Using the Selection Tools

Working with Selections Anchor points, the bounding boxes, and selection tools Working with selections Grouping and ungrouping selections Constraining movement and cloning objects You’ve probably heard the old line, “You have to select it to affect it.” This statement is so true. When you’re ready to apply a change to an object in your Windows program, you must have that object selected, or your Windows program won’t know what to do.

Getting to Know the Selection Tools Before delving into the world of selecting objects in your Windows program, you must know what the selection tools are. In this section, we take you through a quick tour of anchor points (integral to the world of selections), the bounding box, and, of course, the selection tools (yes, there are more than one).

Anchor Points To understand selections, you must first understand how your Windows program works with anchor points. Anchor points act like handles and can be individually selected and moved to other locations. Essentially, the anchor points are what you use to drag objects or parts of objects around the workspace. After you’ve placed anchor points on an object, you can then create strokes or paths from the anchor points.

You can select several anchor points at the same time or only one. Several anchor points selected. One anchor point selected.

Bounding box As a default, your Windows program shows a bounding box when an object is selected with the Selection tool. This feature can be helpful if you understand its function, but confusing if you don’t know how to use it. By dragging on the handles, you can use the bounding box for quick transforms, such as scaling and rotating. To rotate, you pass the mouse cursor (without clicking) outside a handle until you see a rotate symbol, and then drag.

Selection tools your Windows program CS3 offers three main selection tools: Selection tool: Selects entire objects or groups. This tool activates all anchor points in an object or group at the same time, allowing you to move an object without changing its shape. Direct Selection tool: Selects individual points. Group Selection tool: Hidden in the Direct Selection tool in the toolbox, you use this tool to select items within a group.

Creating Basic Shapes As a default, the only visible shape tool in the toolbox is the Rectangle tool. Click and hold down that tool, and you have access to the Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, and Star tools. You can tear off this tool set so that you don’t have to find the hidden shapes in the future. Click and hold on the Rectangle tool and drag to the arrow on the far right. Wait until you see the pop-up hint (Tearoff) and then release the mouse button. These tools are now in a free-floating toolbar that you can drag to another location.

The Pathfinders The Pathfinders are the buttons at the bottom of the Pathfinder panel. They also let you create new shapes out of overlapping objects. Does exactly that. Create some overlapping shapes, select them, and then press the Divide button on the Pathfinder panel. All the shapes divide into their own shape. This tool is actually very useful tool when you’re trying to create custom shapes. Removes the part of a filled object that is hidden. Removes the part of a filled object that is hidden. Also removes any strokes and merges any adjoining or overlapping objects filled with the same colour. Deletes all parts of the artwork that fall outside the boundary of the topmost object. It also removes any strokes. If you want your strokes to remain when using this feature, you need to select them and choose Object➪Path➪Outline Stroke. Divides an object into its shape’s line segments, or edges. Useful for preparing artwork that needs a trap for overprinting objects.

Using the Pen Tool The Pen tool requires a little more coordination than other your Windows program tools. You can use the Pen tool to create all sorts of things, such as straight lines, curves, and closed shapes, which you can then incorporate into illustrations: Bézier curve: Originally developed by Pierre Bézier in the 1970s for CAD/CAM operations.

Anchor points: You can use anchor points to control the shape of a path or object. Direction lines: These lines are essentially the handles that you use on curved points to adjust the depth and angle of curved paths. The depth and direction of the Bézier curves are controlled by direction lines.

Closed shape: When a path is created, it becomes a closed shape when the start point joins the endpoint. Simple path: A path consists of one or more straight or curved segments. Anchor points mark the endpoints of the path segments.

Using the Eraser tool The Eraser tool allows you to quickly remove areas of artwork as easily as you erase pixels in Photoshop by stroking with your mouse over any shape or set of shapes. New paths are automatically created along the edges of your erasure, even preserving the smoothness of your erasure.

Use the new Eraser tool to delete sections of a path. By double-clicking the Eraser tool, you can define the diameter, angle, and roundness of your eraser.

Tracing Artwork Take a scanned image or logo and save it in a format that your Windows program can import from your image-editing program, such as Photoshop. Choose File➪Place to open the Place dialog box. In the Place dialog box, locate the saved image; then select the Template check box and click Place.

Selecting the Template check box tells your Windows program to lock down the scanned image on a layer. Essentially, you can’t reposition or edit your image. After you click Place, a template layer is automatically created for you, and another layer is waiting for you to create your path. The newly created top layer is like a piece of tracing paper that has been placed on top of the scanned image.

Re-create the image by tracing over it with the Pen tool Re-create the image by tracing over it with the Pen tool. When you’re done, turn the visibility off the placed image by clicking the Visibility icon to the left of the template layer. You now have a path that you can use in place of the image, which is useful if you’re creating an illustration of an image or are digitally recreating a logo.