Illustrator CS4 For Dummies- P6

Illustrator CS4 For Dummies- P6: Adobe Illustrator is the gold standard for creating exciting, color-rich artwork for print, the Web, or even mobile devices. Whether you’re stepping up to Illustrator CS4 or tackling Illustrator for the first time, you’ll find Illustrator CS4 For Dummies is the perfect partner. This full-color guide gives you the scoop on the newest tools, tips on color control and path editing, ways to organize graphics, and how to get your work into print or on the Web.
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Illustrator CS4 For Dummies- P6 Chapter 12: Pushing, Pulling, Poking, and Prodding 231Figure 12-6: Reflecting the artwork with the Reflect tool.To use the Reflect tool to create a mirror image, just follow these steps: 1. Select the artwork to be reflected. 2. Choose the Reflect tool from the Tools panel. 3. Press and hold the Shift key. (Release it after you release the mouse button in Step 5.) The Shift key constrains the reflection to a 45° angle, which makes a horizontal reflection easier to accomplish. (Who knew it took so much work to be a beam of light? Other than Einstein. . . .) 4. Click the far-right edge of the selected artwork and drag to the left. 5. Release the mouse button (and then the Shift key) after the artwork “flips” over.But that’s not all! If you act now and double-click the Reflect tool, you get theReflect dialog box (shown in Figure 12-7) absolutely free! Here are its excitingcapabilities: ✓ Horizontal: Select this radio button to flip the image upside down while you reflect it. ✓ Vertical: Select this radio button to flip the image over while you reflect it. ✓ Angle: Select this radio button to rotate the image to a specified, um, angle while you reflect the image.232 Part III: Taking Your Paths to Obedience School Shear Most programs call this skew, but Illustrator takes the high road and uses a lofty aviation term. It’s commonly used for creating cast shadows (the kind that fall away from an object, like your own shadow does on a sidewalk on a sunny afternoon, also known as perspective shadows) or cast reflection (like a still lake reflecting autumn trees). Figure 12-7: The Reflect dialog box. The Shear tool can be tricky to use because it can quickly zip out of control and turn your artwork from a mild-mannered logo into something resembling Timothy Leary’s nightmares. When you click and drag with the Shear tool, everything on the side of the origin point moves to where you drag it while everything on the other side of the origin point moves an equal distance in the opposite direction. The artwork between dis- torts accordingly, and you get a slanted version of your artwork. If you drag too far or in the wrong direction, it’s back to the land of funky spastic visions of inkblots. To make the Shear tool easier to use, always use the two-click method. Before you drag with the Shear tool, click at the edge of the selected artwork to set the origin point. When you do this, you have to pay attention only to your artwork shearing in one direction. The overall effects are the same, but you don’t have to worry about the artwork shearing in both directions. To use the Shear tool 1. Select the artwork to be sheared. 2. Choose the Shear tool from the Tools panel. The Shear tool hides behind the Scale tool in the Tools panel. Click and hold the Scale tool, and the Shear tool pops out from behind it. 3. Click once at the edge of the artwork to be sheared. This sets the origin point, making the Shear tool easier to control. 4. Drag with the Shear tool. The artwork shears, or distorts, Figure 12-8: Original artwork (left) and after to look slanted, as shown in shearing (right). Figure 12-8. Chapter 12: Pushing, Pulling, Poking, and Prodding 233Additional Transformation Tidbits All this transforming might seem like some pretty amazing stuff. What’s really amazing is the bevy of little extras that Illustrator has thoughtfully provided to make transforming easier and faster. The following sections in this chapter show you how to use these extras. Here’s a list of what you can do: ✓ Use the Transform panel. This panel keeps all the transformations in one handy place, where you can apply them by typing in numerical values. ✓ Copy while you transform. Rotate a copy of your artwork. ✓ Transform each piece of artwork separately. The Transform Each dialog box enables you to apply transformations to individual objects, instead of to everything at once. This feature is useful, believe it or not. ✓ Repeat the last transformation. Do it again . . . and again . . . all with a simple menu command (or keystroke). ✓ Transform a portion of a path. That’s right, you can select just a few points and move, scale, rotate, reflect, or shear them. (This capability is especially useful if you want to give that virtual caterpillar a Mohawk.) The Transform panel The Transform panel, shown in Figure 12-9, is a one-stop shopping location for all your transformation needs. Access the panel by choosing Window➪ Transform. The panel’s quite powerful, as long as you don’t mind the math. By entering values in the Transform panel’s fields, artwork can be moved, scaled, rotated, and sheared. The panel pop-up menu has options for reflect- ing (Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical) as well as optio ...