What's the difference between the Pathfinder Vs Shape Builder?

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SECTION: 4
Keyboard Shortcuts 14:06

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Course info

104 lessons / 10 hours 33 quiz questions 31 projects Certificate of achievement

Overview

Hey there, I'm Dan Scott, an Adobe Certified Instructor with over 16 years of design experience under my belt, I'm part of the Adobe Expert program, and my online and in-person classes have been attended by more than a million people, just like you! Join me as we dive into the exciting world of Adobe Illustrator Advanced! In this course, you're not just leveling up in Illustrator, you're transforming into an Illustrator SuperHero!

In this course you will work on a bespoke brief designed to ignite your imagination, coupled with immersive course videos, you'll be crafting jaw-dropping graphics in no time. Throughout our journey together, you'll flex your creative muscles and construct projects that will elevate your portfolio to new heights. So, let's dive in and unleash your creativity!

You’ll learn:

  • - How to use artificial intelligence to boost your creativity in ideation. 
  • - The quick way to take hand-drawn sketches and vectorize and color them. 
  • - The building blocks needed to set you loose on a huge variety of beautiful effects and techniques.
  • - To make beautiful charts and graphs for your documents. 
  • - Color mastery to make quick color adjustments, Pantones, and blend it all together beautifully.
  • - How to master images inside of your illustrator workflow. 
  • - To harness all the secret gems that'll help you level up your typography skills. 
  • - All the tricks of the trade for drawing complex shapes easily. 
  • - To double your creativity with the Transform and Distort section. 
  • - To speed up your personal workflow to get the most out of your creative day.

Explore the full course outline for a comprehensive list of topics that will expand your Illustrator prowess beyond imagination.

If you're already comfortable navigating the basics but want to  unlock the true potential of Illustrator, then this Illustrator Advanced course is your ticket to becoming a master of Illustrator! So join me and the ranks of design superheroes and let's embark on this thrilling journey together.

Requirements:

- All you need is a copy of Adobe Illustrator, you can get a free trial from Adobe here to get started.
- A basic knowledge of Illustrator is required. I recommend watching my Illustrator Essentials course prior to embarking on this epic adventure.

Who this course is for:

- Creative adventurers who already have a basic understanding of Illustrator.
- Self-taught Illustrator enthusiasts yearning for structured guidance.
- Graduates of my Illustrator Essentials Course, hungry for more knowledge and skills.
- Visionaries who have developed their own unique Illustrator approach but crave exploration of the vast universe of tools, updates, and time-saving techniques.

What you'll learn:

- How to use Text to Vector Ai
- How to use Text to Pattern Ai
- How to use Generative Recolor
- When to use the Scissor Tool, Eraser Tool & Knife Tool
- Advanced Shape Builder Uses
- The differences between the Pathfinder Vs Shape Builder
- How to use the Join tool & Joining Path Ends
- Advanced Pen Tool Tricks
- Width Tool Advanced Techniques
- The Curvature Tool
- How to master corners with corner widget effects
- How to work with Compound Paths
- The difference between Expand & Expand Appearance
- How to create Graphic Styles
- How to make Symbols
- How to use the Smooth Tool
- Advanced use of Simplify Path
- What Live Shape Effects are for
- How to make Repeating Grids & Concentric Circles
- How to make Random Objects
- Advanced Keyboard Shortcuts in Illustrator
- How to add a Gradient on a Stroke
- How to add a Gradient in Text
- How to use the Freeform Gradient tool
- How to use Advanced Color Swatches
- How to use Global Color Swatches
- What is the difference between RGB vs CMYK color modes?
- How to proof colors
- How to use Pantone Spot Colors
- Recolor Artwork & Changing all colors at once
- How to use Blending Modes
- How to work with Images & Blending Modes
- How to make Black & White Images
- Learn Advanced Workflow Tricks
- All the Super Selection Mastery
- How to use the History Panel
- Advanced Fonts Tricks & Tips
- Use Retype to know what Font is being used
- How to put Text Inside a Letter or Shape
- How to use the Touch Type Tool
- How to add a Connected Stroke Around Multiple Shapes
- How to Offset a Stroke with Text
- How to make a Bar Chart in Illustrator
- How to make a Pie Chart in Illustrator
- Layer Power Moves
- Advanced Artboard & Pages Tricks
- How to Unlink vs Embedded Images
- How to Crop Images Rather than Mask
- How to Mask Inside Text & Multiple Shapes
- How to you use the Puppet Warp Tool
- How to use the Distort Envelope Shape & Type
- How to use the Envelope Mesh
- How to blend lines together
- How to make a Linocut Effect
- How to make 3D Gradient Lettering Blends
- How to spin text into a ring
- How to turn text into a 3D donut shape
- How to make a Duotone image effect
- How to make a Roughen Stamp Vector Effect
- How to make a Neon Sign Glow Effect
- How to use a Halftone Effect using Plugins
- Advanced Exporting Assets Tricks in Illustrator
- How to use the Dimension Tool

So what're you waiting for? Let's start the course now!
Daniel Scott

Daniel Scott

Founder of Bring Your Own Laptop & Chief Instructor

instructor

I discovered the world of design as an art student when I stumbled upon a lab full of green & blue iMac G3’s. My initial curiosity around using the computer to create ‘art’ developed into a full-blown passion, eventually leading me to become a digital designer and founder of Bring Your Own Laptop.

Sharing and teaching are a huge part of who I am. As a certified Adobe instructor, I've had the honor of winning multiple Adobe teaching awards at their annual MAX conference. I see Bring Your Own Laptop as the supportive community I wished for when I was first starting out and intimidated by design. Through teaching, I hope to bring others along for the ride and empower my students to bring their stories, labors of love, and art into the world.
True to my Kiwi roots, I've lived in many places, and currently, I reside in Ireland with my wife and kids.

Certificates

We’re awarding certificates for this course!

Check out the How to earn your certificate video for instructions on how to earn yours and click the available certificate levels below for more information.

Downloads & Exercise files

Transcript

Hello. Hey, it is Pathfinder Secrets Time. Okay? In this course I often use the Shape Builder tool to kind  of combine shapes like this. And it works great, but it is very destructive. Uh, we're gonna look at the Pathfinder tool  and show you that it has a super secret feature  where we can make things non-destructive has pros and cons.

But watch this. I've got this kinda like Aus blobby bacteria  looking thing, okay? And watch this. I can go into it and watch. I can move it around. Ooh, it's not kind  of fixed in time forever.

It has adjustability. Alright, let's jump in  and reveal the secrets of the Pathfinder. Alright? Uh, open up the Pathfinder file  from your exercise files. Okay? And we're gonna open up the pathfinder window as well.

So good window go down to Pathfinder there. It's, it is in your properties panel,  but it's kind of cut down  and we wanna look at this on purpose, nice and big. So a lot of my courses,  I do a lot in the shape builder tool. Okay? So I select it all grabbed the shape builder tool  and I kind of just, I wanna join these up  to make them kinda like one anatomy blob thing. The only problem with that, it's very destructive, okay?

If I want to move the circle around, I can't. So I'm gonna get undo until I go all it back. And this is where the pathfinder is really helpful. So if I get my black arrow  and what you'll notice is  what says if I click on this first one called Unite, okay,  does everybody use Pathfinder the same way I do? You go undo, click undo, click undo. Do you find the one you want?

Okay, we want the first one. Luckily in this case, okay, I wanna join them up. So it's kind of just a quicker way than using the  uh, shape builder tool. So if you prefer it this way,  you end up at the exact same point. The perk with a Pathfinder though is it  has a super secret trick. It's go to undo is instead of just clicking unite,  if you hold down the option key on a Mac alt key on a PC  and click the same thing, you're like does the same  thing kind of.

But can you see if I have it selected? Can you see? Ooh, the circles are still in there. How do I get to those? Just double click on any of the lines. Okay?

And inside of here, look, oh, it's hard  to see against the background Dan, but you get the idea. This is what they call non-destructive, okay? It's still doing the exact same result  'cause you're not too sure what you need to do. You're like, oh okay. It needs to be a little bit wider,  a little bit bigger, and it keeps all  of those dimensions in there. It's doing something sneaky  with something called a compound shape.

Okay? And you can do it with any of these options here. Now let's go back, back, back. And so you can edit it by double clicking on it. The other couple of things you can do is you can select on  it and you can say I want to actually, let's go. I wanna break it apart again.

You might get somebody else's artwork. You just wanna like smash it to pieces  as in get all your bits back. Okay? So with a pathfinder with the selected, we can go  to these options here and you can say  release these compound shapes. Bam. We're back to where we started.

The other option you might do. So I'm gonna select it all, make  sure I hold down the option. Keana Mac Alt keana pc. To use the non-destructive version  of Unite, you can expand it. And that is basically the exact same way is clicking this  first option, okay? Without holding down that special key.

So it depends what you want. And you are like, why don't we just use that for everything? Is that it's really good for simple shapes,  but when you start doing complex things like our donut,  It starts running into problems, okay? 'cause it's mixing compound shapes with shape of the tool  and it'll gets a little messy. So if it's not complex shapes, my advice is  to use the shape of the tool. So let's do a little circles.

So I'm gonna do bits of this, right? So I'm gonna do just these shapes to start with. Okay? So I've got my bite marks and my outside oval  and I'm gonna go remember what key to we hold down. Okay? I want to unite  them actually I don't wanna unite them.

I wanna minus front. Okay? But what key to I hold down. That's right. Option on the Mac, on a pc, click at once  so we get our bite marks. Great.

I've given you the little drawing  of this quiggly thing, so I wanna fill that in. Okay? So I'm gonna go, all right,  I'm gonna click you hold shift, click on this one  and I'm gonna go, eh, joins the line. Does this thing does, okay,  we can't get the pathfinder to do what I want. It's a shape builder trick  'cause it's gotta kind of join this  and it doesn't know which bits. You've gotta join these two up.

So I grab my shape builder tool,  I'm gonna double click the shape  builder tool and gotta reset. Just make sure everything's kind of back to how it was. And watch this. Yeah, kind of doesn't work. It's 'cause it's trying to do too much. It's trying to do this compound shape, okay?

It's trying to do some shape builder stuff. So if your drawing gets, uh,  it might start off and be nice and simple. Perfect. Get your adjustments done. But eventually you might have to go you  with all this complex compounding going on,  I'm gonna expand it, then shift, click both of them, shift M  for my, uh, shape builder tool  and I'm gonna join them up now. Okay, so you might end up kind of starting one way  with all the non-destructive goodness  and having to kind of expand it eventually, pretty soon.

That's what I find. Everyone's doing different stuff, okay? So you might find that you can stay in the lovely pathfinder  world with compound shapes for a lot longer. There you go. That is the secret trick of the pathfinder. It retains some of that editability.

We can expand it, release them. It's non-destructive,  but you might find that you, you'll quickly have  to be destructive  and expand it if you want to do anything else with it. There you go. Pathfinder Secrets onto the next video.
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