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Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator

Lesson 29 from: Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud: Essentials for Creating Projects

Brian Wood

Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator

Lesson 29 from: Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud: Essentials for Creating Projects

Brian Wood

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Lesson Info

29. Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

01:23
2

What is Adobe Illustrator?

06:24
3

Explore the Interface

11:45
4

Create and Save New Documents

07:03
5

Zoom and Navigate

07:23
6

Working with Artboards

18:11
7

Introduction to Layers

18:53
8

Rulers and Guides

09:05
9

Shapes and Drawing

45:27
10

Aligning and Combining Shapes

15:31
11

Pen Tool

30:59
12

Manipulating Stroke and Fill

14:39
13

Creating and Editing with Color

17:36
14

Painting with Gradients

10:36
15

Getting Started with Patterns

08:11
16

Adding Text To Your Document

08:43
17

Formatting Text

11:35
18

Strokes and Variable Strokes in Adobe Illustrator

16:55
19

Rotating Objects in Adobe Illustrator

08:42
20

Effects and the Appearance Panel in Adobe Illustrator

10:58
21

Adding Photo Images in Adobe Illustrator

12:43
22

Working with Linked Content in Adobe Illustrator

10:14
23

Packaging your Project for Handoff in Adobe Illustrator

04:28
24

Best Formats to Save Your Files

14:35
25

Select Like a Pro: Layers, Groups, & Other Unique Tools

33:57
26

Edit Paths Like a Pro in Adobe Illustrator

08:41
27

Editing Paths: Pen Tool in Adobe Illustrator

03:31
28

Creating & Applying Brushes to Artwork in Adobe Illustrator

18:21
29

Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator

03:09
30

Editing Paths: Join Tool in Adobe Illustrator

10:46
31

Editing Paths: Isolation Mode in Adobe® Illustrator®

02:11
32

Pen Tool Shortcuts in Adobe Illustrator

16:44
33

Other Drawing Tools & Methods in Adobe Illustrator

07:05
34

Transforming Techniques in Adobe Illustrator

05:35
35

Shortcut to Reflecting Artwork in Adobe Illustrator

02:19
36

Get to Know Your Appearance Panel in Adobe Illustrator

17:42
37

Exploring Effects in Adobe Illustrator

10:01
38

Work Smarter with Graphic Styles in Adobe Illustrator

04:50
39

Color Inspiration in Adobe Illustrator

09:34
40

Type Effects in Adobe Illustrator

11:18
41

Masking Your Artwork in Adobe Illustrator

13:40
42

Using Creative® Cloud® Libraries in Adobe® Illustrator®

15:47
43

Capture Artwork with Creative Cloud Apps & Adobe Illustrator

12:21
44

Tracing Raster Images in Adobe Illustrator

13:40
45

Blending Artwork in Adobe Illustrator

12:47
46

Using Symbols in Adobe Illustrator

10:47
47

Using a Perspective Grid in Adobe Illustrator

09:05
48

Crash Recovery in Adobe Illustrator

08:45
49

GPU Performance in Adobe Illustrator

03:51
50

Curvature Tool in Adobe Illustrator

06:49
51

App Integration in Adobe Illustrator

11:52
52

Creative Cloud Libraries in Adobe Illustrator App

04:42
53

Shaper Tool in Adobe Illustrator

06:06
54

Smart Guides in Adobe Illustrator

01:31
55

Text Enhancements in Adobe Illustrator

02:11
56

SVG Export in Adobe Illustrator

06:50

Lesson Info

Editing Paths: Knife & Scissor Tool in Adobe Illustrator

We're gonna go through and talk just a little bit about working with some of the other options here. We're gonna talk about the knife tool and the scissors tool real quick. These are very useful for editing paths. What I'd like you to do is I want to go down, I'm using my hand tool here holding the space bar or going to the hand tool. Come down to the bird down here. This wacky little bird thing, and what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to zoom in a bit on the bird beak, so on the beak out there. I'm using a shortcut to get to the zoom tool. It's command spacebar or control spacebar if you hold them down you get the zoom tool and then can zoom in. Try not to throw too many key commands out there just because they get overwhelming but there are a lot. All right what I want to do now is I want to take this bird beak and go ahead and click on it with the selection tool. Make sure you have the selection tool selected and you're gonna see that it's basically just a couple paths, a couple...

shapes rather and they are grouped together, you can see group up here. What I'd like to do is I want to take the beak and I want to color it. I want to have different colors as segments kind of like a toucan or something like that, right, just on the beak. Now to do that we probably have to take this orangeish shape and cut it up or do something to it. What we can do is we can actually use something like the knife tool or the scissors tool to do this. Come over here to the left and you're gonna see that we have the eraser tool. The eraser tool, by the way, Is probably my favorite tool ever. We're gonna use it a little bit maybe, we'll see. Go ahead and hold down on the eraser tool over here in the tools panel and you're gonna see we have the scissors and the knife. Now I confused these for a long time. I didn't quite understand what these were meant to do. This scissors tool is meant for you to go to a point on a path, like an anchor point, click on it and what it's gonna do is it's gonna, like with scissors, it's gonna cut the path there. You can then basically take this path and do something like this, open it up. There's gonna be two endpoints now on the path. Now why don't you come to the knife tool here. We're gonna use the knife tool instead so click on the knife tool and what I want to do is I want to come out here and we're just gonna draw across the beak here. Now what the knife tool does that's different is as you drag across the shape it's actually gonna close that shape. So it's gonna basically connect the ends of the paths. So this is a good thing. So come up here somewhere, click and drag across the beak, just all the way across to pretend you're cutting right through it, knife through butter kind of thing, drag all the way across, let go, and you've just cut it into pieces, which is kind of neat. Now did you notice that it was not even close to a straight line? Now in order to make a straight line we actually have to use the option and the shift keys or just the option key you guys. The option key held down will let you draw a straight line across. The option shift will make it perfectly horizontal or vertical, so it'll constrain it. Let's just say that. So you can do that pretty easily.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Project Files Part 1
Project Files Part 2

Ratings and Reviews

KATIE Y
 

I am a pretty computer literate person but an Ai beginner i.e. I am completely new to the Creative Cloud/Adobe Illustrator. (This is also the first time I've used CreativeLive.) I think this course it is fantastic. The pace is good as is the content which progressed logically and covers all the basics you'd hope it would. The course is 2 full days' worth of material but it is broken down into segments so you can revisit or skip through as you need to. The presenter is really personable and easy to watch (even for me, a Londoner!). I would also say I think it is pretty good value for money -- I am currently enrolled on a part time course, basically doing the same sort of stuff, and I have to say this is better and a bit cheaper! I definitely recommend it to you!

jackflash
 

A brilliantly designed course. it's almost magic. It's everything you hope for in a follow-along software class. Brian Wood has engineered it so that you start on a project that just needs basics, and then you move on to more & more complicated projects, and almost without realizing it you've learned Illustrator. This doesn't just happen -- Wood has clearly put a LOT of effort into creating this course. Here's one trivial example: he doesn't overload you with a lot of keyboard shortcuts right at the beginning -- you start with the actions themselves, using the (admittedly tedious but easy) pulldown menus, and then after you're comfortable with what you're doing, he'll throw in the shortcut. It may seem obvious, but so many instructors feel they have to give you an extensive foundation of definitions, shortcuts, interfaces, etc., before you ever do anything. Good stuff to know, but you'll never remember it. Wood has you up and working almost immediately. And he's a joy to listen to, at a perfect pace. Highly recommended.

Philippe LIENARD
 

Top course. Very well explained, clear, good examples, pleasant teacher. I like it and recommend it. One suggestion, it would be nice to have a detailed table of content of the course in the material. For instance, it took me quite a while to find back the part of the course where how to make a gear was explained.

Student Work

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