Hello, welcome to this video! Let's get a general overview on the most
important features and tools inside the newest Adobe Illustrator CC 2019!
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Adobe Illustrator is a professional product dedicated to vector drawing,
graphic editing and manipulation. It is used to realize logos, vector
paths and custom designs and shapes and it is available only under a
monthly subscription plan.
To get a complete overview on all the features of this product, let's
start from a new document by going to File and then to New.... In this
video we are not going to see the Home Screen workspace.
On the New Document dialog box you can set all the document properties
before creating. On top, choose any standard template from Mobile to
Art & Illustration; or go to Recent to find the latest templates used and
to Saved to find your own custom ones.
Once the template is chosen, you can customize it as you like on the
Preset Details panel on the right. Set the document name on top, its
size in Width and Height, its orientation and the number of pages or
Artboards. At the bottom, under Bleed, set the distance between the
borders of the page and the content of the document. On Advanced Options
fix the Color Mode and the document resolution in ppi.
Once you click on Create, the new project opens on the main Illustrator
interface, showing all the main drawing and editing tools on the Toolbar
on the left, the full document preview on the center and useful panels to
adjust and manage your objects on the right. You can open and show other
panels by going to the Window tab.
You can also change the kind of workspace with the list in the top right
corner. In this video we will just use the default Essentials workspace.
To open other files or projects you can go to File and then to Open....
You can browse for other projects from Illustrator, Photoshop or CAD
software, or pick and open any image directly. All these files are open
inside the workspace as Illustrator documents, with their dedicated tabs
on top complete with their file name.
An Illustrator document is made by two main kinds of objects: the images
and the vectors. Images and pictures are objects that are rendered into
pixels, which lose quality in case they get edited or scaled. Vectors are
straight Lines and curved Paths that save their resolution until you
render these. Let's see how to draw and work with vector objects!
You can find any drawing or editing tool inside the Toolbar on the left.
This can be customized as you like by using the full list at the bottom,
dragging and dropping any extra tool you need.
Moreover, some of these tools also show a white corner indicating that
multiple tools are grouped together. In this case just right-click on the
button to choose the correct tool.
Use the Line Segment Tool to draw straight segments by clicking and
dragging on the document. You can also click once on the document to drop
the segment after defining its length in points and its inclination in
degrees, in respect to the horizontal direction.
You can use the Pencil, the Paintbrush or the Blob Brush Tool to draw
curves freehand by clicking and dragging.
Enable the Rectangle, the Ellipse, the Polygon and the Star Tool to drop
closed 2D objects with a defined shape. You can click and drag on the
document directly or click once to define its properties first.
The Pen Tool is a very advanced tool to draw 2D curves professionally.
Click on the document to define the vertices and the straight sides of
the shape and click and hold on to create curved sides. At this point you
can finish your drawing by closing the shape or using the Escape key.
You can adjust any tool option by double-clicking on its button.
To check your drawings you can zoom in and out by holding down the ALT
key and using your mouse wheel. You can also pan by holding down the
Space bar key.
Illustrator has several drawing aids to help you with the creation and
the modification of your objects.
When using any drawing tool, a small dialog box shows length and
inclination or width and height of the object in progress. This object is
shown with its basic skeleton in blue color that gets contour and fill
once the object is created. The same skeleton is taken as reference to
create snappings to object keypoints such as vectors, paths, centers and
also any parallel or perpendicular direction.
Now, let's see how to edit vectors and images inside the document!
To edit an object you have to select it first. You can do this by holding
down the CTRL key and clicking on it or you can also enable the Selection
Tool and click on it. Selected objects show their skeleton and several
nodes you can use to edit it.
Click and drag the object to move it. Use its white nodes to scale
drag outside its contours to rotate it. In some regular shapes you can
also use rounded nodes to adjust the sharpness of the vertices.
Use CTRL and X, C and V to cut, copy and paste the selected object. You
can use CTRL+Z to undo your latest actions.
You can also move and edit multiple objects by selecting all of these
together. You can do so by enabling the Selection Tool and clicking and
dragging over all the objects to select these.
Whereas to edit and adjust the object appearance, select it and use the
Properties window on the right. Under Transform you can adjust its
horizontal or vertical position with X and Y; its size with width (W) and
height (H); its inclination in degrees and also flip the object
horizontally or vertically.
Under Appearance you can use Stroke to adjust the object contour in color
and thickness, over the same object skeleton. Use Fill to set the fill
color within the object shape and use Opacity to adjust the transparency
level in percentage.
You can also set the stroke and the fill color at the bottom side of the
Toolbox. Here you can also use the second rectangle to apply a color
gradient through the Gradient panel. Adjust the gradient direction with
Type, its inclination in degrees and the colors with the slider at the
bottom, double-clicking on the markers to change color and moving the
rhombus markers to set the transitions.
You can also edit the slider directly on the object and adjust, move,
rotate and size it directly on the shape.
To remove any Stroke or Fill color just choose the white rectangle with a
red strip line in the list.
The way the Stroke and Fill colors are applied on 2D paths depends on the
drawing tool chosen to draw these.
Straight lines can have any stroke color but no fill. Curves made with
the Pencil or the Paintbrush Tool have Stroke and also Fill, which is
applied within the contours. You can also change the Stroke style inside
the Properties panel, under Brush.
All drawings made with the Blob Brush Tool behave differently. Each brush
has indeed both Stroke and Fill due to its skeleton, which is a closed
shape instead of a simple line.
Consider that images and pictures do not admit any Stroke or Fill.
Below the Appearance properties you can also go to the fx icon to apply
amazing effects on both vector drawings and pictures. Just select an
effect from the list and fix its settings. All the effects applied are
listed inside the Appearance panel, that you can open through the button
in the bottom right corner.
Here use the eye icon to enable and disable each effect and double-click
on the fx icon to edit the effect settings.
Other extra tools inside the full list can also be used to apply effects by
brushing on the objects directly. Check these out!
The Pen Tool is also used to refine all your straight or curved drawings
made with any tool. Select the vector object and click on its path to add
new points or anchors. Then, you can shape the curve on each single
anchor point by holding down the ALT key and clicking and dragging from
it or from its handles. Remember to use CTRL+Z to undo your latest
modifications.
To remove an object just select it and use the Delete key. Whereas to
remove parts from any drawing you can enable the Eraser tool and brush
directly. This acts on its skeleton directly, affecting stroke and fill
as well.
All vectors and images inside the document are collected inside the
Layers window on the right. A layer is a group of lines, paths and images
collected together, sharing the same skeleton color that is equal to the
Layer color they belong to.
By default, just one blue layer called Layer 1 is present but you can
create a new one by going to Create New Layer at the bottom. At this
point you can move an object from one Layer to another, getting a new
skeleton color equal to the new Layer.
From the Layers window you can also select an object or the whole Layer
group by clicking on the circle on the right.
The Layers panel is also used to arrange the visibility between the
objects inside the document. Use the eye icon on the left to hide or show
an object or a whole layer.
In case objects overlap, you can pull these up or down from the Layers
panel to adjust their order. All objects staying on top of the list are
shown in front of all objects placed at the bottom.
You can also type pieces of text by using the Type Tools. Click and drag
on the document to create a text box, used to delimit the text content.
Then, type inside, horizontally or vertically, depending on the kind of
Type Tool you have chosen.
You can move, scale and rotate the text box by holding down the CTRL key
or using the Selection Tool. If the text box is too small, part of the
content is hidden, showing a small red square. In this case you have to
resize the box until you see the whole text content showing up.
Use the Properties window to adjust the text properties and appearance.
Correct position, size and inclination of the text box under Transform;
set text color, contour, opacity and apply any effect under Appearance;
and correct text font, style, size and distribution under Character and
Paragraph. Remember to select the text before changing its properties, or
these won't be applied.
You can also enable the Type on a Path Tool to type text along the basic
skeleton of an object and Area Type Tool to type within a closed object
shape. Just click on the object skeleton to start typing.
Now let's see how to save and render your document!
To save the document go
to File and then to Save As..., adding document name and destination.
Illustrator documents are saved with a .ai format, saving anything
regarding your objects, options, properties and effects applied.
Whereas to export and print your document just go to File and then to
Export. Choose Export As.... to render your document into a CAD project
or a .psd Photoshop document; and go to Export for Screens... to render
your document into an image in several formats such as jpg, png and pdf.
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