Adobe Illustrator CS6 Part F

This is the 6th installment in my blog post series on Adobe Illustrator CS6 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. If you set a gradient to go with in a shape by default it will go from black to white. This is regardless of what color is currently in the shape. If you select and drag a colour swatch in the panel it will change to that color. The gradient can be radial or linear. You can set opacity for the gradient so that the background color is let through. If you double click a swatch you get its property box. If you click an external swatch it is automatically added to the panel. There are only a couple of pattern swatches in the panel by default but lots you can add. You can manipulate patterns and change things like whether it goes left to right or right to left and colors of the various elements. Paths and anchor points are what make Illustrator a vector based program. The anchor points can be manipulated to make complex shapes and have handles that can be clicked and dragged to change the path which is normally the stroke. If pen when selected and you click creates an anchor point. If you press enter it starts a new line or anchor point with the pen tool. if you click & drag with the pen tool it creates a handle on the anchor point which can be manipulated. If a shape is closed filling it is quite straightforward. If it is open it gets less predictable. If it is a straight line no fill is applied when fill is selected and if something like an arc it is only partially filled with an imaginary line. If you select object/path/ join it joins 2 anchor points and won't work with more than 2 and they need to be lined up using the zoom tool. If you choose join for an open shape the 2 points are joined with a straight line which isn't always suitable. Sometimes object/path/ average is used which will join in a more natural way and preserve a curve usually. There are 2 tools called sissors and knife under the eraser tool. If you select the knife tool and a shape and drag the mouse through it, it will split it in 2. With the sissor tool you select it and choose 2 points in the shape along which it will break. If you use the shortcut alt+shift+drag it copy something like a line. It's similar to duplicate.