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About this lesson
We will take a look at the different tools and methods available for making selections (Selection Tool, Direct Selection Tool, Magic Wand, and Lasso Tool).
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s related exercise files.
Different Tools to Get the Job Done - Instructions.docx58.8 KB Different Tools to Get the Job Done - Exercise.ai
1.1 MB Different Tools to Get the Job Done - Exercise Solution.ai
1.5 MB
Quick reference
Different Tools to Get the Job Done
We will take a look at the different tools and methods available for making selections (Selection Tool, Direct Selection Tool, Magic Wand, and Lasso Tool).
When to use
Any time you need to select an object or group of objects in Illustrator you will need to use one of the four main selection tools.
Instructions
- Begin by opening the 'Selection Tools - Exercise.ai' file.
- Create several squares by pressing the 'M' key or selecting the Rectangle Tool from the Toolbar and then holding the Shift Key to drag out a square.
- Fill a few of the squares with a solid black fill and no stroke, and create a few others with the default colors (white fill with a black stroke).
- Try to move some of the squares around using the Selection Tool (V).
- Use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to grab a point on any of the squares to move it around and change the shape.
- Grab the Lasso Tool (Q) to try and click and drag around some of the shapes without selecting others to get a feel for the tool.
- Use the Wand Tool (Y) to click on any of your black squares and notice how using this tool will select all of the other shapes filled with the same color.
Hints & tips
- It's important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of the selections tools so that you will know which is best for the job. If you wanted to select several shapes that have the same stroke color for example, it may be better to use the Wand Tool over the Lasso Tool.
- If you wanted to manipulate one or more points of a given shape in Illustrator, you will want to make sure that you are using the Direct Selection Tool (A) as opposed to the regular Selection Tool (black arrow).
- 00:04 In this lesson I would like to talk you guys about some of the basic selection
- 00:08 tools that we can use in Adobe Illustrator.
- 00:10 So since we've taken a look at our layers palette in the previous lesson,
- 00:14 let's just go ahead and open it up now.
- 00:17 If it isn't already here, again, you can click on this icon.
- 00:20 On the bottom of the palette that look like two squares on top of each other, or
- 00:24 by coming up to the window menu and choosing layers from there.
- 00:27 So, all I'm going to do, very basic,
- 00:30 is just press the M key on the keyboard to make a square.
- 00:34 Okay, and then, let's go ahead and make another square.
- 00:38 Now, by default, you can drag this anywhere you want, but
- 00:41 I'm holding down the shift key to make sure that it stays perfectly square.
- 00:46 We're gonna create just a few of these shapes here.
- 00:48 Put them on top of each other, or next to each other, just so
- 00:52 that I can kind of demonstrate how some of these selection tools work.
- 00:56 Okay.
- 00:57 By default,
- 00:58 you should have your selection tool selected which is just this black arrow.
- 01:04 But you can also get that by pressing V on the keyboard, and
- 01:06 you'll see if I hover over it it shows you the V in parenthesis.
- 01:10 So that is our very basic selection tool which we can use to click and drag around
- 01:14 a shape or a group of shapes, in order to move them around on our canvas.
- 01:19 Let's say I had another square but
- 01:21 this time instead of making it black let's say it's just white with a black stroke.
- 01:26 So I did that by pressing d on the keyboard or
- 01:29 by clicking default film stroke.
- 01:32 And let's make a few of these as well and
- 01:35 it's okay if they're on top of each other, next to each other, doesn't really matter.
- 01:40 Okay so I can take these squares.
- 01:43 And then what I can do is click and drag around them with my selection tool.
- 01:47 And I can press either command or Ctrl+X to cut them, or
- 01:51 you can come up to the edit menu and choose cut from here.
- 01:55 And then we're going to create a new layer, all right?
- 01:58 So layer two and now we're just going to paste these by pressing command or Ctrl+V.
- 02:04 Or coming up to edit and choosing paste, okay?
- 02:09 So far, we have layer two containing our white squares and
- 02:12 we have layer one with our black squares.
- 02:15 So I'm just going to click layer one and call it black squares, and
- 02:20 double click on layer two to rename it white squares.
- 02:24 Pretty straightforward, right?
- 02:26 From there, what I wanna show you guys is our second selection tool and
- 02:30 that is the magic wand tool.
- 02:32 Now this is a very handy tool because let's say that you have
- 02:36 a bunch of similar objects in a file that you wanna select at the same time.
- 02:41 If I go ahead and click this on these black squares,
- 02:44 it's gonna select everything that has the same fill color.
- 02:47 Notice how if I click on one of this boxes, even if it's not overlapping,
- 02:51 it'll select all of the other shapes that have that same fill color but
- 02:55 it's not selecting any of these on our second layer.
- 02:58 Now if instead if I click on of these white squares, it's going to select
- 03:03 all of the white squares that have a black stroke and none of these.
- 03:08 So the magic wand tool can be a very useful tool if you wanna select things
- 03:11 that have the same color or the same outline color or anything like that, okay?
- 03:18 The next tool that I wanna show you guys is the direct selection tool.
- 03:23 Now this a little bit different from our basic selection tool.
- 03:26 And in order to get that, you can either click up here on the white arrow or
- 03:30 press A on the keyboard.
- 03:32 And one of the main differences with this tool is that,
- 03:36 yes you can use it to click and drag things around.
- 03:39 But you'll see that if I have my regular selection tool and
- 03:42 I click inside, or if I move over to any of these corners for example,
- 03:47 all I can really do is resize it or move it around.
- 03:51 But with my direct selection tool if I click on one of this corners,
- 03:55 it actually gives me control over the points that make up this shape.
- 04:00 So the direct selection tool allows you to modify points and transform them.
- 04:07 Which, if I had my regular selection tool, that's something that I can't do.
- 04:12 So the direct selection tool is a way to directly manipulate
- 04:16 any of the points in a shape, but you can also move them around.
- 04:21 Now if I zoom in a little bit, I wanna show you guys something.
- 04:24 If I grab my direct selection tool and
- 04:27 I click on this corner in the top right of this box.
- 04:30 I don't know if you can tell, but
- 04:32 there's a tiny square there that's filled with blue.
- 04:36 Now, notice how the other corners,
- 04:38 it looks like it's just filled with white still.
- 04:41 Maybe there's a tiny blue outline, but it doesn't look like this corner.
- 04:45 And that's just indicating that I have this one point selected and
- 04:48 not the others.
- 04:49 So if I click and drag, that's the only point that I'm modifying.
- 04:53 But, if I click on that top right corner and then hold down the shift key and
- 04:58 select another point, now I can modify both of those at the same time.
- 05:05 So you're able to select one or several points at once using the direct
- 05:09 selection tool and move them around or transform them.
- 05:15 So that's one of the distinct advantage or differences rather
- 05:19 between the regular selection tool and the direct selection tool.
- 05:24 And again, you've also seen how the magic wand works.
- 05:26 You can select things with similar fill in strokes.
- 05:30 And lastly, we have our lasso tool, which you can get by pressing Q on the keyboard,
- 05:34 or by clicking on this thing that looks like a little rope with the arrow on top.
- 05:38 Now, the way that the lasso tool works is that you can click and
- 05:42 drag around a shape.
- 05:44 And it pretty much gives you more freedom, it's very fluid,
- 05:47 you can just kind of move around throughout a document, select as many, or
- 05:52 as few shapes as you want to select at the same time.
- 05:56 So you'll see there I've selected both of these black squares and
- 05:59 this one white square over here.
- 06:01 Okay, but another thing is that let's say you wanted to select just this shape, but
- 06:06 it's overlapping this square.
- 06:08 Well if I try to come through the center and
- 06:10 drag my lasso tool it's going to select both of them at the same time, but
- 06:15 if I just drag the lasso around a piece of this shape it'll grab the whole shape.
- 06:21 But again, you'll notice how if I zoom in here,
- 06:24 you see the blue square in the upper right corner?
- 06:27 But not these other corners?
- 06:29 That's just telling me that I only really grabbed this one area here.
- 06:34 So if I selected that with the lasso tool, and then pressed V to get my regular
- 06:38 selection tool I can now move the shape away from the other shapes.
- 06:43 But if I use my lasso tool, drag around this corner,
- 06:46 and then instead of my regular selection tool I use my
- 06:50 direct selection tool which is A on the keyboard or the white arrow.
- 06:54 Now I can modify that point or that corner that I've selected.
- 07:00 All right, so these are the basic selection tools that you have available
- 07:03 to you in Illustrator and again, you'll notice how they're kind of separated from
- 07:07 these other tools by this thin line up here.
- 07:10 So this first grouping of the tools are very important for
- 07:13 making selections in this program.
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