Adobe Illustrator CS3 Tutorial: Selection Tools

Selecting shapes, objects, points etc is of primary importance when working in Illustrator. Knowing which selection tool is appropriate to use can prove quite time saving. So we will briefly discuss the selection possibilities available in Illustrator.

If you take a look on the toolbar, the selection tools are illustrated below:


1. Selection Tool (Black Arrow)

By clicking on the selection tool you can select entire shapes and objects. You can move them around, edit or delete them.

2. Direct Selection tool (white arrow)

If you want to edit an individual anchor point then you may click on the direct selection tool . Click on which point you want to edit and perform actions. E.g. On the previous circle select the right point and move it further to the right or even delete it, thus leaving a semi circle.












Notice that if you click in the orange fill of the circle and not on an individual anchor point, then you select the entire shape. Also note that when you hover above a point, then this point is highlighted to help you click on this point directly.

3. Group Selection tool

Have a look at the following image.

I have created 3 kind of shapes and I have arranged them in 3 groups. Group A contains the orange circles, Group B contains the green rectangles and Group C contains the blue triangles.
Select the Group Selection tool and click once let's say on the green rectangle at the bottom. As you see, it selects the whole rectangle. If you click a second time on the rectangle, then all the members of the group are selected.


Thus, you can quickly edit all members of the group, let's say change the fill or stroke.

Note: There is a keyboard shortcut that allows you to switch from the direct selection tool to the Group selection tool. With the direct selection tool selected, press and hold ALT. As long as you hold ALT you switch to the Group Selection Tool.

4. Magic Wand Tool

The Magic Wand tool is a tool that most of the people using Adobe design packages are familiar with. Its great importance is shown when we are dealing with complicated multi-shaped designs.
Imagine we have a set of circles of various colour fills.

Say you want to select all the circles with red fill. Click on the wand tool and just click inside one of the red circles. As soon as you do this you will probably end up with a selection similar to the following.

If not... and let's say that you realise that the selection also includes circles with a fill 'similar' to that colour you picked (e.g. circles with lighter or darker red fill) do not worry and let me introduce you to the Magic Wand Panel. Double click on the magic wand icon on the toolbar. The Magic Wand Panel pops up. Expand the panel to explore all the available settings.


One of the probable reasons that you have not made an accurate selection of circles with 'exactly the same' fill might be the value in the Tolerance field. If this is too high, then the accuracy of selection falls down. The lower the value, the more accurate selection you get. So try and put a tolerance of e.g. 5 and click on a red circle again. Now Illustrator should select circles with a fill colour that is 'exactly the same' or i would rather say very very close to the one you chose.

As you might have already noticed, the selection we make with the wand tool is by default based on the Fill Color. Other selection rules are also available. Let's say you wanted to select the three circles with the 3pt red stroke. Click on the Stroke Weight Check box and zero the tolerance.

Click on one of the circles and all of three of them are selected. Depending on what your selection criteria are, you may use whichever setting suits your needs.

5. Lasso Tool

Another useful selection tool is the Lasso tool . It's actually quite easy to grasp, since it offers you the flexibility to select multiple objects that do not fit in a nice rectangular marquee selection. The selection path can be as abstract and complex as you want.

Say you want to select the following circles. Instead of selecting one by one and add to selection, you may click on the lasso tool, click and drag until you enclose all the circles of interest and you let go.

That simple...

Note: If you have already made a selection and you hold the Shift Key pressed and Lasso select another object, then this is added to the initial selection. If you hold the Alt Key and Lasso select a already selected object, then this is deselected from the initial selection.


Related link:

Saving your selections...

Adobe Illustrator CS3 Tutorials: The Pathfinder Panel, PART 2

Now we are going to focus on the second row of functions of the Pathfinder Panel, the one labeled Pathfinders.



In order to get a better grasp of what each individual tool is doing, let's draw 3 circles as seen below:
These red filled ellipses will be used to produce more complicated shapes with the help of the Pathfinders. Let's see how.

As it is now we have three circles that overlap one another. There are three distinct paths that define the shape of each circle. Say that we wanted to fill with a yellow collor the area shown below.
As it is now, this can not be done easilly. Here it's where the 'divide' icon comes in handy.

So select all three circles and press the 'divide' icon.

By doing so what happens is that all the overlapping areas become distinct regions, distinct paths and we can now edit them individually. Before the divide operation there were 3 filled shapes, while after the divide operation there are 5.

Now with the direct selection tool you can do all sort of adjustments to any of the 5 new shapes, you can move, change fill colour, change stroke width etc.

OK... let's go back to the initial 3 circles figure. If we select all three and click on 'trim' icon what happens is that all the overlapping areas of the circles are dissapeared.

What you'll end up with, is shown in the following image:
Note that the stroke of each resulting shape has gone, and keep in mind that the stacking order of the initial shapes will affect the outcome.

Let's move back to our initial 3circle shape, select all three and then click on the 'merge' icon.
The result would be an addition of all three circles with the stroke removed.
Let's go back to our initial 3circle shape and add another shape on top. I chose a star.
Select all your shapes and click on the 'crop' icon on the pathfinder panel.

The result will be everything that lies underneath the star or whatever shape you have placed on top of the stack. Please note that the stroke is removed again.

Everything outside the star is removed.

Let's go back to our 3circle shape. Select all three and click on the 'outline' icon.
The fill colour has been applied to the stroke and all the overlapping segments of the circle paths have been trimmed. Therefore, you can move each individual segment and edit it in any way you want.

Try move each segment around and see the result. For clarity I applied a black stroke of 2.



Finally... let's go back to our initial 3circle figure, select the first two circles and click on the 'Minus back' icon.

This operation subtracts the back shape from the front one (in the stacking order), and the result can be seen below.

This one acts in the exact opposite way than the 'Subtract from shape area' icon does.

Adobe Illustrator CS3 Tutorials: The Pathfinder Panel, PART 1.

Starting with pretty basic shapes in Illustrator can end up in quite complex and interesting layouts. If you combine ellipses, rectangles and other lines you can produce complicated paths otherwise impossible (or I would rather say extremely time consuming) to achieve with the Pen tool alone. The tool needed for doing that is the Pathfinder Panel.

If we take a look at the panel we see that there are two rows of icons. The first row of icons (Shape Modes) creates compound shapes while the second one (Pathfinders) creates similar results but it focuses mainly on the paths themselves rather than the produced shape itself. Let’s see what each icon is doing.

a. Add to shape area

Supposing you have the following two rectangles.

If you select both and click on this button in fact you are adding the one shape to the other resulting in a shape that combines these two rectangles.

The combined result gets a yellow fill, since stacking order of the shapes is important when performing the pathfinder operations. Attributes of the top shape will be used by Illustrator for the combined result properties. By using the direct selection tool you can make adjustments of each one of the two shapes directly updating the resulting compound shape. For example, try moving the lower right rectangle further to the right as seen below.

No problem… You still have the resulting shape, while you can modify each of its components individually… Cool! If you now select your shapes and click on the Expand button on the Pathfinder Panel

you no longer have the ability to separately manipulate each individual shape and what you get is ONE FINAL shape for further actions. If you want to add the two shapes and expand to one final shape in one step, then press and hold the ALT key and click on the add button. It saves you time, as long as you are sure about the final shape.

b. Subtract from Shape Area

Let’s go back to our two initial rectangles.

If you select both and click on the Subtract button, then you subtract the top most shape from what lies beneath it. So if you perform the operation you get the following result.

Like before, you can adjust the appearance of the resulting shape by editing each one of the components separately. Here, with the direct selection tool I’ve moved the subtracted shape diagonally towards the upper left corner.

Click on the expand button and you get the final ONE shape.

c. Intersect shape areas

If we select the two rectangles again, and click on the Intersect button, we get a compound shape that is only the Intersecting area of the two rectangles. Click on the expand button and you produce a small yellow rectangle.

d. Exclude overlapping shape areas

If we click on the exclude button, then we get the inverse result. We have a shape with an empty area. This area is the overlapping area of both rectangles. Do it and you’ll end up with the following shape.

Try experimenting, and play with the capabilities of the Pathfinder Panel to explore the vast potential in creating complex shapes ...