers then double-click on the Flare
| | 04:40 |
Tool icon, here inside the toolbox .
And that will bring up this big
| | 04:43 |
complicated Flare Tool Options dialog box.
Now I am not going to walk you through
| | 04:48 |
what everything means, but I will tell you
the center options affect the central
| | 04:53 |
portion of the effect.
The halo affects that region around there,
| | 04:58 |
that main ring around the effect.
Then, the rays, of course, are the rays of
| | 05:03 |
light emanating from the effect.
You can turn those off, by the way, if you
| | 05:06 |
don't want to have any rays.
Then turn on the Preview checkbox, so you
| | 05:09 |
can see what kind of different it's
going to make.
| | 05:12 |
This preview isn't necessarily 100%
accurate, I'm just warning you, sometimes
| | 05:16 |
when you click Ok, you'll see a different
effect.
| | 05:18 |
But it will give you some sense of what's
going on.
| | 05:20 |
I'm going to turn those rays back on, you
can see that I can change the number of
| | 05:25 |
rays if I want to.
And then I will see those rays added out
| | 05:29 |
here inside the illustration.
You also have the option of turning off
| | 05:32 |
the Rings, which are those bits of
reflective light that are going into the
| | 05:36 |
camera lens, or you can turn them back on.
At least that gives you a sense of what
| | 05:41 |
ring even means, where a flare object is
concerned.
| | 05:45 |
I can also change the number of rings if I
like, by clicking inside this number value.
| | 05:50 |
And pressing in this case, the Up Arrow
key in order to raise that value.
| | 05:54 |
Once you get something you think you might
like, then just go ahead and click the OK
| | 05:57 |
key in order to accept that modification.
It doesn't end up coming out exactly the
| | 06:02 |
way you want it to.
Again, you can drag the end of that
| | 06:05 |
effect, you can drag the beginning of the
effect and so forth.
| | 06:09 |
You just want to be careful that you're
seeing the right cursor.
| | 06:12 |
Because otherwise if you drag with the
tool, then you're going to create a new
| | 06:17 |
Flare object.
And that folks for better or for worse is
| | 06:21 |
how the Flare Tool works inside
Illustrator.
| | 06:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The top-secret tilde key trick| 00:00 |
I'm going to wrap things up by showing you
what might be the wackiest trick in all of Illustrator.
| | 00:05 |
Essentially, by pressing a key you can
repeat an object as you draw it.
| | 00:12 |
And you may find it useful, maybe not.
Let me show you how it works.
| | 00:15 |
And I'm going to go ahead and zoom out, so
that we have plenty of room to work.
| | 00:19 |
And I'm going to switch to the Line Tool
now this trick works with any of the line
| | 00:22 |
or Shape Tools.
We'll start with the line tool and I'm
| | 00:26 |
also going to change the Fill and Stroke
attributes.
| | 00:29 |
So, I'll click on the Stroke swatch up
here in the Control Panel and change it to
| | 00:33 |
White and then I'll click on the Fill
swatch and I'll change it to None.
| | 00:39 |
So that we're just drawing a bunch of
white lines.
| | 00:41 |
So now if I were to draw from the center
of the star outwards you can see that I
| | 00:46 |
create a line.
And of course, as I drag back and forth
| | 00:50 |
I'm changing the angle and length of the
line.
| | 00:52 |
But if I press and hold the Tilde key,
once again, on an American keyboard that's
| | 00:57 |
the key below the Escape key, above the
Tab key in upper left corner.
| | 01:02 |
Then as I drag I'll go ahead and create
multiple repetitions of that line.
| | 01:08 |
So we have all these lines coming out from
the star.
| | 01:11 |
And then presumably I wouldn't them to be
that opaque.
| | 01:15 |
So I'd go ahead and reduce the Opacity
value up here in the Control Panel to
| | 01:19 |
something like, let's say, 20%.
Press the Enter key or the Return key in
| | 01:23 |
the Mac, in order to create that pretty
interesting effect right there.
| | 01:28 |
To reduce a little bit of clutter, notice
over here if I twirl open the night layer
| | 01:33 |
here inside the layers panel.
I've got just tons and tons of paths now
| | 01:37 |
that I drew in one fell swoop.
To reduce the clutter, I'll go up to the
| | 01:41 |
Object menu and choose the Group command,
or I can press Ctrl+G, or Cmd+G on a Mac.
| | 01:46 |
And then I have one group of these lines.
And I'll just go ahead and rename this guy
| | 01:49 |
lines, and press the Enter key, or the
Return key on the Mac.
| | 01:53 |
You can also try your hand at this effect
using a Shape Tool.
| | 01:56 |
So notice I've gone ahead and reset the
Shape Tool to the Rectangle Tool.
| | 02:00 |
I'll click and hold on it and, let's say
I'll choose the Star Tool.
| | 02:04 |
And in my case the Star Tool is still set
up to create an eight-pointed star that is
| | 02:09 |
every bit as pointy as the star I already
have here.
| | 02:12 |
So I'll go ahead and kind of move it into
alignment, just so that we're starting
| | 02:16 |
from a good location.
And if I were to now release the Spacebar,
| | 02:21 |
and press and hold the Tilde key and drag,
then I would get this sequence of stars
| | 02:26 |
like so.
Perhaps it would be more effective if I
| | 02:29 |
had more stars, so I'll go ahead and Undo
that by pressing Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on the Mac.
| | 02:34 |
Back out a little bit by pressing Ctrl+-,
or Cmd+- on a Mac, and let's try to get
| | 02:39 |
this guy more or less into alignment,
which is a little hard this far away.
| | 02:43 |
But this should be good enough.
And then I'll press and hold that Tilde
| | 02:45 |
key and drag very quickly at first and
then all over the place.
| | 02:49 |
I've invoked this huge autoscroll.
So I'll press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on the Mac
| | 02:54 |
to center my view.
And I'll once again reduce the Opacity
| | 02:57 |
value to 20%.
And I'll press Ctrl+G, or Cmd+G on the Mac
| | 03:02 |
in order to group those stars together.
I'll even call them stars.
| | 03:06 |
And then press the Enter key, Return key
on the Mac.
| | 03:09 |
And we end up with this amazing effect
here now.
| | 03:13 |
Bear in mind, that, we're not seeing the
selection edges in my case because I
| | 03:17 |
pressed Ctrl+H or Cmd+H in the previous
movie.
| | 03:20 |
If I press that shortcut again, then I
will see the selection edges.
| | 03:25 |
And the reason this becomes important is
because hiding or showing the selection
| | 03:29 |
edges is persistent.
In other words, Illustrator goes ahead and
| | 03:33 |
keeps those selection edges hidden or
shown until the next time you change your mind.
| | 03:39 |
Anyway, I'm going to go up to the Select
menu and choose the Deselect command.
| | 03:42 |
Which notice has a keyboard shortcut of
Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shift+A on a Mac and
| | 03:48 |
that is my final effect.
I can't say it's necessarily the best
| | 03:52 |
illustration I've ever created, but I'm
not sure I'd go so far as to say it's the worst.
| | 03:56 |
So you decide but do bear in mind, if you
want to be able to draw many, many paths,
| | 04:01 |
anywhere from hundreds of thousands of
stars or lines or what have you.
| | 04:06 |
In a single operation.
Then just press the Tilde key, as you draw.
| | 04:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Tracing an ImageAutotracing in Illustrator| 00:00 |
Illustrator offers an automatic tracing
feature.
| | 00:03 |
Among other things, it can trace and line
art, meaning that you can draw an image
| | 00:08 |
using traditional tools, like a pen and a
piece of paper, for example, and then scan
| | 00:14 |
the image and turn it into an automatic
vector drawing in Illustrator.
| | 00:19 |
In this chapter, we'll take a half
butterfly, that I drew using a sharpie.
| | 00:24 |
And then we'll trace it in Illustrator,
clean it up, and then flip it, color it,
| | 00:28 |
and scale it to eight feet wide by six
feet tall.
| | 00:33 |
The final result looks great in a way that
your original image would have never
| | 00:38 |
looked had you scaled it optically.
Or with the help of, say, Photoshop.
| | 00:42 |
Here, let me show you exactly how it
works.
| | 00:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Open an image to embed it| 00:00 |
Now there's two ways to bring a
pixel-based image file into Illustrator.
| | 00:04 |
One is to just open the image using the
Open command.
| | 00:07 |
And the other is to place the image using
the Place command.
| | 00:11 |
And both commands are available under the
File menu, incidentally.
| | 00:15 |
Now placing is generally preferable, and
I'll show you why, but I want you to
| | 00:18 |
understand how both operations work.
Now I'm starting here in Photoshop, you
| | 00:23 |
don't have to not even if you're working
along with me.
| | 00:25 |
I'm just doing this so you can see the
piece of scanned line art that we're going
| | 00:28 |
to be working with here.
But this could just as easy be a logo or
| | 00:32 |
anything else you can scan or photograph
and bring into Photoshop for example.
| | 00:37 |
Now what I did was I drew this half a
butterfly using a sharpie and I did so on
| | 00:43 |
a piece of standard bond paper that I took
out of the printer.
| | 00:46 |
So nothing special going on here, and only
do half a butterfly because we're going to
| | 00:51 |
turn it into a full butterfly before this
chapter is out inside the Illustrator.
| | 00:56 |
I am going to press Ctrl+1 or Cmd+1 on the
Mac to zoom into the 100% view size.
| | 01:01 |
At this size we see one image pixel for
every screen pixel, so it's a very
| | 01:05 |
accurate view.
And I want you to notice in addition to
| | 01:08 |
the actual Sharpie lines, I've got all of
this junk going on here, what I call schnivels.
| | 01:14 |
And that could be dust, it could be
scratches, it could be hair, it could be
| | 01:18 |
guk on the surface of the scanner.
It could be noise, paper texture and so forth.
| | 01:24 |
You can get rid of this kind of
artifacting, as we also call it, inside of
| | 01:29 |
Photoshop before you bring the file into
Illustrator.
| | 01:32 |
So you could clean it up first.
But you don't necessarily have to, because
| | 01:36 |
Illustrator's tracing engine is so
sophisticated, it can deal with all this garbage.
| | 01:40 |
Alright, I'm going to switch over to
Illustrator then I'll go up to the File
| | 01:44 |
menu and choose the Open command.
And if you're working along with you can
| | 01:49 |
go to the 0 six trace folder, in which
among other files, including more files
| | 01:54 |
than you see here.
You'll see one called Half butterfly.tif
| | 01:58 |
And that is the image file.
Just go ahead and open it on up.
| | 02:01 |
And there we have it, that's all there is
to it.
| | 02:04 |
But, there's a caveat.
I'll go ahead and click on this image
| | 02:08 |
using my black arrow tool.
So, it's an independent object.
| | 02:10 |
I can drag it to a different location here
on the artboard.
| | 02:13 |
And Illustrator handling makes the
artboard exactly the same size as the
| | 02:17 |
image, as you can see.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or
| | 02:20 |
Cmd+Z on a Mac to Undo that move.
I want you to notice up here in the
| | 02:24 |
Control Panel the word Embedded and if I
hover over that word it says, No file
| | 02:29 |
associated with this image.
What in the world does that mean?
| | 02:33 |
Obviously there was a file because we just
got done opening it.
| | 02:37 |
Well, the two vocabulary words to be aware
of here are embed versus link.
| | 02:43 |
So, when you embed an image you actually
place the entirety of the image file into
| | 02:49 |
the illustration, into the document file.
And that means that you don't have any
| | 02:53 |
stray files, so you don't have to worry
about where the image file is on disk.
| | 02:58 |
However, by the same token, you don't have
any link to it either.
| | 03:01 |
So if you make some modification in the
future to this image inside Photoshop for
| | 03:06 |
example, then you will not see those
modifications reflected inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:11 |
So this is a static image file that lives
in Illustrator only, now that we opened it.
| | 03:17 |
The other thing to bear in mind is that
it's going to result in a bigger file when
| | 03:22 |
you go up to the File menu and choose Save
As.
| | 03:26 |
And that's because Illustrator's not
terribly adept at dealing with pixels.
| | 03:30 |
It's not nearly so efficient as it is when
dealing with vectors.
| | 03:34 |
So, again, you're going to end up with a
bigger file on disk.
| | 03:37 |
Which is why to my way of thinking, even
though this is a very simple operation,
| | 03:41 |
you're better off placing the image file
into a new document.
| | 03:45 |
And I'll show you exactly how that works
in the next movie.
| | 03:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Place an image to create a dynamic link| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to place
an image file into Illustrator in order to
| | 00:04 |
create a dynamic link to the image file on
disk.
| | 00:08 |
Just for the sake of comparison.
And if you already have an Illustrator
| | 00:11 |
document in progress, then you can place
an image into that document.
| | 00:16 |
I don't, however, I need to create a new
document.
| | 00:18 |
So, I'll go up to the file menu, and
choose the new command.
| | 00:22 |
And I'll go ahead and call this document
Butterfly.
| | 00:25 |
I have a specific document size in mind,
and just for the sake of simplicity here,
| | 00:30 |
I'm going to switch my units from points
to inches.
| | 00:33 |
And then, I'll dial in a width value of
9.5 inches and a height value of seven inches.
| | 00:40 |
And then I'll go ahead and click OK in
order to create that new document.
| | 00:44 |
The next step is to go up to the File menu
and choose the Place command.
| | 00:49 |
And if you're working along with me,
navigate your way to the 06 Trace folder
| | 00:52 |
and locate that image file,
halfbutterfly.tiff and then go ahead and
| | 00:56 |
click the Place button in order to add the
image to the new document.
| | 01:00 |
Now, notice that one advantage to this
approach, is that my artboard isn't
| | 01:05 |
exactly the same size as the image.
And I want a larger artboard after all,
| | 01:09 |
because, in the end, I'm going to be
turning this half butterfly into a full butterfly.
| | 01:14 |
But of course, were I working inside of
the image file that I opened, I could
| | 01:18 |
always resize the artboard.
So it's not a big advantage there.
| | 01:22 |
The advantage that is the big advantage,
if I switch back to my documented progress
| | 01:27 |
is indicated up here in the Control Panel.
Notice I see the words Half butterfly.tff.
| | 01:32 |
If I go ahead and hover over that file
name, I see the entire path to the image
| | 01:36 |
file, once again on disk.
Showing me that I have a dynamic link, so
| | 01:41 |
that if I make any changes to this images,
I say, Photoshop, those changes will be
| | 01:46 |
represented immediately here inside
Illustrator.
| | 01:50 |
Also, notice if you click on this file
name, which is itself a hot link that
| | 01:54 |
brings up a menu.
I have a few options to choose from, I can
| | 01:58 |
re-link to other image.
I can do that with an embedded image by
| | 02:01 |
the way.
I could go to the link, which would be
| | 02:03 |
useful if I were working with a bunch of
artboards and I wasn't sure where this
| | 02:08 |
image file was located.
I could update the link.
| | 02:11 |
Meaning, I could update the document to
represent any changes made to the image.
| | 02:15 |
However, that is something that happens
automatically in Illustrator.
| | 02:19 |
I could access the link information.
So, if I choose this final command here.
| | 02:23 |
Notice I can see the Dates when the image
was created and modified.
| | 02:26 |
I can see the location of the file, albeit
truncated in this case.
| | 02:30 |
I can see the Size of the file on disk,
and so forth.
| | 02:33 |
I'll go ahead and click OK to dismiss this
dialogue box.
| | 02:37 |
Here's potentially the best option.
I'll go ahead and click on the file name
| | 02:40 |
once again.
If I choose edit original, I'll go ahead
| | 02:43 |
and open that image file inside of
Photoshop.
| | 02:46 |
So again, I can make any modifications I
want here.
| | 02:49 |
And those changes, were I to save the
modifications, would be represented
| | 02:54 |
immediately inside of the Illustrator
document.
| | 02:58 |
Another advantage, I should mention, is
that you're going to end up with smaller
| | 03:01 |
document sizes.
So, if I go ahead and switch back to
| | 03:05 |
Illustrator here, and I were to go up to
the File menu, and choose the Save
| | 03:09 |
command, that document that I create is
going to be, in the case of this
| | 03:15 |
demonstration, about a megabyte smaller
than the embedded image.ai file.
| | 03:20 |
So this file, Embedded image.ai is about
three megabytes on disk.
| | 03:25 |
So, it's not enormous but it's still 50%
bigger than the file with the link in it,
| | 03:29 |
which will only be two megabytes, once I
get done saving.
| | 03:32 |
So, if you want to embed the image into
your document, use the Open command.
| | 03:37 |
If you want to create a dynamic link to
the image file on disk.
| | 03:40 |
Use the Place command, to import your
pixel based images.
| | 03:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Autotracing and resolution| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
automatically trace an image inside Illustrator.
| | 00:04 |
And we'll also see the significant impact
of resolution on the quality of the final
| | 00:10 |
traced artwork.
And by the way, what I'm about to show you
| | 00:14 |
works just the same, whether you embedded
the image using the Open command.
| | 00:18 |
Or you're linking to the image via the
Place command.
| | 00:22 |
So, that part doesn't matter.
I'll go ahead and click on the image with
| | 00:24 |
the Black Arrow tool in order to select
it.
| | 00:27 |
And, for the sake of demonstration here,
I'm going to go up to the Edit menu and
| | 00:30 |
choose the Copy command.
Because I want to have a copy of the image
| | 00:33 |
to come back to in just a moment.
I'll go up to the Control Panel, and
| | 00:37 |
notice this button right there, Image
Trace, all you have to do is click on it.
| | 00:41 |
It really is that simple, where tracing
line art is concerned.
| | 00:45 |
In my case, however, I end up getting this
alert message.
| | 00:48 |
It says, Tracing may proceed slowly with
this large image file.
| | 00:52 |
Would you like to continue?
Now, why is it calling it a large image file?
| | 00:55 |
It doesn't look that big on screen.
And we are seeing the document at a 116%.
| | 01:00 |
At least in my screen it's probably at
higher zoom ratio in your screen.
| | 01:04 |
So, it really isn't all of that large.
Well, here is the deal.
| | 01:07 |
Notice the resolution value appearing in
the Control Panel.
| | 01:10 |
We are seeing that this a grey scale
image, by the way.
| | 01:12 |
It doesn't contain any color.
And the ppi pixel bridge is 600.
| | 01:18 |
That's a 600 pixel per inch image.
That is a very high resolution file.
| | 01:23 |
We need those pixels.
Now, you don't necessarily need 600 pixels
| | 01:26 |
per inch.
But you do want 300 pixels per inch or
| | 01:30 |
better, to get a good trace, especially
when you're working with line art.
| | 01:34 |
And I'll show you the difference in just a
moment.
| | 01:36 |
Then, it offers this helpful advice, which
by the way, is very bad advice.
| | 01:39 |
And I'll demonstrate that.
But it says, to reduce the image size,
| | 01:43 |
rasterize to a lower resolution using
essentially, the rasterize command under
| | 01:47 |
the Object menu.
Well, this is a little bit misleading.
| | 01:50 |
Rasterize means convert to pixels.
This image is already made of pixels.
| | 01:56 |
So by definition it is a raster file, so
we don't need to rasterize.
| | 02:01 |
What you can do using the Rasterize
command on the Object menu is reduce the
| | 02:04 |
resolution, so essentially rerasterize the
file.
| | 02:08 |
What you might want to do is say, don't
show again, because you never want to do this.
| | 02:12 |
However, I'm just going to click okay in
order to trace a file.
| | 02:16 |
Now, you can see we get a lot of progress
bar, so it does take a little bit of time
| | 02:20 |
to trace that image but goodness, we get
good results.
| | 02:24 |
We've got a little bit of noise, and I'll
show you how to address that shortly but
| | 02:27 |
the quality is just great.
Now, compare that to what would happen if
| | 02:32 |
we followed Illustrator's advice.
And I really want you to see the different
| | 02:35 |
here, so that you have a sense of what
kind of difference resolution makes when
| | 02:40 |
you're tracing an imported image.
So, I'm going to go up to the Edit menu
| | 02:44 |
and choose Paste in Front in order to
paste that image in front of itself.
| | 02:49 |
So, here's the original image once again.
And we can see the trace version of the
| | 02:53 |
image in the background.
I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z
| | 02:57 |
on a Mac to undo that move.
Then, following the Illustrators advice
| | 03:01 |
once again.
I'll go up to the Object Menu and I'll
| | 03:03 |
Rastorize command.
By default the color model ZMYK.
| | 03:08 |
We don't need that, this is a gray scale
image.
| | 03:10 |
So we don't need to add a bunch of color
to the file.
| | 03:12 |
That will just make the final document
size much more massive, and that will
| | 03:16 |
actually slow down the tracing process as
well.
| | 03:18 |
So, I'm going to select Grayscale.
And then resolution high would be 300 ppi.
| | 03:22 |
Well, let's go ahead and make things
effortless as possible for Illustrator, by
| | 03:27 |
reducing the resolution to screen, which
is 72 ppi.
| | 03:32 |
And there was a day where Adobe used to
officially recommend that this was the way
| | 03:36 |
you work.
Now, we don't need to worry about the
| | 03:38 |
other options.
So, I'll just go ahead and click OK, in
| | 03:40 |
order to reduce the number of pixels or
what's known as downsample that image.
| | 03:46 |
And you can see that it's looking a lot
more choppy, if I zoom in here.
| | 03:50 |
I'll go up to this Image Trace button, and
I'll just go ahead and click on it.
| | 03:53 |
This time we don't get the warning, we
don't get any progress bars, we get a
| | 03:57 |
trace lickety-split.
Problem is, it doesn't look nearly as good
| | 04:02 |
as the one we saw a moment ago.
So, just for the sake of demonstration,
| | 04:06 |
I'm going to go ahead and zoom in here.
So that we can see that half a head of the insect.
| | 04:10 |
The wings, and so forth.
I'll go ahead and twirl open this tiny
| | 04:14 |
little layer here, inside the Layers
panel, and so I've got an image tracing on top.
| | 04:18 |
I'll go ahead and rename that guy 72ppi,
and then in image tracing on bottom, I'll
| | 04:23 |
go ahead and rename this one 600ppi.
And now, I'll turn off 72ppi, so you can
| | 04:28 |
see the difference.
This one, the 600 ppi tracing has so much
| | 04:33 |
detail associated with it.
Yes, it has some noise, but it doesn't
| | 04:37 |
look like a tracing at all.
It has all this wonderful natural detail
| | 04:43 |
that essentially maintaining through the
organic nature of my line drawn.
| | 04:48 |
So, it looks like an actual line drawn.
The advantages, I am going to be able to
| | 04:51 |
scale it and do all kinds of stuff to it
as we'll see In future movies.
| | 04:56 |
Whereas, if I go ahead and turn on the
72ppi version, this looks like some old
| | 05:01 |
school tracing from the late 80s, early
1990s.
| | 05:05 |
And this stuff is just giveaway.
When people see this anymore, I think They
| | 05:09 |
automatically recognize it as being badly
traced vector art.
| | 05:13 |
And its also, by the way it doesn't
reflect well on you, because it shows that
| | 05:17 |
your machine traced the art work, which
isn't really very accurate because you've
| | 05:22 |
created, presumably, this original
illustration.
| | 05:24 |
So you worked really hard on this line
drawing and just brought it in the
| | 05:27 |
illustrator to do a good job of the vector
trace.
| | 05:30 |
So, what it comes down to is Illustrator's
vector tracing function is awesome.
| | 05:36 |
However, it will always give you better
results when you work with high resolution
| | 05:40 |
images, meaning 300 pixels per inch or
better.
| | 05:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting layer previews| 00:00 |
This movie is frankly an aside.
It doesn't have anything specifically to
| | 00:04 |
do with tracing images inside Illustrator.
But it does have everything to do with
| | 00:08 |
managing your documents inside the
program.
| | 00:10 |
Specifically, I'm going to show you how to
change the size of the thumbnails inside
| | 00:14 |
the Layers panel.
So notice by default I'm seeing these tiny
| | 00:18 |
little thumbnails, both for the contents
of the layer.
| | 00:21 |
And for the specific items inside layer,
provided that the layer is twirled open,
| | 00:26 |
as it is in my case.
If you want to change the size of those
| | 00:30 |
thumbnails, go to the Layers panel flyout
menu icon in upper right hand corner of
| | 00:34 |
the layers panel.
Click on it, and choose the final command,
| | 00:37 |
Panel Options.
Believe it or not, these very small
| | 00:41 |
thumbnails are what Illustrator says would
be Medium sized thumbnails.
| | 00:45 |
If you don't want any thumbnails at all,
you can go ahead and switch to Small.
| | 00:49 |
Which will just show the names of the
layers and the objects and so forth.
| | 00:53 |
Which might be very useful if you work
with lots and lots of layers or objects
| | 00:57 |
inside your file.
However, I'm kind of a visual guy, and I
| | 01:01 |
like to be able to see those thumbnails.
So what I do is I bypass large, which
| | 01:06 |
really isn't that big, and I go ahead and
select other.
| | 01:09 |
And I recommend if you want to be able to
see those things that you work with 50
| | 01:13 |
pixels or bigger.
Now for my part, I typically work at 70
| | 01:17 |
pixels, generally speaking.
But of course you can adjust the value to
| | 01:20 |
taste, if you don't want to be able to
twirl your layers open.
| | 01:23 |
You don't need to see the contents of your
layers, you just want to see the layers
| | 01:26 |
themselves then you can turn on this
checkbox show layers only.
| | 01:30 |
That will not only turn off the thumb
nails that will make it so that you can't
| | 01:34 |
even troll up in layer I'll show you what
I mean by clicking OK.
| | 01:37 |
And notice now I have the slide of layer
one, which I'll go ahead and rename
| | 01:41 |
butterfly, but I can't pull it open so I
can't find the objects here.
| | 01:45 |
Again, not the way I like to work but it's
a matter of taste.
| | 01:48 |
I'm going to go ahead and click on that
fly out menu icon again and choose Panel Options.
| | 01:52 |
And I'll turn Show Layers Only off, notice
down here you also have the option of
| | 01:57 |
controlling what items get thumbnails.
So you can decide whether you want to see
| | 02:01 |
the thumbnails associated with the layers.
And you can create sub layers as we'll see
| | 02:05 |
inside of illustrator.
And so if you turn on top level only, you
| | 02:08 |
won't see the thumbnails for the sub
layers.
| | 02:10 |
Then groups are treated independently.
So you can either see their thumbnails or
| | 02:14 |
not, and then objects.
That is, everything that is anything else.
| | 02:17 |
Including these tracing objects here and
path outlines and so forth.
| | 02:21 |
You can decide whether you see thumbnails
for them, or not.
| | 02:24 |
I'm going to leave those three check boxes
on, and top level only off, as by default.
| | 02:28 |
So I'll go ahead and click OK, so I can
once again see large thumbnails associated
| | 02:32 |
with both the layer, and all the objects
inside the layer.
| | 02:36 |
Now something to bear in mind here is this
is a document level setting.
| | 02:40 |
So in other words when I go to save this
file, it will Save with these Large layer
| | 02:45 |
previews the next time I create a new
file.
| | 02:48 |
It will have Small previews again, so this
is not a global setting the way it in say
| | 02:52 |
Photoshop and other programs.
This is a document by document setting and
| | 02:57 |
that brands how you change the size of
your Layer preview's, here inside Illustrator.
| | 03:03 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cleaning up with the Threshold option| 00:00 |
Back to the topic at hand.
In this movie, I'll show you how to refine
| | 00:04 |
the quality of traced artwork, using the
threshold function, which is found inside
| | 00:09 |
the Image Trace panel.
If I go ahead and scroll to lets say, the
| | 00:13 |
bottom left corner of this tracing.
We can see that Illustrator's trace a lot
| | 00:18 |
of what I was calling the shnivels.
So while it's seem fit to ignore most of
| | 00:22 |
the art effects, it has gone ahead and
singled out either the largest ones, or
| | 00:27 |
the ones that include the most contrast.
Obviously, we need to get rid of them, but
| | 00:31 |
we don't want our cleanup to come at the
expense of fine details such as this line
| | 00:36 |
that's cutting through the wing.
So, we need to exercise a little bit of care.
| | 00:39 |
Well, fortunately, we can change the
tracing anytime we like.
| | 00:44 |
Because Illustrator's always referencing
the original pixel-based image.
| | 00:48 |
Let me show you what I mean.
I'm going to go ahead and click on this
| | 00:51 |
traced artwork in order to select it with
the Black Arrow tool.
| | 00:54 |
Then, notice up here in the Control Panel,
that we've got this icon that says Image
| | 00:58 |
Trace Panel.
I'm going to go ahead and click on it and
| | 01:00 |
sure enough that brings up the Image Trace
Panel, which is also by the way available
| | 01:04 |
from the Window menu, just so you know.
Now, I want to go ahead and move this
| | 01:08 |
panel out of the way, but I don't want to
drop it in with the rest of my work space.
| | 01:12 |
So, I'm going to drag from the far left
side of the title bar like so.
| | 01:16 |
So, I avoid this number, where I drop the
panel in with either the expanded panels
| | 01:22 |
or the collapsed ones that are represented
by icons.
| | 01:25 |
I'll go ahead and move this panel right
about there, so it remains free floating.
| | 01:29 |
Notice this view setting.
It says tracing result, meaning I can see
| | 01:32 |
the result of the auto tracer.
However, if I want to see the artwork in a
| | 01:36 |
different light, then I can go ahead and
click on tracing result.
| | 01:39 |
And for example, I can select a source
image, to see the image file itself.
| | 01:44 |
Initially, that won't make any different
because the preview check box is turned off...
| | 01:48 |
If you want to see your changes as you
apply them, then you either need to click
| | 01:53 |
on the Trace button or turn on the Preview
check box.
| | 01:56 |
And I'm just going to turn on preview and
sure enough there is my original pixel image.
| | 02:00 |
So, I want to see that it remains all the
time that remains a linked file.
| | 02:06 |
Meaning, that if I make some changes to
the original file on disc, inside a
| | 02:11 |
Photoshop or any other program, and save
those changes, they will be automatically
| | 02:15 |
reflected inside in Illustrator, and
Illustrator will retrace my art work accordingly.
| | 02:21 |
Again, linking is really the way to go.
Anyway, I'm going to switch my view back
| | 02:25 |
to Tracing result.
Notice that mode, by default, is set to
| | 02:28 |
black and white, which is exactly what
we're looking for.
| | 02:31 |
This threshold value allows us to decide
what black and white are.
| | 02:35 |
So essentially, what's happening, is
Illustrator is on-the-fly converting this
| | 02:40 |
grayscale image, which we saw just a
moment ago.
| | 02:42 |
So notice, if I switch back to Source
image.
| | 02:45 |
The original image is a bunch of grays.
There is no such thing in this image as
| | 02:48 |
absolute black, and there is no such thing
as absolute white.
| | 02:52 |
Which is pretty typical of scanned
artwork.
| | 02:55 |
That's kind of actually what you want from
your scanner, because otherwise you're
| | 02:58 |
going to be clipping details and you don't
want that.
| | 03:01 |
However, what Illustrator has to do before
it can trace these black and white
| | 03:05 |
details, is go ahead and convert the
artwork to absolutely black and white.
| | 03:10 |
And that's what this threshold function
does here.
| | 03:12 |
So, I'll go ahead and switch the viewer
back to Tracing Result.
| | 03:15 |
What threshold is doing is saying, okay
who gets to be black.
| | 03:20 |
That would be the less stuff, and who gets
to be white, that would be the more stuff.
| | 03:25 |
And the threshold is the distinction
between the two.
| | 03:29 |
Now, to fully understand what's going on
with threshold.
| | 03:31 |
I am going to turn off the Preview check
box.
| | 03:34 |
You need to understand what black and
white are in the world of imaging.
| | 03:38 |
I'll go ahead and move this scroll bar all
the way to the left, until the value reads one.
| | 03:44 |
A value zero, if such a thing were
possible here, in this panel, a value of
| | 03:49 |
zero is black.
So, when you enter a value of one, you're
| | 03:53 |
saying, one and zero, that's it.
They're black and nothing else, which
| | 03:55 |
means very little about this art work
would be black.
| | 04:02 |
And just about everything else would be
interpreted as white.
| | 04:04 |
And in fact, if I go ahead and turn on the
Preview check box, in order to see the
| | 04:07 |
results of this change, sure enough, the
entire artwork goes white.
| | 04:11 |
Which obviously is not what we want.
However, if I were to crank this value all
| | 04:15 |
the way up to its maximum 255, which
believe it or not, is the definition of
| | 04:21 |
white in a digital image.
Then I'm saying everything that's 255 or
| | 04:26 |
darker, which is the entire image, by the
way, that's going to be black.
| | 04:31 |
And then nothing's going to be white.
And so if I go ahead and release, I was
| | 04:35 |
holding that scroll button for a moment,
then the entire image turns black.
| | 04:38 |
Obviously, also not what we want.
By default, this value is right in the middle.
| | 04:43 |
That is, it's 128 which is basically
medium gray.
| | 04:48 |
And what we're saying here in the setting,
is anything darker than medium gray,
| | 04:51 |
convert that to black and go ahead and
trace it with black.
| | 04:53 |
Anything that's brighter than medium gray,
convert that to white and trace it with white.
| | 05:00 |
So what's the upshot of all this theory?
Well, if you want to restore fine details
| | 05:05 |
inside of your image, if you're losing
details, then you want to go ahead and
| | 05:08 |
increase this value.
So notice, if I take this value up to 200,
| | 05:12 |
I am saying that anything that's 200 or
brighter, that's going to be white, and
| | 05:16 |
anything 200 or darker, that's going to be
black.
| | 05:19 |
And if I press the Enter key, or the
Return key on a Mac, in order to accept
| | 05:22 |
that value.
And you can see, not only am I thickening
| | 05:25 |
up my line art, but I'm also introducing a
lot more of those shnivels into the traced artwork.
| | 05:31 |
If I want to get rid of the art effects,
at the expense of the fine details of my
| | 05:36 |
artwork potentially, then I would reduce
the value.
| | 05:38 |
For example, if I take the value down to
40, I'm saying anything 40 or brighter is
| | 05:42 |
going to be white, and only that stuff
that's 40 or darker is going to be black.
| | 05:47 |
And I'll press the Enter key or the Return
key on a Mac, in order to accept that change.
| | 05:51 |
And sure enough, I go ahead and get rid of
every single one of those dots at least
| | 05:57 |
here inside this portion of the artwork.
But notice that I am also reducing the
| | 06:03 |
width of this line right here.
So I'm potentially losing some of the real
| | 06:07 |
detail inside of this artwork.
Now, I eventually decided, through trial
| | 06:11 |
and error, that the best threshold setting
for this specific image is 70.
| | 06:16 |
So I'll go ahead and enter that value in
there.
| | 06:19 |
And then I'll press the Enter key, or the
Return key on a Mac, to apply it.
| | 06:22 |
And notice that, that does bring back some
of that line, just a little bit.
| | 06:26 |
So it strengthens the detail side of the
artwork.
| | 06:28 |
But we do still have, well, at least one
dust particle.
| | 06:33 |
Fortunately, threshold is not the only
option for cleaning up the artwork.
| | 06:36 |
We also have this function called noise.
An I'll explain how that works, in the
| | 06:41 |
next movie.
| | 06:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| More cleanup with the Noise option| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to remove
these last remaining artifacts using the
| | 00:04 |
Noise function.
I am going to press Shift+Tab in order to
| | 00:07 |
hide my right side panel for a moment.
And I am going to zoom in, by pressing
| | 00:11 |
Ctrl along with Spacebar, where as
Cmd+Spacebar in the Mac.
| | 00:14 |
And I will drag around this area, so that
you can better see what I am talking about
| | 00:18 |
we have a big blob over here.
This is a far at bottom left corner of the
| | 00:22 |
image, and we have a smaller little guy
right there.
| | 00:27 |
And in all, we have a total of six
schnivels inside of this traced artwork.
| | 00:33 |
Now my guess is some of you are just plain
wishing I'd stop saying that word.
| | 00:37 |
But others might be thinking how in the
world can he possibly know there are six
| | 00:41 |
of them.
Well here's how.
| | 00:42 |
I'll press Shift+Tab to bring back my
right side panels and I'll move the Image
| | 00:46 |
Trace panel over for a moment here.
Notice this paths value says 137.
| | 00:52 |
So in all Illustartor's traced 137 paths.
I'll go ahead and turn on that 72 ppi
| | 00:58 |
version of the tracing and I'll meatball
it in order to select it, and notice that
| | 01:03 |
it says 131.
Now I know this low resolution version of
| | 01:07 |
the trace has no artifacts whatsoever.
So 137 minus 131, that's 6 problems that
| | 01:14 |
we need to take care of.
And as soon as we get the number of paths
| | 01:17 |
down to 131, we'll know that we have a
clean piece of artwork.
| | 01:21 |
So I'll go ahead and turn off the 72 ppi
version of the trace.
| | 01:24 |
I'll go and meatball the 600 ppi version.
And notice this advanced function right there.
| | 01:30 |
I'm going to click on this triangle to
expand the Advanced Settings most of which
| | 01:34 |
you can safely ignore at this point.
We'll investigate them in the future
| | 01:38 |
course when we look at this feature in
more detail.
| | 01:40 |
But right there is the Noise value.
Now notice when I hover over it, it tells
| | 01:45 |
me that we're going to ignore here is that
the specified pixel size, higher values
| | 01:49 |
mean less noise.
And of course by that it means if we
| | 01:52 |
increase that value we're going to get rid
of the noise inside the image.
| | 01:56 |
So you may recall I was telling you that
these little artifacts here are a function
| | 02:01 |
of contrast, which we addressed with the
threshold setting.
| | 02:05 |
And size which we're going to address with
noise.
| | 02:07 |
So, with this tracing selected as it is,
I'll go ahead and increase that value from
| | 02:12 |
25 pixels which is the default to 50
pixels.
| | 02:15 |
And now we'll go ahead and regenerate the
tracing.
| | 02:18 |
If it doesn't in your case as it hasn't in
mine then go ahead and turn that preview
| | 02:22 |
checkbox back on.
And then you'll see the progress bars that
| | 02:26 |
are telling you that Illustrator's doing
its thing.
| | 02:28 |
And sure enough, we've gotten the number
of paths down to 131.
| | 02:30 |
I'm going to zoom out from my image by
pressing Ctrl+-, or Cmd+- on a Mac.
| | 02:37 |
And then I'll go ahead and scroll over to
that fragile detail inside the wing, and
| | 02:41 |
it's still hanging in there.
In fact, it looks quite good.
| | 02:44 |
So this combination of noise along with
threshold has done a great job at cleaning
| | 02:48 |
up the traced artwork.
My only remaining problem is the number of
| | 02:52 |
Colors, two, and so what Illustrator is
doing by default is tracing both the black
| | 02:57 |
areas and the white areas.
If you wanted to just focus on the black
| | 03:01 |
areas, then you can turn on this checkbox,
Ignore White.
| | 03:05 |
And notice as soon as I turn on the
checkbox, that brings up the progress bars again.
| | 03:09 |
Generates a new trace, and we can see the
number of colors has now dropped down to one.
| | 03:14 |
Just in case you're wondering this final
bit of information anchors, that's the
| | 03:18 |
number of anchor points that illustrator's
generated inside of this artwork.
| | 03:22 |
So that's it, that takes care of
Illustrator's automatic tracing function.
| | 03:26 |
So I can go ahead and close the Image
Trace panel.
| | 03:28 |
In the next movie, I'll show you how to
convert this tracing to editable path outlines.
| | 03:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Expanding and simplifying traced paths| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
convert your traced artwork into editable
| | 00:05 |
path outlines, and then I'll show you how
to simplify the results.
| | 00:08 |
Notice that the 600 ppi version of the
scan is selected at the moment.
| | 00:13 |
As soon as I convert the scan to path
outlines, I lose the image and the
| | 00:17 |
auto-scan and everything else associated
with it.
| | 00:20 |
I don't want to lose that information, so
I'm going to make a duplicate of this item
| | 00:23 |
by clicking on it here inside the Layers
panel.
| | 00:26 |
So, you'll have to have your layer
expanded as I do.
| | 00:30 |
Then go to the Layers panel flyout menu
and choose Duplicate 600 ppi in order to
| | 00:35 |
create a copy of it.
Then you can go ahead and hide the
| | 00:37 |
original, just so that it's kept safely
aside.
| | 00:40 |
Now I'm going to press Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on
a Mac in order to back out from my image.
| | 00:46 |
To convert the trace to path outlines, you
go out to the Control panel once again and
| | 00:50 |
click on this button Expand.
And as you'll learn over the course of
| | 00:54 |
these movies, Expand is Illustrator's word
for converting just about anything to path outlines.
| | 01:00 |
So I'll go ahead and click on the button
and there we have it.
| | 01:03 |
However, notice that we have a lot of
stuff going on including this big
| | 01:07 |
rectangle around the entire butterfly.
To get to the bottom of this, we have to
| | 01:11 |
figure out what it is we are looking at
and you can get a sense of what's selected
| | 01:16 |
in any given moment in time by taking a
look at this first item.
| | 01:20 |
The very first word in the Control panel
over on the left hand side, so for
| | 01:24 |
example, if I were to turn the trace back
on and meatball it, then I would see that
| | 01:29 |
I have an image tracing.
If I were to turn that item back off, and
| | 01:33 |
then meatball this new thing, which is
called 600 ppi, I'll go ahead and rename
| | 01:37 |
it Paths.
Then I'll see that it is a group which
| | 01:42 |
means, to gain access to those path
outlines, I need to ungroup this time.
| | 01:46 |
So I'll go up to the Object menu, and I'll
choose the Ungroup command, which has a
| | 01:50 |
keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+Shift+G, or
Cmd+Shift+G on a Mac.
| | 01:53 |
And now notice that I have just a ton of
paths, here inside of my Layers panel,
| | 01:59 |
most of which, are showing up as hollow
meaning that they're blank.
| | 02:04 |
They don't have any fill or stroke
associated with them.
| | 02:07 |
Now we have a couple of black blobs down
here toward the bottom, and then one
| | 02:10 |
version of the butterfly itself.
I'm going to click off the path outlines
| | 02:15 |
to deselect them.
And then I need to find that outermost
| | 02:18 |
path which means I need to kind of hunt
around with my arrow cursor.
| | 02:22 |
Notice, as I move the cursor around, every
once in a while I see a black square next
| | 02:26 |
to it and that tells me that there's
something under the cursor.
| | 02:30 |
So, if I don't see a black square, there's
nothing to select there.
| | 02:33 |
If I do see a black square, there is
something to select.
| | 02:36 |
So, this location something's going on so
I click on it.
| | 02:39 |
And sure enough, that's that blank
rectangle that's surrounding the entire
| | 02:43 |
butterfly and tracing around it as well.
Notice it has no fill and no stroke, you
| | 02:49 |
can see that up here in the Control panel.
So, what I want to do is select all the
| | 02:53 |
other blank paths as well.
And I can do that using this icon.
| | 02:57 |
It says Select Similar Objects, and just
to make sure it's selecting the right kind
| | 03:01 |
of similar objects, click on the down
pointing arrow head next to it, and
| | 03:05 |
confirm that All is selected.
Assuming that it is, you can go and click
| | 03:09 |
on it if you want to, then you click on
that icon and Illustrator goes ahead and
| | 03:13 |
selects all of the path outlines that have
no fill and no stroke.
| | 03:18 |
Now you can press backspace key or the
Delete key on the Mac to get rid of them,
| | 03:21 |
then notice that cleans up our Layers
panel quite a bit, but we do still have
| | 03:26 |
two blobs, some place here, we don't want
them.
| | 03:28 |
So, I'm going to meatball one of them and
then shift meatball the other one, and so
| | 03:33 |
we must have some little artifacts
appearing in the upper right corner of
| | 03:36 |
butterfly and down left as well.
Now that I've selected both of them, I'll
| | 03:41 |
go ahead and press the backspace key or
the Delete key on the Mac to get rid of
| | 03:45 |
them as well.
And we're left with one big compound path.
| | 03:49 |
In other words, it's a big tracing around
the butterfly.
| | 03:52 |
And then there's all the sub paths inside
the butterfly that are cutting holes.
| | 03:57 |
I'm going to rename this path, butterfly
because after all, that's what it is.
| | 04:01 |
And then I'll click on the butterfly and
I'll drag it over here to the left hand side.
| | 04:05 |
And I'm pressing the Shift key by the way,
as I drag in order to constrain the angle
| | 04:09 |
of my drag to exactly horizontal.
Now you can see that we have an awful lot
| | 04:14 |
of anchor points.
You can further simplify this path if you
| | 04:18 |
want to using a command known as Simplify.
But before we choose it, I'm going to
| | 04:23 |
press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on the Mac to hide
my selection edges.
| | 04:28 |
And then I'm going to go ahead and zoom in
on that most fragile detail inside the
| | 04:31 |
wings, so that I can keep track of it.
And I'll go up to the Object menu, choose
| | 04:37 |
Path and choose Simplify.
And what this command does, is it reduces
| | 04:41 |
the number of anchor points inside the
selected paths based on a couple of criteria.
| | 04:47 |
So, when I choose the command I bring up
the Simplify dialogue box as you can see.
| | 04:51 |
If you want to get a quick sense of how
much simplification is happening, then go
| | 04:55 |
ahead and turn on the Preview checkbox.
And you can now see that the original
| | 04:59 |
version of this path before I chose the
command had 2,040 anchor points.
| | 05:04 |
The Simplify command has reduced the
number of anchor points to 242.
| | 05:09 |
That's great news, we have a much simpler
path which means it will be easier to edit.
| | 05:14 |
It will print more quickly and so forth,
however, it looks like garbage.
| | 05:18 |
We're losing so much detail here.
Notice the difference, if I turn off the
| | 05:22 |
Preview checkbox, and then I turn it back
on, this simplification is coming at the
| | 05:27 |
expense of an awful lot of detail.
The first thing you want to do is change
| | 05:31 |
the Angle Threshold.
By default, it's zero degrees, meaning
| | 05:34 |
that Illustrator is trying to round off
everything.
| | 05:38 |
So the first thing to do is modify the
Angle Threshold value.
| | 05:41 |
It represents which corners are getting
rounded away, and at zero degrees you're
| | 05:46 |
essentially saying everything, every
corner inside of these paths should be
| | 05:51 |
rounded, and that's not what we want.
You can take that value as high as 180
| | 05:54 |
degrees, which tells Illustrator to round
away no corners, whatsoever.
| | 05:59 |
My recommendation, however, based on
experience is to set this value to 135
| | 06:05 |
degrees, that tends to give you good
results.
| | 06:07 |
In our case, it still looks rotten as you
can see, but we have gained a few anchor
| | 06:11 |
points back, we're up to 289.
The next thing you do is you take that
| | 06:16 |
Curve Precision value which is set to 50%
by default which is way too low.
| | 06:19 |
You never want to leave it that low, you
want to raise it to its maximum value of
| | 06:23 |
100%, meaning maintain as many curves as
possible.
| | 06:28 |
Maintain the original formed of the paths.
And notice now that boosts those anchor
| | 06:33 |
points way up to 1656, but we're still
nearly 400 anchor points down from the
| | 06:39 |
original, so this is quite a
simplification at this point.
| | 06:42 |
Then, you click inside this value, and you
press the down arrow key, and you keep an
| | 06:47 |
eye on what's going on inside of the
illustration.
| | 06:50 |
And notice at 97%, even this high, we're
starting to lose definition.
| | 06:55 |
Turn off the Preview checkbox, this is the
way the trace looked before, and this is
| | 06:59 |
the way it looks now.
So we're losing a lot of definition, not
| | 07:02 |
only in that fragile detail, but
throughout the path outlines.
| | 07:06 |
I found where this particular path is
concerned, that I needed to take the value
| | 07:10 |
up to 99% in order to keep things looking
good.
| | 07:13 |
So, I'll turn off Preview checkbox, this
is the original path outline, and if I
| | 07:17 |
turn it back on, this is the way it looks
now.
| | 07:18 |
And yet, meanwhile, we have paired down
the number of anchor points, from 2,040 to
| | 07:23 |
1416, so we've peeled away 600 in all.
And just FYI, I find that a value between
| | 07:31 |
95% and 100% ends up working best.
Click OK in order to accept that change.
| | 07:38 |
Now press Ctrl+0, Cmd+0 on a Mac to back
out.
| | 07:42 |
That folks is how you go about expanding
and simplifying your traced artwork.
| | 07:47 |
In the next movie, we'll transform our
half butterfly into a full one.
| | 07:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Flipping and fusing shapes| 00:01 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to
duplicate the left half of the butterfly,
| | 00:04 |
flip it to create a right half.
And then fuse the left and right halves
| | 00:08 |
together using a tool know as the Shape
Builder.
| | 00:11 |
Now the first step, of course, is to
select the butterfly.
| | 00:14 |
But when I click on it I don't see the
selection edges, and that's because I hid them.
| | 00:18 |
So I need to press Ctrl+H, or Cmd+H on a
Mac, to bring them back.
| | 00:23 |
Now I could go ahead and use the Copy and
Paste in Front commands to make a
| | 00:26 |
duplicate of this butterfly.
Or here is a simpler approach assuming
| | 00:30 |
your butterfly layers expanded as it is in
my case, click on the item right there.
| | 00:36 |
Which is the selected path, and then go
the Layers panel flyout menu and choose
| | 00:41 |
Duplicate Butterfly Which creates a copy,
directly on top of the original.
| | 00:47 |
Next, I'll go up to the Transform panel by
clicking on Transform in the Control Panel
| | 00:51 |
at the top of the screen.
And I'll select the rightmost reference
| | 00:55 |
point in this tiny little matrix right
there.
| | 00:58 |
I'll click the Transform panel's fly out
menu, and I'll choose Flip Horizontal in
| | 01:02 |
order to achieve the butterfly's right
half.
| | 01:05 |
Alright we have a little bit of a problem
here.
| | 01:07 |
If I zoom in you can see by virtue of the
fact that my line art had sort of a ragged
| | 01:13 |
edge on the inside of the butterfly.
We've got a gap between the two shapes.
| | 01:18 |
So, I need to nudge the selected path to
the left and I can do that by pressing the
| | 01:22 |
left arrow key.
So if you're working along with me I want
| | 01:25 |
you to check one thing before we start.
Press Ctrl+K or Cmd+K on the Mac in order
| | 01:31 |
to bring up the Preferences dialog box.
And the Keyboard Increments should be set
| | 01:36 |
to one point.
But we're working in inches so who knows
| | 01:39 |
if that decimal value translates to one
point.
| | 01:42 |
I'll just go ahead and enter 1pt, and then
press the Tab key.
| | 01:46 |
And sure enough, that's what it was in the
first place, 0.0139 inches is, I guess the
| | 01:52 |
same thing as one point.
And that is the Default setting, by the way.
| | 01:56 |
Go and click OK in order to accept that
potential change, and then I'll press the
| | 02:01 |
left arrow key one, two, three, four,
five, six, times in order to completely
| | 02:03 |
seal up the gap between the two halves.
Now I'm going to zoom in a little bit
| | 02:11 |
further here.
And I'm going to select both halves of the
| | 02:14 |
butterfly by partially marking around them
like so.
| | 02:17 |
Using the black arrow tool, of course.
Now I need to fuse them together, and you
| | 02:22 |
might think you could do that using the
Join command, because that's what we've
| | 02:25 |
been doing in previous chapters.
However the Join command is designed to
| | 02:29 |
accommodate open path outlines.
These are closed shapes, in other words,
| | 02:34 |
the path outline goes around the entire
shape of the butterfly and inside these
| | 02:38 |
interior areas as well.
So we need to use a different tool, and
| | 02:42 |
ostensibly the easiest one to work with is
the shape builder which is located right there.
| | 02:48 |
Now, I'm working with a double column tool
box.
| | 02:50 |
So, you may have a hard time finding this
tool.
| | 02:52 |
I'll go ahead and switch to the single
column and I'll show you it's located
| | 02:56 |
about midway down.
It's this guy that looks like an arrow
| | 02:59 |
with two circles.
And it has a keyboard short cut of Shift+M
| | 03:03 |
for what that's worth.
I'm going to go ahead and click on the
| | 03:06 |
tool to select it.
And you use the tool by dragging through
| | 03:09 |
the selected shapes.
So, you can fuse as many shapes together
| | 03:12 |
as you like but they have to be selected.
I'm going to start things off by dragging
| | 03:17 |
through the top of the head of the
butterfly.
| | 03:20 |
And that goes ahead and fuses that top
area but it leaves some gaps in the body.
| | 03:25 |
So I'll go ahead and drag through the body
as well and that fuses the body as you can
| | 03:29 |
see, but we have some problems down toward
the bottom.
| | 03:32 |
So I'm just going to click in this right
hand scroll bar a few times in order to
| | 03:35 |
scroll to the bottom of the butterfly.
You can see we have two little problem
| | 03:40 |
areas there.
I'll go ahead and drag through one, and
| | 03:42 |
then I'll drag through the other.
And we now have a single fused shape, or
| | 03:47 |
at least, so it would seem.
But if I take a look at my Layers panel,
| | 03:51 |
I've got this compound path here, which is
the entire butterfly.
| | 03:55 |
And I'm going to go ahead and name it
full, so that I know that that is the full shape.
| | 04:00 |
Then I've got these other two shapes, one
of which, according to the preview, looks
| | 04:04 |
like half a butterfly, and the other looks
like a little blob.
| | 04:07 |
This half-a-butterfly preview is wrong.
And to force Illustrator to regenerate a
| | 04:12 |
preview, here's what you do.
I'll go ahead and meatball that path right there.
| | 04:16 |
And I'll press the Backspace key on a PC
or the Delete key on the Mac to get rid of it.
| | 04:20 |
And then I'll press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on
the Mac, to bring it back.
| | 04:24 |
And sure enough, it's another blob.
So we've got two weird blobs here.
| | 04:28 |
Press Ctrl+0, or Cmd+0 on a Mac, in order
to back away from my image.
| | 04:32 |
And then I'll shift click the meat ball
for the other blob shape here.
| | 04:38 |
And they appear at the top of the wings
over here on the left hand side and the
| | 04:42 |
right hand side.
And the only reason I can tell that's the
| | 04:44 |
case, is because I'm seeing those little
blue anchor points.
| | 04:47 |
Anyway I don't want him so I'll press the
Backspace key.
| | 04:50 |
Or the Delete key on the Mac to get rid of
them for good.
| | 04:53 |
Now I'm going to switch back to my black
arrow tool.
| | 04:56 |
And what I want to do at this point is
center the butterfly on the artboard.
| | 04:59 |
So I'm going to go ahead and click on the
butterfly to select it.
| | 05:02 |
And then I'll go up to the align icon in
the Control Panel at the top of the screen.
| | 05:06 |
I'll click on it and I'll switch to Align
to Artboard.
| | 05:09 |
And that gives me my six align icons.
I want to take advantage of the Center icon.
| | 05:14 |
So start by clicking on Horizontal Align
Center, which is the second icon in.
| | 05:19 |
And then I'll click on Vertical Align
Center, which is the second to last one.
| | 05:22 |
That last one doesn't make much of a
difference, but now I know for certain
| | 05:27 |
that the butterfly is exactly centered.
Now, I'll go ahead and click off the shape
| | 05:31 |
in order to deselect it.
Now the result, quite astoundingly, is
| | 05:35 |
this smooth vector-based version of my
original sharpie drawing.
| | 05:41 |
Which means, that among other things, I
can fill it, I can stroke it, and I can
| | 05:46 |
resize it to any degree I like.
An I'll show you exactly how that works in
| | 05:52 |
the next movie.
| | 05:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scaling resolution-independent vectors| 00:00 |
Now that we have a vector based version of
the full butterfly, we can bring to bare
| | 00:05 |
all the way of illustrator.
So, for example, we can fill the shape, we
| | 00:09 |
can stroke it and we can scale it to any
size we like, as I will show you in this movie.
| | 00:15 |
I save my progress as Full butterfly.ai.
And the first thing I'm going to do is
| | 00:19 |
click on the butterfly to select with my
Black Arrow tool.
| | 00:22 |
And then I'll press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on the
Mac, in order to hide the selection edges.
| | 00:27 |
And I'll zoom in a little bit as well.
Let's say I want to take these fragile
| | 00:31 |
details here and bolster them slightly.
All I'd have to do is go up to the Stroke
| | 00:35 |
option, which is currently blank because
as you can see, we've got a black fill and
| | 00:40 |
no stroke.
As witnessed by these first two swatches
| | 00:43 |
in the Control panel.
I'll click inside that stroke value and
| | 00:47 |
I'll change it to 1.
So, that we have a 1 point line weight.
| | 00:50 |
And that goes ahead and bolsters the
thickness of the butterfly all the way around.
| | 00:55 |
But that's just the beginning.
Let's say you want to change the color of
| | 00:58 |
this artwork.
You can go up to the Fill Swatch, click on it.
| | 01:02 |
And in my case, I'm going to go ahead and
select this green, which is C85 M10Y100
| | 01:06 |
and K10.
And those by the way are the CMYK values.
| | 01:12 |
I'll just click on it and we end up
filling the butterfly with green.
| | 01:15 |
Now, the black stroke doesn't really look
right, so I'll click on the Stroke Swatch here.
| | 01:20 |
Then, I'll switch it to the next shade of
green, which is C90M30Y95K30.
| | 01:26 |
And that ends up giving us something of a
bright green fill with a darker green stroke.
| | 01:32 |
Now, I was telling you, you can scale the
shape, and that is the best thing about
| | 01:36 |
vectors, is it doesn't matter how big you
want to make 'em.
| | 01:39 |
They always print impeccably smoothly.
So, I'll press Ctrl+0 again, Cmd+0 on the Mac.
| | 01:45 |
For purposes of this demonstration here,
lets say I just want to increase the size
| | 01:49 |
of this artwork to something ridiculous.
Like for example, I want it to measure
| | 01:54 |
something like 8 by 6 feet, just
humungous.
| | 01:58 |
Well, in that case, I'd get rid of my
original tracings here.
| | 02:02 |
And so, I'll turn 72 ppi, and 600 ppi on.
Meatball one, shift meatball the other, so
| | 02:09 |
that they're both selected.
And I'll press the Backspace key or the
| | 02:12 |
Delete key on the Mac in order to get rid
of them.
| | 02:14 |
And, of course, I would then turn around,
and save this file under a different name.
| | 02:19 |
So, I choose the Save As command.
That way, I'm not permanently getting rid
| | 02:23 |
of my auto-tracings.
Anyway, I'll skip that step for now.
| | 02:27 |
Let's expand the size of the Artboard, for
starters by switching to the Artboard
| | 02:31 |
tool, which for me is located way down
here at the bottom of my single column toolbox.
| | 02:36 |
And I'll go ahead and make sure that the
center reference point is selected, and
| | 02:40 |
I'll increase the width value from 9.5
inches to 9.5 inches times 10.
| | 02:46 |
So * 10, right there.
And that will multiply that value to 95
| | 02:51 |
inches as soon as I press the Tab key.
And then I'll do the same thing for the
| | 02:54 |
height value.
I'll enter an * 10 after the existing
| | 02:58 |
value of 7 inches.
Which one I press the Enter key or the
| | 03:01 |
Return key on the Mac takes it up to 70
inches.
| | 03:03 |
So, those values 95 inches and 70 inches
translate to roughly 8 by 6 feet this is
| | 03:10 |
an Artboard that is as tall as most of you
are.
| | 03:14 |
So, I will go ahead and press control 0 or
command 0 on the Mac to zoom out.
| | 03:18 |
Now I'll press the Escape key to return to
the Black Arrow tool, and I'll click on my
| | 03:22 |
green butterfly to select it.
I'm not seeing the selection edges because
| | 03:25 |
they're turned off, so I'll press Ctrl+H
or Cmd+H on a Mac to bring him back up.
| | 03:29 |
And then I'll click on Transform to bring
up the Transform panel, and I'll make sure
| | 03:34 |
that constrain width and height
proportions is turned on.
| | 03:36 |
So, go ahead and click on that change to
make it active.
| | 03:39 |
And then I'll also switch to reference
point to the center here, so I'll click
| | 03:42 |
right there in the center of that icon.
And now I'll click on the W to select the
| | 03:47 |
width value, and I'll change its value to
1000%.
| | 03:50 |
So, you can actually enter 1000% into that
field, and that will increase the size of
| | 03:55 |
the butterfly by a factor of ten as soon
as I press the Enter key or the Return key
| | 03:59 |
on the Mac.
And if you click off the butterfly now,
| | 04:02 |
and you take a look at these details.
Just go ahead and zoom on in.
| | 04:06 |
You'll see that they are absolutely super
smooth, even if I zoom in so far as 100%.
| | 04:13 |
And you can see that we have these strange
little details every one in a while.
| | 04:16 |
But I don't think that, that's going to
detract on the overall quality of the piece.
| | 04:19 |
Alright, I will go ahead and zoom out a
little bit may be Ctrl+0, Cmd+0 on the Mac
| | 04:24 |
and then zoom back in a little bit by
pressing Ctrl+Plus or Cmd+Plus on the Mac.
| | 04:29 |
Now, that we have this 1 point stroke,
which did not get scaled in this case, its
| | 04:34 |
looking awfully thin by comparison to this
ginormous butterfly.
| | 04:38 |
So, I think I'll increase it not by a
factor of ten.
| | 04:41 |
I think I'll just take it up to about five
points and press the Enter key or the
| | 04:44 |
Return key on a Mac.
And in order to see that stroke I'm
| | 04:47 |
going to have to zoom in just a little bit
farther.
| | 04:49 |
I might scroll a little bit too so that we
can see the top of this head.
| | 04:53 |
And that is the final version of what I
dare say might be the biggest butterfly
| | 04:58 |
you've ever created.
Thanks to your ability to convert pixel
| | 05:01 |
based line art, into scaleable, resolution
independent vector based outlines, here
| | 05:07 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 05:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Scaling and RotatingThe realm of transformations| 00:00 |
In Illustrator, a transformation is
anything that modifies a selected shape,
| | 00:05 |
but leaves it ultimately recognizable as
that shape.
| | 00:09 |
Take a star for example.
If you duplicate it, it's a star in a new location.
| | 00:13 |
If you scale it, it's a star of a
different size.
| | 00:17 |
If you rotate it, it's a star at a
different angle.
| | 00:19 |
If you snip away all its points, it's not
a star anymore.
| | 00:23 |
Which is why snipping away points is not a
transformation.
| | 00:26 |
But duplicating, scaling, and rotating
are.
| | 00:30 |
Illustrator provides many ways to
transform a selection.
| | 00:34 |
But by far, the best ways are the oldest
ones.
| | 00:37 |
The arrow tool, the scale tool, and the
rotate tool.
| | 00:40 |
Why are they so great?
Because they satisfy the core mission, in
| | 00:45 |
Illustrator everybody draws.
Arrow too, scale too, rotate tool, they
| | 00:50 |
all have their different functions.
But on the fly, at any moment in time You
| | 00:54 |
can draw with them by making new shapes
from existing ones.
| | 00:57 |
In this chapter, we'll start by drawing a
square tile pitched 45 degrees.
| | 01:04 |
Then we'll make more tiles by power
duplicating the first one withe the black
| | 01:07 |
arrow tool.
We'll draw in smaller tiles with the scale tool.
| | 01:11 |
And we'll fill out the perimeter tiles
using the Rotate tool.
| | 01:15 |
I think this is one of the reasons
Illustrator ended up winning the day.
| | 01:19 |
Everybody draws, including you, starting
in the next movie.
| | 01:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a tracing template| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you how to place
a photographic image into Illustrator and
| | 00:04 |
then convert it into a tracing template.
And there are three advantages to a
| | 00:08 |
tracing template.
First, it's locked down so you don't end
| | 00:12 |
up moving the image as you're trying to
trace it.
| | 00:14 |
Second, it's dimmed, or faded, so you can
tell the difference between the photograph
| | 00:19 |
and the stuff you're drawing.
And third, it's persistent.
| | 00:22 |
So, there are times you can see through
your drawing to the photograph below.
| | 00:26 |
The photograph in question is this one
here, I've got it open in Photoshop, I'll
| | 00:30 |
go ahead and zoom in, so we can see some
of the details.
| | 00:33 |
We're going to take these tiles, and we're
going to trace them to create this final
| | 00:37 |
vector based illustration open inside of
Illustrator.
| | 00:40 |
And this is the kind of thing you're only
going to achieve by manually tracing an image.
| | 00:44 |
In other words, you're not going to get
these kinds of results from the Image
| | 00:47 |
Trace feature.
Now, it may look a little daunting at
| | 00:50 |
first, but the good news is, it's not that
hard.
| | 00:53 |
Even if you're new not, only to
Illustrator, but to graphic arts in
| | 00:57 |
general, you're going to be able to pull
this off.
| | 00:58 |
And we're going to be drawing this thing
from scratch over the course of this
| | 01:02 |
chapter and the next.
And believe it or not, its going to be a
| | 01:05 |
lot of fun.
So we are going to start of inside this
| | 01:08 |
file called Just guides.ai.
And sure enough, all we have got is single
| | 01:12 |
layer cult guide and it just contains a
few guide lines.
| | 01:15 |
To create a Tracing Template, you have to
place a image on a independent layer, so
| | 01:21 |
we have to start thing off by creating a
new layer.
| | 01:23 |
And you do that by dropping down to this
little page icon at the bottom of the
| | 01:27 |
Layers panel and clicking on it.
When you just click on a page, Illustrator
| | 01:32 |
automatically names the layer.
In this case, it's calling the layer,
| | 01:35 |
layer two.
Not necessarily what I want it to be
| | 01:38 |
called, so I'll double-click on the layer
name.
| | 01:40 |
And I'm going to change this one to
Drawing, because we will need a layer on
| | 01:43 |
which to draw, so it might as well be that
one.
| | 01:47 |
Then, I'm going to click on the guides
layer to make it active.
| | 01:50 |
Here's another way to create a new layer.
If you want to name the layer as you make
| | 01:53 |
it, then you press the Alt key, or the
Option key on the Mac, and click on that
| | 01:58 |
little page icon.
And that forces the display of the Layer
| | 02:01 |
Options dialogue box.
And then I can go ahead and call this new
| | 02:04 |
layer Image.
I can also assign it a color.
| | 02:06 |
The color is just intended, so that you
can identify which objects are on what layer.
| | 02:12 |
So for example, if I were to leave the
color as green, then any selected anchor
| | 02:17 |
points and segments and so forth, would
appear as green on this layer.
| | 02:21 |
And then they would appear as red on the
Drawing layer and so forth.
| | 02:24 |
And I'm going to change the color to
medium blue.
| | 02:27 |
That's just a personal choice, you can go
your own way.
| | 02:30 |
And then I'll click OK in order to create
that layer.
| | 02:33 |
Let's go ahead and place a photograph on
that layer, and I'll do so by going to the
| | 02:37 |
File menu and choosing the Place command.
If you're working along with me, go ahead
| | 02:42 |
and navigate your way to the 07 transform
folder.
| | 02:44 |
You'll probably see a bunch of files, but
among them will be tilephoto.jpg.
| | 02:48 |
You can go ahead and select it, and click
the Place button, and we've placed our image.
| | 02:55 |
Now, I needed to be moved slightly, you'll
just have to trust me on this one.
| | 02:59 |
We need this image just in a very slightly
different position, in order for the
| | 03:04 |
guidelines to work.
And to move an image numerically, you can
| | 03:07 |
double-click on the Black Arrow tool icon
here in the tool box, that's one option.
| | 03:11 |
Or when the Black Arrow tool is selected,
you can just press the Enter key or the
| | 03:15 |
Return key on the Mac.
And again if you are working along with
| | 03:19 |
me, I want you to change the horizontal
value to 0.4 points.
| | 03:23 |
And the vertical value to just one point,
like so.
| | 03:27 |
So, that you end up with this very small
movement, but that does move the image
| | 03:31 |
into the proper position, then click OK.
And again, that's just to align the image
| | 03:36 |
properly with the guides.
Now, to convert the entire layer into a
| | 03:41 |
Tracing Template.
What you do is you double-click on the
| | 03:44 |
Immense layer, not on the name.
You just double-click in an empty area, or
| | 03:48 |
if you prefer you can double-click on the
thumbnail in order to bring up the Layer
| | 03:53 |
Options dialog box once again.
And you turn on this template check box
| | 03:58 |
right there.
And notice that goes ahead and locks the
| | 04:00 |
layer automatically.
It's going to show the layer at all times,
| | 04:03 |
we're going to see the preview of
everything that's going on.
| | 04:07 |
It's not going to print automatically as
well, so all these options are dimmed here.
| | 04:12 |
However, some are turned on and of course,
Print is turned off.
| | 04:16 |
And then you have the option of dimming
the images on this layer.
| | 04:19 |
And of course, I recommend you do, so that
you can tell the difference between the
| | 04:22 |
image itself and your drawing.
And you can dim the image to any extent
| | 04:26 |
you like.
50% is going to work fine for us, so just
| | 04:30 |
go ahead and click OK.
And we get a 50% dimmed image like so.
| | 04:35 |
And that's all there is to.
We now have a locked tracing template
| | 04:38 |
right here.
We can't draw on that layer, obviously,
| | 04:41 |
because it's locked.
So go ahead and click on the Drawing layer
| | 04:43 |
to make it active.
And we are now ready to begin tracing the
| | 04:47 |
photograph, in the next movie.
| | 04:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Drawing a diamond with the Polygon tool| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll draw a single based
tile that we will duplicate to create
| | 00:05 |
every other tile in the illustration.
And I'm going to go ahead and zoom in on
| | 00:11 |
my tiles here, now the tile I'm really
interested in creating is this top based
| | 00:15 |
tile right there, because its going to
service the corner stone for our other transformations.
| | 00:20 |
However, it's a little difficult to trace
this tile, because it's interrupted by an
| | 00:26 |
even superior green tile.
So, instead I recommend that we trace the
| | 00:29 |
next tile down, which is why I've
established some guidelines right there in
| | 00:33 |
the center of that tile.
Now each tile's a perfect square, so you
| | 00:36 |
might naturally assume that we'll begin
tracing them using the Rectangle tool.
| | 00:41 |
The problem is, if I draw a square with
the Rectangle tool, will appear upright
| | 00:44 |
and then I'd have to rotate it and scale
it into place, which would be kind of a
| | 00:49 |
pain in the neck.
Where as, if I switch over to the Polygon
| | 00:53 |
tool and I draw a four sided shape with
it, then I can rotate that four sided
| | 00:58 |
shape otherwise known as a square, into
any position I want.
| | 01:01 |
So, I'm going to go ahead and position my
cursor at the intersection of these two
| | 01:05 |
guidelines right there.
And notice that I have Smart Guides turned
| | 01:08 |
on if you don't, then you can press Ctrl+U
or Cmd+U on a Mac to activate this smart guides.
| | 01:14 |
Then I'll begin dragging out from that
intersection and by default, I will create
| | 01:19 |
a hexagon as you can see here.
That's not what I want, so I'll press the
| | 01:23 |
down arrow key a couple of times in order
to take the shape down to a square.
| | 01:27 |
So, if I were to position the shape
upright, it would be of course a square.
| | 01:31 |
If I were to move it 45 degrees here, then
it turns into a diamond.
| | 01:36 |
And all I need to do is drag straight down
to the other guide intersection, and these
| | 01:41 |
guides by the way mark the exact center of
the art board.
| | 01:44 |
And then I'll release and I'll have myself
a perfect diamond.
| | 01:48 |
It's not the right color of course.
But I've created some colors in advance
| | 01:51 |
for you.
And you can get to them by going up to the
| | 01:53 |
Control panel, clicking on the first
swatch to change the Fill color.
| | 01:57 |
And notice that I have big swatches inside
of this panel.
| | 02:01 |
If you want large swatches as well, then
click on the fly-out menu icon and choose,
| | 02:04 |
Large thumbnail view.
The swatch I'm interested in is this beige
| | 02:09 |
color, which is called Tile.
So, just go ahead and click on it, if
| | 02:11 |
you're working along with me.
Next, I'm going to click on a
| | 02:14 |
down-pointing arrowhead next to the line
weight.
| | 02:17 |
And I'm going to change that line weight
to three points, which is a better match
| | 02:20 |
for the grout of course, it's the wrong
color.
| | 02:23 |
So, I'll click on a second color swatch
and change that stroke color to gray.
| | 02:28 |
You might look at these colors and say,
well they're not really a very good match
| | 02:32 |
for the photograph in the background.
Well here's the thing, the photograph is
| | 02:36 |
dim so all of its colors are appearing
lighter, slightly faded in other words.
| | 02:41 |
And if the photograph weren't dimmed,
you'd see that those colors are pretty accurate.
| | 02:46 |
Now let's go ahead and move this tile into
the proper position.
| | 02:49 |
I'll go ahead and switch back to the Black
Arrow tool, which I can get by pressing
| | 02:52 |
the V key, of course.
Notice that my bounding box is not turned
| | 02:56 |
on, that's very important for this
operation to work.
| | 02:59 |
I want to be able to drag this bottom
anchor point and snap it to the top anchor
| | 03:03 |
point, and I can't do that with a bounding
box.
| | 03:05 |
So, if you are seeing a bounding box that
is a big square with handles surrounding
| | 03:09 |
the diamond, then go up to the view menu
and choose, Hide Bounding Box, which will
| | 03:14 |
appear at this location.
Next, with the bounding box off of course,
| | 03:18 |
I'm going to go ahead and drag that bottom
anchor point, and you can even see the
| | 03:22 |
word anchor if you have your Smart Guides
turned on.
| | 03:24 |
And go ahead and drag it upward until you
snap into alignment with the top anchor point.
| | 03:29 |
And that will go ahead and position that
top tile at the proper location.
| | 03:33 |
So, you don't need to duplicate the tile,
you just need to move it and the job is done.
| | 03:38 |
We now have a base tile that we can
duplicate over an over again, to create
| | 03:44 |
the other 16 beige tiles and you'll see
we'll use it to create the green tiles as
| | 03:48 |
well, in the upcoming movies.
| | 03:50 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Dragging and duplicating| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to take that
tile that we created in the previous
| | 00:03 |
movie, and we are going to move and
duplicate it to create the other 15 beige tiles.
| | 00:09 |
And, armed with the Black Arrow tool,
which allows you to move and duplicate objects.
| | 00:14 |
And is in fact, your first and foremost
transformation tool in Illustrator, I'm
| | 00:18 |
going to drag this left hand anchor point
right there.
| | 00:22 |
And I'm going to go ahead and move that
anchor point, so that it snaps into
| | 00:26 |
alignment with the bottom point in the
diamond as you see here.
| | 00:30 |
As soon as you get to that point, go ahead
don't release your mouse button because if
| | 00:34 |
you do, you'll just move this tile to a
different location.
| | 00:38 |
Instead what I need you to do, is to drag
that point where it needs to be.
| | 00:42 |
And then press and hold the Alt key or the
Option key on the Mac.
| | 00:46 |
And notice the appearance of that cursor.
The fact that the central arrow head is
| | 00:50 |
hollow, means that we have a snap so we're
snapping one anchor point to the other,
| | 00:54 |
which is exactly what we want.
And the fact that it has a little ghost in
| | 00:57 |
the background, means that we're going to
create a clone of this tile.
| | 01:02 |
So, keep that Alt or Option key down, then
release the mouse button and then, you can
| | 01:06 |
go ahead and release the Alt or Option
key.
| | 01:09 |
And you'll create a duplicate of the tile.
Now I'm going to zoom out, so that we can
| | 01:13 |
see more of the illustration at a time.
And what I want to do is repeat that
| | 01:18 |
duplication as opposed to reduplicating
the tile manually.
| | 01:22 |
Let's do it automatically.
And you can do so by going to the Object
| | 01:25 |
menu, choosing Transform and then choosing
Transform Again.
| | 01:29 |
Or you could just press the very handy
keyboard shortcut of Ctrl+ D or Cmd+D on
| | 01:34 |
the Mac, D stands for duplicate.
And notice that it just goes ahead and
| | 01:38 |
creates another duplicate of the tile,
that matches your last duplication.
| | 01:43 |
So now I'll press Ctrl+D or Cmd+D again,
and I'll repeat the duplication a third time.
| | 01:48 |
Now I want to select all the tiles I've
created so far.
| | 01:51 |
All four of the tiles exist independently
of the rest of the illustration of this
| | 01:56 |
drawing layer.
And you can select all objects on a single
| | 02:00 |
layer, by clicking on this little corner
marker.
| | 02:03 |
See that little wedge up there in the
upper right corner?
| | 02:05 |
If you hover over it, it's going to tell
you that you will select all the artwork
| | 02:09 |
in the layer.
And so all you have to do is click on it,
| | 02:12 |
to select all four tiles.
I'm going to drag from any of these anchor
| | 02:16 |
points along the right hand edge and I'll
drag to the opposing corner, so that I see
| | 02:20 |
the snap cursor.
You see how my cursor is hollow white, and
| | 02:23 |
then I will press and hold the Alt key or
the Option key on the Mac.
| | 02:27 |
Then I will release the Mouse button, and
then I will release the key and that goes
| | 02:31 |
ahead and creates the clone of all four of
those tiles.
| | 02:34 |
Now all we have to do is press Ctrl+D or
Cmd+D on the Mac twice so once, twice and
| | 02:41 |
we are done.
We now have all 16 beige tiles right ready
| | 02:45 |
to go.
So, very little drawing going on so far,
| | 02:48 |
just one central tile and a bunch of
what's called power duplication, in order
| | 02:53 |
to create all of the others.
| | 02:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Scale tool| 00:00 |
In this movie I'm going to introduce you
to the Scale tool, which is by far the
| | 00:05 |
best means of resizing objects inside of
Illustrator.
| | 00:09 |
I'm going to press Ctrl +0, or Cmd+0 on a
Mac, to back out from my document.
| | 00:13 |
And then I'm going to right click inside
the Art Board, and choose Hide Guides in
| | 00:17 |
order to get the guides out of the way.
And I'm going to select all the beige
| | 00:20 |
tiles by clicking in the upper right hand
corner of this Drawing layer here inside
| | 00:25 |
the Layers panel.
Now you have several methods for scaling
| | 00:30 |
inside of Illustrator.
For one thing, you can click on the word
| | 00:33 |
Transform up here in the Control panel.
And you can either enter absolute values
| | 00:37 |
into the width and height fields or, more
likely, you'd enter some sort of
| | 00:42 |
percentage value.
Such as say, 70% for the width value.
| | 00:46 |
You're only going to get so much done from
this panel and you don't have a lot of
| | 00:50 |
control over the reference point.
It's either going to be in the center or
| | 00:53 |
one of the sides or corners and that's it.
And as you get into more complicated
| | 00:57 |
illustrations you'll find that you need
more control.
| | 00:59 |
So I'm going to escape out of that panel
and press control Z, or Command Z on a Mac
| | 01:03 |
to undo that change.
Your other option, if you like simplicity,
| | 01:07 |
is to go to the View menu and turn on Show
Bounding Box.
| | 01:11 |
And then you're going to have these
handles around the sides and corners, but
| | 01:15 |
they don't necessarily afford you the most
control.
| | 01:17 |
For example when I drag the right handle
the opposing handle remains stationary.
| | 01:22 |
So its always the opposing point that is
your reference point, in other words you
| | 01:27 |
have no control over that reference.
And again as you get into more complicated
| | 01:32 |
scenarios you will want more control.
So I am going to press Ctrl+ Z or Cmd+ Z
| | 01:36 |
on the Mac to undo that change.
And then I'll hide the binding box, which
| | 01:39 |
I can also do by pressing Ctrl +Shift +B
or Cmd+Shift+ B on the Mac.
| | 01:44 |
Your best scaling option by far is the
oldest scaling option in the software.
| | 01:48 |
And that's this guy right here, the Scale
Tool, which you can get by pressing the S key.
| | 01:53 |
So I'm going to go ahead and click on that
tool to select it and here's how it works.
| | 01:58 |
By default the reference point is right
there in the center.
| | 02:01 |
Now I call that the transformation origin
because that is the point at which
| | 02:05 |
everything will remain still.
That's your fix point and everything else
| | 02:10 |
is going to scale around it.
Then you move your cursor away from that
| | 02:15 |
reference point.
And you either drag towards the reference
| | 02:18 |
point in order to reduce the size of the
selection.
| | 02:22 |
Or you drag away from it to increase the
size of the selection, now the position in
| | 02:27 |
which you began dragging is very
important.
| | 02:29 |
If you start 45 degrees away then you
going to have control over both the width
| | 02:34 |
and height of the selection.
Go ahead and undo that by pressing Ctrl+C,
| | 02:39 |
Cmd+ C on a Mac.
If you want to just squish the width of
| | 02:42 |
the selection then you move your cursor to
the right or left of the origin and you
| | 02:48 |
drag inward like so.
Or of course, you could drag outward to
| | 02:52 |
make it wider.
If you wanted to make it shorter you'd
| | 02:55 |
start up at the top and drag down.
You could also start at the bottom and
| | 02:59 |
drag up.
if you want to make it taller then you
| | 03:02 |
would start at the top and drag upwards or
you would start at the bottom and drag downwards.
| | 03:07 |
At this point I've made kind of a mess of
things so I'm just going to go to the File
| | 03:12 |
menu and choose the Revert command or I
could press F12.
| | 03:15 |
And then I'll click the Revert button, in
order to return to the original version of
| | 03:20 |
those tiles.
And I want those guides out of the way but
| | 03:23 |
can't right click with this tool in order
to hide the guides.
| | 03:27 |
So instead I will use the keyboard short
cut which is Ctrl +semicolon or Cmd +
| | 03:31 |
Semicolon on the Mac in order to get those
guides out of there.
| | 03:34 |
Now if you want to maintain the
proportions of your original selection
| | 03:39 |
then you press and hold the Shift key.
If while you're dragging, you press and
| | 03:43 |
hold Shift, then you're going to maintain
the proportions as you've seen here.
| | 03:48 |
Either as you reduce the size of the
selection or increase the size of the selection.
| | 03:53 |
You need to keep the Shift key down the
entire time until after you release the
| | 03:58 |
Mouse button.
If you want to affect just the height or
| | 04:02 |
the width of the selection, then move your
cursor either to the right or the left of
| | 04:07 |
that origin point.
I'll start at the left here just for the
| | 04:10 |
sake of variety.
And drag inward, let's say, while pressing
| | 04:14 |
the Shift key, and that will decrease just
the width, because I had the shift key
| | 04:19 |
down, it does not affect the height.
If I want to effect just the height then
| | 04:23 |
move your cursor above or below the origin
and it could be anywhere above or below.
| | 04:28 |
You don't have to start exactly at the top
or bottom.
| | 04:31 |
And then as you drag press the Shift key.
And notice by the way that heads up display.
| | 04:36 |
It's showing me that the width values
remaining 100% while the height is going
| | 04:40 |
down to 38.56%.
So you get numerical feedback as you're
| | 04:45 |
using this tool as well.
This whole time the center of our
| | 04:50 |
selection has been fixed.
And we can see that origin point right
| | 04:53 |
there in the center.
Its that little blue target but you can
| | 04:56 |
change that if you want to.
You can set that origin point at any
| | 05:00 |
location you like.
So I for example could say you know what I
| | 05:03 |
want to scale with respect to this anchor
point right there.
| | 05:05 |
Just click on it.
In order to move the origin to that
| | 05:09 |
location and then you can drag in order to
scale with respect to that new origin point.
| | 05:16 |
So you have this amazing control of your
reference point as you work with the Scale tool.
| | 05:22 |
Just a couple of more things to know if
you want numerical control you can bring
| | 05:26 |
up a Dialog box by double clicking on the
Scale tool icon.
| | 05:31 |
And you'll see that displays the Scale
Dialog box.
| | 05:34 |
But it also returns that reference point,
that transformation origin, to the very
| | 05:38 |
center of the selection.
If that's not what you want, if you wanta
| | 05:42 |
bring this dialog up, and keep the origin
point in a different location, then cancel out.
| | 05:48 |
And instead of double clicking on the
tool, you press the Alt key, or the Option
| | 05:52 |
key on the Mac.
Notice your cursor now has a little dot
| | 05:55 |
dot dot next to it.
Showing you that you're going to bring up
| | 05:58 |
a dialog box.
And let's say I Alt click or Option click
| | 06:02 |
on this anchor point.
Then that not only brings up the Dialog
| | 06:06 |
box but that also positions the
transformation origin at the Alt click or
| | 06:11 |
(UNKNOWN) click location.
And then I can specify either proportional
| | 06:15 |
scale by changing the uniform value, lets
say I change it to a 140%.
| | 06:21 |
Or you can enter a different values in the
horizontal and the vertical fields.
| | 06:24 |
And then when you are done, you can either
click okay in order to scale the object.
| | 06:28 |
Or click copy in order to scale a copy of
this selection.
| | 06:32 |
In my case, I'll just go ahead and click
OK.
| | 06:35 |
And that's all there is to it, so that one
tool provides that much functionality and
| | 06:42 |
it's old as the hills, it's been with us
since Illustrator 1.0.
| | 06:45 |
Possibly the best scaling technology in
any piece of software.
| | 06:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scaling along a constraint axis| 00:00 |
If you're a bit concerned that the
information in the previous movie was
| | 00:04 |
somewhat fast and furious, then rest
assured that we're going to be seeing
| | 00:08 |
plenty of the Scale tool throughout this
series.
| | 00:11 |
Starting with this movie, in which I'll
show you how to scale along a rotated
| | 00:15 |
constrain axis.
I've gone ahead and restored the saved
| | 00:18 |
version of All beige tiles.ai.
And what we were going to do now is build
| | 00:22 |
out the green tiles around the edge and we
were going to base them on the existing
| | 00:27 |
base tiles.
So, I'll switch back to the Black Arrow
| | 00:30 |
tool, which you can get by pressing the V
key.
| | 00:32 |
Then I'm going to click on this second
tile down over here on the left hand side,
| | 00:36 |
and I am going to drag it top anchor point
so that snaps into alignment with the left
| | 00:41 |
anchor point.
And I'll press the Alt key or the Option
| | 00:44 |
key on the Mac and then release in order
to create a copy of that tile.
| | 00:49 |
Obviously, it's the wrong color, so I'll
go up here to the Control panel, click on
| | 00:54 |
the first color swatch and select Deep
olive from this list.
| | 00:58 |
Then I'll press the Enter key or the
Return key on the Mac to hide that panel.
| | 01:03 |
Now, what I want to do is reduce the width
of this tile to exactly 50% of what it is now.
| | 01:09 |
And I want that level of precision.
One option is to invoke the bounding box.
| | 01:14 |
So, if I press Ctrl+Shift+B or Cmd+Shift+
on the Mac in order to display the eight
| | 01:20 |
handles surrounding this diamond, then I
can drag this side handle inward and I'll
| | 01:26 |
get roughly the effect I'm looking for.
The problem is I'm not getting the
| | 01:29 |
feedback I want so I don't know if I'm
reducing the width to exactly 50% or not.
| | 01:35 |
I'm having to of course just eyeball
things.
| | 01:38 |
And that may be satisfactory in many cases
but it's not in this case.
| | 01:42 |
So, I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac
to undo that change.
| | 01:46 |
And I'll press Ctrl+Shift+B or Cmd+Shift+B
on a Mac, in order to hide the bounding box.
| | 01:52 |
Now, I've been such a booster for the
Scale tool so far, that you would think
| | 01:56 |
you could achieve the exact effect that
we're looking for using that tool.
| | 01:59 |
So, I could go ahead and grab the Scale
tool, for example, which I could get
| | 02:03 |
pressing the S key and then I would click
over on this upper right hand side in
| | 02:09 |
order to establish the location of the
reference point.
| | 02:11 |
So, that this edge does not move.
And then I'd move my cursor, let's say
| | 02:16 |
down and to the left and I'd drag inward
but that doesn't work.
| | 02:20 |
I end up reducing both the height and the
width of the diamond.
| | 02:23 |
So, what's the solution?
Well, press Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on the Mac.
| | 02:27 |
The solution is to modify the constrain
axis.
| | 02:31 |
So, you may recall from a couple of
chapters back that the constrain axis
| | 02:35 |
changes the angle at, which you edit
paths.
| | 02:38 |
It also changes the angle at, which you
draw rectangles and ellipses and create
| | 02:42 |
text and so forth.
And it changes the behavior of the Scale tool.
| | 02:47 |
So, to rotate the constraint axis.
Press Ctrl+K or Cmd+K on the Mac to bring
| | 02:51 |
up the Preferences dialogue box then go
ahead and tab to the second value
| | 02:56 |
constraint angle and change it to 45
degrees.
| | 02:59 |
Which is what we want because we want to
be able to move this edge 45 degrees
| | 03:04 |
upward, and then click OK.
You could go ahead and drag with the tool
| | 03:09 |
in order to create this effect here, but
I'm having problems really controlling
| | 03:14 |
what's happening here.
And so that's not what I want.
| | 03:18 |
And besides, I want the path to be exactly
50% as wide as it is now.
| | 03:23 |
So, I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac.
Instead I want to bring up the dialogue box.
| | 03:27 |
So, I'll Alt click or Option click, right
there on the upper right side of the shape
| | 03:33 |
in order to bring up the Scale dialogue
box.
| | 03:36 |
And I'll tab down to the non-uniform
values.
| | 03:39 |
And in this case I'll change the
horizontal value to 50%, and I'll change
| | 03:44 |
the vertical value to 100%.
And I end up getting exactly the effect I want.
| | 03:49 |
Now, I'll click OK.
Now, we need to create of duplicates of
| | 03:53 |
this tile.
So, I'll return to my Selection tool,
| | 03:55 |
which I can get by pressing the V key and
I'll go ahead and drag this corner handle,
| | 03:59 |
snap it into position, press the Alt+
Option key and then go ahead and release
| | 04:03 |
to create a second tile.
And now I'll press Ctrl+D or Cmd+D on the
| | 04:08 |
Mac to duplicate a third tile.
The problem with this third tile is it's
| | 04:13 |
now too wide I guess or too tall depending
on your frame of reference.
| | 04:18 |
So, we need to scale it using once again
the Scale tool.
| | 04:23 |
And it's going to work out great because
our constraint axis is still set to 45 degrees.
| | 04:27 |
So, I'll switch to the Scale tool,
Alt+click or Option+click along this upper
| | 04:32 |
left side.
That brings up the Scale dialog box our
| | 04:35 |
last values are exactly the opposite of
what we need now.
| | 04:39 |
That is to say the horizontal value should
be a 100% and the vertical value should be
| | 04:43 |
50% and we will end up achieving this tile
right there.
| | 04:47 |
Then click OK.
Switch back to the Black Arrow tool and
| | 04:51 |
then drag from the bottom point in this
tile, go ahead and snap it into alignment
| | 04:57 |
with the top left point in the upper left
green tile.
| | 05:01 |
And press and hold the Alt key, or the
Option key on the Mac, to create a duplicate.
| | 05:05 |
One more thing, let's go ahead and create
this green tile right there, but I don't
| | 05:10 |
need to resort to scaling, I can just
duplicate this left hand based tile.
| | 05:14 |
So, I'll go and click on it in order to
select it.
| | 05:17 |
Then I need to grab it by its bottom point
so I'll drag the bottom point like so.
| | 05:22 |
And I'll move it order to the left until
it snaps into alignment with the left hand
| | 05:26 |
point of that small green tile and then
I'll press and hold the Alt key, or the
| | 05:30 |
option key on the Mac and release in order
to create a duplicate.
| | 05:34 |
Then finally I'll change its color by
clicking on a left-hand swatch up here in
| | 05:38 |
the Control panel, and I'll change it to
green, though it's a lighter shade of green.
| | 05:43 |
And actually we're going our own way on
the design here, so I went with dark tiles
| | 05:47 |
for the edge and light tiles for the
corners.
| | 05:51 |
So, I'll press the Enter key or the Return
key on a Mac to hide that panel.
| | 05:54 |
This green tile does belong in front by
the way so we'll leave it where it is.
| | 05:58 |
Of course, we need to create more copies
of these tiles, of both this big green
| | 06:03 |
tile and the smaller olive tiles.
And we'll do exactly that using the Rotate
| | 06:08 |
tool in the next movie.
| | 06:10 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Rotate tool| 00:00 |
Obviously, we need to take the green tiles
we've created so far, and duplicate them
| | 00:04 |
around the perimeter of the design.
And that means rotating.
| | 00:08 |
In this movie, I'm going to show you two
ways to rotate inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:12 |
The Bounding Box which is the easy way.
And the Rotate Tool which is the more
| | 00:17 |
powerful way.
I've saved my progress as Row of green tiles.ai.
| | 00:22 |
I'm going to right click using my black
arrow tool here inside the document.
| | 00:25 |
And I'm going to choose hide guides to get
rid of them for a moment.
| | 00:28 |
I'm also going to turn off my image just
to sort of clean up the screen and you do
| | 00:34 |
that by clicking on this little rectangle
as opposed to the eye ball.
| | 00:37 |
It serves the same purpose by the way.
It goes ahead and turns the image off.
| | 00:42 |
And then I'll go ahead and click in the
upper right corner of the drawing layer in
| | 00:45 |
order to select the contents of that
layer.
| | 00:48 |
If I were using the Bounding Box, and that
would mean of course pressing
| | 00:51 |
Ctrl+Shift+B, or Cmd+Shifr+B on the Mac,
in order to bring that Bounding Box up on screen.
| | 00:57 |
It's pretty obvious that these handles
right there allow you to scale, but how in
| | 01:02 |
the world do you rotate.
Well you move your cursor slightly beyond
| | 01:06 |
any one of those handles, and then you
drag.
| | 01:09 |
And that's all there it to it.
And you can see that you're always
| | 01:12 |
rotating around the center of the
selection, by the way, when you're using
| | 01:16 |
the bounding box.
Also notice that we've got this little
| | 01:19 |
heads up display, that gray box that's
telling us, that in my case, I've rotated
| | 01:24 |
this selection negative 107 degrees and
some change.
| | 01:28 |
If you want to constrain the angle of your
rotation to 45 degrees, some multiple of
| | 01:33 |
45 degrees, that is, then you press and
hold the Shift key.
| | 01:37 |
And as long as you have the Shift key
down, you're going to constrain the angle
| | 01:41 |
of that rotation as you see me doing here.
The problem with using the Bounding Box is
| | 01:48 |
A, you have to get so close to the handle.
I'm not a big fan of that, so it's kind of
| | 01:52 |
hard to get your cursor in the right
location.
| | 01:54 |
And B you can't control the transformation
origin that is the reference point.
| | 01:59 |
What if you want to rotate for example
around this anchor point right there?
| | 02:03 |
Well, in that case you need to switch to
the Rotate Tool.
| | 02:07 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+Shift+B or
Cmd+Shift+B on the Mac to turn off the
| | 02:11 |
Bounding Box, and then I'll switch to the
Rotate Tool.
| | 02:14 |
It's located right here.
You can also get to it by pressing the R key.
| | 02:19 |
You can see by default that reference
point, the little, sort of, cyan target there.
| | 02:23 |
It's located in the center of the
selection.
| | 02:27 |
So if I begin dragging I have the exact
same experience as I do when using the
| | 02:31 |
Bounding Box.
And sure enough, I can even press the
| | 02:34 |
Shift key as drag to constrain the angle
of my rotation to a mulitple of 45 degrees.
| | 02:40 |
If you want to set a specific
transformation origin, that is you want to
| | 02:45 |
change the location of the reference point
then you click at a location like so.
| | 02:48 |
So I just more that target to that anchor
point right there and then, when you begin
| | 02:53 |
dragging you will rotate around that
point.
| | 02:57 |
Which is very useful and we'll see it's
absolutely essential for the operation
| | 03:02 |
that we'll be trying to pull of in the
next movie.
| | 03:05 |
Another very important point to keep in
mind when you're using this tool.
| | 03:08 |
If you drag close to the origin point like
I am here, so my cursor is just a pike
| | 03:14 |
away from it or so, then you're going to
rotate very, very quickly.
| | 03:20 |
If you want to perform a more nuanced
rotation, then just move your cursor very
| | 03:24 |
far away.
As far away as possible from that origin
| | 03:27 |
point and you're going to gain a lot more
control.
| | 03:30 |
And basically these little tricks work
across all of the Transformation tools.
| | 03:34 |
So, anything that works with the Scale
Tools is going to work with the Rotate
| | 03:37 |
Tool as well.
For example, if I want to rotate
| | 03:40 |
numerically then I double click on the
Rotate Tool here inside the toolbox.
| | 03:45 |
That brings up the Rotate dialog box in I
can specify an angle such as 15 degrees
| | 03:50 |
lets say.
Bearing in mind of course that positive
| | 03:53 |
values such as all in a 60 degrees are
going to rotate the selection in a counter
| | 03:58 |
clockwise direction.
If you want to rotate in a clockwise
| | 04:02 |
direction then you want to enter a
negative value, that's just the way things work.
| | 04:07 |
More importantly I think here, is that
when you double click on the tool, that
| | 04:11 |
resets the reference point to the very
center of the selection.
| | 04:15 |
So I'm going to go ahead and cancel out of
here.
| | 04:16 |
What if you want to specify a reference
point?
| | 04:19 |
Then you press the Alt key or the Option
key on a Mac.
| | 04:22 |
That gives you a little dot, dot, dot,
after the cursor as you can see here, and
| | 04:26 |
then you click for example on this anchor
point.
| | 04:29 |
Although it doesn't have to be an anchor
point, you can Alt+Click or Option+Click
| | 04:33 |
anywhere you like.
And notice when you do you go ahead and
| | 04:36 |
set the reference point at that Alt or
Option+Click location.
| | 04:40 |
And you bring up the Rotate dialog box,
and then you can specify an angle for example.
| | 04:45 |
I'll go ahead and rotate the selection 80
degrees.
| | 04:49 |
And you can either click the Copy button
to create a copy of your selection or you
| | 04:53 |
can just click OK in order to rotate the
selection itself.
| | 04:58 |
So those are your options for rotating all
sorts of objects inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:02 |
In the next movie, we'll put the Rotate
Tool to work.
| | 05:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rotating and duplicating| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you two different
ways to use the rotate tool to duplicate
| | 00:04 |
the green tiles around the perimeter of
the design.
| | 00:07 |
I've gone ahead and restored the saved
version of row of greentiles.ai.
| | 00:12 |
And the first thing we need to do is
select the green tiles.
| | 00:15 |
So, we'll go ahead and switch back to the
Black Arrow tool.
| | 00:18 |
And I'll click on any one of the dark
green tiles to select it.
| | 00:22 |
Now, I want to select all the other dark
green tiles as well, so I'll go up to this
| | 00:26 |
final option in the Control Panel.
And the first thing I'll do, is click the
| | 00:29 |
down pointing arrow head and make sure
it's set to all, so in other words, I'm
| | 00:33 |
matching all attributes, that is fill and
stroke attributes.
| | 00:37 |
And then, I'll go ahead and click on this
icon that says select similar objects, in
| | 00:41 |
order to select all four of those dark
green tiles.
| | 00:44 |
And now, I'll just go ahead and Shift
click on a light green tile to select it
| | 00:48 |
as well, and now I'll switch to the rotate
tool, which of course I can get by
| | 00:51 |
pressing the R key.
And I want to set the transformation
| | 00:55 |
origin right there at the intersection of
those two guidelines that indicate the
| | 01:00 |
center of the artboard.
So, I'll go ahead and just click at that location.
| | 01:04 |
We now have the reference point right
there its hard to see, so I will press
| | 01:08 |
Ctrl+semicolon or Cmd+semicolon on the
Mac, so that you can see that little sign
| | 01:13 |
target right there.
Then, I will began dragging my tiles and I
| | 01:18 |
am going to create the one standard to the
right first, because that's a positive rotation.
| | 01:22 |
It'll just make a little more sense, when
I show you the next way to rotate these tiles.
| | 01:26 |
And obviously, I want to constrain the
angle to exactly 90 degrees.
| | 01:31 |
So, I'll press and hold the Shift key.
And now you can see that the heads-up
| | 01:35 |
display right there, which I can point to
now, says 90 degrees.
| | 01:39 |
And that's because, once again, I have the
Shift key down.
| | 01:41 |
You have to keep that Shift key down,
until after you release the mouse button.
| | 01:46 |
I also want to create a duplicate of these
tiles, so I'll add the Alt key or the
| | 01:51 |
Option key on the Mac.
And notice that changes my cursor to a
| | 01:54 |
double arrowhead, so I have the little
phantom white arrowhead in the background,
| | 01:58 |
indicating that I'm about to create a
clone.
| | 02:01 |
If you are working along with me, and you
are on the PC, you need to have the Shift
| | 02:04 |
and Alt keys down, on the Mac, you need to
have the Shift and Option keys down.
| | 02:08 |
Then release the mouse button, and then
release the keys.
| | 02:11 |
Now, we have a little problem notice that
the green tile is in back of the base tile here.
| | 02:17 |
We'll address that problem in the next
movie, but for now, lets just keep rotating.
| | 02:22 |
Now at this point, I could just press
Ctrl+D or Cmd+D on a Mac, a couple of
| | 02:26 |
times, in order to finish off all of the
green tiles.
| | 02:30 |
But I want to show you the other method
first.
| | 02:32 |
So I'm going to press Ctrl+Z a couple of
times, Cmd+Z on the Mac, in order to get
| | 02:36 |
back to this point here.
The other method is to press the Alt key
| | 02:40 |
or the Option key on a Mac, and click on
that same target point, right there.
| | 02:45 |
In order to bring up the rotate dialogue
box, and notice its telling me the angle
| | 02:49 |
of my last rotation.
Which was exactly 90 degrees, and if I
| | 02:54 |
have the preview check box turned on, I
can see what that means, and I can confirm
| | 02:57 |
that, yes, that is the angle of rotation
I'm looking for.
| | 03:00 |
And then, of course, rather than clicking
OK, which will move those tiles in the new position.
| | 03:05 |
I want to click copy, so that we duplicate
the copies, and then I'll finish things
| | 03:10 |
off by pressing Ctrl+D or Cmd+D on a Mac.
Come to think of it, we are missing a
| | 03:15 |
tile, there's this little tile at the
outside here, that I didn't bother to create.
| | 03:20 |
Might as well create all four of them
right now, using a combination of scale
| | 03:23 |
and rotate.
So, I'll switch back to my Black Arrow tool.
| | 03:27 |
And, I'll click off the shapes to deselect
them, and I'll click on this little green
| | 03:32 |
tile here, the dark green one.
And I'll drag it by its anchor point like
| | 03:35 |
so, until it snaps into alignment on the
left side of that light green tile.
| | 03:40 |
And then I'll press the Alt key or the
Option key on the Mac, in order to create
| | 03:44 |
a copy.
And notice, by the way, I have Smart
| | 03:46 |
Guides turned on.
So, I have absolute certainty that I've
| | 03:49 |
snapped that tile into place.
And at this point I would go ahead and
| | 03:53 |
grab the scale tool, and lets say, I want
to scale with respect to this right hand
| | 03:59 |
anchor point, which of course I do.
So, I Alt click or Option click on the Mac
| | 04:02 |
in order to bring up the Scale dialogue
box, but look at that, the last scaling I
| | 04:07 |
applied was non proportional and I'm
squishing the shape at a 45 degree angle.
| | 04:12 |
And that's because I forgot the reset the
angle of the constrain axis.
| | 04:16 |
So, I need to do that first.
I'll go ahead and cancel out.
| | 04:19 |
And then I'll press Ctrl+K, or Cmd+K on a
Mac, to bring up the Preferences dialogue box.
| | 04:24 |
And I'll change that constrain angle to 0
degrees, and then I'll click OK.
| | 04:30 |
All right, now we're ready to scale for
real, so I'll Alt+click or Option+click
| | 04:33 |
once again at this location.
Now, we get a completely different and, of
| | 04:37 |
course, wrong effect.
I'm going to change the uniform value to
| | 04:41 |
be 50% and then press the Tab key.
And we end up getting this effect here,
| | 04:45 |
which is what I'm looking for, and I'll
click okay in order to create that new tile.
| | 04:50 |
Let's rotate that tile to create the other
ones here, so I'll press Ctrl+semicolon or
| | 04:55 |
Cmd+semicolon on a Mac, in order to bring
back up my guides.
| | 05:00 |
And I'll go ahead and grab my rotate tool.
And I'll Alt click or Option click at the
| | 05:05 |
intersection of those two center guides.
And as you can see here, it's telling me
| | 05:09 |
the angle of my last rotation.
90 degrees, which is exactly what I want.
| | 05:14 |
So I'll click on the Copy button.
And then I'll press Ctrl+D or Cmd+D on a
| | 05:18 |
Mac, twice in a row, in order to create
the last of the green tiles.
| | 05:23 |
We still have one slight problem here.
It's actually a pretty hefty problem.
| | 05:27 |
Not only is this beige tile, in front of
this green tile, which shouldn't be the case.
| | 05:32 |
But if I were to twirl open the drawing
layer, you can see that we've got two
| | 05:36 |
beige tiles at the top and then a bunch of
green tiles, and then there's another
| | 05:40 |
beige tile and another green tile.
So the stacking order, that is, the way
| | 05:44 |
the objects are stacked on top of each
other, is a complete mess.
| | 05:48 |
And so, I'll show you a great way to tidy
things up, in the next movie.
| | 05:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Group, stack, and organize| 00:00 |
So as I mentioned at the end of the
previous movie, we've got something of a
| | 00:04 |
mess where the stacking order of the paths
are concerned.
| | 00:07 |
In other words, how one path is stacked on
top of another.
| | 00:09 |
We've got green paths on top of a beige
path on top of green paths.
| | 00:13 |
What we ought to do is go ahead and group
all the beige paths together.
| | 00:17 |
Then group all the green paths together.
Then stack them accordingly.
| | 00:21 |
And then what we'll have is a much more
organized illustration.
| | 00:25 |
I've saved my progress as Green tile
parameter.ai and I'm going to switch back
| | 00:29 |
to my black arrow tool.
And the easiest way work is to just click
| | 00:33 |
inside of one of the base tiles to select
it.
| | 00:36 |
And then go over to that final icon in the
Control Panel, select similar objects and
| | 00:41 |
click on it, and that will select all the
beige tiles.
| | 00:45 |
Then, go up to the Object menu and choose
the Group command or press Ctrl+G on the
| | 00:50 |
PC or Cmd+G on the Mac.
And that goes and groups all the beige
| | 00:54 |
tiles in front of all the green tiles,
which of course is not what we want but
| | 00:58 |
we'll take care of that in a moment.
Then, we'll take advantage of this really
| | 01:02 |
great Select command.
If you go up to the Select menu, notice
| | 01:06 |
there's command called Inverse .
Well what it does, is it deselects
| | 01:09 |
everything that is selected, and it
selects everything that's not selected.
| | 01:14 |
Fortunately, in our case, the only thing
that's not selected are the green tiles
| | 01:18 |
and the image in the background, but the
image layer is locked.
| | 01:21 |
So, we don't run any risk of selecting it.
Go ahead and choose that inverse command
| | 01:26 |
and then we'll have all of the green tiles
selected.
| | 01:29 |
Now, go up to the Object menu and choose
the group command once again.
| | 01:33 |
Now, I've got all the green tiles group
together and all the beige tiles grouped together.
| | 01:37 |
The green tiles need to be in front, two
ways to do that.
| | 01:40 |
You can just grab them here in Layers
panel and drag them on top of the beige tiles.
| | 01:44 |
Or if you don't fancy that method, I'll
press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac.
| | 01:50 |
Then you can right click on those tiles,
choose Arrange and then choose Bring to
| | 01:55 |
Front, which will move them to the front
of the stack as well.
| | 01:59 |
Either way is, of course, just perfectly
fine.
| | 02:02 |
Now I'm going to click off the tiles to
deselect them.
| | 02:04 |
One final organizational chore, if you
like.
| | 02:08 |
If you were to switch over to my final
version of this mosaic, you'll see all
| | 02:12 |
these various ornamental elements that
we're going to draw in the very next chapter.
| | 02:17 |
It might look very daunting, but see how
many of these elements are repeated over
| | 02:22 |
and over again.
You can imagine we're going to be rotating
| | 02:25 |
and flipping and its going to save us an
awful lot of time.
| | 02:28 |
So its all very doable, believe me.
But I found that it was easier to draw
| | 02:32 |
these new elements if we were to take the
tiles and relegate them to their own
| | 02:37 |
independent layer.
So I am going to go ahead and do that
| | 02:39 |
right now.
So I will return to my illustration and
| | 02:42 |
progress, I'll go ahead and select all the
objects on this drawing layer by clicking
| | 02:46 |
in the top right corner of the layer like
so.
| | 02:49 |
And now I notice that we have these red
squares indicating selected objects.
| | 02:53 |
I need to create a new layer though to put
them on.
| | 02:56 |
I'm going to create this layer underneath
the active layer.
| | 03:00 |
And you do that, in case you're interested
in yet another trick.
| | 03:03 |
You press the Ctrl+Alt keys, or the
Cmd+Options keys on the Mac, and you click
| | 03:08 |
on that little page icon right there.
And notice that pops a new layer
| | 03:13 |
underneath, the drawing layer.
So that's a Ctrl+Alt+Click, or a
| | 03:16 |
Cmd+Option+Click on a Mac.
It also handily brings up the Layer
| | 03:20 |
Options dialogue box.
I'll go ahead and call this layer, Tiles.
| | 03:24 |
I'll go ahead and change the color to
yellow, you can change it to anything you
| | 03:28 |
like, and then I'll click OK.
Now we need to move this selection to the
| | 03:32 |
new layer.
You want to go ahead and grab that top red square.
| | 03:37 |
Because if you drag one of these other red
squares you'll move just that one group.
| | 03:41 |
We want to move all of the selected
objects.
| | 03:44 |
So drag that top red square down into the
tiles layer and drop it.
| | 03:49 |
And we've now relegated the tiles to their
own independent layer.
| | 03:52 |
And now just to keep everything safe, go
ahead and lock it down by clicking in that
| | 03:57 |
second column.
And then click on the dDrawing layer to
| | 03:59 |
make it active and we're ready to draw the
ornaments on the tiles in the very next chapter.
| | 04:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Painting Free-Form ShapesThe best tools for painting| 00:00 |
Now, let's say you just want to start
painting in Illustrator.
| | 00:03 |
Not squares or circles.
You want to go totally free form.
| | 00:07 |
Well, you might naturally, gravitate
toward the pencil or the paintbrush.
| | 00:11 |
But while those tools have their uses,
they aren't what you want.
| | 00:15 |
What you want, and you're going to have to
trust me on this, is something called the
| | 00:19 |
Blob Brush.
Yes, that's really its name.
| | 00:22 |
And yet, it's a great tool.
The Blob Brush always paints closed path
| | 00:26 |
outlines, so it's easy to modify the
results.
| | 00:29 |
And each time one brush stroke matches
another, Illustrator gloms them together.
| | 00:34 |
Then, you have another tool, the Eraser,
which paints in holes and gaps.
| | 00:39 |
The Blob Brush adds, the Eraser
substracts.
| | 00:42 |
One minute, you're roughing in simple
shapes, the next you're turning them into
| | 00:46 |
complex art.
For example, you can start by painting
| | 00:50 |
this and then with a few minutes of work,
turn it into this.
| | 00:54 |
Or better yet, take the tiles we made in a
previous chapter, and turn them into this
| | 00:59 |
fully-realized design.
This chapter is about the Blob Brush, the
| | 01:04 |
Eraser, and a third tool called the Shape
Builder.
| | 01:08 |
All designed to work together.
Here's how.
| | 01:11 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Painting closed path outlines| 00:00 |
In this movie I'll introduce you to what I
consider to be the preeminent tool for
| | 00:05 |
painting shapes inside of Illustrator.
It does have an unfortunate name however.
| | 00:10 |
It's this guy right there.
It's called the Blob Brush Tool, which
| | 00:14 |
implies that all it does it paint blobs
and that's not true.
| | 00:17 |
It doesn't do anything of the kind.
What it does it is paint closed shaped outlines.
| | 00:22 |
And it does a good job of smoothing out
your paint strokes as well.
| | 00:26 |
And it is the tool we'll be using in order
to create this fairly sophisticated design.
| | 00:32 |
Let me show you how it works.
I've got this new document here.
| | 00:35 |
It's just eight and a half inches wide by
six inches tall.
| | 00:38 |
And what I'd like you to do if you're
trying this tool out along with me.
| | 00:41 |
I'd like for you to go down to the Blob
Brush Tool icon and double-click on it in
| | 00:46 |
order to bring up this massive dialog box
of options.
| | 00:49 |
Most of which you don't need to worry
about.
| | 00:51 |
What I'd like you to do though, is turn on
the keep selected check box and that way
| | 00:55 |
each path outline will remain selected
after you get done painting it.
| | 00:59 |
And you'll have a better sense for what's
going on.
| | 01:02 |
Go ahead and click OK.
And then, I'm just going to draw kind of
| | 01:05 |
this big, sort of circular, path.
Now, I'm drawing with a mouse.
| | 01:08 |
I'm not using a drawing tablet or anything
like that, so my results are not all that smooth.
| | 01:14 |
But notice, as soon as I release,
Illustrator does two things.
| | 01:18 |
First of all, It smooths out my paint
stroke, which is great.
| | 01:21 |
And then secondly it goes to head and
creates closed path outline.
| | 01:26 |
So this is a shape filled with black as
supposed to an outline stroked with black.
| | 01:32 |
And if you go to the Layers panel you can
twirl open the layer you can see what is
| | 01:35 |
called Compound.
Because it is a compound path, we have an
| | 01:38 |
outer out line that is filled with black
and then an inner outline that's cutting a hole.
| | 01:44 |
Now just go ahead and paint in a few more
details like, I will give this guy a
| | 01:47 |
mouth, because he is a person, in case she
didn't know where I was along with this.
| | 01:52 |
Now I will go ahead and give him a couple
of eyes as well he needs some pupils.
| | 01:57 |
Let's say I just go ahead and paint some
hollow pupil like this and it looks pretty
| | 02:01 |
garbagey, I'm going to go ahead and zoom
in on it.
| | 02:05 |
And notice that it's got a hole in it as
well, well I could fill in that hole if I
| | 02:08 |
want to.
I could just paint away the hole.
| | 02:11 |
What was formerly a Compound Path changes
to just Path here inside the Layers panel,
| | 02:16 |
because it no longer has a hole inside of
it.
| | 02:19 |
And then I could try to even out the edges
a little bit if I wanted to.
| | 02:23 |
And I'll go ahead and paint in another
pupil as well over here on the right hand side.
| | 02:29 |
Maybe paint a nose as well, and notice as
soon as I paint this nose next to his eye,
| | 02:34 |
the two path outlines join together into a
single outline.
| | 02:38 |
And that's the way the tool is designed to
work.
| | 02:41 |
As long as you are painting with the
consistent color, in my case black
| | 02:44 |
illustrators going to go ahead and join
all those parts together.
| | 02:48 |
If you don't want them to join together
one option is to change your fill color.
| | 02:53 |
Just to make sure I am not effecting the
selected path, I'll press Ctrl+Shift+A or
| | 02:57 |
Cmd+Shift+A on the Mac to deselect it.
And then I'll go up here to the Control
| | 03:02 |
Panel and click on that first swatch and
I'll switch to this sort of light beige color.
| | 03:06 |
Then, I could go ahead and paint in his
flesh, let's say, but I'd like to get a
| | 03:11 |
little more work done more quickly than
having to scrub around in here like this.
| | 03:15 |
So I want to increase the size of my
brush.
| | 03:17 |
And I can do that on the fly using the
square bracket keys.
| | 03:22 |
And these are the keys that are to the
right of the P as in Paul key, on an
| | 03:26 |
American keyboard.
So if you press the right bracket key,
| | 03:30 |
you'll increase the size of the brush and
I'm pressing the key many times here.
| | 03:34 |
If you press the left bracket key you'll
decrease the size of the brush.
| | 03:38 |
If you really want to go nuts then you can
press and hold the right bracket key and
| | 03:42 |
it'll grow continuously.
If you want to reduce the size of the
| | 03:46 |
brush continuously, then you press and
hold the left bracket key.
| | 03:48 |
And so that looks pretty good.
I'll just go ahead and paint around inside
| | 03:52 |
the guy's flesh.
And you can seee that the beige paths.
| | 03:55 |
Are now joining together.
But, we're not joining to the black paths
| | 04:00 |
at all.
And you may be a little disturbed by what
| | 04:03 |
I'm doing here because I'm painting these
flesh tones over the guy's eyes and head
| | 04:09 |
and all these other outlines.
But then we can put 'em behind in just a moment.
| | 04:13 |
But for the present I just want to make
sure that I'm painting things in
| | 04:16 |
Relatively well, you can always go back
and change these things later on down the line.
| | 04:22 |
Alright, once I get his flesh painted in
just beautifully, as you can see here.
| | 04:27 |
I can right-click inside the flesh, choose
Arrange and then choose Send to Back and
| | 04:31 |
it goes to the back of the stack.
Then I'm going to press the V key to
| | 04:36 |
switch back to my black arrow tool.
And then click on an empty portion of the
| | 04:40 |
document to deselect that path outline.
Now I want to stress, even though you may
| | 04:44 |
not like what I've come up with so far,
every single one of these items is an
| | 04:49 |
independent path outline.
So I can click on this pupil for example,
| | 04:52 |
and maybe move it to a different location
if I don't feel like this guy's looking at
| | 04:56 |
me exactly the way I want him to.
And I have complete control.
| | 05:00 |
I can grab this guy's head for example,
partially marquee everything, and I can go
| | 05:05 |
over to the scale tool, and I could drag
in order to make his face bigger.
| | 05:10 |
I could drag inward to make his face
smaller.
| | 05:13 |
I could come in from the side while
pressing the Shift key if I wanted to make
| | 05:16 |
his face a little skinnier, for example.
So even though this is a pretty basic
| | 05:21 |
painting tool, it does result in vector
based path out lines that you can modify
| | 05:26 |
to any extent you like.
Looking at this, you may say well Deek,
| | 05:29 |
you've got a few problems here.
You've painted the flesh outside of the
| | 05:33 |
face down, in the lower left corner we've
got some flesh in the eyes, his eyes a
| | 05:37 |
little lumpy.
That's where the Blob Brushes partner in
| | 05:40 |
crime comes in.
And it's located directly below, that's
| | 05:44 |
the Eraser tool, and I'll show you how
that tool works in the next movie.
| | 05:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Erasing and painting selected paths| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you the Eraser
tool, which allows you to clean up
| | 00:04 |
mistakes that you make with the Blob
brush.
| | 00:06 |
And I'll also show you how to use the two
tools in concert with each other.
| | 00:10 |
I've saved my drawing, such as it is, as
Very bad boy.ai found inside the 08
| | 00:15 |
Painting folder.
I'm going to switch to my Black Arrow tool.
| | 00:18 |
And I'm going to click on this right hand
eye.
| | 00:21 |
And Shift+click on the pupil in order to
select both of these paths.
| | 00:26 |
And then I'm going to switch to the Eraser
tool, which is located directly below the
| | 00:30 |
Blob brush.
And I'm going to increase the size of my
| | 00:32 |
cursor a little bit like so.
And I'm going to paint in a highlight,
| | 00:36 |
right there at that location.
And then I'll reduce the size of my cursor
| | 00:39 |
and try to even up some of that badness
down there at the bottom of the eye like so.
| | 00:44 |
You end up just erasing into the path
outline.
| | 00:46 |
Illustrator goes ahead and again smooths
out your brush strokes and of course
| | 00:51 |
revises the path.
But it only works with the selected path outline.
| | 00:55 |
So notice if I want to paint a highlight
over here in the left eye.
| | 00:59 |
It looks like everything's working out
great but when I release nothing happens
| | 01:04 |
and that's because the Eraser tool only
effects the selected path which is really
| | 01:09 |
a great thing.
But, I want you to come to terms with a
| | 01:12 |
keyboard trick that is going to allow you
to work much more quickly with both the
| | 01:16 |
Blob brush and the Eraser tool.
And that's the Ctrl key.
| | 01:20 |
If you press the Ctrl key on the PC or the
Cmd key on the Mac you will switch to the
| | 01:25 |
last used Arrow tool on the fly.
So in my case it's the black arrow and so
| | 01:30 |
if I Ctrl+click or Cmd+click on this left
hand pupil I'll go ahead and select it.
| | 01:35 |
As soon as I release the Ctrl key or the
Cmd key I return to the Eraser tool.
| | 01:41 |
And that Ctrl or Cmd key trick works when
you're using just about any tool inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:47 |
I'm going to go ahead and paint in a
little bit of a highlight there.
| | 01:49 |
Now I need to fix the face coloring so
I'll press the Ctrl key, or the Cmd key on
| | 01:55 |
the Mac and click on that little sliver of
beige there in order to select this big
| | 01:59 |
beige shape and I'll paint away some of
that, I'll paint away some of this stuff
| | 02:03 |
out here.
I'll paint down in this region.
| | 02:06 |
Notice I can paint all over the pupil it
doesn't matter because it's not selected.
| | 02:10 |
Only affect the selection and nothing
more.
| | 02:12 |
Then I'm going to increase the size of my
cursor by pressing the right bracket key a
| | 02:17 |
few times.
I'll paint away this stuff.
| | 02:19 |
I'll paint away there as well.
All right now at this point let's say I
| | 02:23 |
want to give this guy some eye lids.
I'm going to switch back to my Blob brush,
| | 02:27 |
and I'm going to reduce the size of my
cursor by pressing the left bracket key a
| | 02:30 |
few times.
And I'm going to go ahead and paint over that.
| | 02:34 |
And that is actually a mistake, because
after all, I changed my fill color to
| | 02:38 |
beige when I went and selected this
background shape.
| | 02:41 |
So I'll press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on the Mac.
To undo that change, and then I'll press
| | 02:45 |
the Ctrl key, or the Cmd key on the Mac,
and click on any old black shape in order
| | 02:50 |
to select it.
That automatically changes my fill color
| | 02:52 |
to black, as you can see up here in the
Control panel.
| | 02:55 |
And now, I can go ahead and paint eyelids
onto the eyes like so, and Illustrator
| | 03:00 |
automatically joins the shapes together.
Now what if I want to go ahead and fill in
| | 03:04 |
those eyelids with beige.
Because after all they would be skin tones.
| | 03:08 |
Then I could press the Ctrl key or the Cmd
key in the Mac, and click on that beige
| | 03:13 |
shape in the background.
That changes my fill color to beige.
| | 03:16 |
As you can see in the upper left corner of
the screen.
| | 03:18 |
I'll increase the size of my cursor quite
a bit.
| | 03:21 |
And then I'll paint over the eyelid.
And it looks like I'm getting the results
| | 03:25 |
I want, but as soon as I release I painted
a new beige shape and that's because the
| | 03:29 |
other beige shape is way in the background
and essentially the Blob brush tool can't
| | 03:34 |
reach it.
You can change that behavior.
| | 03:37 |
I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac in
order to undo that brush stroke.
| | 03:41 |
I'll double click on the Blob brush icon,
here in the tool box.
| | 03:45 |
And I'll turn on this check box Merge Only
with Selection which gives you way more
| | 03:49 |
control over what's going on.
Now, click OK.
| | 03:53 |
So now, we have a Blob brush that's
behaving like the Eraser tool.
| | 03:57 |
In other words, it only affects a selected
shape.
| | 03:59 |
The big beige shape is selected so now if
I paint over the eyelids.
| | 04:04 |
I effect the base shape and it remains in
the background, which is absolutely awesome.
| | 04:09 |
So it doesn't jump to the foreground.
Which, of course, would be unfortunate, we
| | 04:12 |
don't want that.
Now I'm going to give this guy a ball cap.
| | 04:15 |
And there's a method to my madness, I'm
not just doing this to goof around.
| | 04:19 |
I'm going to press the Ctrl key, or the
Cmd key on a Mac.
| | 04:22 |
And I'll click at the mouth once again to
select it.
| | 04:24 |
And what that does is that changes the
fill color to black.
| | 04:27 |
I'll reduce the size of my cursor by
pressing the left bracket key, and I'll
| | 04:31 |
paint a cap onto his head like so, and
I've gone a little bit too far with it probably.
| | 04:37 |
That's okay, I can erase that in just a
moment.
| | 04:39 |
I'll go ahead and give it some lines.
Notice I'm only affecting the selected shape.
| | 04:43 |
Even though the mouth remains selected
down here, I'm not joining the ball cap to
| | 04:47 |
the mouth in any way, shape, or form.
Now I'll switch over to the Eraser tool
| | 04:51 |
and I'll paint away some of this garbage
over here, because I don't want it.
| | 04:55 |
Let's say I want the cap to be at more of
a jaunty angle.
| | 04:59 |
I'll just go ahead and press Ctrl+shift+a,
Cmd+shift+a on the Mac to deselect
| | 05:03 |
everything, so I don't effect the mouth.
And then I'll press the Ctrl key, with the
| | 05:07 |
Cmd key on the Mac, and click on the cap
in order to select it.
| | 05:10 |
I'll switch to the next tool down, which
is the Rotate tool.
| | 05:14 |
Click right about here let's say, to set a
reference point.
| | 05:17 |
And then drag the cap down to more of a
you know, jaunty angle.
| | 05:22 |
Go ahead and use the arrow keys, and
pressing the up and right arrow keys in
| | 05:26 |
order to nudge that selected cap into a
different position.
| | 05:29 |
Now what I want to do is erase his head.
Because I don't want the cap to seem like
| | 05:35 |
it's transparent or something.
So what I could do is Ctrl+click, for
| | 05:39 |
example, on the flesh shape in order to
select it.
| | 05:43 |
And the I could grab the Eraser tool.
I'll increase the size of my cursor quite
| | 05:47 |
a bit.
And paint away that area.
| | 05:50 |
But I'd only effect the flat shape and
nothing more, what if you want to effect
| | 05:54 |
multiple shapes at the same time because
you don't want to have to sit there and
| | 05:58 |
erase each and every single shape.
Well I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+z or
| | 06:01 |
Cmd+z on the Mac in order to undo that
change then I'lll press and hold the Ctrl
| | 06:06 |
key in order to get my Black Arrow tool
that would be the Cmd key on a Mac and
| | 06:11 |
I'll marquee over all of these shapes
except for the cap.
| | 06:14 |
And now, if I brush over this area even
though it looks like I'm erasing the cap
| | 06:20 |
as well, of course with the Eraser tool, I
just affect the selected shapes and
| | 06:25 |
nothing more.
Alright, now I'll press Ctrl+Shift+a or
| | 06:28 |
Cmd+Shift+a on a Mac.
In order to accept that result.
| | 06:32 |
Now I'm going to press the v key in order
to switch back to the Black Arrow tool.
| | 06:36 |
So here's the thing, we're going to be
using the Blob brush and the Eraser tools
| | 06:41 |
in order to create this complex design and
you'll see, it's actually not hard work at
| | 06:46 |
all, but just so that you and I are on the
same page, if you're doing this along with me.
| | 06:52 |
Make sure that the Blob brush, I'll go
ahead and double click on its icon here,
| | 06:55 |
make sure that you have both of these
check boxes turned on inside the Blob
| | 07:00 |
Brush Tool Options dialog box.
And that way you will get absolutely the
| | 07:05 |
best results possible out of this tool.
| | 07:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reassigning keyboard shortcuts| 00:00 |
You can see I've done, a little more work
here.
| | 00:03 |
And this is all Blob Brush and Eraser
working in tandem with each other.
| | 00:07 |
So you can get, a lot of work done with
these tools.
| | 00:09 |
Quite easily.
And I've saved this illustration as such a
| | 00:12 |
good boy.ai.
There's no reason for you to open it.
| | 00:15 |
It's just background art.
For this movie, in which I'm going to
| | 00:18 |
suggest that we change a few keyboard
shortcuts.
| | 00:23 |
You can do it or not it is totally up to
you, and you can always go back to the old
| | 00:27 |
keyboard shortcuts.
So, we're not making any sort of long term commitment.
| | 00:31 |
This is the thing though, we're going to
be using Blob Brush and the Eraser
| | 00:36 |
together back and forth over and over
again.
| | 00:39 |
So, It'd be great if they had better
shortcuts in Shift+B and Shift+E.
| | 00:44 |
It'd be better, for example, if they were
B, and E instead.
| | 00:48 |
After all, B is assigned to the Paintbrush
tool, which is a tool that you will be
| | 00:53 |
using in Illustrator, but not nearly as
often.
| | 00:56 |
And then E is assigned to the Free
Transform tool.
| | 01:00 |
Meanwhile, we're also going to be taking
advantage of the Shape Builder quite a bit.
| | 01:04 |
And it's keyboard shortcut doesn't even
make any sense, and I'd like to give it a
| | 01:08 |
single letter keyboard shortcut as well.
If you are with me, here is what you do.
| | 01:12 |
You go up to the Edit menu, and you choose
the Keyboard Shortcuts command.
| | 01:17 |
Right away you should see the shortcuts
for the tools.
| | 01:20 |
If you don't, if you see menu commands
instead.
| | 01:22 |
Just go ahead and switch to tools, and
then we're going to have to do a little
| | 01:25 |
bit of work here.
Go ahead and scroll down this long list of
| | 01:29 |
tools until you come to the Shape Builder,
right there.
| | 01:33 |
Click on its keyboard shortcut.
Now, here in the PC you're going to have
| | 01:36 |
to click on that shortcut twice, to really
make it active, and then I want you to
| | 01:40 |
press the L key, in order to change the
shortcut for this tool to L.
| | 01:44 |
Then Illustrator's going to tell you hey,
that's already in use by the Ellipse tool.
| | 01:48 |
That tool will no longer have that
keyboard shortcut and so forth.
| | 01:52 |
Well, what you should do is go to the
conflict.
| | 01:54 |
In other words, switch back to the Ellipse
tool.
| | 01:57 |
And I'm going to scroll up a little bit
here, so that you can see the Rectangle
| | 02:00 |
tool has a keyboard shortcut of M.
So, it makes all the sense in the world
| | 02:04 |
that the Ellipse tool, should have a
keyboard shortcut of Shift+M since it's
| | 02:09 |
the next most popular shape tool.
And that, by the way, is the keyboard
| | 02:13 |
shortcut that is by default, assigned to
the Shape Builder, so we're just trading
| | 02:17 |
the two.
Then, go ahead and scroll down a little
| | 02:19 |
bit, and you'll see the Blob Brush.
Click on its keyboard shortcut twice if
| | 02:24 |
necessary to make it active.
And then press the B key.
| | 02:28 |
And then you're going to be told there's a
conflict here as well.
| | 02:30 |
Go to the conflict, which is the
Paintbrush right there.
| | 02:33 |
Click on its keyboard shortcut and press
Shift+B for it.
| | 02:38 |
Since it's the least popular of the two,
in my opinion.
| | 02:42 |
Now, I'll go ahead and click on the Eraser
tool's keyboard shortcut.
| | 02:45 |
I need to click on it twice to make sure
it's active.
| | 02:47 |
Press the E key to change its shortcut to
E.
| | 02:50 |
Then, go to the conflict by clicking on
the Go To Conflict button.
| | 02:54 |
That's the Free Transform tool, which
between you and me, I never use.
| | 02:58 |
I just never, ever use it.
But if you think there's a chance that you
| | 03:01 |
might, then just go ahead and give it the
keyboard shortcut of Shift+E.
| | 03:05 |
And you actually press Shift and E on the
keyboard, by the way, for that.
| | 03:09 |
Now you can just go ahead and click the OK
button.
| | 03:11 |
At which point, Illustrator is going to
ask you to save the key set.
| | 03:15 |
So in other words, it want you to name
your custom keyboard shortcuts.
| | 03:19 |
And I'm going to call mine, dekeys, which
is what I always call my shortcuts, but
| | 03:22 |
you can call yours anything you want.
And then I'll go ahead and click OK.
| | 03:27 |
And that means that if I go over to the
Blob Brush, it has a keyboard shortcut of B.
| | 03:31 |
The Eraser tool has a keyboard shortcut of
E.
| | 03:34 |
And the Shape Builder, which we'll be
using quite a bit in this chapter, has a
| | 03:37 |
keyboard shortcut of L.
And those less frequently used tools have
| | 03:42 |
keyboard shortcuts that include, the Shift
key.
| | 03:44 |
If ever you feel uncomfortable with that,
and you want to go back, then you go up to
| | 03:48 |
the Edit menu and you choose the Keyboard
Shortcuts command.
| | 03:52 |
And you change the set from dekeys, in
this case, back to Illustrator Defaults,
| | 03:57 |
and you essentially wipe the slate clean,
you're back to the default keyboard shortcuts.
| | 04:01 |
And then of course, if you change your
mind after then you wan't to come back to
| | 04:04 |
dekeys or whatever you called yours You
can select them as well.
| | 04:07 |
So, it will always be there Ready and
waiting for you.
| | 04:10 |
Alright, I'm going to go ahead and click
OK, to accept that change.
| | 04:14 |
Alright, we've managed to change our
keyboard shortcuts for some of the most
| | 04:16 |
popular tools in the software.
In the next exercise We will set about
| | 04:20 |
drawing the shapes inside of this tile
design.
| | 04:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Painting in the Outline mode| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to create the
blue cross that's at the center of the
| | 00:03 |
final design.
And we're going to do so using a
| | 00:06 |
combination of the Blob brush along with
the Eraser tool.
| | 00:09 |
But first I want you to have a sense of
how these objects are put together.
| | 00:13 |
So I'm going to go ahead and zoom on in.
And this will help you understand sort of
| | 00:18 |
the method to my madness as we work
through this.
| | 00:21 |
I have opened a file called final
mosaic.ai it's found inside the 08
| | 00:26 |
painting folder and I'm going to go ahead
and twirl open the drawing layer here
| | 00:30 |
inside the Layers panel.
And I'm going to turn off all of the
| | 00:35 |
objects by just dragging along this calm
of eyeballs and there's five objects in
| | 00:40 |
all inside of this layer go ahead and try
to center it here.
| | 00:44 |
We've got the cross in the background.
Now the cross can look any old way you
| | 00:48 |
like because we're going to be covering it
up with other objects.
| | 00:51 |
So it needs to actually be bigger than the
blue cross inside of the image that we're
| | 00:56 |
tracing then we've got these green shapes
in front and you can see how they're a lot
| | 01:02 |
more intricate and they end up covering up
areas of the blue cross and adding detail
| | 01:07 |
to it as well.
Then I'll go up a couple of items here,
| | 01:10 |
we've got these flowers that we'll be
drawing and they're all the exact same
| | 01:14 |
flower pattern repeated over and over
throughout the illustration.
| | 01:18 |
We also have these sort of green
curlicues, the layer's called olive
| | 01:22 |
because they're sort of olive colored.
And in back of that we've got some brown
| | 01:26 |
filler shapes.
And then, if I zoom out a little bit we'll
| | 01:29 |
be able to see that I have these outer
flower patterns as well.
| | 01:33 |
Again they're based on the exact same
flower patterns.
| | 01:37 |
In other words, you don't have to be that
careful when you're painting the cross shape.
| | 01:41 |
So,, I'll go ahead and switch over to my
starter file which is called Forty
| | 01:45 |
tiles.ai also found inside the 08 painting
folder.
| | 01:49 |
We can't really trace the image with the
tiles in the way so, I'm going to go ahead
| | 01:53 |
and turn off the tiles by clicking on the
eyeball in front of the Tiles layer here
| | 01:57 |
inside the Layers panel.
And then I'm going to zoom on into the
| | 02:01 |
cross and scroll down a little bit as
well.
| | 02:04 |
Now I'll grab the blob brush, which has a
keyboard shortcut of b, now if you
| | 02:08 |
followed along with the previous movie,
making it a lot easier to access.
| | 02:13 |
My cursor's way too big.
So I'm going to go ahead and reduce the
| | 02:15 |
size of the brush, by pressing the left
bracket key a few times.
| | 02:19 |
An then I'll just go ahead an paint, at
least as large as that cross shape.
| | 02:24 |
But then you want to come down, even with
it down here, toward the bottom.
| | 02:28 |
And then I'll go ahead and fill it in like
so.
| | 02:31 |
So we're painting just an eighth of the
cross.
| | 02:34 |
Just the area inside this region here.
Because then we'll duplicate it in order
| | 02:39 |
to create the other portions.
So just go ahead and fill in along the guidelines.
| | 02:44 |
And I'll paint a few different times here
in order to make sure that I've got
| | 02:48 |
everything painted the way I want it.
Now I can't see through to the cross is
| | 02:54 |
kind of the problem.
So I don't know if I'm going too far or
| | 02:57 |
what have you.
In which case, I can switch to this thing
| | 03:01 |
called the Outline mode.
If you go up to the View menu, you'll see
| | 03:04 |
this command right at the top that says
Outline.
| | 03:07 |
And it has a keyboard shortcut of Ctrl +
y.
| | 03:10 |
Cmd+y on a mac its a really great shortcut
to remember.
| | 03:13 |
What it does is it switches you between
the outline and preview modes so when you
| | 03:18 |
choose outline you only see the outline of
your path.
| | 03:22 |
You no longer see the fill or stroke
attributes or anything else but you can
| | 03:26 |
still continue to work on this path
outline as much as you like.
| | 03:29 |
So I can go ahead and paint in like that.
In order to add a little bit of detail
| | 03:33 |
right there.
And again I'm painting beyond the cross
| | 03:36 |
because we're going to be covering it up
with this green shape to the side here.
| | 03:41 |
Now I'll switch over to the Eraser tool
which I can now get by pressing the e key
| | 03:46 |
and I'll reduce the size of my cursor once
again by pressing and holding the left
| | 03:49 |
bracket key.
And then I'll paint away like so.
| | 03:53 |
And you can just have fun with this to any
extent you like.
| | 03:56 |
You can create any kind of sort of filler
grid little cusps in there as long as
| | 04:00 |
you're not going too far into the region
that actually is occupied by the cross.
| | 04:07 |
And the only reason you would do this by
the way, there isn't any real practical
| | 04:10 |
reason at this point is just so that you
come up with an appealing shape once we're done.
| | 04:16 |
In other words I want you to have a sense
of accomplishment and have a little bit of
| | 04:20 |
fun with the tools as well.
I'm going to press the b key to switch
| | 04:23 |
back to my blob brush.
Reduce the size of the cursor a little bit.
| | 04:27 |
Maybe add a few other filler grid details
here like so just again just goofing off
| | 04:33 |
at this point.
I'll switch back to the preview mode by
| | 04:36 |
going up to the View menu and choosing the
first command, which now reads preview.
| | 04:41 |
Same keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+y, Cmd+y on
the Mac.
| | 04:44 |
And let's go ahead and assign some fill
and stroke attributes.
| | 04:48 |
I'll click on the fill swatch up here on
the Control panel.
| | 04:51 |
And I'll select blue as my fill color, so
I've created some swatches in advance for
| | 04:55 |
you and then I'll click on this down
pointing arrow head to the right of the
| | 05:00 |
word stroke and I'll change the line
weight to three points.
| | 05:04 |
Now let's go ahead and flip this shape in
order to create the left half of it.
| | 05:08 |
And we'll be doing that using yet another
transformation tool.
| | 05:12 |
This one is available from the Rotate tool
so you click and hold on the Rotate tool
| | 05:17 |
and you choose the Reflect tool.
We saw it briefly in a previous chapter.
| | 05:21 |
And I want to go ahead and flip the shape
by way of a dialogue box.
| | 05:24 |
So I'm going to align my cursor with this
vertical guideline.
| | 05:28 |
Then I'll press the Alt key, or the Option
key on the Mac and click to bring up the
| | 05:32 |
reflect dialog box.
Now my preview check box happens to be off
| | 05:36 |
so I'll turn it on.
And you can see by virtue of the fact that
| | 05:39 |
I've set axis to vertical, which you
should do as well.
| | 05:42 |
Then I'm flipping the shape across the
vertical axis, which means I'm flipping it horizontally.
| | 05:48 |
I don't want to flip the shape.
I want to flip a copy of the shape, so
| | 05:50 |
I'll go ahead and click on the Copy
button.
| | 05:52 |
And now, we have two halves of the shape
to work with.
| | 05:56 |
So, as a result, we have the lower arm of
the cross, but we need to fuse it together
| | 06:00 |
and then complete the cross, and we'll do
exactly that in the next movie.
| | 06:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Shape Builder tool| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll fuse the two halves
of this bottom portion of the cross
| | 00:04 |
together, using the shape builder tool.
That'll give you a clearer sense of how it
| | 00:08 |
works, and then we'll build out the entire
cross.
| | 00:12 |
I've saved my progress as the cross
begins.ai, and I'm going to switch back
| | 00:17 |
over to my selection tool.
And, mark (UNKNOWN) these two shapes in
| | 00:21 |
order to select them, then I will drop
down to the shape builder tool, which
| | 00:25 |
allows me to fuse shapes together, and as
you will see later, you can also subtract
| | 00:30 |
one shape from another.
Couple of movies ago, I gave it a keyboard
| | 00:34 |
shortcut of "l", so that we can get to it
more easily.
| | 00:38 |
I'll select a tool and notice as you hover
over your selected shapes.
| | 00:42 |
They have to be selected by the way for
this tool to work.
| | 00:45 |
You can see the intersecting areas.
And the intersecting areas are indicated
| | 00:49 |
by this regular dot pattern here.
You use the tool by dragging across the
| | 00:55 |
shapes that you want to fuse.
So for example, if I just wanted to fuse
| | 00:59 |
this left potion of the cross along with
the middle, I would just drag to the
| | 01:03 |
middle, and now that shape is independent
of this shape on the right.
| | 01:08 |
If I were to press the v key to switch
back to the black arrow tool, and click
| | 01:12 |
off the shapes to deselect them, and then
drag one of the shapes to a different
| | 01:16 |
location, you can see that we now have two
different paths.
| | 01:20 |
One of which has the intersection fused to
it, and the other of which has the
| | 01:24 |
intersection subtracted from it.
Obviously, that's not what we want.
| | 01:29 |
But I want you to have a clear sense of
how this tool works.
| | 01:31 |
So I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Mac a
couple of times, in order to restore the
| | 01:36 |
original shapes.
And I'll press the L key, in order to
| | 01:39 |
switch over to the Shape Builder tool.
And then I'll go ahead and drag over all
| | 01:43 |
three intersecting areas, in order to fuse
the whole thing together.
| | 01:47 |
Now, at this point you want to make sure
the shape builder tool is doing what you
| | 01:52 |
hope it would do.
To check on that, because there can always
| | 01:55 |
be little fragments that are left behind,
Twirl open that Drawing layer at the top
| | 02:01 |
of the Layers panel.
And sure enough, notice that we have a
| | 02:03 |
total of three paths, where ideally we'd
only want to have one.
| | 02:08 |
To get rid of the extra paths because we
just don't need em in this case, press the
| | 02:12 |
Shift key and then click on the meatball.
That little circle there to the right of
| | 02:17 |
the obvious blue path.
The one we want to keep.
| | 02:19 |
And then you'll see some leftovers down
here at the bottom at least in my case,
| | 02:23 |
that's where they appear they might appear
anywhere for you.
| | 02:26 |
And then just go ahead and press the
backspace key, where the delete key on the
| | 02:30 |
Mac to get rid of those leftovers, and we
have just the 1 blue path.
| | 02:35 |
Now, let's go ahead and zoom out a little
bit, so that we can take in the entire cross.
| | 02:39 |
I will press the control key, or the
command key on the Mac in order to
| | 02:43 |
temporally access my black arrow tool.
And I'll click on the shape to select it.
| | 02:48 |
Then I will release the control key or the
command key on the Mac, and we need to
| | 02:52 |
rotate the cross into the other regions
there.
| | 02:56 |
Click and hold on the reflect tool if
you've been following along with me, and
| | 02:59 |
switch to the rotate tool.
And then press the Alt key or the Option
| | 03:03 |
key on a Mac, and click at the
intersection of those two central
| | 03:07 |
guidelines, in order to bring up the
Rotate Dialog box.
| | 03:11 |
Change the angle value to 90 degrees and
then click on the Copy button in order to
| | 03:16 |
create a copy of that shape.
Now we want to fuse these two shapes
| | 03:20 |
together right now, before we create any
more copies.
| | 03:23 |
Go ahead and press the Control key or the
Command key on the Mac, in order to get
| | 03:28 |
that Black Arrow Tool on the fly.
Add the Shift key.
| | 03:31 |
So you should have the Control and Shift
keys down, that would be Command and Shift
| | 03:35 |
on the Mac.
And click on the bottom blue shape in
| | 03:38 |
order to select it.
Now we have both shapes selected you can
| | 03:41 |
go ahead and release the keys.
Switch back to the shape builder tool, and
| | 03:46 |
notice that we now have a few intersecting
areas going on, little more than we had before.
| | 03:51 |
I'm going to zoom on in, because we have
in my case again, your results are
| | 03:55 |
going to be different.
But in my case I have these little slivers
| | 03:58 |
right there, I will start by dragging
diagonally across the three central areas
| | 04:05 |
of intersection.
And that's going to leave a couple of
| | 04:07 |
wedges behind, at this point I have to
decide whether I want to keep them or not,
| | 04:11 |
lets see I do I will just go ahead and
drag like so, inside that (UNKNOWN) add it
| | 04:17 |
And then I'll drag inside this little line
to add it as well.
| | 04:20 |
And now I have just one path as is evident
here inside the layers panel.
| | 04:25 |
That's exactly what I want of course.
Now, I'll press the R key, to switch back
| | 04:29 |
to the rotate tool, and I'll press the Alt
key or the Option key on a Mac, and click
| | 04:35 |
at the intersection of those guidelines
again.
| | 04:38 |
This time I'll enter an angle value of
180-degrees, because I want to rotate the
| | 04:42 |
cross-shapes all the way, like so, and I
was able to preview that effect because
| | 04:46 |
preview is turned on and I press the tab
key to accept the value then click on the
| | 04:51 |
copy button in order to copy those shapes.
Now press the control and shift keys
| | 04:56 |
again, that would be command and shift on
the mac, and click in that other blue
| | 05:01 |
shape, the one that's deselected, in order
to select everything.
| | 05:06 |
Now we're going to go back to the shape
builder tool, and I want you to drag like so.
| | 05:10 |
Notice we've got a lot of intersections
again, we've got this little one right
| | 05:14 |
there, this little line.
This one down here, this one down here.
| | 05:17 |
So, couple of different ways we could
work.
| | 05:20 |
One is, you can just go ahead and drag
across like I showed you, but you're
| | 05:25 |
going to leave some fragments behind,
which you might not want to do because
| | 05:29 |
that's going to involve a bunch more
dragging.
| | 05:31 |
Or, I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on a Mac to
undo that modification.
| | 05:36 |
You can press and hold the shift key and
just kind of marquee around everything
| | 05:40 |
that you want to include like so.
This is a really great technique
| | 05:44 |
associated with this tool.
And that'll go ahead and join everything
| | 05:48 |
at once.
And again, I can see that I have just one
| | 05:52 |
path outline, which is what I'm looking
for here inside the layers panel.
| | 05:56 |
Now I'll go ahead and zoom out, maybe not
that far, and I'll press Control Shift A
| | 06:01 |
or Command Shift A on a Mac, in order to
deselect the artwork.
| | 06:04 |
And you can see that we have this
wonderfully, intricate, symmetrical cross shape.
| | 06:08 |
In the next exercise, we'll begin building
out this green shape right here, which is
| | 06:13 |
going to help to define the cross.
| | 06:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Subtracting with the Shape Builder| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll design part of one of
these green shapes that surrounds the
| | 00:04 |
flowers and so forth.
And along the way, I'll show you how to
| | 00:07 |
subtract one shape from another using the
Shape Builder tool.
| | 00:10 |
I've saved my progress as full blue
cross.ai.
| | 00:13 |
I'm going to zoom in, in this upper right
hand region, and also twirl open the
| | 00:20 |
drawing layer, just so, I can see my cross
and I'll go ahead and rename it Cross.
| | 00:25 |
And then I'll turn it off so, I can better
see what I'm doing.
| | 00:28 |
And we're going to be designing just an
eighth of this thing, just this region
| | 00:33 |
right here because otherwise, we can flip
and rotate to create the rest of the design.
| | 00:38 |
But we're going to have to be a little
more careful this time around.
| | 00:41 |
So, here's how I recommend you work.
Go ahead and get the Blob brush.
| | 00:45 |
Then I'll increase the size of my cursor
quite a bit here so that I can basically
| | 00:52 |
draw around here to draw that kind of
roundish shape.
| | 00:56 |
And I'm cutting through the center of this
blackness here, because the black will be
| | 01:01 |
represented by a stroke.
Now, I'm going to reduce the size of my
| | 01:04 |
cursor and paint up beyond this diagonal
edge so that we can eventually repeat
| | 01:10 |
whatever we draw on the other side.
Now, I'm going to reduce the size of my
| | 01:14 |
cursor further and sort of paint down like
that, and then in and over into this area.
| | 01:21 |
And now, I'll go ahead and switch to my
Eraser tool.
| | 01:23 |
And you may remember that I changed the
keyboard shortcut to E a few movies back.
| | 01:28 |
And I'll just go ahead and click right
there at this location with the larger
| | 01:31 |
cursor, however, in order to just kind of
cut around area out of there.
| | 01:36 |
Alright.
And I might cut a little bit out of this
| | 01:39 |
as well, and then press the B key to
switch back to the Blob brush and paint in
| | 01:45 |
like this.
And so, I'm just kind of painting
| | 01:48 |
incrementally and trying to be a little
bit careful as I go so that I can preserve
| | 01:52 |
some of these interesting details here.
You don't have to slavishly trace away by
| | 01:56 |
the way, you can make your own decisions.
Press the E key to switch back to the
| | 02:01 |
Eraser tool and paint that part away like
so, maybe paint it actually even farther
| | 02:07 |
in because that is going to be stroked.
Then I'll switch back by pressing the B
| | 02:11 |
key, I'll switch back to the B lob brush.
And in this case, I'm just going to kind
| | 02:15 |
of paint over this area, because we're
going to subtract an ellipse out of that
| | 02:19 |
region in order to complete that shape.
And I'll paint up beyond the halfway mark
| | 02:25 |
right there, and then I'll paint down and
around to make sure I've painted in that
| | 02:28 |
entire gloop.
Now, I need to be able to see the imagery below.
| | 02:32 |
So, I'm going to go up to the View menu
and switch to the Outline mode again.
| | 02:36 |
Keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Y, Cmd+Y on the
Mac.
| | 02:40 |
A point I want to make here is, even
though we're switching to the Outline mode
| | 02:43 |
and our paths are appearing as outlines,
and if I were to bring back the Tiles
| | 02:47 |
layer by clicking in front of it.
Notice it's got a hollow eye now,
| | 02:52 |
indicating that we're seeing the layer in
the Outline mode, we can still see the image.
| | 02:57 |
And that's because we converted it to a
tracing template in the previous chapter,
| | 03:01 |
and that's what I meant about a tracing
template being persistent.
| | 03:04 |
You can always see it even in this Outline
mode here.
| | 03:08 |
Now, I want to draw an ellipse.
So, I'm going to go ahead and switch to
| | 03:12 |
the Ellipse tool.
So, I click and hold on the Current Shape
| | 03:15 |
tool occupant there, and then select the
Ellipse tool from the Flyout menu.
| | 03:19 |
Now, I don't really have anything to align
to inside of the illustration at this
| | 03:23 |
location anyway.
I'm going to go ahead and turn on my Smart
| | 03:27 |
Guides by going to the View menu and
choosing the Smart Guides command.
| | 03:30 |
Or pressing Ctrl+U or Cmd+U on the Mac.
And I should be able to find a center point.
| | 03:36 |
So, I should be able to align my cursor,
so, I see this green vertical line.
| | 03:41 |
I'm aligned to the center of something
anyway.
| | 03:43 |
Let me go ahead and move my cursor back
into position to see what it is.
| | 03:46 |
So, it's telling my that I'm aligned to
these anchor points I suppose.
| | 03:50 |
Or, more likely to the center of the tile.
Which is good news, that's exactly what I want.
| | 03:57 |
I'll go ahead and move my cursor to about
this location.
| | 03:59 |
So, I'm in the center of this elliptical
area.
| | 04:01 |
And I'll begin dragging and then I'll
press the Alty key or the Option key on
| | 04:05 |
the Mac, in order to draw the ellipse
through the center outward.
| | 04:09 |
And you don't want to press the Spacebar
in order to modify the alignment, because
| | 04:12 |
if you do, I'll show you what will happen
if you can't get this guy centered.
| | 04:16 |
If you end up drawing the shape in an
un-centered position like this.
| | 04:20 |
What you have to do to recenter it is
switch back to the black arrow tool and
| | 04:25 |
drag the center point up until it snaps
into alignment like so, with the
| | 04:30 |
intersection of those tiles.
And then, you can drag it back into
| | 04:33 |
position while pressing the Shift key in
order to properly align it so that it's
| | 04:38 |
exactly centered where it needs to be.
Now, I'm going to switch to the White
| | 04:42 |
Arrow tool, which I can get by pressing
the A key.
| | 04:44 |
I'll click off the shape and then I'll
click on that bottom anchor point right
| | 04:47 |
there to select it.
And I'm going to drag that guy up while
| | 04:51 |
pressing the Shift key, just to kind of
deform the ellipse so that I get a little
| | 04:56 |
bit of lift out of it.
And now, I want to subtract this shape
| | 05:00 |
from the larger shape.
So, I'll switch back to the Black Arrow
| | 05:03 |
tool, and I'll marquee the two shapes or
at least partially marquee them so,
| | 05:07 |
they're both selected.
And then I'll grab my Shape Builder tool.
| | 05:11 |
And as you know, if you drag over these
shapes, you're going to fuse them together.
| | 05:13 |
That's not what I want.
I want to subtract them.
| | 05:16 |
So, I'm going to press and hold the Alt
key, or the Option key on a Mac, and
| | 05:19 |
notice when I do, The plus sign that we
normally see with this cursor, changes to
| | 05:24 |
a minus sign.
With the Alter or Option key down, just go
| | 05:28 |
ahead and drag in to those first
intersecting areas like so, in order to
| | 05:32 |
subtract that area away.
And then if you want to, you can add a
| | 05:36 |
little bit more filler (UNKNOWN) using the
lights of the Blob brush in the eraser for example.
| | 05:40 |
So, I will reduce the size of my cursor
and just kind of drag up like that into
| | 05:45 |
that region.
And then I might switch to the Eraser tool
| | 05:48 |
by pressing the E key, and possibly just
click right about there with a cursor of
| | 05:54 |
the proper size.
Maybe drag up a little bit as well.
| | 05:57 |
I just want to make sure we have as much
sculpting as possible around these areas,
| | 06:02 |
because that's going to make for a better
looking effect.
| | 06:05 |
And then I'll increase the size of my
cursor and click about there as well.
| | 06:10 |
And you should see a shape that looks
something along these lines.
| | 06:15 |
Again, as always, let your creative
passions guide you, you don't have to do
| | 06:19 |
exactly what I'm doing.
Now, I'm going to go back to the View menu
| | 06:23 |
and switch to the Preview mode so that I
can see what I've come up with so far.
| | 06:27 |
And I'm want to go ahead and assigns some
fill and stroke attributes.
| | 06:30 |
So, click on this first swatch here in the
Control panel and select green as the fill
| | 06:35 |
color, and then I'll click on this down
pointing arrowhead to the right of the
| | 06:39 |
word stroke and change it to two points...
And then finally, I want to get rid of
| | 06:43 |
these harsh corners.
So, I'm going to click on the word stroke,
| | 06:47 |
that'll bring up this Pop-up panel here.
Notice this corner option, I want you to
| | 06:51 |
change it to round join, and then I'll
just go ahead and click off to hide that panel.
| | 06:56 |
So far, so good.
We've got ourselves 1 eighth of this
| | 07:00 |
blobby thing drawn.
In the next movie, we'll flip and rotate
| | 07:03 |
the shape in order to create something
fairly extraordinary.
| | 07:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Assigning colors with the Shape Builder| 00:00 |
In this movie we're going to take this one
eighth of the green design and we're
| | 00:04 |
going to reflect it and rotate it and fuse
the whole thing together in order to
| | 00:08 |
complete the shape.
But before we do, I thought we'd add an
| | 00:11 |
additional element here, just to make
things even more interesting.
| | 00:15 |
And that'll give me a chance to show you
how to control colors when you're using
| | 00:19 |
the Shape Builder tool.
So, I have saved my progress as one green
| | 00:22 |
blob.ai, and I am going to press Ctrl+Y or
Cmd+Y on the Mac to switch to the outline mode.
| | 00:27 |
You can also choose outline from the View
menu if you prefer.
| | 00:32 |
And then I am going to switch to the White
Arrow tool.
| | 00:34 |
I am going to click on this anchor point
right there and I am just going to,
| | 00:37 |
kind of drag it in a little bit.
And I'm going to move this handle outward.
| | 00:43 |
And this is one of those control handles
that I demonstrated way back in the line
| | 00:47 |
art chapter.
Now, let's say I want to add something
| | 00:49 |
that's not part of the original image.
But I want to add a little sort of hook
| | 00:53 |
coming out from this location.
So, I'll go ahead and click off the path
| | 00:58 |
outline to deselect it.
And then I'll switch to the Blob tool,
| | 01:02 |
which I can get by pressing the B key now.
And I'm just going to press the D key in
| | 01:07 |
order to establish the default colors.
So, D for default will switch you to a
| | 01:13 |
white fill and a black stroke.
And the Blob tool will go for that stroke
| | 01:17 |
by the way.
It will create something black as we'll see.
| | 01:20 |
So, I'm just going to paint sort of a slim
line like this coming out from this location.
| | 01:26 |
And I'm taking you know, a couple of stabs
at it here.
| | 01:29 |
I'm painting back and forth.
This actually looks pretty darn good.
| | 01:33 |
I managed to create something right away
that I like.
| | 01:35 |
But if I wanted to cut some more out of
it, I could switch to the Eraser tool by
| | 01:39 |
pressing my shortcut of the E key.
And then I could click right about there
| | 01:43 |
to sculpt a little more out with this very
large brush.
| | 01:47 |
Now, let's say I want to join these guys
together.
| | 01:50 |
I'll switch back to the Black Arrow tool
and I'll press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y in a Mac,
| | 01:55 |
in order to switch to the preview mode.
And you can see that we've got two
| | 01:59 |
different color schemes going on.
I've got one shape with a black fill no stroke.
| | 02:04 |
I've got another shape that's got a black
stroke and a green fill.
| | 02:08 |
What happens when I join that two together
using the Shape Builder tool?
| | 02:12 |
I will go ahead and grab that tool and
then I will drag down like cell and the
| | 02:17 |
entire thing ends up turning black, which
is, of course, the big disappointment.
| | 02:22 |
And here its what happening, the Shape
Builder tool by default is always going
| | 02:25 |
after the active swatch.
And let me show you how to address that.
| | 02:29 |
I'll press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on a Mac to
undo that change.
| | 02:33 |
One thing you can do is double click on
the Shape Builder icon here in the tool box.
| | 02:37 |
And then you can see that it's picking
colors from the color swatches.
| | 02:40 |
So, you can turn on the cursor swatch
preview, if you like.
| | 02:43 |
That way you can control what swatch
you're working with, then click OK.
| | 02:48 |
And now, see those tiny little swatches
above the cursor.
| | 02:51 |
If I press the right arrow key, I can
eventually advance to green and now if I
| | 02:57 |
drag, lets say I start at the bottom here
and drag up, then I keep the green fill
| | 03:02 |
but I lost the stroke.
Well, there's a better way to work.
| | 03:06 |
So, I'll go ahead Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on a Mac
in order to undo that change.
| | 03:10 |
Again, double click on the Shape Builder
icon here in the tool box.
| | 03:14 |
And rather than picking colors from the
color swatches, which is also a bad idea
| | 03:19 |
if you don't really have your colors set
up as swatches, then go ahead and lift the
| | 03:23 |
color from the artwork.
And then click OK.
| | 03:27 |
And now notice if I drag from this black
shape in, I will change everything to
| | 03:32 |
black with no stroke.
However, obviously that's not what I want
| | 03:36 |
so I'll press Ctrl+Z, Cmd+Z on the Mac.
If you drag from the green shape with the
| | 03:41 |
black stroke out like so, you'll keep the
green fill and the black stroke.
| | 03:46 |
So, it's all determined by where you start
the drag.
| | 03:49 |
And now, let's do the reflecting and the
rotating.
| | 03:52 |
We'll go ahead and zoom out a bit here.
And I'm going to press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y in
| | 03:57 |
a Mac to switch back to the outline mode.
And I'm going to click and hold on the
| | 04:02 |
Rotate tool and select the Reflect tool
instead, which is a keyboard shortcut of
| | 04:06 |
o, which is of course the most symmetrical
letter there is.
| | 04:09 |
And then I'll Alt+click or Option+click
right there at the intersection of these tiles.
| | 04:13 |
In order to display the Reflect dialogue
box, I want a vertical axis, so I'll go
| | 04:18 |
ahead and select Vertical that reflects
the shape horizontally and I'll click Copy.
| | 04:22 |
Now, we want to grab both of these shapes,
so I'm going to press the Ctrl key or the
| | 04:28 |
Cmd key on the Mac and partially mark key
through them like cell.
| | 04:31 |
And then I'll go ahead and select both of
them by virtually the fact that the Ctrl
| | 04:36 |
or Cmd key goes ahead and get you the last
used Error tool on the fly.
| | 04:40 |
And when I release the Cmd or Ctrl key I
am back to the Reflect tool so I'll once
| | 04:44 |
again Alt+click or Option+click at that
very same location.
| | 04:48 |
And this time I'll select a Horizontal
axis, so I flip the shapes upwards.
| | 04:53 |
And I'll click the Copy button in order to
create a total of four copies of the shape now.
| | 04:59 |
Then finally, I'll press the Ctrl key or
the Cmd key on the Mac in order to
| | 05:03 |
temporarily access that Black Arrow tool.
I'll marquee through the shapes again,
| | 05:07 |
just partially, in order to select all of
them.
| | 05:11 |
And this time I need the Rotate tool.
So, a click and hold on the Reflect tool
| | 05:15 |
icon, switch back to the Rotate tool or I
could of press the R key.
| | 05:19 |
Notice that that reference point target
appears exactly in the center of the
| | 05:23 |
shapes, which is exactly what we want.
So, this time all I have to do is
| | 05:26 |
double-click on a Rotate tool icon in the
tool box, set the angle to 90 degrees, and
| | 05:31 |
then click on the copy button and we have
created all the shapes we need.
| | 05:37 |
One more thing to do here, I'll go ahead
and press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y on the Mac to
| | 05:41 |
switch back to the preview mode.
And, as opposed to marqueeing with a Black
| | 05:46 |
Arrow tool, which actually I don't need to
do.
| | 05:48 |
All I have to do is go out to the select
similar objects icon in the Control panel
| | 05:52 |
and click on it.
And that will select all of those shapes.
| | 05:55 |
And now, we will fuse them together by
grabbing the Shape Builder tool.
| | 06:00 |
And then I want you to press the Shift
key, and go ahead and mark key through the
| | 06:04 |
central portion of these shapes like so.
And that should give you one unified shape.
| | 06:09 |
Let's go ahead and make sure that's the
case by twirling open this drawing layer
| | 06:12 |
and sure enough I have this one and only
one path.
| | 06:17 |
And I'm going to go ahead and name it
green because after all it is the green shape.
| | 06:21 |
And now, turn on the cross so we can see
it as well.
| | 06:25 |
And I'll back out, perhaps not that far.
And I'll press Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shift+A
| | 06:30 |
on a Mac in order to deselect the
illustration.
| | 06:33 |
It occurs to me that I made a mistake.
This cross should not have a three point stroke.
| | 06:38 |
I want to change it to a two point stroke.
So, I'll Ctrl+click on it or Cmd+click on
| | 06:43 |
it in order to select it.
And then notice I have completely the
| | 06:47 |
wrong information up here in the Control
panel.
| | 06:50 |
It's telling me we have a green fill and
the stroke is already two points.
| | 06:53 |
I'm showing you this deliberately because
that's another problem with the Shape
| | 06:56 |
Builder tool.
It doesn't show you what's been applied to
| | 07:00 |
the selected shape, it shows you what the
tool will apply to that shape.
| | 07:05 |
If you want to change the filler stroke,
you have to switch back to some other tool
| | 07:09 |
such as, the Black Arrow tool, then you'll
see a blue fill and a three point stroke.
| | 07:14 |
Let's go ahead and reduce that line weight
to two points and click off the shape to
| | 07:18 |
deselect it.
And we have our most complicated shapes
| | 07:22 |
folks, the big green wacky shape there,
the big blue cross.
| | 07:25 |
In the next movie we'll begin work on the
flower ornament.
| | 07:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reflecting across an angled axis| 00:00 |
On this movie, we'll draw one of these
flower ornaments.
| | 00:03 |
And that'll give me a chance among other
things, to show you how to reflect paths
| | 00:07 |
across an angled axis.
In other words, an axis that is neither
| | 00:11 |
horizontal or vertical, and this is a heck
of a trick.
| | 00:14 |
Alright, I've saved my progress as,
Complete green shape.ai.
| | 00:18 |
And I'm going to go ahead and zoom in on
this lower right region of this big green
| | 00:23 |
shape, and then I'll press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y
on a Mac to switch to the outline mode, so
| | 00:29 |
that we can better trace this flower.
Now, we're going to start with the
| | 00:32 |
rear-most shapes and work our way forward.
All right, I'm going to start by selecting
| | 00:35 |
the Blob brush and notice, this brown sort
of skirt g/ to the flower ornament.
| | 00:40 |
And then we have this little bit of green
over here.
| | 00:42 |
Well, I don't want to add the green, I
want it all to be part of one shape.
| | 00:46 |
So, I'm going to begin by dragging out
here like so, and then drag past the
| | 00:51 |
diagonal line.
But, we don't need to drag too far past it
| | 00:54 |
because we want this to be a symmetrical
shape.
| | 00:56 |
And then I'll drag from this location
here, and then down and around like so.
| | 01:03 |
And then cut back up and then go ahead and
finish off this particular shape.
| | 01:07 |
And, if I wanted to add a little bit of
heft to it, I could press the E key, my
| | 01:11 |
keyboard shortcut for the Eraser tool.
And, I could increase the size of the
| | 01:16 |
cursor and paint like so, in order to give
it just a little bit of sort of extra sway.
| | 01:22 |
Alright, now I'll press Ctrl+Shift+A or
Cmd+Shift+A on the Mac, to deselect that
| | 01:26 |
path, press the B key again my keyboard
shortcut to switch back to the Blob brush.
| | 01:31 |
And I'll paint in this guy, he's pretty
easy actually so, you just have to paint a
| | 01:36 |
couple of brush strokes and then paint it
on in.
| | 01:39 |
The rest will be covered up by the flower
and this blue thing and so forth.
| | 01:43 |
Then press Ctrl+Shift+A, Cmd+Shift+A on
the Mac to deselect that path and start
| | 01:48 |
painting in this guy.
I've gone way too high, so I'm going to
| | 01:51 |
try again I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on
the Mac and then paint inward like so.
| | 01:56 |
And then I can paint into the flower
shape, because that will cover it up and
| | 01:59 |
I'll paint down.
And, that looks pretty good, it comes a
| | 02:03 |
little high but again, we don't have to
slavishly trace everything.
| | 02:06 |
This time I'm going to kind of plow into
this region like so, and I'll back it off
| | 02:12 |
a little bit with the eraser in just a
moment.
| | 02:14 |
And then I'll paint in like so in order to
fill in these details, and I'll increase
| | 02:19 |
the size of my cursor and then paint
around past the line, the diagonal line
| | 02:24 |
that is.
Reduce the size of my cursor, and then
| | 02:27 |
paint that area away.
Alright now, I'm going to press the E key
| | 02:31 |
to switch to the Eraser tool.
Reduce the size of my cursor so it fits
| | 02:34 |
right inside of there and just click and
sort of drag my way out and see what I
| | 02:39 |
come with (INAUDIBLE) I kind of like that,
that will work.
| | 02:42 |
Alright, press Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shift+A
on a Mac to deselect then press the B key
| | 02:46 |
to switch back to the Blob tool, increase
the size of the cursor, just click there.
| | 02:51 |
And then, click and drag a little bit
there, in order to flush out that flower
| | 02:56 |
shape and then I'll paint down into this
region, then up like so.
| | 03:01 |
And that looks like that will be just the
dandiest flower ever, press Ctrl+Shift+A
| | 03:06 |
or Cmd+Shift+A to deselect, reduce the
size of cursor and paint straight across
| | 03:11 |
for that central yellow thing.
Alright, now we need to assign some fills
| | 03:16 |
and strokes ,so press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on
the Mac to switch back to the preview mode
| | 03:20 |
or press V key to switch to the Black
Arrow tool.
| | 03:24 |
And I'll click on this shape, that thing I
was calling the skirt and I'll Shift+click
| | 03:28 |
on this one, which is the flower outline,
because they both have the same fill.
| | 03:32 |
Then, I will go up to the Fill icon here
in the Control panel, click on it and
| | 03:37 |
switch to brown.
Alright next, as long as I'm here I'll go
| | 03:40 |
ahead and click, and the first click by
the way, will just hide the panel.
| | 03:44 |
The second click will actually go ahead
and select the object, in this case the
| | 03:48 |
center of the flower.
And I'll click on the Fill icon up there
| | 03:51 |
in the Control panel and switch it to
yellow.
| | 03:53 |
Click off to hide the panel, click on this
guy he wants to be blue.
| | 03:57 |
And so, I'll click on the Fill swatch and
then click on blue, in order to change the color.
| | 04:02 |
Click off, click again on this thing that
wants to be dark blue.
| | 04:06 |
Click on the Fill swatch up here in the
Control panel and select deep blue from
| | 04:10 |
the swatch list.
Alright, that takes care of just about
| | 04:14 |
everything except the strokes.
Everybody needs a stroke, so I'll press
| | 04:16 |
Ctrl+Y, Cmd+Y on a Mac, to switch back to
the outline mode.
| | 04:20 |
And the reason I'm doing this, is because
I want to be able to marquee these shapes
| | 04:23 |
like so.
So I'm going to select them all by just
| | 04:26 |
marqueeing partially around them, I don't
want to select the big green path, that
| | 04:30 |
would be a mistake.
All right, now press Ctrl+Y to switch back
| | 04:33 |
to the preview mode, and see the thing is,
I couldn't marquee these shapes unless I
| | 04:38 |
was in the outline mode.
Because if I tried, it would have gone
| | 04:40 |
ahead and selected the big green shape,
and dragged it to a new location.
| | 04:44 |
Alright, now I'll click the down pointing
arrow head next to stroke, and change the
| | 04:48 |
lining weight to one point.
Alright, now to reflect these flower
| | 04:51 |
shapes, I'm going to zoom out a little bit
here, scroll down press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on
| | 04:56 |
the Mac so I can see the intersection of
those tiles, click and hold under Rotate
| | 05:00 |
tool icon.
And select the Reflect tool instead, you
| | 05:03 |
can Alt+click or Option+click anywhere
along this diagonal line and when you do,
| | 05:08 |
that will bring up the Reflect dialogue
box.
| | 05:10 |
Now in my case, Illustrator wants to go
ahead and reflect these shapes across a
| | 05:14 |
vertical axis, meaning it's going to
perform a horizontal flip.
| | 05:17 |
That's not what I want at all, I want to
reflect across this diagonal axis.
| | 05:21 |
Well, what is the angle of that axis?
You can see I have an angle value, but the
| | 05:25 |
question is, what is it?
Well, horizontal is zero degree, and I was
| | 05:30 |
telling you positive angle values, go in a
counter clockwise direction.
| | 05:34 |
So, this diagonal line would be 45
degrees, this diagonal line is negative 45 degrees.
| | 05:41 |
So, just go ahead and change the angle
value to negative 45 and press the Tab key.
| | 05:45 |
And if you have preview turned on, you'll
see those shapes flip in exactly the right direction.
| | 05:51 |
And that's why Illustrator talks to us, in
terms of the axis.
| | 05:55 |
Because you can change the angle of the
reflect axis to anything you want, then
| | 06:00 |
click the Copy button in order to copy
those shapes.
| | 06:03 |
Alright, now let's zoom back in on these
guys.
| | 06:06 |
Now we need to start combining these
shapes using the Shape Builder tool, and
| | 06:09 |
this is going to get pretty gnarly.
We're going to end up with a lot of fragments.
| | 06:12 |
So I'll go ahead and twirl open my Drawing
layer.
| | 06:15 |
You can see that we have an awful lot of
shapes that we'll need to work with.
| | 06:18 |
And I'll show you exactly how we're going
to address them, in the next movie.
| | 06:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cleaning up Shape Builder leftovers| 00:00 |
In this movie we're going to fuse the
halves to the flowers together using the
| | 00:03 |
Shape Builder Tool.
That's going to leave a bunch of fragments
| | 00:07 |
behind every single time we do it.
So I'm going to try and give you some
| | 00:10 |
guidance on how to deal with that.
because it can get a little bit confusing.
| | 00:14 |
I've saved my changes as Half flower
shapes.ai, and note here in the Layers
| | 00:19 |
panel, I've twirled open the Drawing
layer.
| | 00:22 |
And we basically have all our new flip
shapes, the duplicates on top and then all
| | 00:27 |
of the originals down below.
And what we need is for the pairs to go together.
| | 00:33 |
So I'm going to go ahead and drag this
path that represents the center and move
| | 00:37 |
it out to the other yellow path.
And then I'll grab this brown path right
| | 00:41 |
there which represents this half of the
flower and go ahead and click off the
| | 00:45 |
shapes to deselect it and click on this
guy.
| | 00:48 |
You can see there it is it needs to be
under its similar blob right there at the
| | 00:53 |
other half of the flower.
And then the dark blue shape should be
| | 00:56 |
under the other dark blue shape, the two
light blue shape should be together
| | 01:00 |
although that's not quite as important.
And then these two sort of brown skirt
| | 01:05 |
shape should be together as well, and
that's just going to save us a lot of
| | 01:09 |
frustration, all right let's start at the
top.
| | 01:11 |
I'll just meatball, because it's easier to
see what's going on here inside the Layers
| | 01:15 |
panel then out here inside the
Illustration.
| | 01:17 |
I'll click on the meatball, for this
yellow path and then shift click on the
| | 01:20 |
meatball for the other yellow path, so
they're both selected.
| | 01:23 |
Then, I'll go ahead and grab my Shape
Builder Tool and I'll drag across them
| | 01:28 |
like so.
And that goes ahead and leaves a couple of
| | 01:31 |
fragments down below and we can see those
fragments very easily now, here inside the
| | 01:36 |
Layers panel.
Had we not taken a moment to organize
| | 01:38 |
these objects ahead of time, they'd be all
over the place.
| | 01:41 |
So now we know, these two need to go, but
this one needs to stay.
| | 01:45 |
So I'll Shift+Click on its meatball to
deselect it.
| | 01:48 |
These two back paths remain selected.
So I'll press the Backspace key on a PC or
| | 01:52 |
the Delete key on a Mac to get rid of
them.
| | 01:55 |
Alright let's meatball this shape and then
Shift meatball this one so they're both selected.
| | 02:00 |
I still have my Shape Builder Tool
selected, I'll just drag across them like so.
| | 02:04 |
Does that leave any fragments.
This time it doesn't, yay.
| | 02:08 |
Go ahead and click on this meatball to
select it and Shift+Click on the meatball
| | 02:11 |
for the other blue path so both dark blue
paths are selected.
| | 02:15 |
And drag across them with a shape builder
tool to fuse them together.
| | 02:18 |
That does leave some garbage, so, I'll
Shift+Click on the meatball for the blue
| | 02:22 |
shape, obviously that's the one we want to
keep.
| | 02:24 |
These two remain selected, press the
Backspace key or the Delete key on the Mac
| | 02:28 |
to get rid of them.
Now these light blue shapes don't need to
| | 02:30 |
be fused together, because they're far
apart from each other.
| | 02:33 |
But these guys do, so meatball this one.
Shift meatball this one, in order to
| | 02:38 |
select the two.
And then drag it across like so in order
| | 02:42 |
to unite them.
That leaves a lot of garbage in its wake,
| | 02:47 |
four paths, so Shift+Click on the meatball
for the good path.
| | 02:51 |
And then press the Backspace key or the
Delete key on the Mac to get rid of the
| | 02:56 |
bad ones.
All right, that takes care of it.
| | 02:58 |
We now should have just six paths
representing the flower.
| | 03:01 |
The brown path at the bottom, and the two
light blue paths of either side.
| | 03:06 |
We've got the dark blue path, we've got
the big brown path that represents the
| | 03:09 |
flower itself.
And then the yellow path which represents
| | 03:11 |
the inside of the flower.
I now am going to switch back to the black
| | 03:15 |
arrow tool and I'm going to partially
marquee around these shapes like so.
| | 03:18 |
Taking care to avoid either the big green
path or that big cross path either.
| | 03:23 |
So you should see all six of these paths
with active meatballs, and of course red
| | 03:28 |
squares next to them as well.
And both the path called green and the one
| | 03:31 |
called cross should not be selected.
Now, go up to the Object menu and choose
| | 03:36 |
the Group command or press Ctrl+G or Cmd+G
on the Mac, to group those flower shapes together.
| | 03:42 |
Double click on the name of the group and
let's just call it Flowers so we know
| | 03:45 |
what's up here.
All right, now we could set in rotating
| | 03:49 |
and create the other flowers.
But we're going to save ourselves some
| | 03:51 |
time if we go ahead and create this guy
first, this sort of loop de loop.
| | 03:54 |
And we can do that, of course, by using
the Blob Brush.
| | 03:57 |
So I'll click off the shapes to deselect
them.
| | 03:59 |
I'll select the Blob Brush Tool here
inside the toolbox.
| | 04:02 |
I'll increase the size of my cursor a
little bit and just click right there to
| | 04:06 |
begin the shape.
And then I'll reduce the size of my cursor
| | 04:09 |
and drag around like so in order to trace
that shape, about to that point right there.
| | 04:14 |
Now, I'm tracing, obviously, too far.
We'll deal with that problem in just a moment.
| | 04:19 |
Let's go ahead and switch to the Reflect
Tool once again.
| | 04:23 |
Alt+Click or Option+Click on that
horizontal guideline to bring up the
| | 04:26 |
Reflect dialog box.
I am going to change the angle of the axis
| | 04:29 |
to Horizontal, because this is a
Horizontal Axis and then I will go ahead
| | 04:33 |
and click Copy in order to create a copy
of that shape.
| | 04:36 |
Now switch to the black arrow tool and
Shift+Click on the first shape like so.
| | 04:40 |
So that they are both selected, switch to
the Shape Builder Tool now.
| | 04:44 |
And let's go ahead and drag up like so,
taking care not to get those front two
| | 04:49 |
shapes right there.
We don't want them, these guys are out.
| | 04:52 |
And note we've got this path and two
others.
| | 04:55 |
Go ahead and Shift+Click on the meatball
for the good path.
| | 04:58 |
Which leaves the other two selected.
Press the Backspace key, or the Delete key
| | 05:01 |
on the Mac, to get rid of them.
All right, press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y on the
| | 05:05 |
Mac, in order to switch to the Preview
mode, go ahead and switch back to the
| | 05:09 |
black arrow tool.
Click on this path to select it, the one
| | 05:12 |
we just created.
Let's change its fill by clicking on the
| | 05:15 |
fill swatch up here in the Control Panel,
and I'm going to switch the fill to deep olive.
| | 05:20 |
And then I'm going to click on the down
pointing arrowhead, next to stroke and I'm
| | 05:23 |
going to change the line weight to one
point.
| | 05:26 |
Alrighty then, go ahead and zoom out all
the way, then zoom back in a little bit.
| | 05:32 |
So that we can take in the entire green
shape, and I want to rotate these guys
| | 05:37 |
around inside this region.
So I'll press Ctrl+Y, or Cmd+Y on a Mac,
| | 05:41 |
to switch to the Outline mode.
I'll Shift+Click on any one of the flower
| | 05:45 |
shapes to select all of them, because
they're all part of the group.
| | 05:47 |
Then I'll switch back to the Rotate Tool,
so click and hold on the Reflect Tool,
| | 05:52 |
select the Rotate Tool, Alt or
Option+Click at the intersection of those
| | 05:56 |
tiles like so.
I want to set the angle value to 90
| | 06:00 |
degrees, press the Tab key.
That will indeed move the flowers and that
| | 06:04 |
sort of curly cue guy to the right
location.
| | 06:06 |
Click on the Copy button.
And now at this point, we can switch back
| | 06:10 |
to the preview mode.
Again, by pressing Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y in a
| | 06:14 |
Mac, because we no longer need to locate
the exact center point.
| | 06:17 |
It's already there, I'll just press
Ctrl+D.
| | 06:19 |
A couple of times here that would be Cmd+D
a couple of times in order to complete the design.
| | 06:25 |
Alright, just one more thing.
We've got to put the brown shape in the
| | 06:29 |
middle right here.
And if I press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on the Mac
| | 06:35 |
to switch back to the outline mode.
This is the kind of stuff you do all the
| | 06:38 |
time inside of Illustrator, if you haven't
already gotten that sense.
| | 06:42 |
I'll go ahead and zoom in here.
This thing is kind of an octagon,
| | 06:47 |
actually, and can be represented quite
nicely as an octagon.
| | 06:51 |
So rather than messing around with the
Blob Brush and the Eraser Tool, and all
| | 06:54 |
that jazz.
I'm going to click and hold on the Shape
| | 06:57 |
Tool occupant here and switch to the
Polygon Tool.
| | 07:00 |
And then I'll begin dragging outward from
this point.
| | 07:03 |
And in my case I'm creating a hexagon as
by default.
| | 07:06 |
So I'll press the Up Arrow key a couple of
times in order to switch it to an octagon.
| | 07:12 |
And right about here is what I want, so
you can see that I'm intersecting with the
| | 07:17 |
horizontal guideline.
I'm just dragging along that guideline in
| | 07:20 |
order to create the shape.
Let's go ahead and press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y
| | 07:24 |
on a Mac once again to switch back to the
Preview Mode.
| | 07:28 |
I'll go ahead and switch back to the Black
Arrow tool here.
| | 07:31 |
And I need to change the fill for this
shape to olive to brown.
| | 07:37 |
And then it needs to go behind these
paths, so I'm going to press Ctrl+X or
| | 07:42 |
Cmd+X on a Mac to cut that object to the
clip board.
| | 07:46 |
Then I'll just go ahead and click on the
outline of the big green shape and I'll
| | 07:50 |
press Ctrl+F, or Cmd+F on the Mac to Paste
that new shape in front of it.
| | 07:56 |
And then I'll click off in order to
deselect the artwork.
| | 08:00 |
And there we have it, folks.
We have the one object created here with
| | 08:05 |
all the flowers.
And t he green curly cues and the brown
| | 08:08 |
stuff in the middle.
Alright, that takes care of the drawing.
| | 08:11 |
All that's required now is that we go
ahead and duplicate these flowers.
| | 08:14 |
And if we take a look at the final version
of the illustration, you'll see that we
| | 08:18 |
need flowers inside of the beige tiles.
We also need to fill out the flowers
| | 08:22 |
inside of the light green tile.
And we also, of course, need to replicate
| | 08:27 |
all of these objects in order to complete
the symmetrical design.
| | 08:31 |
And we'll be doing all of that in the next
movie.
| | 08:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working in the Group Isolation mode| 00:00 |
In this movie, we are going to complete
our design.
| | 00:03 |
Which, as you'll see requires quite a bit
of transformation as well as a somewhat
| | 00:07 |
disciplined approach.
And I'll also show you one last way to use
| | 00:11 |
the Shape Builder.
I've gone ahead and saved our progress so
| | 00:14 |
far, Symmetrical flowers.ai, but we are
missing some elements.
| | 00:18 |
If I switch over to the final version of
the document, which does look different,
| | 00:23 |
because after all, I created it
independently.
| | 00:26 |
Every time you do this project, it's going
to look somewhat different.
| | 00:28 |
And I've gone ahead and turned off the
grout layer for a moment so we can see the
| | 00:32 |
design elements.
Notice that we still need to add a couple
| | 00:35 |
of flowers to the base tiles.
And we also need to ad this collection of
| | 00:39 |
four flowers to the green corner tile and
then we need to duplicate every thing
| | 00:44 |
three times in order to complete the
design.
| | 00:48 |
So let's get started.
I am going to zoom in on my document of
| | 00:52 |
progress here and armed with Black Arrow
tool, I will go ahead and click on this
| | 00:56 |
upper right flower.
And because its grouped that selects the
| | 01:00 |
whole thing.
I'll go ahead and drag it up to this
| | 01:03 |
region, doesn't really matter exactly
where.
| | 01:05 |
And then I'll press the Alt key or the
Option key in the Mac and drop it into place.
| | 01:09 |
Now, we need to rotate that flower 45
degrees, so I'll double-click on the
| | 01:13 |
Rotate tool, enter an angle value of 45
degrees, make sure the Preview check box
| | 01:17 |
is turned on.
Looks great.
| | 01:19 |
Click OK.
Now, obviously it's not aligned properly,
| | 01:23 |
so I'll need my smart guides for this.
I'll go up to the View menu and choose the
| | 01:27 |
Smart Guides command to turn them on.
And then I'll zoom in, and notice that
| | 01:32 |
there's this anchor point, right there
dead center at the top of the flower.
| | 01:36 |
I'll press the V key to switch to the
Black Arrow tool.
| | 01:39 |
And I'll drag this anchor point upward
until it snaps into alignment.
| | 01:43 |
I should be able to see the word
intersect.
| | 01:46 |
And both a horizontal and vertical green
line.
| | 01:48 |
Which is telling me I have moved this
point to the intersection of these tiles.
| | 01:53 |
Which is exactly what I want.
I'll go ahead and zoom back out.
| | 01:56 |
And I'll press Shift+down arrow twice.
And then I'll press the down arrow key
| | 02:00 |
twice more.
And it really doesn't matter, you can put
| | 02:03 |
this flower anywhere you wanted.
This just happens to be where I'm putting mine.
| | 02:06 |
All right, I'll press Ctrl+Y, Cmd+Y on the
Mac.
| | 02:09 |
And of course, the flower doesn't match
the actual element in the photograph.
| | 02:13 |
Of course, if you feel a burning desire to
draw that element, you can.
| | 02:16 |
But I feel like the flower is a great
substitute.
| | 02:19 |
It's a lot easier to create as well since
it's already done.
| | 02:23 |
All right, now I'll grab the Rotate tool
which I can get by pressing the R key, of course.
| | 02:27 |
And I'll Alt+click at the intersection of
these tiles down here inside of the octagon.
| | 02:33 |
And, when I do, that'll bring up the
rotate dialogue box.
| | 02:35 |
I want to change the angle value to
negative 90, because I'm rotating in a
| | 02:39 |
clockwise direction, therefore, I need a
negative value.
| | 02:42 |
Turn the Preview check box on, looks
great.
| | 02:45 |
Click the Copy button this time.
In order to create a copy of that flower.
| | 02:49 |
All right.
Now, we need to move the flowers over into
| | 02:51 |
the corner tiles again.
The corner tiles in the photograph do not
| | 02:55 |
contain flowers.
Ours will however contain flowers.
| | 02:58 |
So, I'll switch back to the Black Arrow
tool.
| | 03:01 |
I'll go ahead and grab this flower here
and then drag it and press the Alt key or
| | 03:07 |
the Option key on a Mac.
And drop it into place, that way I create
| | 03:10 |
a copy.
Now, I'll zoom in on this tile, and I'll
| | 03:14 |
go ahead and drag this top point once
again, at the top of the flower anyway,
| | 03:19 |
sideways right now.
But I'll drag it until it snaps into
| | 03:22 |
alignment with the intersection of these
tiles.
| | 03:24 |
And then I'll press Shift + left arrow,
and maybe the left arrow a couple more times.
| | 03:29 |
In order to nudge that flower into the
desired location.
| | 03:33 |
Now, oh go ahead and press Ctrl+Y, or
Cmd+Y on the Mac.
| | 03:36 |
The problem is that this skirt here, the
flower, leaks out too far and these
| | 03:42 |
flowers are actually really tight.
So, if I start rotating them, they're
| | 03:46 |
going to overlap each other, and I don't
want that.
| | 03:49 |
So instead.
Actually, I think I'll move this guy one
| | 03:52 |
more click over by pressing the left arrow
key.
| | 03:55 |
Instead, what we want to do is shape build
inside of this group.
| | 03:58 |
So I'm going to take advantage of
something known as the Group Isolation Mode.
| | 04:04 |
And here's how you get to it.
Using your Black Arrow tool, you
| | 04:07 |
double-click on any one of these paths.
And then you are now isolated inside of
| | 04:12 |
this group and you can't modify anything
outside the group which makes for a much
| | 04:17 |
less confusing experience for this next
operation.
| | 04:21 |
All right.
Now, I'm going to go over here to my Shape
| | 04:23 |
tools and click and hold and then select
the ellipse tool from the flyout menu.
| | 04:28 |
And starting from this horizontal
guideline, I'll press the Alt key or the
| | 04:32 |
Option key on the Mac.
And drag outward like so until I surround
| | 04:38 |
about this region.
Looks actually, pretty good.
| | 04:41 |
And I'll go ahead and release.
And I might nudge that over just a little
| | 04:44 |
bit by pressing the right arrow key.
All right, so let's go ahead and send that
| | 04:48 |
guy to back by right clicking on the shape
and then choosing Range.
| | 04:52 |
And then choosing Send to Back.
And that will just send it to the back of
| | 04:55 |
the group, not to the back of the
illustration, because again we are
| | 04:58 |
isolated, inside this group.
All right, now go ahead and switch back to
| | 05:03 |
the Black Arrow tool, and I will shift
click on this curved shape right there to
| | 05:06 |
select it, and then finally we'll go to
the Shape Builder tool.
| | 05:10 |
And instead of dragging or Alt+dragging or
Option+dragging or any of that stuff I'm
| | 05:14 |
just going to click inside of this
intersection right there.
| | 05:18 |
Just click.
That's it.
| | 05:20 |
Now in my case you'll notice that that
central shape remains brown.
| | 05:23 |
If it turns white on you, I'll tell you
how to solve that problem in just a moment.
| | 05:28 |
But in any case that breaks everything
apart alright now I'll twirl open this
| | 05:33 |
flower item here inside the layers panel
and I'll go ahead and stroll down an you
| | 05:37 |
can see we've got a bunch of selected pads
here.
| | 05:40 |
This guy the middle is the only 1 we care
about so shift click on it's meatball to
| | 05:45 |
deselect it.
That leaves the other one selected, press
| | 05:48 |
the Backspace key, or the Delete key on
the Mac, in order to get rid of the excess.
| | 05:54 |
Now we're going to fade over to the Mac
for a moment, because on this platform, we
| | 05:57 |
encountered a different experience.
And let me show you what that looks like.
| | 06:01 |
Right after I created the ellipse, sent it
to back and selected both shapes.
| | 06:05 |
Then I switch over to the Shape Builder
tool.
| | 06:08 |
And I click inside that overlapping area
and it ends up turning white on me which
| | 06:13 |
is a pain in the neck but let me show you
how to solve the problem.
| | 06:16 |
You'd still go ahead and twirl open the
flower inside the Layers panel.
| | 06:20 |
And then you want to go ahead and scroll
to the bottom.
| | 06:23 |
You'll shift meatball that central path,
the one that's white in this case.
| | 06:27 |
Press the Delete key, here on the Mac, or
the Backspace key on the PC, because you
| | 06:31 |
might encounter this problem on the PC, in
order to get rid of the extra shapes.
| | 06:35 |
The way you might figure you'd solve this
problem, is you'd press the Command key,
| | 06:39 |
here on a Mac or the Control key on a PC,
and click on that path, in order to select it.
| | 06:44 |
And then you'd go up here to the Control
Panel and you'd click on a fill and you'd
| | 06:48 |
switch it to brown.
And nothing happens.
| | 06:51 |
You even see, the fill color changed to
brown.
| | 06:53 |
Well, that's just a function of the way
the Shape Builder Tool works.
| | 06:57 |
What you have to do is switch to some
other tool.
| | 07:00 |
And I recommend you switch back to the
Black Arrow Tool.
| | 07:02 |
Then, notice we see the right fill color
this time.
| | 07:06 |
Go ahead and click on that and chose
brown, and now you've changed the fill
| | 07:10 |
back to brown, as it's supposed to be.
In which case, press Cmd+Shift+A, or
| | 07:14 |
Ctrl+Shift+A on a PC, in order to deselect
your drawing.
| | 07:17 |
All right, at this point we're done.
To leave the group isolation mode, you
| | 07:22 |
just press the Esc key.
That's all you have to do and you're back
| | 07:26 |
to the fall version of the illustration.
All right, I am going to switch back to
| | 07:30 |
the Black Arrow tool, click anywhere on
the flower to select the entire thing,
| | 07:34 |
back out just a little bit press Ctrl+Y or
Cmd+Y in the Mac to enter the Outline
| | 07:40 |
mode, press the R key to switch to the
Rotate Tool.
| | 07:44 |
Press the Alt key or the Option key on a
Mac and click right there on that anchor
| | 07:49 |
point which represents the center of the
tile.
| | 07:52 |
And the last angle value I had was
negative 90 degrees.
| | 07:55 |
That's just fine, actually.
So I'll cick the Copy button in order to
| | 07:59 |
create the first copy of the flower.
Now, I'll press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on a Mac
| | 08:03 |
so I can see the flowers in the preview
mode.
| | 08:05 |
And I'll press Ctrl+D, twice in a row,
that would be Cmd+D twice in a row on the Mac.
| | 08:10 |
All right, there's one more item I want to
add.
| | 08:13 |
There was an interesting little sort of
element here in the center, I'll press
| | 08:17 |
Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y on the Mac in order to see
it here inside of the image.
| | 08:22 |
And it looks like a kind a star.
And that's exactly what I'm going to use
| | 08:25 |
to create that shape.
So I'll go ahead and switch from the
| | 08:27 |
Ellipse tool to the Star tool.
And I'll drag from that anchor point right
| | 08:32 |
there outward like so.
Create a five point star by default anyway.
| | 08:36 |
Press the down arrow key to reduce the
number of points to 4.
| | 08:39 |
And then I'm just going to drag along this
horizontal guideline.
| | 08:42 |
Until I create something that looks to be
about the right size.
| | 08:44 |
It's not the right angle but I can't
really constrain it to the right angle at
| | 08:47 |
this moment.
So I'll rotate it into place after I
| | 08:50 |
release my mouse button.
Now, let's go ahead and give this guy a
| | 08:53 |
yellow fill this time around.
And then I'll double-click on the Rotate
| | 08:57 |
Tool in order to bring out the rotate
dialogue box.
| | 09:00 |
I'll enter a value of 45 degrees.
That looks great.
| | 09:03 |
Click OK.
And we have all of our base shapes.
| | 09:06 |
I press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y in the Mac in
order to see them all.
| | 09:10 |
Let's go ahead and back off here and make
sure that everybody is present in a count
| | 09:14 |
of four.
Now, I promise we are going to finish off
| | 09:17 |
the entire design including the three
duplicates of all this stuff, but we are
| | 09:21 |
running out of time in this movie.
So, we'll hit it in the next movie, and
| | 09:24 |
I'll also show you how to group all of
these items to avoid as much chaos as possible.
| | 09:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Establishing hierarchy with groups| 00:00 |
All right, gang.
Now, it's a moment of truth.
| | 00:02 |
We're going to go ahead and collect all of
our objects into logical groups, and then
| | 00:07 |
we're going to duplicate them in order to
finish off this design.
| | 00:10 |
I've saved my work so far as Flowers
everywhere.ai found as always inside the
| | 00:16 |
08_painting folder.
And I'm going to press Ctrl+U or Cmd+U on
| | 00:20 |
a Mac, to turn off the smart guides.
So we don't have a bunch of flashing on screen.
| | 00:24 |
First thing we need to get, is all these
green curlicue things.
| | 00:27 |
We need to bring them to the top of the
stack.
| | 00:29 |
So, I'll select one.
And then, I'll go up to this last icon in
| | 00:33 |
the Control Panel, Select Similar Objects.
Click on it.
| | 00:36 |
That goes in and selects all of these dark
green paths.
| | 00:39 |
And then, I'll Shift click on the octagon
in order to select it as well.
| | 00:44 |
Then go up to the Object Menu and choose
the Group command, or press Ctrl+G or
| | 00:48 |
Cmd+G on the Mac.
Now, why did I decide to group these?
| | 00:52 |
Because they belong together, and because
they were spread out all over the place
| | 00:57 |
here inside the stacking order.
Next, let's go ahead and grab these guys
| | 01:02 |
over here.
Because the tiles layer is locked, I don't
| | 01:05 |
have to worry about selecting anything on
that layer.
| | 01:07 |
So, I'll just go ahead and marquee these
objects, and I'll press Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on
| | 01:13 |
the mac to group them as well, and I'll
name this group, which is at the top of
| | 01:17 |
the stack.
I'll call it corner, and then press the
| | 01:20 |
Enter key or the Return key on the mac.
I could go ahead and name this other group
| | 01:23 |
I just created as well, but not really
worth it, as we'll see.
| | 01:27 |
Next, we have got these two guys, this
flower and this one, and they have a
| | 01:32 |
certain logical relationship to them.
So, I am going to group them together by
| | 01:35 |
pressing Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on the Mac.
And then I will double-click on this group
| | 01:39 |
name here, and I'll rename them extras
because they are extra flowers.
| | 01:43 |
And I want to move them up the stack as
well.
| | 01:46 |
So they're not sitting there in the middle
of the other flowers, which one might
| | 01:50 |
reasonably assume should be somehow
grouped together, so I'll go ahead and
| | 01:54 |
click on one, and shift click on the other
three.
| | 01:56 |
Press Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on the Mac, in order
to group them.
| | 02:01 |
And again, I don't really feel like I need
to name them.
| | 02:03 |
Lets go ahead and Shift click on the large
green path, in order to add it to the selection.
| | 02:09 |
Shift click on one of these dark green
curly cues to select that group.
| | 02:14 |
And then Shift click on one of these
flowers out in the beige area to select
| | 02:17 |
them as well.
And let's go ahead and throw them into a
| | 02:21 |
group by pressing Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on the
Mac and notice now, we have a new group.
| | 02:27 |
I'm going to go ahead and call this one,
Quadrant.
| | 02:30 |
But a larger point here, is we've got
groups inside of groups inside of groups.
| | 02:35 |
And that's a great idea when you're
working inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:39 |
The more you can subdivide the pieces of a
complex illustration, the easier it's
| | 02:44 |
going to be to work with.
So, notice I can twirl open this quadrant group.
| | 02:48 |
And now, I'll just see four groups inside
of it.
| | 02:51 |
And then if I was wondering, gosh, what's
inside this item right there?
| | 02:54 |
I could twirl it open, and I'd see there's
two flowers in this extra subgroup inside
| | 02:59 |
the quadrant group, which is on the
drawing layer.
| | 03:01 |
So, in other words, we have a hierarchy
associated with our artwork.
| | 03:05 |
All right, I'll go ahead and twirl that
item closed.
| | 03:09 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+zero or Cmd=zero
on the Mac, to zoom all the way out.
| | 03:13 |
Then Ctrl plus or Cmd plus on the Mac, to
zoom a little bit back in.
| | 03:16 |
Shift click on these flowers, so I've got
the flowers over here on the right, which
| | 03:20 |
are the corner flowers, and I also have
the quadrant group selected.
| | 03:24 |
Everything but the cross should be
selected however.
| | 03:27 |
And now, we are ready to replicate these
objects, and the easiest way to do that is
| | 03:32 |
to use a rotate tool.
So I'll go ahead and select the rotate
| | 03:35 |
tool from the toolbox here.
And then I'll Alt click at the
| | 03:37 |
intersection of the center guides, and I
want to make sure I get that cursor
| | 03:41 |
exactly in place.
And then I'll Alt click or Option click in
| | 03:46 |
order to display the Rotate dialog box.
The angle I'm looking for is 90 degrees.
| | 03:50 |
That looks great.
I'll click the copy button, and then
| | 03:54 |
create my first copy.
Then, I'll press Ctrl+D or Cmd+D on the
| | 03:58 |
Mac twice in a row, in order to complete
that design.
| | 04:02 |
I'll switch back to my Black Arrow tool
and click off of the objects in order to
| | 04:06 |
deselect them.
And the result is a great looking
| | 04:10 |
symmetrical pattern that we have managed
to draw absolutely from scratch.
| | 04:15 |
The only thing remaining, I'm going to go
ahead and right-click inside of the
| | 04:19 |
Document window.
And choose Hide Guides, in order to get
| | 04:22 |
rid of them, so we have a clear view of
our artwork.
| | 04:25 |
The only thing remaining, if you take a
look at the final version of the artwork,
| | 04:29 |
which of course, is a little bit
different, is this network of beveled
| | 04:33 |
edges that's showing up both around the
green portion of the design as well as
| | 04:39 |
around the individual tiles.
And I'll begin to show you how that works
| | 04:42 |
in the next movie.
| | 04:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Simulating beveled edges| 00:00 |
Now frankly, these last two movies go
beyond the scope of this chapter.
| | 00:05 |
However, they will give you a sense, not
only for the amazing amount of power
| | 00:09 |
that's available to you inside of
Illustrator.
| | 00:11 |
But also, for the kinds of effects that
we'll be creating in future courses.
| | 00:16 |
So we're going to take our progress so
far, which I've called Drawing complete.ai
| | 00:20 |
and we're going to turn it into this final
version of the illustration.
| | 00:25 |
So I went ahead and finalized the artwork
I've been creating in front of you.
| | 00:29 |
And if I go ahead and Zoom In here, you
can see that we have beveling around the
| | 00:34 |
green ornamental elements, and I'll show
you how to do that in this movie, and then
| | 00:38 |
we have highlights and shadows around each
one of the tiles.
| | 00:42 |
And I'll show you how that works in the
next movie.
| | 00:45 |
I'll go ahead and switch to our progress
file here, and I'm going to zoom in.
| | 00:49 |
The thing about these green path outline
is they're part of groups, so if I were to
| | 00:54 |
click on any one of them with the black
arrow tool, I would end up selecting an
| | 00:58 |
entire group, and that's not what I want.
So I'll press Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shift+A
| | 01:03 |
on the Mac to deselect the item.
And instead, I'll grab by White Arrow tool.
| | 01:08 |
Which I can get by pressing the A key.
And I'll press and hold the Alt key or the
| | 01:13 |
Option key on the Mac.
And then click on the outline of anyone of
| | 01:17 |
the screen objects here.
And what happens when you Alt + click or
| | 01:22 |
Option + click with the White Arrow tool
as you select an entire path outlined
| | 01:26 |
inside of a group or other collection.
Then go up to the Control panel and click
| | 01:32 |
on that Final icon select Similar Objects,
to select all of the green path outlines.
| | 01:39 |
Now, I'd like you to press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H
on the Mac, to hide those selection edges
| | 01:44 |
so we can better see what we're doing.
Go over to the Appearance panel by going
| | 01:48 |
up to the Window menu and choosing the
Appearance command.
| | 01:52 |
In the Appearance panel is where you
collect things like fills, strokes and
| | 01:56 |
effects and other attributes assigned to a
path.
| | 01:59 |
I want you to click on the stroke item
there to make it active.
| | 02:03 |
And then drop down to this icon in the
bottom left corner of the Appearance
| | 02:07 |
Panel, it says Add New Stroke.
Go ahead and click on it to add a second
| | 02:12 |
stroke to these paths, which is entirely
possible.
| | 02:15 |
You can add as many fills and strokes as
you want to your paths inside Illustrator.
| | 02:20 |
Then click on this stroke to make it
active, and click on it's little Swatch
| | 02:23 |
icon right there.
And I want you to change the stroke from
| | 02:27 |
black to white.
And then I'll add just this little bit of
| | 02:31 |
halo around each one of the strokes, It's
not actually going to print, you're just
| | 02:34 |
seeing it slightly on screen.
Here's where this gets interesting.
| | 02:39 |
You want to make sure that stroke is
selected.
| | 02:41 |
I want you to go up to the Effect menu,
choose Distort and Transform, and then
| | 02:46 |
choose the Transform command.
And what that allows you to do is move
| | 02:50 |
that stroke independently of any other
strokes assigned to the path,.
| | 02:55 |
And the first thing I want you to do
inside this dialogue box is turn on the
| | 02:57 |
Preview Check Box, so you can see what
you're doing.
| | 03:00 |
And click on the word Horizontal below
Move in order to highlight the Horizontal
| | 03:05 |
value, and change it to negative 1 point.
And then press the Tab key and you'll see
| | 03:10 |
that we get these highlight edges.
Then go ahead and click OK to accept that change.
| | 03:15 |
Now that's a little bit over the top, so
click on the word Opacity below this stroke.
| | 03:21 |
And that'll bring up the Opacity panel.
And change the opacity value to 50% in
| | 03:26 |
order to make the strokes translucent.
Now, let's go ahead and add one more.
| | 03:30 |
Click on that stroke again to make it
active, the white stoke.
| | 03:34 |
And then instead of clicking on the Add
New Stroke icon down here in the lower
| | 03:38 |
left corner, click on a little page icon
in order to duplicate that stroke.
| | 03:44 |
And that will create a copy.
Now, I want you to change the color of
| | 03:48 |
that copy.
So this stroke right here, the second to
| | 03:51 |
top, wants you to click on its watch and
change it to brown.
| | 03:55 |
Next, click on the word Transform in order
to re-display the transformed panel.
| | 04:01 |
And we're going to make some changes.
Turn on the Preview check box.
| | 04:05 |
Click on Horizontal to activate that
value.
| | 04:08 |
And change the horizontal value to 0.
Then Tab to the vertical value and change
| | 04:12 |
it to negative 1.
Press the Tab key and we end up creating
| | 04:15 |
this kind of brown edge here.
Then click OK.
| | 04:18 |
Now, click on Opacity for the brown
stroke.
| | 04:23 |
And the first thing I want you to do is
click on the work normal.
| | 04:27 |
This brings up a list of Blend modes, and
one of the options is the burn the color
| | 04:32 |
into the colors behind, by switching that
blend mode to Multiply.
| | 04:37 |
And you'll see it darken things up quite
nicely.
| | 04:39 |
If you feel like you've gone a little too
far as I do, then back off the opacity
| | 04:43 |
value to 35%.
Even though this produces this really cool
| | 04:48 |
bevel effect, we've got a bit of a
problem.
| | 04:51 |
Notice that the white leaks out over the
stroke of the cross, and to me, that
| | 04:58 |
doesn't look right.
So, press Ctrl+H or Cmd+H on a Mac to
| | 05:02 |
bring back your selection edges.
And then press the V key in order to
| | 05:06 |
switch to the Black Arrow tool.
Then press the Shift key so that you add
| | 05:11 |
to the selection and click inside the blue
cross in order to select it as well.
| | 05:17 |
So, you have got all your green shapes and
your blue cross selected.
| | 05:21 |
Go up to the Edit menu and choose the copy
command or press the Ctrl+C or Cmd+C on
| | 05:27 |
the Mac.
Now, I want you to return to the Layers
| | 05:30 |
panel, go ahead and twirl open the Drawing
layer and meat ball the of the very top
| | 05:35 |
item what ever it is doesn't matter.
Just go ahead and click on the meat ball
| | 05:38 |
to make it active.
And from this vantage point, I can't see
| | 05:42 |
it, it's located somewhere in the art
work.
| | 05:44 |
As I say, it doesn't matter, go up to the
Edit menu and choose Paste in Front or
| | 05:48 |
Paste Ctrl+f or Cmd+F on the Mac.
And that goes ahead and pastes all those
| | 05:53 |
items on top of each other.
Now then, what I want you to do is drop
| | 05:58 |
down to the Shape Builder tool and select
it.
| | 06:00 |
And then just click anywhere inside the
blue region of the cross.
| | 06:06 |
Just click once and that's all we need.
Now you're going to have to sift through
| | 06:10 |
your Layers panel here.
Scroll down the list until you find the
| | 06:14 |
bottom most selected item, which looks
like a skinny version of the blue cross.
| | 06:18 |
It'll be on top of that item that you
pasted everything in front of.
| | 06:22 |
And I want you to Shift+click on it's
meatball to turn it off.
| | 06:26 |
Then all this other stuff that we want get
rid off, everything else that is selected.
| | 06:30 |
So, just press the backspace key or the
delete key on the Mac to make everything
| | 06:35 |
else go away.
If I press the V key in order to switch
| | 06:38 |
back to my Black Arrow tool and I click on
this path right there.
| | 06:41 |
We now have this cross shape that
represents a portion of the blue cross
| | 06:45 |
that was showing through between all of
the green element.
| | 06:49 |
Next, I want you to go up to the Stroke
panel.
| | 06:51 |
And this is only going to work if you have
the Black Arrow tool selected.
| | 06:55 |
If you still have the Shape Builder tool
selected, then switch to the Black Arrow.
| | 06:59 |
Click on the word Stroke up here in the
Control Panel and click that second corner
| | 07:03 |
option, Round Join.
And that will go ahead and round off those corners.
| | 07:08 |
And we now have the effect we're looking
for.
| | 07:10 |
If I click off the shape, you can see, we
no longer have those weird highlights
| | 07:14 |
leaking into the cross shape.
So I'll press Ctrl+0 in order to back out,
| | 07:18 |
and then Ctrl+plus a couple of times in
order to zoom back in.
| | 07:22 |
And that, friends, is how you create the
bevels around those green ornamental elements.
| | 07:28 |
In the next and last movie, we'll create
the highlights and shadows around the tiles.
| | 07:33 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a network of interlocking paths| 00:00 |
In this final movie, I'll show you how to
create the highlights and shadows around
| | 00:04 |
each and every one of the tiles.
I've saved my progress as Bevel simulation.ai.
| | 00:10 |
And there's one little thing I forgot to
change here.
| | 00:13 |
I'm going to click on this central blue
cross.
| | 00:15 |
And we want the bevels to show through
this path.
| | 00:18 |
So, go up to the Control panel, click on
the Fill Swatch, and go ahead and change
| | 00:23 |
it to none.
And that way now, if I click off the shape
| | 00:26 |
to deselect it, you can see little beveled
edges and shadow details, inside of that
| | 00:31 |
blue cross as well.
If you have your Drawing layer drilled up
| | 00:35 |
and go ahead and drill it closed, so we
have a little more room to work.
| | 00:39 |
Click on the Tiles layer to make it
active, and then go up to the Layers panel
| | 00:43 |
flyout menu and choose Duplicate Tiles to
make a copy of it.
| | 00:48 |
Then drag that copy to the top of the
stack like so, and unlock it by clicking
| | 00:53 |
on its lock icon.
And I'm also going to double-click in an
| | 00:56 |
empty region of this layer in order to
bring up the Layer Options dialog box, and
| | 01:01 |
I'm going to rename this layer Grout, and
then I'm going to change it's color from
| | 01:06 |
Yellow to Green.
It doesn't really matter, I just want it
| | 01:10 |
to be something different.
Then I'll click OK.
| | 01:13 |
And I'm going to turn off these layers
here by dragging along the eyeball column.
| | 01:18 |
So, Drawing tiles in the Image layer are
now turned off and I'll click in the upper
| | 01:23 |
right hand corner of this Grout layer in
order to select all of the paths on the layer.
| | 01:28 |
Then go up to the Object menu and choose
the Ungroup command, because currently
| | 01:32 |
these tiles are arranged in two groups,
and that's not really serving your
| | 01:35 |
purposes at all.
Then go up to the Fill Swatch which will
| | 01:39 |
show a question mark because all the
shapes are filled with different colors.
| | 01:43 |
Click on it and switch it to none, so that
we get rid of those fills.
| | 01:49 |
Now, here's an interesting use for the
Shape Builder tool.
| | 01:52 |
I'm going to go ahead and select the tool
from the tool box.
| | 01:56 |
We don't want a grout line at this
location right there, because after all
| | 02:00 |
this entire square is one tile.
So, we need to get rid of this little line
| | 02:06 |
segment, and you do that by pressing the
Alt key or the Option key on the Mac, and
| | 02:10 |
clicking on that anchor point there.
Then do the same for this little
| | 02:14 |
right-hand anchor point.
So, Alt+click or Option+click on it.
| | 02:18 |
Do the same thing for this upper anchor
point, I'll go ahead and scroll up to it.
| | 02:23 |
You Alt or Option+click on it and then
I'll go and scroll down to this one and
| | 02:28 |
Alt or Option+click on it as well.
And so that way, we'll go and zoom out a
| | 02:33 |
little bit, we have corner tiles that are
uninterrupted by grout lines.
| | 02:39 |
Now press the V key to switch back to the
Black arrow tool.
| | 02:41 |
And I'm going to press Ctrl+0 to go ahead
and center the art board.
| | 02:46 |
At this point we, want to go ahead and add
multiples strokes to these lines.
| | 02:50 |
But we don't want the strokes to interrupt
each other, that means that we need
| | 02:54 |
Illustrator to treat all of these paths,
all 40 of them as a single path outline.
| | 03:00 |
And you do that by going up to the Object
menu, choosing Compound Path, and choosing Make.
| | 03:07 |
Now, if I twirl open the Grout layer, you
can see that I just have one path.
| | 03:11 |
It will share a common system of strokes
and that way the strokes won't interrupt
| | 03:15 |
each other.
Alright, now I'm going to press Ctrl+H or
| | 03:18 |
Cmd+H on the Mac in order to hide the
selection edges, and I'm going to go ahead
| | 03:22 |
and zoom in a little.
And then I'll switch over to the
| | 03:25 |
Appearance panel which is next to other
layers, but you could also go up to the
| | 03:28 |
Window menu and choose the Appearance
command.
| | 03:31 |
Go ahead and click on this 3 point grey
stroke and then drop down to the bottom
| | 03:35 |
left corner of the Appearance panel and
click on the Add New Stroke icon.
| | 03:39 |
And then I want you to click on the second
stroke down and click on its color swatch
| | 03:44 |
and change it to black and then click on
the down pointing arrow head next to the
| | 03:49 |
line way and change it to 4 point.
And you can see that we are now creating
| | 03:54 |
strokes around all of the strokes, that's
because we have a black stroke that's
| | 03:59 |
thick with a thinner grey stroke in front
of that.
| | 04:03 |
We need two more strokes in order to pull
off this effect, so drop down to that Add
| | 04:07 |
New Stroke icon and click on it again.
And we are going to slightly offset this
| | 04:12 |
stroke using the transform effect, so
click on this bottom most black stroke and
| | 04:17 |
then go up to the Effect menu,choose
Distort and Transform and choose the
| | 04:21 |
Transform command.
Turn on the Preview checkbox so you can
| | 04:24 |
see what you're doing.
Then click on the word Vertical below Move
| | 04:28 |
in order to highlight that vertical value
and change the value to negative one and
| | 04:33 |
we end up creating these shadows.
Then click OK in order to except the effect.
| | 04:38 |
Now I want to duplicate this entire
stroke, so drop down to the little page
| | 04:42 |
icon at the bottom of the panel and click
on it.
| | 04:46 |
And then click on this bottom most stroke,
we keep going down and down here and I
| | 04:51 |
want you to change the color of the stroke
to white, then click off that panel to
| | 04:55 |
hide it.
Twirl open this stroke so that you can get
| | 04:58 |
to the transform effect, click on the word
Transform.
| | 05:01 |
Click on Horizontal in order to highlight
that value, change the value to negative
| | 05:06 |
one, then tab down to the vertical value
and change it to zero and click OK.
| | 05:12 |
And that result in highlights, the only
problem is we cant see the white highlight
| | 05:16 |
because we're seeing the effects against
the white background, so let's fix that.
| | 05:20 |
Return to the Layers panel, go ahead and
twirl close the Grout layer and then drag
| | 05:25 |
down the sidebar column once again to turn
the other layers on and you can see that
| | 05:29 |
we have this wonderful white highlights
now.
| | 05:32 |
The final thing I want you to do, is to
bring back the Photographic Image layer by
| | 05:37 |
double-clicking on it and inside the Layer
Options dialog box just go ahead and turn
| | 05:42 |
off the Template checkbox and then click
OK.
| | 05:45 |
Because when template is turned on, the
image is not only dim and its persistent
| | 05:50 |
and all that could (UNKNOWN) but it
doesn't print either.
| | 05:53 |
And at this point we'd like to see this
image turn into a printing element of the
| | 05:57 |
art work.
So click OK, and that'll go ahead and
| | 06:00 |
bring back the photographic background and
that is the entire effect folks.
| | 06:06 |
You can press Ctrl or Cmd+H to bring back
your selection edges.
| | 06:09 |
Then press Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shift+A on
the Mac to deselect the image, and we have
| | 06:14 |
done it.
We have managed to create a full-fledged
| | 06:18 |
illustration absolutely from scratch
inside Adobe Illustrator.
| | 06:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Working with TypeText formatting at its best| 00:00 |
You've seen what a powerful drawing
program Illustrator is.
| | 00:03 |
But it's also insanely great at creating
and formatting text.
| | 00:08 |
You can click with the Type tool and bang
out text that aligns to a point.
| | 00:13 |
Or you can import text and flow it into
columns.
| | 00:15 |
You can preview fonts and arrow your way
through all fonts installed on your system.
| | 00:20 |
You can modify attributes, such as type
size and leading using keyboard tricks.
| | 00:26 |
And you can locate fractions, accents, and
other hidden characters using the Glifts panel.
| | 00:32 |
In a future course, we'll explore how to
create specialty texts, such as logos.
| | 00:37 |
But for now, we'll lay out and format a
basic three page document complete with
| | 00:42 |
custom paragraph styles.
Here, let's take a look.
| | 00:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating page margins| 00:00 |
All right gang, here's the final version
of the document that we'll be creating.
| | 00:03 |
And it's a three page document,
incidentally, if I press Shift+ Tab you
| | 00:07 |
can see a little bit of that third
art-board on the far right hand side.
| | 00:10 |
And what we're going to be doing is
placing and formatting a limerick that I
| | 00:16 |
wrote, and it's clean, by the way, a clean
limerick so that good.
| | 00:19 |
But we're going to bring it in as a
completely unformatted text-only document
| | 00:23 |
and then assign all of the formatting over
the course of this chapter.
| | 00:27 |
The first thing I want to do is show you
how to create margin guides.
| | 00:30 |
Because if I right click inside of this
first art board here and choose the show
| | 00:34 |
guides command, you can then see that I've
got a vertical center guide, a horizontal
| | 00:38 |
center guide.
I've got this extra vertical guide right
| | 00:40 |
there against which my poem is placed.
And that just helps to weight the poem a
| | 00:45 |
little bit more to the right.
Because this text is formatted flush left,
| | 00:49 |
ragged right that means that we do need a
little bit of extra balance.
| | 00:54 |
And that's just a standard design trick,
just to throw the text a little over to
| | 00:58 |
the right hand side.
But I also have this even margin guide
| | 01:03 |
around all the text on each and every art
board, and that is not something that
| | 01:08 |
comes standard with Illustrator.
In other words, if you press Ctrl+N, or
| | 01:11 |
Cmd+N on the Mac, to bring up the New
Document dialog box.
| | 01:14 |
There are no options here for creating
margins the way there are, say, in a page
| | 01:18 |
layout program such as In Design.
So you have to do it manually.
| | 01:21 |
And i am going to show you how to make
your custom margin guides in this movie.
| | 01:24 |
In the next movie we will begin placing
the text so other hand switch over to
| | 01:29 |
document called three-pagedoc.ai.
Pan inside the 09 type folder and if you
| | 01:34 |
switch to the Air Port tool which is way
down at the bottom for me.
| | 01:37 |
Because i am working with the single
Column tool box it does not quiet fit on
| | 01:41 |
my screen.
If i switch to Air Port, I can see that
| | 01:44 |
each Air Port has a width of 700 points
and a height of 900 points.
| | 01:48 |
Let's say that I want a 100 point margin
all the way around the page.
| | 01:53 |
Then I would press the Esc key to switch
out of the Art Board mode.
| | 01:56 |
And I'll select the Rectangle tool, which
I can get by pressing the M key.
| | 02:00 |
And I'll just go ahead and Alt click, or
Option click, some place close to the
| | 02:04 |
center, but not exactly at the center of
the Art Board there.
| | 02:07 |
And the pages are measuring 700 by 900
points.
| | 02:10 |
If I want a 100 point margin all the way
around then I need to subtract 200 from
| | 02:16 |
each of these values like so, and I'll
just enter minus 200 after each value.
| | 02:21 |
And that gives me a rectangle that's 500
points wide, 700 points tall.
| | 02:24 |
I'll click OK in order to create that
guide.
| | 02:27 |
Alright now I'll go up to this alignment
icon click on it, up here in the Control
| | 02:32 |
Panel, and switch it to Align to Art
Board.
| | 02:35 |
And next I'll click on Vertical Align
Center.
| | 02:37 |
And that'll go ahead and exactly settle
that margin guide.
| | 02:41 |
Now, believe it or not, this is centered.
This guide right here is a little bit low
| | 02:45 |
on the page.
And that's because I'm going to add a bit
| | 02:47 |
of extra top margin for this rectangle.
And I'm going to do that by switching to
| | 02:52 |
the White Arrow tool.
And I'll just marquee the top segment like
| | 02:56 |
so to select it independently of the rest
of the shape, and now I want to bring up
| | 03:00 |
the Move Dialog box.
Now I was telling you, one way to move a
| | 03:03 |
selection numerically is to double click
on the Black Arrow tool that brings up the
| | 03:07 |
move Dialogue box.
That's great if you want to move an entire path.
| | 03:11 |
In this case though we just want to move
the top selected segment.
| | 03:14 |
So you double-click instead on the white
arrow tool, which allows you to move the
| | 03:19 |
selected anchor points, the selected
segments, what have you.
| | 03:22 |
These settings here reflect whatever my
last move was.
| | 03:25 |
I'm going to change the horizontal value
to 0 and I'm going to change the vertical
| | 03:28 |
value 0.25", double quote there.
And then I'll press the Tab key.
| | 03:33 |
And that goes ahead and converts that
vertical value to 18 points, moves the top
| | 03:38 |
of the rectangle down.
You can see now the center point is right
| | 03:41 |
there along a center guideline.
And I'll click OK.
| | 03:44 |
Alright, now I'm going to switch back to
my Black Arrow tool by pressing the V key.
| | 03:47 |
And I'll click on the rectangle in order
to select the entire thing.
| | 03:51 |
Notice it's appearing on a Text layer.
I want it to be on the Guides layer, so
| | 03:54 |
I'll go ahead and drag this little orange
square down to the Guides layer, like so.
| | 03:59 |
And i am going to twirl open guides and i
am going to go ahead and name this path Margins.
| | 04:04 |
And then i will cut it by going up the
Edit menu and choosing the cut command or
| | 04:08 |
press the Ctrl +X or Cmd+ X in the Mac.
And i now want to paste that shape on all
| | 04:13 |
of the Art Boards so go back to the Edit
menu and chose paste on all boards.
| | 04:17 |
Or press Ctrl shift + Alt + V or Cmd+
Shift + Opt +V on Mac.
| | 04:21 |
Now I want to take each one of these guys
and by the way the top item right there is
| | 04:26 |
on the third Artboard.
This one is on the second Art Board so I
| | 04:29 |
will go ahead and Shift +click on it and
then I will Shift +click on the lowest of
| | 04:32 |
the margins items here .
Which is rectangle on the first Art Board
| | 04:36 |
and then I am going to convert them all to
guides by going up to the View menu
| | 04:39 |
choosing Guides and then choosing Make
Guides.
| | 04:43 |
Or I could press Ctrl+5 or Cmd+5 on a Mac.
And now all I want to do is move each one
| | 04:49 |
of these into the group of guides that it
goes with.
| | 04:51 |
So notice that all the page one guides are
grouped together as page one right there.
| | 04:56 |
If I turn off page one, you can see all of
those page one guides except for the
| | 05:00 |
margins that we just created and the
center horizontal line which goes through
| | 05:03 |
all the Art Boards.
All the other ones are grouped together however.
| | 05:06 |
So, I'll turn that back on to bring it
back.
| | 05:09 |
This guy right there is the margin on page
one, so I'll drag it down and drop it into
| | 05:12 |
to page one.
This guy is the margin for page two, so
| | 05:16 |
I'll drag it and drop it onto page two.
And this final one at the top is the
| | 05:20 |
margins for page three, so I'll drag it
and drop it onto page three like so.
| | 05:24 |
And now, everybody's grouped together the
way they should be.
| | 05:27 |
If you want to confirm things you can hide
page one, for example.
| | 05:30 |
And everything but the horizontal center
guide should go away.
| | 05:33 |
And same for page Two.
That's going to get rid of everything but
| | 05:37 |
the center horizontal guide as well.
All right, so everything's in good shape.
| | 05:41 |
We now created our margin guides.
I'm going to click on the text layer to
| | 05:44 |
make it active once again.
So you might think that, you know, kind of
| | 05:48 |
a pain in the neck to have to work that
way instead of just having automatic
| | 05:51 |
margin options.
However, even though it's a little bit of
| | 05:54 |
work, that does mean that you have an
infinite amount of control over creating
| | 05:58 |
guides here inside illustrator
| | 06:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Placing and flowing text| 00:00 |
In this movie, we'll place some text that
I've created in advance as a text-only file.
| | 00:04 |
And this can be a great way to work.
You can of course, create text directly
| | 00:08 |
inside Illustrator if you want to.
Just grab the Text tool, you click if you
| | 00:12 |
want to create some point text, and I'll
show you what that looks like shortly.
| | 00:15 |
And then you type away, and you've got
your text.
| | 00:18 |
However, if you're creating a longer
document, you may want to prepare your
| | 00:21 |
text in advance in a word processor such
as, you know, Microsoft Word.
| | 00:25 |
Whatever, there's a billion out there.
And then go ahead and save it off as a DOC
| | 00:30 |
file, if you want to save the formatting
for example.
| | 00:33 |
Or just a text only file if you want to
apply your formatting here inside Illustrator.
| | 00:37 |
So, we're going to go with the latter.
That is to say, a text only file.
| | 00:40 |
I'll go up to the File menu and choose the
Place command.
| | 00:44 |
And then, if you're working along with me,
go ahead and navigate your way to the
| | 00:47 |
09_type folder, and then you'll find a
file called Updated limerick.txt.
| | 00:52 |
And, as I say, text only file, no
formatting whatsoever.
| | 00:56 |
But you can see, if you look in this list
of formats, that Illustrator also supports
| | 01:00 |
DOC files, DOCX files, RTF files, which
are rich text files which contain
| | 01:05 |
formatting attributes.
But we're just going to go with this text
| | 01:08 |
document here.
And after you've selected it, go ahead and
| | 01:11 |
click on the Place button.
And regardless of what kind of text you're
| | 01:15 |
importing, you'll get this Import Options
dialog box.
| | 01:19 |
Now, it'll look different depending on the
formatting.
| | 01:20 |
If you're placing a Word file, for
example, Illustrator will ask you if you
| | 01:24 |
want to bring in foot notes and other
extras.
| | 01:26 |
However when we're importing a text file,
it just wants to know the platform Windows
| | 01:30 |
or Mac.
Doesn't matter by the way in the case of
| | 01:33 |
this file.
So whether you're working on the Mac or
| | 01:35 |
Windows just leave it alone, don't worry
about it.
| | 01:38 |
Character set should definitely be set to
ANSI as opposed to you know, something
| | 01:41 |
like Cyrillic because this is an English
language document.
| | 01:45 |
The other options just don't matter at all
for our purposes.
| | 01:48 |
So go ahead and click OK and you'll see
this text just appear magically on the page.
| | 01:53 |
Now you can see that it doesn't fit inside
of our margin, so that's a problem.
| | 01:57 |
Also, I want it to be bigger, so I can see
it from this distance here.
| | 02:01 |
So I'm going to go up to my Control panel,
and notice that I've got a type size value
| | 02:05 |
right there.
I'll go ahead and click on this down
| | 02:07 |
pointing arrowhead.
And for the mean time, we're not going to
| | 02:10 |
leave it set this way but I'll go ahead
and change the text to 24 point.
| | 02:13 |
Just so that we can see what's going on on
screen.
| | 02:16 |
Now ideally, we would just go ahead and
size this text box so that the text fits
| | 02:22 |
better on the Artboard.
But I can't just begin dragging these
| | 02:26 |
points because if I do, I'll just move the
text around.
| | 02:29 |
And that's because I have the Bounding Box
turned off.
| | 02:31 |
So, I'll go to the View menu and choose
Show Bounding Box to turn that back on.
| | 02:35 |
I could also press Ctrl+Shift+B,
Cmd+Shift+B on the Mac.
| | 02:39 |
And I'm going to go ahead and drag this
handle down like so in order to scale the
| | 02:44 |
Textbox also know by the way as a
Textframe.
| | 02:48 |
Now, I want things to snap exactly in the
place so I'll go up to my View menu and
| | 02:52 |
turn my Smart Guides back on.
And then I'll go ahead and drag this top
| | 02:57 |
handle to about here for now.
It doesn't matter exactly where you put it.
| | 03:01 |
We don't want it all the way to the top of
the page because we want to leave some
| | 03:03 |
room for the headline and the byline.
But you do want to go ahead and align your
| | 03:08 |
text to this vertical guide right there,
not all the way out to the edge of the margin.
| | 03:13 |
Then go ahead and take in the bottom right
corner like so.
| | 03:17 |
Now notice this thing right here, this red
thing, it's actually a plus sign, if you
| | 03:21 |
click off the text you can kind of see
it's a plus.
| | 03:24 |
Then click back on the text to select it.
And what it's telling me that red plus
| | 03:29 |
tells me that I've got overflow text and
so if I click on the plus, you have to
| | 03:34 |
make sure you click exactly on it.
Then you load your cursor with some more text.
| | 03:38 |
All right, I'm going to go ahead and
scroll over by spacebar-dragging.
| | 03:42 |
And there's a few different ways I could
go ahead and place this text onto the page.
| | 03:47 |
You could just click, but it doesn't come
in the right size.
| | 03:50 |
It's almost the right width, but it's not
the right height.
| | 03:53 |
So I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z, or
Cmd+Z on the mac.
| | 03:55 |
The great thing is not only do I undo,
that new frame that I created, I also
| | 03:59 |
reload my cursor, which is awesome.
Another option that's available to you, is
| | 04:04 |
you can drag like so, in order to specify
the exact size of the frame.
| | 04:08 |
And again I'm starting, at this vertical
guide and going all the way over to the
| | 04:12 |
right margin.
Or here's another thing that's available
| | 04:15 |
to you.
Go ahead and press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on the Mac.
| | 04:17 |
If you press and hold the Alt key or the
Option key on the Mac and click.
| | 04:22 |
Then you'll go ahead and not only place
the text in correctly but you'll also
| | 04:26 |
reload your cursor which is pretty handy.
So I'll just go over to the third art
| | 04:31 |
board and draw this one manually by
dragging from one corner to the other.
| | 04:35 |
That is from the intersection of the
vertical guide in the top margin, all the
| | 04:39 |
way down to the bottom right corner of the
margin.
| | 04:42 |
And then I'll return to page two here.
Click on a text to select it.
| | 04:46 |
It looks like the top left corners in the
right place, but obviously the bottom
| | 04:49 |
right corner isn't so I'll just go ahead
and drag it down.
| | 04:52 |
And notice now, if I zoom out a bit here,
you can see these big orange lines here.
| | 04:57 |
These are the text threads.
They show how the three Textblocks are
| | 05:01 |
threaded together, and as a result, the
text automatically flows from one
| | 05:05 |
Textblock to the other.
So for example, if I decided to make this
| | 05:08 |
Textblock right here shorter than the
overflow text.
| | 05:11 |
The text that is now appearing black at
the bottom of the page will go ahead and
| | 05:16 |
flow automatically into the third art
board.
| | 05:20 |
So it's pretty handy the way that this
works.
| | 05:22 |
Alright, I'm going to go ahead and zoom in
on page one here and click on it to make
| | 05:26 |
it active.
We've now managed to place our text from a
| | 05:29 |
text only document and flow it onto three
separate art boards.
| | 05:33 |
In the next exercise, we'll cut free the
headline and byline and place them in a
| | 05:37 |
separate text object.
| | 05:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Selecting words and lines of type| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to select the
headline and the second line of type,
| | 00:04 |
which is the byline, and we're going to
cut them and paste them into a separate
| | 00:07 |
text object.
But first, we need to select those lines
| | 00:10 |
of type, and so I'm going to show you a
variety of different ways to select text
| | 00:14 |
here inside of Illustrator.
Now, first thing you want to do is switch
| | 00:17 |
to the Type tool, which you can get by
just clicking on the T here in the tool box.
| | 00:21 |
Or you can press the keyboard shortcut
which is also T so that's handy.
| | 00:25 |
Or you can go over to your text with the
Black Arrow tool here, notice when I hover
| | 00:30 |
over it as long as I've got my Smart
Guides turned on.
| | 00:32 |
I can see the baselines, and those orange
baselines are the invisible lines,
| | 00:37 |
essentially that the text sits on.
And if you double-click on one of the
| | 00:42 |
baselines, then you not only switch over
to the Type tool automatically, but you
| | 00:45 |
also position your blinking insertion
marker.
| | 00:48 |
Alright, so a few different ways to select
text one, obviously you can drag over it.
| | 00:53 |
Another way to select text is to click at
one location and Shift+click at another
| | 00:57 |
location and you select all the text in
between those points.
| | 01:01 |
If you double click on a word, you select
the entire word.
| | 01:04 |
If you triple click on a line, you select
the entire line.
| | 01:08 |
If I had a multi-line paragraph, I could
quadruple click to select the entire paragraph.
| | 01:14 |
You can also press Ctrl+A, or Cmd+A on a
Mac when any text is active to select all
| | 01:20 |
of the text.
And this is all of the text across all of
| | 01:23 |
the art boards.
Now, one of the things that's really
| | 01:26 |
tempting, when you're working with text,
is to try to scroll by pressing Spacebar.
| | 01:30 |
If you do that to get the Hand tool,
you'll just replace all your selected with spaces.
| | 01:35 |
Obviously, you don't want to do that, so
I'll press Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on the Mac.
| | 01:39 |
That's why you want to get in the habit of
taking advantage of the scroll wheel on
| | 01:43 |
your mouse, if for example you're working
on the PC.
| | 01:46 |
And to scroll to the right like I just did
you press the Ctrl key while scrolling
| | 01:50 |
downward and to scroll to the left press
Ctrl key while scrolling up upward.
| | 01:54 |
Those of you on the Mac can do the double
finger swipe in order to scroll back and
| | 01:58 |
forth so just bear that in mind.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and zoom
| | 02:03 |
back in here.
Now, some other ways to select text that
| | 02:07 |
you may or may not find helpful.
If I click in front of the S in the word
| | 02:12 |
she, for example, and I press Shift+right
arrow, then I'll select yes.
| | 02:17 |
And I can keep pressing Shift+right arrow
to select more letters, or I can press
| | 02:22 |
shift left arrow to deselect letters, and
then ultimately select in the other direction.
| | 02:26 |
If you want to select an entire word at a
time, well click in front of the word
| | 02:31 |
pouted there, then you press
Ctrl+Shift+right arrow, and you can press
| | 02:35 |
that key multiple times to select multiple
words.
| | 02:37 |
That would be Cmd+Shift+right arrow on the
Mac to deselect you press Ctrl+Shift+left
| | 02:41 |
arrow and then ultimately you would select
the other direction.
| | 02:44 |
If you want to select down an entire line,
then you press Ctrl+shift down arrow and
| | 02:50 |
that will be Cmd+shift down arrow on the
Mac to select additional lines.
| | 02:54 |
And then, of course, you can go up as well
or deselect by pressing Ctrl+shift or
| | 02:58 |
Cmd+shift up arrow.
So, bunch of different ways to work.
| | 03:02 |
Here's what I'm going to do to select
these first two lines.
| | 03:05 |
I'm going to triple click drag.
So, one, two, three, drag down.
| | 03:10 |
Like so.
So, on the third click I dragged.
| | 03:12 |
I'll go ahead and do that again just to
make sure it's obvious what I'm doing.
| | 03:15 |
One, two, three drag down to select those
first two lines.
| | 03:19 |
Then I'll go up to the Edit menu and
choose the Cut command or I could press
| | 03:23 |
Ctrl+X or Cmd+X on a Mac.
Now, to accept your changes and return to
| | 03:28 |
the Black Arrow tool, there's a couple
things you can do.
| | 03:31 |
One, of course, you could just click on
the Black Arrow tool, if you want to.
| | 03:34 |
But, if you want to switch from the
keyboard, you can either press Ctrl+Enter,
| | 03:38 |
that would be Cmd+Return on the Mac, which
I think makes a lot of sense.
| | 03:42 |
However, there's an easier way that I
don't think makes any sense at all, but
| | 03:46 |
you probably want to know about it.
I'll go ahead and select some text here.
| | 03:49 |
And show you another way to escape out,
and that's just to press the Escape key.
| | 03:54 |
Now, the reason that doesn't make a lot of
sense to me is because, I guess it means
| | 03:58 |
to Photoshop or you press the Escape key
in order to abandon your changes.
| | 04:02 |
In illustrator when you press the Escape
key, you keep your changes and you switch
| | 04:06 |
back to the Black Arrow tool.
So, if you want to make the text active
| | 04:09 |
and edited you can just double click on it
with the Black Arrow tool.
| | 04:12 |
To get back out after you make your
modifications, you press the Escape key.
| | 04:15 |
And that returns you to the Black Arrow
tool.
| | 04:18 |
Where I'm going to click off my text to
deselect it.
| | 04:21 |
And then I'm going to bring that other
text back that I cut to the clipboard by
| | 04:25 |
going up to the Edit menu and choosing the
Paste command.
| | 04:28 |
Or I could press Ctrl+V or Cmd+V on the
Mac.
| | 04:31 |
Now, this is a little bit confusing.
What we're seeing here is a completely
| | 04:35 |
different animal than what we were working
with before.
| | 04:38 |
So, this stuff right here is known as area
text.
| | 04:42 |
It occurs inside of, in this case a
rectangular text frame, but it could be
| | 04:47 |
any shape or size you want it to be.
You can put text inside circles and all
| | 04:51 |
kinds of shapes in Illustrator.
But notice that it's scaleable, so if I
| | 04:56 |
scale the frame, the text doesn't scale it
just flows differently inside the frame.
| | 05:01 |
Compare that to this stuff.
This is what's known as point text.
| | 05:05 |
Because I just pasted it into place.
It's aligned to that anchor point right there.
| | 05:10 |
And if I drag one of these corner handles,
because I can still see my bounding box,
| | 05:14 |
then I'm going to stretch the text, as you
see here.
| | 05:17 |
Which is not what I want to do at all.
So, I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Z or
| | 05:20 |
Cmd+Z on the Mac to undo that change.
And then I'll go up to the View menu and I
| | 05:25 |
will choose High Bounding Box or I will
press Ctrl+Shift+B or Cmd+Shift+B on the
| | 05:29 |
Mac to get that bounding box out of there
so I can see the anchor point.
| | 05:32 |
In every thing in a case of point text is
linked to that anchor point.
| | 05:37 |
So, in other words, we have no text frame
or other constraint.
| | 05:41 |
An we'll see what that means as I show you
how to work with point text in the very
| | 05:44 |
next movie.
| | 05:45 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with point text| 00:00 |
All right, I'm looking at the final
version of my document, which is Final
| | 00:03 |
formatted limerick.ai and if I click on
the headline with the Black Arrow tool.
| | 00:07 |
And I'm clicking on the base of the text
just to make sure I select it although,
| | 00:11 |
you have a lot of latitude when you're
clicking on text.
| | 00:13 |
Its very easy to select the stuff.
But notice that this is point text, so
| | 00:18 |
there is no container for the text, which
is unusual.
| | 00:21 |
Most other programs require some form of
text frame.
| | 00:26 |
Illustrator does allow you to work with
text frames if you want to, especially for
| | 00:29 |
body copy, which is text that needs to
automatically wrap down to another line of type.
| | 00:34 |
However, any time you don't want automatic
wrapping, you want to control the wrapping.
| | 00:38 |
Which is great when working with
headlines.
| | 00:40 |
Especially, typed logos, then you want to
start with point type.
| | 00:44 |
And I'll go ahead and switch over to my
document in progress, which I'm calling
| | 00:48 |
point text headline.ai.
I'm going to move this guy out of the way
| | 00:52 |
for a moment.
And let me show you.
| | 00:54 |
If you're creating type from scratch, with
the Type tool, and you go ahead and switch
| | 00:58 |
to the Type tool.
And if you want to create a text frame,
| | 01:01 |
you drag with the tool like so.
And then start typing into it.
| | 01:05 |
Let's say that's not what you want.
I'll press the Esc key and then go ahead,
| | 01:08 |
and press the Backspace key to delete that
text object.
| | 01:12 |
If you want to create point text, like we
have here.
| | 01:14 |
Then again, you switch to your Type tool
and you just click.
| | 01:18 |
And you create this blinking insertion
marker.
| | 01:20 |
You go ahead and enter your type, if I
press the Esc key, then you'll see that I
| | 01:24 |
have type that aligns to a point.
All right.
| | 01:28 |
So, what does that end up meeting?
I'm going to go ahead and delete that text.
| | 01:31 |
And let's supply some sort of early
formatting to this text right here.
| | 01:36 |
I'm going to change the size, and what's
known as the leading, which is the
| | 01:40 |
distance between the baselines, between
one baseline and the next.
| | 01:44 |
It looks like the word, if you've never
seen it before, it's spelled leading, so
| | 01:49 |
it looks like the word leading.
But it's actually leading, because back in
| | 01:53 |
the hot metal type days, they'd actually
use rows of lead to space the text.
| | 01:57 |
So how do we get to the leading controls?
Well, a couple of ways to get there.
| | 02:02 |
You can see when text is selected like it
is, and text can either be selected with
| | 02:06 |
the Black Arrow tool, if you want to
affect the entire text object, which is
| | 02:10 |
what I want.
Or you can just select some text using the
| | 02:13 |
Type tool, and when text is selected, then
you can see some formatting controls up
| | 02:18 |
here in the Control panel.
Including the word Character and the word Paragraph.
| | 02:22 |
Character brings up the Character panel
like so, and what we're seeing here are
| | 02:27 |
character level formatting attributes.
Another words attributes that affect
| | 02:31 |
single characters at a time.
So if you want to format just a selected
| | 02:35 |
character of type or selected word.
Then these formatting controls are
| | 02:38 |
available to you.
But if I've got the entire thing selected,
| | 02:41 |
then I'll apply my character level
formatting attributes to all of the
| | 02:45 |
selected text.
Paragraph brings up formatting attributes
| | 02:49 |
that affect entire paragraphs of text at a
time, even if you just have a single
| | 02:54 |
character of type selected.
But your main attributes are the character attributes.
| | 02:58 |
So, I'll go ahead and click on character.
And notice, there's my size value right there.
| | 03:02 |
My type size value.
And next door is my letting.
| | 03:05 |
So, if I click on this sort of growing T
here, that'll select the type size value.
| | 03:09 |
And let's say I'll go ahead and change it
to 58 points.
| | 03:12 |
Something very large.
Leading will automatically by default.
| | 03:16 |
And when you're working with auto-leading,
you can see the auto-leading value in parenthesis.
| | 03:22 |
And by the way, auto-leading is 120% of
the type size.
| | 03:27 |
So, if you were to multiply 58 times 1.2,
then you would get 69.6.
| | 03:33 |
However you can override that, you can
enter you own leading value, which of
| | 03:36 |
course is again, going to control the
distance between the baselines.
| | 03:39 |
And I'm going to change my leading to 62.
And then press the Tab key, and you can
| | 03:44 |
see that that goes ahead and moves the
lines closer together.
| | 03:47 |
All right.
Now, I'm going to hide the Character panel
| | 03:49 |
just by pressing the Enter key or the
Return key on the Mac.
| | 03:53 |
And you can see, if I were to scroll over
a little bit here, that my text has no
| | 03:58 |
constraints whatsoever.
It's just going to keep going as long as
| | 04:01 |
it wants to.
Meaning, that it can flow over multiple
| | 04:05 |
artboards, or it can flow into the paste
board, and so forth.
| | 04:08 |
Obviously, we're not going to want that
long term, but I just want you to know
| | 04:11 |
that that's the way point text works.
Completely unconstrained text.
| | 04:16 |
All right.
I want to format this headline onto two
| | 04:18 |
lines of type.
And so, because there is no auto wrapping,
| | 04:21 |
what I'll have to do is double-click at
this location right there, in order to set
| | 04:25 |
my insertion marker right before the p in
project.
| | 04:28 |
And then I'll press the Backspace key or
the Delete key on the Mac, to get rid of
| | 04:31 |
that space character, and I'll press the
Enter key here on the PC or the Return key
| | 04:35 |
on the Mac, in order to knock that text
down onto the next line.
| | 04:39 |
And then I'll press the Esc key, in order
to switch back to the Black Arrow tool.
| | 04:44 |
All right, so that gives you an idea of
how to work with point text inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:47 |
In the next movie, I'll share with you a
few tips and tricks for previewing and
| | 04:51 |
assigning fonts.
| | 04:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Previewing and assigning fonts| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you a few
different ways to preview and apply fonts,
| | 00:04 |
as well as font styles inside of
Illustrator.
| | 00:07 |
I'm going to start by selecting this Big
point text with the Black Arrow tool.
| | 00:11 |
And when I do, you can see that I have a
font menu up here in the Control panel.
| | 00:16 |
And by the way, if you're working on a
very small screen on the Mac for example,
| | 00:20 |
you can go over to the flyout menu on the
far right side of the Control panel.
| | 00:25 |
And you can decide to turn something off,
such as Transform.
| | 00:28 |
And then the transform would go away, and
as a result there's more room for other
| | 00:33 |
functions, as you can see here.
So, all it means is there's not enough
| | 00:37 |
horizontal real estate open.
Anyway, I'm going to bring back Transform
| | 00:41 |
because, I wouldn't want to miss it later.
But notice that I just got rid of some
| | 00:44 |
alignment options.
So, you have to pick and choose sometimes.
| | 00:48 |
Notice, right next to the word Character,
is this pop-up menu that's telling me that
| | 00:52 |
my text is set in Myriad Pro.
If I click the down-pointing arrowhead,
| | 00:56 |
then I'm going to see a long list of
fonts, and I can go ahead and scroll
| | 01:00 |
through them.
And undoubtedly by the way, my fonts and
| | 01:04 |
your fonts are going to be totally
different.
| | 01:07 |
Now, you can either just select a font or
if you want to apply a style at the same
| | 01:11 |
time, you can twirl that font open and
then select a style, such as Franklin
| | 01:17 |
Gothic Medium Regular.
In my case and I'll end up with this
| | 01:21 |
effect here.
Notice we do have these previews now at
| | 01:25 |
work inside all of the font menus
throughout Illustrator, which is great.
| | 01:30 |
If you want bigger previews, then escape
out and press Ctrl+K or Cmd+K on the Mac,
| | 01:35 |
to bring up the Preferences dialogue box
then click on Type, like so.
| | 01:39 |
And notice down here you can select from
three different preview sizes, including
| | 01:43 |
Medium by default, Small if you want it
smaller, not sure if you want that.
| | 01:47 |
And then Large, which is the one I'm
going to go with.
| | 01:50 |
You also have the option of turning the
preview off entirely, if you want to be
| | 01:54 |
able to see more fonts at a time.
Notice here that illustrator stores up a
| | 01:58 |
list of recent fonts, by default it's set
to 5.
| | 02:01 |
So, right at the top of the menu are
going to be the five most recently used fonts.
| | 02:05 |
You can increase that number size 15, I'm
going to set it to 10.
| | 02:09 |
And that's it for now, so I'll go ahead
and click OK.
| | 02:12 |
And now, if you click this down-pointing
arrowhead, you will see bigger font
| | 02:16 |
previews (INAUDIBLE) sample here.
And you'll see the font names spread
| | 02:20 |
farther apart.
And so, I could just go ahead and scroll
| | 02:23 |
up the list and see what I got.
And there's Blackoak standard which is
| | 02:26 |
definitely very expanded.
So, I'll go ahead and try it out and our
| | 02:30 |
text gets, essentially worse than ever.
Alright, a few more things you can do.
| | 02:34 |
You can click inside the font name, and
then you can arrow through the fonts.
| | 02:38 |
So, you can press the down arrow key, in
order to advance through the list of fonts alphabetically.
| | 02:45 |
Or you can press the up arrow key, in
order to go backward.
| | 02:48 |
So, that's a way to preview fonts on the
fly on your page.
| | 02:52 |
The thing about this trick, it's been
heralded many times as being this
| | 02:56 |
outstanding, wonderful feature.
The problem is, if you've got a list of
| | 03:00 |
fonts like I do that just goes on and on
and on.
| | 03:04 |
And every day, it seems like you install
more, and it just gets worse and worse,
| | 03:08 |
then you're going to be spending a good
ten minutes arrowing through all your fonts.
| | 03:12 |
So, it helps to know a little bit about
what you got.
| | 03:15 |
Alright, another thing you can do to
access the font name, you can press
| | 03:19 |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F or Cmd+Shift+Option+F on
the Mac.
| | 03:23 |
And what that's supposed to do, it's not
working right now for me, but it's
| | 03:27 |
supposed to bring up the Character panel
and highlight the font value like this.
| | 03:32 |
And because I couldn't get it to highlight
with the keyboard shortcut, I'll just go
| | 03:36 |
ahead and click inside that font name.
And now you can enter a different font.
| | 03:41 |
For example I'm going to enter the first
few letter of Myriad.
| | 03:44 |
And notice rather than just selecting
Myriad Pro for me, Illustrator reveals a
| | 03:49 |
long list in my case, of different fonts
styles that were designed specifically for
| | 03:55 |
Myriad Pro and I've installed on this
machine.
| | 03:57 |
So, if your working along with me, you're
probably not going to see more than a
| | 04:01 |
handful of styles.
In my case I've got an installed all
| | 04:04 |
twenty something of them.
And then, I can just select the one that I
| | 04:08 |
want to work with from the list, by
clicking on it.
| | 04:12 |
Now, not all fonts come with that many
styles, which is why inside Illustrator,
| | 04:17 |
you don't see buttons for bold or italic.
That would pretty much defeat the purpose,
| | 04:21 |
when you have a list of styles that's this
long.
| | 04:24 |
And by the way, you can arrow through
those as well if you click in the style
| | 04:28 |
option there and press the down arrow key,
you'll style forward through the list.
| | 04:32 |
And the up arrow key will take you
backward, so that's an option as well.
| | 04:37 |
But then there's a bunch of fonts that
don't have barely any styles whatsoever.
| | 04:40 |
For example, I'm going to be working where
this document is concerned, with a couple
| | 04:45 |
of fonts that ship along with the Creative
Cloud, so you should have access to them.
| | 04:49 |
And they're Adobe Caslon Pro and Trajan
Pro.
| | 04:52 |
I'm going to start with Trajan for the
headline, I'll just enter, tra, and that's
| | 04:56 |
good enough to give me Trajan and Trajan
Bold.
| | 05:00 |
And that's what I'm looking for, not
interested in Trajan Pro 3 or any of these
| | 05:05 |
other fonts.
And notice by the way, that Illustrator no
| | 05:09 |
longer searches just by the beginning of
the font name.
| | 05:12 |
It's going to look for other occurrences
of in our case, tra such as Futura
| | 05:17 |
Standard Extra in my case.
But as I say, I want Trajan Pro Bold, so
| | 05:23 |
I'll go ahead and select it.
But if I now reveal the style menu, you
| | 05:26 |
could see all I've got to choose from is
Regular and Bold.
| | 05:29 |
So, if there had been an italic button,
then Illustrator would have had to fake it
| | 05:33 |
just by slanting the text which between
you and me, wouldn't have looked good at all.
| | 05:38 |
Now that I'm done with the Character
panel, I can hide it by clicking on this
| | 05:42 |
little double arrow icon or, I can use the
keyboard shortcut that both hides.
| | 05:47 |
And shows us the panel and that's Ctrl+T
or Cmd+T on the Mac, the T being for type.
| | 05:54 |
And that friends, is how you preview and
apply both fonts and font styles here
| | 06:00 |
inside Illustrator.
| | 06:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Incrementally adjusting type size| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'll show you some really
handy tricks for changing the size of
| | 00:04 |
selected text from the keyboard.
I've saved my changes as Trajan type.ai.
| | 00:09 |
Now, before we re-size the text, and we're
going to be re-sizing this top line so,
| | 00:12 |
it's a little bigger.
I want to go ahead and move my text into a
| | 00:16 |
better location.
So, I'm going to go ahead and drag it by
| | 00:19 |
its point, by that little sort of anchor
point, that is the alignment point for the
| | 00:24 |
text, until it snaps into alignment with
the upper left corner of the margin.
| | 00:29 |
And then I'll press Shift+Down arrow five
times in a row.
| | 00:32 |
So, one, two, three, four, five, and then
I'll press the Up arrow key by itself in
| | 00:37 |
order to raise that type just a little
bit.
| | 00:39 |
And this'll end up looking exactly right,
once we get done changing the type size.
| | 00:44 |
So, now I'm going to double click inside
of my text in order to switch to the Type
| | 00:48 |
tool and set the location of the blinking
insertion marker.
| | 00:52 |
And then I'll triple click on that first
line of type to select it.
| | 00:55 |
Now, here's how to change the size of the
type.
| | 00:58 |
Press Ctrl+Shift+Period, that will be
Cmd+Shift+Period on a Mac, and that makes
| | 01:03 |
the type get incrementally bigger as you
can see here.
| | 01:06 |
Now, the reason it's Ctrl+Shift+Period is
because that's the location of the greater
| | 01:11 |
sign on an American keyboard.
To make your text incrementally smaller,
| | 01:14 |
you press Ctrl+Shift+Comma or
Cmd+Shift+Comma on a Mac.
| | 01:18 |
And the Comma key is also is the location
of the less than symbol on an american keyboard.
| | 01:24 |
So, Ctrl+Shift+Period or Cmd+Shift+Period
makes it bigger, Ctrl+Shift+Comma or
| | 01:28 |
Cmd+Shift+Comma makes it smaller.
And it does so, in the increments of two
| | 01:32 |
points by default, which I think is too
much, I prefer finer control than that.
| | 01:39 |
And if you do as well, then you can change
the increments by pressing Ctrl+K, or
| | 01:43 |
Cmd+K on the Mac, to once again bring up
the Preferences dialog box.
| | 01:47 |
And notice, there are your increment
values.
| | 01:50 |
So, if I were click on Size Leading, I'd
highlight that two point value and I can
| | 01:53 |
change it to 0.5 points.
And you'll see that this is useful
| | 01:57 |
because, you can increase the increment on
the fly using a different keyboard
| | 02:01 |
shortcut that I'll show you in a moment.
The tracking value allows you to track or
| | 02:05 |
kern your text from the keyboard, which is
to say, change the amount of horizontal
| | 02:09 |
space between characters.
And by default, it's set to 21 thousandth
| | 02:13 |
of an em /g.
Now, an em is a space that's as wide as
| | 02:18 |
the type size is tall.
So, in other words, if we're working with
| | 02:21 |
24 point type, then you do the math here,
20 thousandth of 24 points is about a half
| | 02:28 |
a point.
So, that's a big increment when you're
| | 02:31 |
trying to space characters away from each
other.
| | 02:33 |
So, I prefer to take that value down to
about five thousandth.
| | 02:37 |
And then Baseline Shift allows you to
raise and lower the text with respect to
| | 02:41 |
the baseline.
I recommend you take it down to 0.5 points
| | 02:44 |
as well.
And then click OK in order to make those changes.
| | 02:47 |
And now notice up here in the Control
panel, that the current type size is 64 points.
| | 02:51 |
If I press Ctrl+Shift+Period in order to
increase the size of the type, it goes to 64.5.
| | 02:57 |
Let's say, I want to move more quickly.
Well, I can add the Alt key or the Option
| | 03:01 |
key on the Mac.
So, it's basically a mash or fist in other words.
| | 03:04 |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Period or
Cmd+Shift+Option+Period on the Mac goes
| | 03:08 |
ahead and increases that Type Size by a 5x
increment.
| | 03:12 |
So, in our case we go from 0.5 to 2.5.
And now, if I were to press
| | 03:17 |
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Comma, or
Cmd+Shift+Option+Comma on the Mac, I'd
| | 03:21 |
reduce that type size in 2.5 point
increments.
| | 03:24 |
Alright, I can see that my type size is
62.
| | 03:28 |
I'm going to press Ctrl+Shift+Period or
Cmd+Shift+Period on the Mac two times in
| | 03:33 |
order to increase that type size value to
63 points, because that's the type size I
| | 03:37 |
ultimately arrived at for this particular
headline.
| | 03:40 |
Now, it may not look quite right because
the text looks so wide at this size.
| | 03:45 |
The comma's like hanging out of the margin
quite a bit.
| | 03:48 |
But that's because the text needs to be
kerned a little bit.
| | 03:50 |
That is, we need to change the horizontal
space between the letters.
| | 03:53 |
And we get to that in a future movie.
Anyway, I'm going to press the Esc key in
| | 03:57 |
order to accept my changes and return to
the Black Arrow tool.
| | 04:00 |
In the next movie, we'll format the
byline, and along the way, I'll show you
| | 04:05 |
how to work with Leading and Paragraph
indent.
| | 04:07 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Leading and paragraph indent| 00:00 |
In this movie, we're going to format this
by line underneath this headline here.
| | 00:04 |
And as we do so, I'll demonstrate how to
work with leading and paragraph indents.
| | 00:09 |
I'm going to start things off by selecting
this text with the Black Arrow tool.
| | 00:13 |
And then I'll double click inside the text
to switch to the Type tool.
| | 00:17 |
And I'll triple click, one, two, three, in
order to select the entire line of type.
| | 00:23 |
And next, I'm going to press
Cmd+Shift+Option+F, or Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F on
| | 00:28 |
the PC, to highlight ostensibly this font
value.
| | 00:32 |
Hopefully that'll get fixed.
If not, just click inside of there.
| | 00:35 |
And I'm going to type in the font that I
want to work with.
| | 00:39 |
Which is Adobe Caslon Pro.
So I'll start by typing the word Adobe, up
| | 00:43 |
comes Caslon Pro along with all of it's
styles.
| | 00:46 |
Followed by some other Adobe fonts I have
installed on this system.
| | 00:50 |
I'm going to go ahead and select Italic as
the style that I want to work with.
| | 00:54 |
That automatically throws Italic into the
font style option below.
| | 00:59 |
And now I'll just dial in a type size
value of 34 points.
| | 01:03 |
Next, I want to change the amount of space
between the baseline of the selected text
| | 01:09 |
and the baseline of the text above it.
And that's what's known as leading, by the
| | 01:15 |
way it's spelled like leading, but it's
pronounced leading.
| | 01:18 |
And that comes from the strips of lead
that they used to place between the lines
| | 01:23 |
of type back in the hot metal days.
Nowadays, you can use this much more
| | 01:27 |
convenient leading option.
And so, you could just click on this
| | 01:31 |
little icon here an A on top of an A and
the arrow even shows what we're talking about.
| | 01:36 |
It's the distance between the bottom A and
the A above it and then you can enter a
| | 01:39 |
different value.
For example, I could change it to 80 to
| | 01:43 |
spread the text further apart, or you can
modify the from the keyboard.
| | 01:47 |
So if you press and hold the Alt key or
the Option key on the Mac and press the Up
| | 01:51 |
Arrow key you can see that I'm nudging
that text upward.
| | 01:55 |
And that's reducing the leading value in
increments of 0.5 because I changed that
| | 02:01 |
increment in the previous movie.
If you press the Alt key or the Option key
| | 02:05 |
on the Mac and press the Down Arrow key
then you will move the text down and
| | 02:08 |
increase the leading value.
If you want to work more quickly, you can
| | 02:12 |
press Ctrl and Alt at the same time,
that's Cmd and Option at the same time,
| | 02:16 |
and then you'll increase the value.
In this case I'm pressing the Down Arrow
| | 02:21 |
key along with Ctrl and Alt or Cmd and
Option.
| | 02:24 |
We're increasing leading in 5x increments
so that is 2.5 in our case.
| | 02:29 |
Or I can press Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow to reduce
this value in increments of 2.5.
| | 02:36 |
And ultimately got to tell you just to cut
to the chase here.
| | 02:40 |
I'm looking for a leading value of 54.
I'm at 55 now, so just press Alt+Up arrow
| | 02:45 |
a couple of times in order to get the
result I'm looking for.
| | 02:48 |
And now I can hide the Character panel.
Next what I want to do is right align the
| | 02:53 |
byline to the head line above so that the
R lines up with the D.
| | 02:58 |
And if this were a text frame filled with
area type then I could change the
| | 03:03 |
alignment by selecting a different
alignment option up here in the Control panel.
| | 03:07 |
For example, I could click Align Right.
Problem is when you're working with point
| | 03:12 |
text you align to the point which puts the
text on the wrong side of the point which
| | 03:17 |
doesn't do me any good at all.
And incidentally, you should know that in
| | 03:21 |
addition to clicking on these icons that
appear, here's Align Left and here's Align Center.
| | 03:26 |
You can assign a different alignment by
pressing a very simple keyboard shortcut.
| | 03:31 |
It's Ctrl+Shift along with the first
letter or left, center, or right.
| | 03:37 |
And that's Cmd+Shift on a Mac of course.
So, for a right align that would be
| | 03:41 |
Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac.
For a center align that would be
| | 03:46 |
Ctrl+Shift+C, or Cmd+Shift+C on the Mac.
And for a left align that's Ctrl+Shift+L,
| | 03:51 |
or Cmd+Shift+L on the Mac.
However we haven't really answered the
| | 03:56 |
question I asked which is how in the world
are we going to move this text over?
| | 03:59 |
And the solution is to assign an indent
and you can do that by clicking on the
| | 04:05 |
word Paragraph up here in the Control
panel.
| | 04:07 |
And this very first option allows you to
apply a Left Indent, which actually
| | 04:12 |
indents the selected text to the right.
And I'm just going to change this value to
| | 04:17 |
52 Points and press the Enter key or the
Return key on the Mac.
| | 04:20 |
Now you might argue that I haven't exactly
aligned the right edge of the R here, the
| | 04:26 |
lower case R to the right edge of the D,
and that's true.
| | 04:30 |
But eventually, this is all going to work
out just go ahead and trust me.
| | 04:34 |
Now one more thing I want you to know
about leading, because different programs
| | 04:38 |
do it differently.
In Illustrator, you can apply leading on a
| | 04:42 |
letter by letter basis.
So let's say I double click on the word
| | 04:45 |
'your' to select it there.
And I press Ctrl+T t or Cmd+T on the Mac
| | 04:50 |
to bring up the Character panel once
again.
| | 04:52 |
And I go ahead and change the leading
value to 70 points and press the Enter key
| | 04:57 |
or the Return key on a Mac.
That assigned 70 points of leading to the
| | 05:01 |
entire line of text.
Even though, if I double clicked on the
| | 05:03 |
word, and, it's leading value's still set
to 54 points.
| | 05:07 |
Which is to say, the highest leading value
assigned to the line, wins.
| | 05:12 |
So if I return to your by double clicking
on it and I reduce the leading value to a
| | 05:17 |
mere seven points like so.
That restores the leading to 54 points
| | 05:22 |
because after all, that's the leading
value that's assigned to the rest of this
| | 05:27 |
line of type.
Alright, so generally what you want to do,
| | 05:30 |
just the safest way to work, is to go
ahead and select that entire line and make
| | 05:34 |
sure the whole thing is set to 54 points.
Because otherwise you might end up with
| | 05:39 |
some confusion later.
And now I'll press the Esc key in order to
| | 05:43 |
apply my changes and I'll click off the
text to deselect it.
| | 05:46 |
And that's how you work with leading which
is the vertical space between lines of
| | 05:51 |
type, as well as apply a first line indent
in order to in our case scoot this line of
| | 05:57 |
type over to the right.
In the next movie I'll demonstrate kerning
| | 06:02 |
and tracking.
| | 06:03 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Pair kerning and tracking| 00:00 |
In this movie I will show you how to
modify what are known as churning and
| | 00:04 |
tracking to adjust the amount of
horizontal space between individual
| | 00:08 |
characters of time.
And I warn you in advance this is pretty
| | 00:12 |
wanky stuff, I'll be introducing a hand
full of new terms that you can remember or not.
| | 00:19 |
But it will make a big difference in the
appearance of your text.
| | 00:22 |
So, I'm going to start things off by
zooming in.
| | 00:25 |
And take a quick look at the first two
lines of type.
| | 00:29 |
At first everything seems pretty good.
But the more you inspect it, the more you
| | 00:33 |
can see inconsistencies in the spacing.
For example, P and O: big spacing, O and
| | 00:39 |
E: big spacing, E and M: tighter, W and R:
that looks like too much spacing to me, R
| | 00:45 |
and I are touching each other big space.
T's are touching each other, another
| | 00:49 |
pretty big space, a bigger space between
the E and the N, and so forth.
| | 00:54 |
And so, the solution is to kern the
characters.
| | 00:58 |
Now, the way character spacing is
determined, it's built into the font and
| | 01:03 |
there's this certain amount of spacing
that's assigned to the character itself.
| | 01:07 |
And then there's what's known as side
bearing.
| | 01:09 |
Each character has a little bit of
invisible space over on the left and right
| | 01:13 |
hand sides.
And it could be positive space or it could
| | 01:16 |
be negative space.
Now, to demonstrate what I'm talking
| | 01:19 |
about, I'll press the T key to switch to
the Type tool.
| | 01:21 |
And I'll click in front of the W.
And I'll just enter capital V, little o,
| | 01:26 |
like so.
And now, if I click between these two
| | 01:29 |
characters the V and the o and then I
bring up the Character panel by pressing
| | 01:33 |
Ctrl+T or Cmd+T on Mac.
And I need to expand this panel, as well
| | 01:37 |
by clicking little up down arrow icon to
the left of the word character and notice
| | 01:42 |
this turning value right there it says
zero.
| | 01:46 |
And that means that there is no special
spacing assigned with this pair of
| | 01:51 |
characters, the V and o.
Whereas, if I select the o and change it
| | 01:55 |
to a small a and click between these two
characters, illustrator automatically
| | 02:01 |
changes the kerning to negative 55.
And that's because VA are what's known as
| | 02:07 |
a kerning pair.
And there's all kinds of kerning pairs
| | 02:10 |
built into each and every font definition,
whole libraries of them essentially.
| | 02:16 |
And this is the classic one, so classic,
that you can see a little VA for the
| | 02:21 |
current icon right there.
Well, what its saying when I click between
| | 02:25 |
these two characters, what its saying a
negative 55 as that the two characters are
| | 02:30 |
being spaced together negative 55 1000s of
an M.
| | 02:34 |
And the M is the width of an M space,
which is basically the width of a capital
| | 02:39 |
letter M at this specific type size.
So, in other words instead of being in
| | 02:44 |
absolute measurement they way points is,
the point is always 1 72nd of an inch.
| | 02:49 |
And M space grows and shrinks according to
the size of your type, so if you end up
| | 02:54 |
perfectly kerning your text, and then you
change its type size, it will remain
| | 02:59 |
perfectly kern.
Alright now, at this point, let's say we
| | 03:03 |
want to adjust the amount of space between
these two characters.
| | 03:06 |
We want them to appear tighter still.
Well, instead of selecting the text, like
| | 03:10 |
so, you just click to set the blinking
insertion marker in between the two
| | 03:14 |
characters and then you modify the value.
Now, you can select the value from a pop
| | 03:19 |
menu if you want or you can dial in your
own, so you can say.
| | 03:22 |
Gosh, maybe negative 100.
But you never know, is frankly the point,
| | 03:27 |
so instead, you want to take advantage of
this really great keyboard shortcut.
| | 03:31 |
It's basically the same as the leading
shortcut, but instead of using the up and
| | 03:36 |
down arrow keys, you use the left and
right arrow keys.
| | 03:40 |
So, if you press Alt left arrow key you're
going to move those characters toward each
| | 03:45 |
other in 5,000s of an M because that's
what we specified a couple of movies back
| | 03:50 |
in the preferences dialog box.
If you press Alt or Option right arrow,
| | 03:55 |
y |
|
|
