10 Time Saving Tips for Illustrator

1 – Save and Load your Custom Colour Swatches Do you find yourself constantly searching for your usual colours or just overwhelmed with the number of available colours when you only need 3 or 4? You need to create yourself a custom swatch. Creating one could save you lots of time in the future and can be easily switched if your colour needs change. Here’s how to do it… Saving your Swatch – Click on the Dropdown menu in the Swatches Toolbar – Click ‘Save swatch library as AI Loading Your Swatch – Click on the Dropdown menu in the Swatches Toolbar – Open Swatch Library – User Defined – Select your saved Swatch. 2 – ‘Tearoff’ Tool If you are using different variations of the same tool you may find this ‘Tearoff’ option very useful. It opens up the toolbar for that tool for easier and quicker access; this is how you get it – You then have you own toolbar ready to use and easier to reach. 3 – Quick Shape Select With this option you can quickly select a number of shapes depending on many variables. To do this you have to go to: Select – Same – and then choose your variant. The different options you have to choose from are; Appearance, Appearance Attribute, Blending Mode, Fill & Stroke, Fill Colour, Opacity, Stroke Colour, Stroke Weight, Graphic Style, Symbol Instance and Line Block Series. 4 – Quickly Duplicate a Shape Easiest tip in this top 10, simply hold down ALT (or the Option Key on MAC), click and hold an object and drag the cursor to where you want the new replicated object to be placed. Easy! 5 – Create Custom Actions in Illustrator I am sure you are aware you can create custom actions in Photoshop; well you can create custom actions in Illustrator too! At the top of the page should be a box labelled – Essentials (unless you have changed it) click on it and then click on – Automation. The options down the right-hand side should change and will include ‘Actions’. Click on the drop down box to then create your own actions. 6 – Align Palette – Your New Best Friend! The Align Palette gives you more creative freedom and makes the guides obsolete. You can find the Align Palette under: Window – Align. Or you can just press SHIFT + F7. 7 – Useful Special Characters – Glyphs Palette Need to use ©, ™ or Ǽ? Or any other special characters? Well they can be found in Illustrator here: Window – Type – Glyphs 8 – Adjust Effects by using – Appearance Palette If you usually just hit undo (CTRL + Z) when you’ve gone wrong with adjusting a shape, you’re wasting time having to re-apply the filters and effects used… an easier way of fixing mistakes is to use the Appearance palette. This can be found here: Window – Appearance (SHIFT + F6) 9 – Copy Colours using the Eyedropper Tool A very quick and easy way of using the same colour for another object – use the Eyedropper Tool. Simply select the Eyedropper Tool from the toolbar, CTRL + Click on the object you want filled in and then click on the colour you want your object to copy. 10 – Grouping and Layers Palette If you have a large group of objects and you want to place a newly created object into the group at a certain depth, you may find yourself with a rather tricky job. Instead of ungrouping all of the objects and trying to control the depth using keyboard shortcuts, drag the path to the point at which you want the object to be placed into the Layer Palette and it will automatically be placed inside that group.

How to Create an Abstract Desktop Wallpaper

Step 1 Start the program and create a document of the size of your monitor. It must be in the RGB color model, this is crucial! To set this color model go to File > Document Color Mode > RGB Color Step 2 Take the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a rectangle of the same size as the document and fill it with a linear gradient. Try to pick bright and harmonious colors. Step 3 With the the Polygon Tool, create a hexagonal figure with a radial fill from white to black with 1px grey stroke.. Step 4 Select the figure and change the Blending Mode to "Color Dodge" in the Transparency palette. Keeping the figure selected go to Effect > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and set the Radius value to – 53 pixels. Step 5 Take the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a R = 26 G = 26 B = 26 rectangle of the same size as our document. It’s important that the color isn’t completely black! Drag the sublayer with the rectangle into the layers palette so that it’s located below the others. Step 6 Select the rectangle with the gradient fill and change the Blending Mode to "Overlay" in the Transparency palette. Now you can adjust the color of the lower rectangle in your own way by moving the sliders in the Color Palette. I did not change the color. Step 7 As we have mastered the basic techniques, start creating your wallpaper. Place hexagons of various sizes within the margins of the document to obtain an interesting picture. It’s okay if some of the figures overlap the document, we will solve this problem later. I advise you to apply the Gaussian Blur at the end, when the composition is complete, otherwise your computer will run very slowly. Step 8 Start to apply the Gaussian Blur, starting from the lower objects, selecting them in the layers palette. Moving from lower objects to the upper ones, change the value of Radius in the range of 53 – 1.5 pixels. Do not apply the effect to the top objects. Step 9 Take the Rectangle Tool (M) and create a rectangle of the same size as the document. Select all the objects (Command + A) and go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make. Conclusion Having studied the described technique, you will be able to create interesting desktop wallpapers. You can vary the color, shape, and objects location. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Copy Link: http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/effects/quick-tip-how-create-an-abstract-desktop-wallpaper/