Strip away the cool effects. Forget all the fancy tools. Ignore the endless range of gradients and colors. Look past the veneer of both print and Web graphics. What you're left with is the basis of all things vectorthe anchor point. You can learn to master every shape tool in Illustrator, but if you don't have the ability to create and edit individual anchor points, you'll find it difficult to design freely. Illustrator contains a range of tools that you can use to fine-tune paths and edit anchor points. At first, it might seem like these all do the same thing, but upon closer inspection, you'll find that each has its use. A Pen Tool for EveryoneJust the mention of the Pen tool sends shivers down the spines of designers throughout the world. Traditionally, Illustrator's Pen tool has frustrated many users who have tried their hand at creating vector paths. In fact, when the Pen tool was introduced in the first version of Illustrator back in 1987, word had it that John Warnock, the brainchild and developer behind Illustrator, was the only one who really knew how to use it. In truth, the Pen tool feels more like an engineer's tool rather than an artist's tool. But don't let this prevent you from learning to use it. Learning how to use the Pen tool reaps numerous rewards. Although the Pen tool first appeared in Illustrator, you'll now find it in both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign; since you can use it in Illustrator, you can use it in the other applications as well. You can use the Pen tool to tweak any vector path to create the exact shape you need, at any time. Additionally, if you give yourself a chance, you'll see that there's a method to the madness. After learning a few simple concepts, you'll quickly realize that anyone can use the Pen tool. Mastering the Pen ToolUsually, when new users select the Pen tool and try to draw with it, they click and drag it the same way they might use a normal pen on paper. They are surprised when a path does not appear on screen; instead, several handles appear. At this point, they click again and drag; now a path appears but it is totally not where they expect it to appear. This experience is sort of like grabbing a hammer by its head and trying to drive a nail by whacking it with the handleit's the right tool, but it's being used in the wrong way. While we're discussing hammers, let's consider their function in producing string art. When you go to create a piece of string art, you first start with a piece of wood and then you hammer nails part of the way into it, leaving each nail sticking out a bit. Then you take colored thread and wrap it around the exposed nail heads, thus creating your art. The design that you create is made of up the strands of colored thread, but the thread is held and shaped by the nails. In fact, you can say that the nails are like anchors for the threads. When you're using the Pen tool in Illustrator, imagine you're hammering those little nails into the wood. In this situation, you aren't drawing the shape itself; instead, you're creating the anchors for the shapethe Bézier anchor points. Illustrator draws the threadthe path itselffor you. If you think about drawing in this way, using the Pen tool isn't complicated at all. The hard part is just figuring out where you need to position the anchors to get the shape you need. Learning to position the anchors correctly comes with experience, but you can get started by learning how to draw simple shapes. Drawing Objects with Straight PathsFollow these steps to use the Pen tool to draw a straight path.
For now, the first concept becomes clear: When you're using the Pen tool, clickingnot draggingis what defines a corner anchor point. At this point, with your Pen tool still selected, Illustrator assumes that you want to add additional points to your path. By clicking the artboard, you can create a third corner anchor point, and if you do, Illustrator draws a path to connect the second anchor point to the newly created one (Figure 4.3). Figure 4.3. Each successive click with the Pen tool continues to create additional path segments.
Admittedly, this behavior may prove confusing because you may have been expecting to start a new path rather than add to the existing one. To start a new path, you first have to deselect the current path. The easiest way to do this is to click a blank area on the artboard while pressing the Command (Ctrl) key, which temporarily changes your tool to the Selection tool. Once you've deselected the path, you can click with the Pen tool to start drawing a new path. So now you understand a second concept: When drawing an open path with the Pen tool, each click of the mouse adds another anchor point to the path until you deselect the path, which is how you indicate to Illustrator that you've finished that path. There is another way to indicate that you've finished drawing a pathby drawing a closed path. Until now, you've been creating open paths, but now you can try to create a closed shapein this case, a triangle.
This brings us to a third concept: When you create a closed path, the next click with the Pen tool starts a new path. If this sounds confusing, try it once or twice, that should helpespecially if you pay attention to your Pen tool cursor. When you're using the Pen tool, the cursor changes as you draw, helping you understand the three concepts you've just learned. When the Pen tool is going to start creating a new path, a small "X" appears at the lower right of the icon; when the Pen tool is going to add anchor points to an existing selected open path, no icon appears next to it; and when the Pen tool is going to close a path, a small "O" appears at the lower right of the icon (Figure 4.6). Figure 4.6. The Pen tool shows subtle indications in its icon that let you know the function it will perform.
Drawing Objects with Curved PathsThe paths that you've drawn up until this point were all made up of corner anchor points, which are connected with straight lines. Of course, you'll also need to create paths with curved lines; this section explains what you need to know.
In Chapter 2, Vectors 101, you learned that curves are defined with direction handles, which control how the paths between anchor points are drawn. When you want to draw a curved path, you follow the same basic concepts you learned for creating straight paths, with one additional step that defines direction handles.
We can now define a fourth concept: Clicking and dragging with the Pen tool creates a smooth anchor point and defines its direction handles. Learning to anticipate how the placement of direction handles creates the path you want takes time, but there's no reason why you have to get it right the first time. Once you create a smooth anchor point, you can switch to the Direct Selection tool and click and drag on the anchor point to reposition it (Figure 4.10). Additionally, when you select a smooth anchor point at any time, the direction handles become visible for that anchor point, and you can use the Direct Selection tool to reposition those as well. Figure 4.10. Using the Direct Selection tool, you can change the position of anchor points and direction handles to adjust a curved path.
Drawing Objects with Both Straight and Curved PathsIn the real design world, shapes are made up of both straight and curved lines. You can use the knowledge you've gained up until this point to create paths that contain a mixture of both corner and smooth anchor points. Basically, you know that clicking with the Pen tool produces a corner anchor point and a straight line, and dragging with the Pen tool produces a smooth anchor point and a curved line.
Try drawing a path with both types of anchor points.
You now have a single path that is made up of both a straight line and a curve (Figure 4.12). Figure 4.12. Adding a smooth anchor point creates a single path with both straight and curved paths.
You can use Illustrator's Convert Anchor Point tool to convert a corner anchor point to a smooth anchor point, and vice versa. To do so, choose the Convert Anchor Point tool (which is grouped with the Pen tool) and apply the same concepts that you've learned. Click once on an existing anchor point to convert it to a corner anchor point and then click and drag on an existing anchor point to pull out direction handles and convert it to a smooth anchor point. Changing Direction on a PathAs you were creating smooth anchor points, you may have noticed that when you are creating or editing direction handles, a mirror effect occurs. On a smooth anchor point, the direction points are always opposite each other, and editing one seems to affect the other. Remember that the direction handles control how the path passes through the anchor point, so the direction handles are always tangential to the curve (Figure 4.13). Figure 4.13. With a smooth anchor point, the direction handles are always tangential to the curve of the path.
You can, however, change the direction of a path as it passes through an anchor point.
To make life easier, you can create combination points as you draw with the Pen tool.
A Final Thought Regarding the Pen ToolOverall, using the Pen tool takes some getting used to, and if you're going to use Illustrator often, it's best to practice. While practicing, you might find it useful to convert some type to outlines (Type > Create Outlines) to see how the anchor points are positioned in those shapes (Figure 4.16). Try to re-create them on your own and get a feel for when you need a corner anchor point and when you need a smooth anchor point. The more you use the Pen tool, the easier it will be to use. Figure 4.16. When you're learning to use the Pen tool, it can be helpful to convert some type characters to outlines so you can study the placement of the anchor points and direction handles. Choose Select > Object > Direction Handles to see the direction handles for an entire shape at once.
Adding and Deleting Anchor PointsBecause anchor points are used to define paths, you must add and delete points from a path to achieve the shapes you need. You may think you can select an anchor point with the Direct Selection tool and simply press the Delete key on your keyboard, but doing this deletes a portion of the path (Figure 4.17). Although this may be useful at times, what you really want is to keep the path but remove the anchor point. Figure 4.17. Using the Direct Selection tool to select and delete an anchor point (left) also deletes the connecting path segments (center). The Delete Anchor Point tool keeps the path closed but removes the anchor point (right).
To delete an anchor point from a path, without deleting the path itself, choose the Delete Anchor Point tool and click once on the anchor point that you want removed from the path. Likewise, you can switch to the Add Anchor Point tool and click anywhere on a selected path to add a new anchor point to the path (Figure 4.18). Figure 4.18. The Add Anchor Point tool enables you to add new anchor points to an existing path.
Illustrator tries its best to help you get your work done, but sometimes its overzealousness gets in the way. By default, when you move your cursor over an existing path with the Pen tool, Illustrator, thinking you want to add a point to the existing path, conveniently switches to the Add Anchor Point tool. Likewise, when you mouse over an existing anchor point, Illustrator switches to the Delete Anchor Point tool, thinking you want to remove that anchor point. This is great, unless you wanted to start drawing a new path with the Pen tool on top of an existing selected path. You can turn this feature off by checking the Disable Auto Add/Delete option in General Preferences, which politely tells Illustrator, "Thanks, but no thanks." Drawing with the Pencil ToolTo draw with the Pencil tool, simply click and drag on the artboard. As you drag the mouse, you'll see a light path trail the movement of your cursor (Figure 4.19). After you release the mouse button, Illustrator creates the anchor points necessary and creates a vector path for you (Figure 4.20). Figure 4.19. As you drag with the Pencil tool, a faint line traces the path of your cursor.
Figure 4.20. After you release the mouse button, Illustrator creates anchor points as necessary and displays the drawn path. Depending on your mouse control, the path may have a jittery appearance.
Because drawing with the Pencil tool relies on how steadily you handle your mouse or tablet pen, there are several tools and settings that you can employ to help create better-looking paths. The Smooth tool, which you'll find grouped with the Pencil tool in the Toolbox, is a tool that you can use to iron out the wrinkles of any selected vector path. Select any vector path and click and drag over it with the Smooth tool. Doing this repeatedly makes the vector path more and more smooth. The angles in the path become smoother and the path itself modifies to match the contour of the direction in which you drag with the Smooth tool (Figure 4.21). Figure 4.21. Using the Smooth tool repeatedly on a path can enhance its appearance.
Double-clicking the Pencil tool or the Smooth tool opens the Pencil Tool Preferences dialog, allowing you to specify that tool's behavior (Figure 4.22):
Figure 4.22. Choosing the Edit Selected Paths option allows you to easily reshape or adjust existing paths.
You can also use the Erase tool to remove parts of a vector path. It's important to realize that the Erase tool is not akin to the Erase tool found in paint programs, which you can use to just erase pixels at will (although such a tool would be welcome in Illustrator). In Illustrator, you use the Erase tool specifically to erase portions of a selected vector path. As you trace over an existing selected path with the Erase tool, a light path appears to trail the movement of your cursor. When you release the mouse button, Illustrator deletes the portion of the path that you've traced. Using the Reshape ToolUsing the Direct Selection tool to select individual points on a path results in some anchor points moving, while others remain stationary. In most kinds of path editing, this is the desired behavior, although it can result in paths that appear distorted (Figure 4.23). At times, you may want to stretch a path by moving selected points, but you may also want other points to move as necessary to maintain a non-distorted path appearance. The Reshape tool is perfect for this task. Figure 4.23. Although you can always select individual points on a path and move them, you may not get acceptable results.
Cutting Paths with the Scissors and Knife ToolsWhen editing paths, you might find that you need to cut or split a path at a certain point. With the Scissors tool selected, you can click any topmost vector path (selected or not) to cut the path. In essence, you create two anchor points by doing this. The Scissors tool can only cut one path at a time.
The Knife tool is much like the Scissors tool only you cut or split a path by dragging the cursor across a path instead of clicking it. Whereas using the Scissors tool results in an open path, using the Knife tool results in at least two closed paths (Figure 4.25). The Knife tool cuts through multiple paths, but if you hold the Shift key while you're using it, the Knife tool only cuts through the objects that are selected (even if those selected objects appear beneath other objects). Figure 4.25. Using the Knife tool to slice a single object results in two separate closed paths.
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