You might be wondering why does Illustrator have two selection tools up
at the top of the Tools panel? Well, they have two distinct purposes and in this lesson
you'll learn the difference and you'll also learn about grouping in isolation mode.
So go ahead and go to File, New.
Just create a new document. I'm creating one at Letter size but as long as you
have somewhere to work with. And first I'm going to show you the differences between
selecting and direct selecting. So click and hold on to the
Rectangle Tool in the Tools panel and go to the Ellipse tool or just press L on
the keyboard. I'm going to click and drag out and then hold SHIFT for a perfect
circle, and then I'm going to draw another one over here and so we have two circles.
So if you choose the Selection tool, which is the black arrow. If you click here on
the path or the fill. Because it doesn't have a transparent fill, this example
actually has a white fill in a black border or stroke. It adds this bounding box here, right
right. So this bounding box you can actually click and drag the corner and
you can resize a shape. You can hold SHIFT if you want to maintain the
original proportion and you can also hover off the edge and it becomes that
double-sided arrow, and then you can click and drag and rotate. You can't really tell because it's a
circle, but if I just created an ellipse, for example, and then use the black arrow
and rotate, you can see you can rotate it. And a quick shortcut. If you want to
duplicate something, instead of going to Edit, Copy and then Edit, Paste and
paste in a new object, you can actually just hold down ALT on the PC or OPTION
on the MAC, click and drag and that will duplicate a shape. Now when we choose the
white arrow which is the Direct Selection tool, it's a little bit different. Now if
I do click and drag on the inside here on the fill, it does move it just as if
we had the Selection tool selected. It just doesn't have that bounding box.
However, if I just click and drag on a path here, click and drag, you can see
that now I am adjusting the path itself. if I hold down SHIFT, it has a little
bit different effect. See how it's symmetrical on either side and just
going out. If I let go of SHIFT, then you can actually make one side
or the other a little bit more curved. Now if you have the Direct Selection tool
selected and you click right on an anchor point. Say for example, this, we have
an anchor point right there. You can click and drag and move that instead of
the path, and now I'm just clicking and dragging a point or an anchor point that is between
the paths. If I hold SHIFT then it will keep it constrained to specific areas.
And then you'll notice these handles on the edge. You can just click and drag and
that will change the curve of that path. Now there are a couple of shortcuts to remember.
If you down ALT on the PC or OPTION on the MAC, again that's click and drag and you can
duplicate it. If you hold down CRTL though what it does is it toggles it to
the other selection. So if I have the Selection tool selected and I hold down
CTRL or command on the MAC and now it's toggled it to the Direct Selection tool.
So if I have the Selection tool here, the black arrow and I hold down CTRL on the PC or OPTION
on the MAC and I click and drag, now I'm actually adjusting the path as if I
had the white arrow selected as it's toggled to the other selection tool. If I let go
of CTRL or command, then it goes back to the one we have selected. Likewise, if I have
the Direct Selection Tool selected and I come over here and I press Ctrl on the
PC or Command on the MAC and click and drag, now I'm 'just moving it around as if I
had the black arrrow or the Selection tool selected. If I don't have CTRL or Command
selected and click and drag, then it's just I have to deselect, click off in
the background and then click and drag the path and now moving the path.
And again I can move the anchor point path, or the handles in between or the entire
object with the white arrow or the Direct Selection tool. Now if you click and hold
on the Direct Selection Tool, you'll see the Group Selection tool. You might
be thinking, well what is that?
Well I'm going to give you a simple example. I'm going to draw a couple of shapes out.
I'm going to change the color here. Double-click the middle here and come up with some other color.
I'm going to draw some shapes out here.
And so we've got five circles, right. Let's say we're combining them later to be a
cloud with the pathfinder. We'll cover that in a different lesson but we just have five
circles here. Now by default if I click one I can move them around obviously,
individually because they're not grouped and then with the white arrow, you can
also move them around or you can click and drag and adjust the size. So let's go ahead
group these because to understand the group selection tool, we need to use
grouping first. I also need to explain isolation mode. So these two right here. Click that
one and then click this one over here and now they're both selected. I held SHIFT
or you can click and drag like that. You can use the Direct Selection tool or the
selection tool when you're holding SHIFT. Maybe just clicking and drag both of them.
Let's use the Selection tool for this example. You just click and drag so you're hovering
over those. Now you see the bounding box. It's easy to see what's selected. Then go to
Object, Group or the shortcut is CTRL G on the PC or Command G on the MAC
and now there's a group. Now if I select them,
I'm moving both of those automatically if I have the selection tool selected.
If I choose the Direct Selection Tool, well then I can move individual pieces of,
even if it's grouped with another piece. Now with this selected, let's go ahead and
select this grouped area and I'm going to hold SHIFT and now I have these three selected
and I'm just going to go to Object, Group again. Now these are grouped.
And let's just select this one here as well, and now these four will be grouped.
Object, Group and then finally let's just click and drag around all these
these here and go to Object, Group. Now why do we want to group those in layers?
It's to show you how isolation mode works and also how the Group Selection tool works.
So with the black arrow or the Selection tool, if I click it selects the entire group.
If I select the white arrow or the Direct Selection tool, I can move these
individually and if I double click, it doesn't do anything. If I go back to the black
arrow, the Selection tool and let's just say I double click on one of these.
You notice up here it changes a little bit. It's got layer one and then Group. If I double click
on this one here it goes down another group. Double click on this one,
double click on this one, double click on this
and you'll notice it's going to multiple layers of groups down to the path.
That is the current isolated object. What that means is I can actually
edit this even though I don't have the white Direct Selection tool selected.
I just have the black selection tool selected. Now I can double-click on the
outside and I'll go to the top level or I can double-click and go back down those levels.
Now I'm editing this with the Selection tool. I can double-click and escape out of
there and click over here. So why is that useful? Well, what you can do, let's just say, these three
you wanted to edit. You can edit those click and drag because I'm on that
specific level with an isolation mode. Isolation mode just means you're only editing
that one shape because you double clicked on it with the Selection tool. And then to go
back to the top level, just double-click out here. If you you click and hold onto the
white arrow, the Direct Selection tool, and go to the Group Selection tool,
How that works is if I just click on this and only select this by default,
just like if I had the Direct Selection Tool selected, if I double click then
it's selects these four because those are all grouped. Likewise if I click here
double click, then it selectes these three.
If I click this, double click, it selects all five because that was the last one that
was grouped with these other four. So if you had some complicated illustration
that had a bunch of different shapes that were grouped in different levels, you can
click or double-click and then move it around or click again and it selects more.
Notice that I don't have to double click though. So if I click once, click again,
click again, click again, click again, it selects more of those shapes that are grouped
because I grouped them all in different steps.
So If I click and click, click, click, move it over, click again then move it over.
That is the Group Selection tool. So that's the difference between the
Selection tool and the Direct Selection tool. I think if you practice it you'll get a
lot better at it and you'll get used to why you would use one or the other, and again
we can use our shortcuts like the CTRL or Command key to toggle in
between the two. I will see you next lesson.