Transform and edit artwork
Learn the basics of transforming and editing artwork in Adobe Illustrator, including resizing artwork, using groups, aligning objects, and more.
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1 Transform artwork
Learn how to transform artwork with the Selection tool, Transform panel, and various transform tools.
In Illustrator CC you can transform content by rotating, moving, scaling and more.
So, let's take a look at some of the ways you can apply transformations to artwork in this project to complete it.
You can open this file from the practice files if you'd like to follow along.
First, you'll start by resizing some content.
So, select the Selection tool in the Tools panel on the left.
Then, click to select the circle here.
To zoom into the artwork, choose View, Zoom In and do that a few times so that it's a little bit closer.
Now with this shape selected, notice the box around it with these handles.
This is called a Bounding Box.
You can transform artwork in different ways by dragging these handles.
If you don't see the Bounding Box choose View, Show Bounding Box.
If you see Hide Bounding Box, you're all set.
Drag a handle on the corner of this box and as you drag look for these crosshairs in the center, they tell you it's a circle.
Now make sure your circle is about this big and then release the mouse button.
Then drag it on to the center of the flower shapes on the right.
Now that's one way to transform shapes visually by dragging.
Next, you'll transform a shape by entering specific values in the Properties panel.
In the Properties panel which you see here on the right you can change the shape’s width, height, rotation and a lot more.
Specifying values can ensure precision and also lets you see a shape's dimensions and any transformations already applied to that shape.
So, with the circle still selected click this option to constrain the Width and Height, meaning if you change one value the other changes proportionally.
Then select this Width value by dragging across and type 0.2.
Then, click in the Height field and you'll notice that the dimension changes maintaining the same proportions.
Now you'll rotate a shape.
So, click this yellow flower shape to select it.
This shape needs to be rotated so it looks good when you add it to the other flower shapes you see on the right.
To rotate it, move the pointer just off of any corner and you should see these rotate arrows.
When you see them, click and drag to rotate it.
As you rotate, you'll see a gray measurement label with the rotation angle.
Now keep dragging and as you drag press the Shift key to constrain the rotation of 45 degrees.
When it looks like this release the mouse button first and then release the key.
Drag this flower onto the flower shapes on the right, roughly in the center.
Now it appears behind the other shapes because it was created before the other flower shapes that are above it.
All objects in Illustrator CC are stacked one on top of the previous.
This yellow flower shape would look better if it was a little bit larger, so you'll resize this artwork from its center because it's already in the correct position.
Start dragging one of the corners of the Bounding Box and as you drag press Shift and Option on Mac or Shift and Alt on Windows and drag to make it bigger.
Release the mouse button and then the keys when it's about this size.
The Option or Alt key resizes the artwork from the center and the Shift key constrains the proportions, so you don't distort it as you're resizing.
To see everything again choose View, Fit Artboard in Window.
Now you move all these flower shapes into position.
So, drag across the flower shapes to select them and then drag the entire flower into position here.
Now this dome shape you see up here actually needs to be rotated as well.
Using the Rotate tool in the Tools panel you can set a point to rotate around, this point down here.
That way you don't have to move it when you're done rotating.
So, first click to select this orange dome shape, then select the Rotate tool in the Tools panel on the left.
If you move the pointer over here, you'll notice this crosshair in the center of the shape.
This is called the reference point.
It tells you that if you rotate the shape it will rotate around the center.
To move this point, click and release in the corner to set the reference point or where it will rotate around now.
Then move your pointer away and press and drag anywhere out here to rotate the shape.
As you drag press the Shift key to constrain the movement.
When it's in place release the mouse button and then the key.
So that you can see all the final artwork here you'll deselect everything, so choose Select, Deselect.
There really are a lot of options for transforming artwork and it's something you'll do often.
It's also a great way to create distinctive artwork.
So, experiment with the different ways to transform you've learned here from resizing and rotating to skewing, reflecting and a whole lot more.
What you learned: Transform artwork
Select a shape with the Selection tool in the Tools panel.
Drag a bounding box handle to resize or re-shape the shape. Smart Guide crosshairs show when it’s a perfect circle as you resize.
Adjust artwork numerically and with more precision in the Properties panel.
Press Shift+Alt (Windows) or Shift+Option (macOS) and drag a shape to resize from the center and constrain proportions. Release the mouse and then the keys.
Select a shape. Select the Rotate tool in the Tools panel. Click on the shape to set where to rotate. Drag anywhere around the shape to rotate it.
2 Work with groups of content
Explore combining objects into groups.
In Illustrator CC, artwork like this bird may be made up of several objects that have been aligned or combined to create a finished piece.
To keep and move sets of objects together which allows you to transform and move them together you can group them.
Let's look at how to group objects together first and then how to edit individual objects within a group.
To follow along you can open this document from the practice files for this tutorial.
Now, to start, you’ll group this bird artwork together.
So, select the Selection tool in the Tools panel and click to select the wing of the bird.
To zoom into it choose View, Zoom In and do that a few times so it's a little bit closer.
Drag the wing away from the rest of the bird and notice that just one of the shapes moves.
That's because this bird is made up of several shapes.
Now, put the wing back where it was, choose Edit, Undo Move.
Grouping all of the shapes that make up the bird will make these shapes stay together.
Grouping artwork can help keep content organized and make it easier to select artwork like a logo or this bird that contains several smaller objects.
So, to select all the bird shapes, press and drag across them.
To group them together click the Group button toward the bottom of the Properties panel on the right.
You can group all sorts of content together, even group content within another group.
Click away from the bird in a blank area to deselect it.
Then click to select that wing again.
Notice that all of the shapes that make up the bird are selected.
Also notice the word Group at the top of the Properties panel on the right which tells you it's a grouped object.
Grouped objects can be moved or transformed as a whole without affecting the individual objects within the group.
To resize this bird group, press the Shift key and drag a corner of the group to scale the bird and make it smaller.
When you're finished release the mouse button and then the Shift key.
Pressing the Shift key while dragging maintains the proportions so you don't distort the artwork.
To see all of the artwork again, choose View, Fit Artboard in Window.
Drag the bird down here so you can put it into its final position.
Now, when you want to edit content within a group you can either ungroup the content to access the individual objects or simply isolate the group which is what you'll do next.
So, next you’ll group this sailboat artwork together, then you'll edit the content within that group.
To select the sailboat objects, press and drag across all of them down here and to group them click the Group button in the Properties panel.
Now the orange sail on the right needs to be moved down, but if you click away from the group then click on that sail, the whole group is selected.
To select one object in a group you can isolate the group, so you can edit the individual objects.
Double-click the larger orange sail and the rest of the artwork is dimmed meaning you can't select or edit it and a bar also appears at the top of the document window, but you can now edit the individual shapes within this group.
This is called Isolation Mode.
Drag the larger sail shape down to align it with the smaller sail.
Now to stop editing the group you can exit Isolation Mode.
Press Esc to exit Isolation Mode and click in a blank area to deselect the sail, then click back on the sail to select the entire group.
Drag this sailboat group into the water above.
Now, the sailboat appears behind this wave shape because the wave shape was created after the sailboat, so it's on top of it.
Grouping content can really save you a lot of time by organizing your artwork, making it easier to select, move, and transform artwork that's made of multiple shapes.
Now that you have an understanding of grouping you can organize your artwork how you see fit.
What you learned: Group objects
Click the Selection tool in the Tools panel. Drag across artwork to select it.
Click the Group button in the Properties panel to group selected objects together.
Drag a corner of the group to resize all objects together.
Click the Selection tool and double-click a group to edit the individual objects. Press Escape to stop editing and regroup the objects.
3 Align content
Explore aligning artwork in various ways using the Align options.
As you create in Illustrator CC you'll most likely need to align content in your design, whether for a website, poster, or other.
In this video you'll learn about the different ways to align content.
To follow along you can open this file from the practice files for this tutorial.
Now, to make sure that you see all of the design content out in this file, choose View, Fit All in Window.
To start with you'll learn how to align objects to each other with Smart Guides.
In this case, aligning this O shape with the other letter shapes.
First, you need to make sure that the Smart Guides are turned on over in the Properties panel here.
Smart Guides are temporary guides that are helpful when you move and align content.
With the Selection tool selected in the poster on the left, drag this O shape to the right.
As you drag you'll see magenta lines appear, the line you see in the middle of the shape means it's staying aligned with its original position.
Now, if you drag it far enough to the right you'll see a vertical alignment guide on the right edge when it's aligned with the other letters.
When you see this, release the mouse button.
To keep all of the FOX letter shapes together you'll group them.
To zoom out a little click in a blank area to deselect, then choose View, Zoom Out, press and drag across the FOX letters to select them and click the Group button at the bottom of the Properties panel.
Smart Guides can be an easy way to align content, but you can also use the Align options.
Next, you'll align all of these text objects to each other.
So, click to select the text in the center here.
Then press the Shift key and click the text to the right and the FOX text to the left to add them to the current selection.
Shift-clicking is a precise way to select multiple objects and can be useful when there are several objects near the artwork you want to select.
Now look in the Properties panel to the right of the document.
You'll see the Align options.
Before you select one of these options you want to choose what you want to align to.
Are you aligning objects to each other, to the artboard or something else?
Click the Align to button and make sure Align to Selection is chosen.
This means that selected objects will align to each other.
Click the Vertical Align Top option to align the objects to the top edge of the uppermost object which is the text in the center here.
The objects will align to each other.
Now, this headline text needs to be centered horizontally on the poster.
To do that, you can align it to the artboard rather than to the other content.
Now, remember artboards in Illustrator CC are similar to pages in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign CC.
So, click the headline text at the top here.
Notice that the Align options aren't showing in the Properties panel.
That's because there's only one object selected.
To align a single object to the artboard you'll open the Align panel, so choose Window, Align to open the Align panel.
You can drag the Align panel group by the title bar at the top if you need to move it.
Click the Panel menu and choose Show Options to see more if you needed to.
Then click the Align To: selection button at the bottom of the panel and choose Align to Artboard.
Now any content you align will be aligned relative to the artboard.
Click the Horizontal Align Center button to align the text to the horizontal center of the artboard.
To close the panel, click the X at the top of the panel group.
Now, looking at the design on the right the text that starts with FUN FACT needs to be aligned with the text down here.
Unfortunately, if you try to align these two objects to each other the lower text object will move up to align to the uppermost text object, this one.
Since the text down here is already where it needs to be the FUN FACT text needs to be aligned to that text.
To do that you can align to a key object, it's called.
Click the FUN FACT text, then press the Shift key and click the text here to select it as well.
Release the Shift key.
Click this text again and you'll see it has a blue highlight around it.
That means it's the key object or the object that every other selected object will align to.
In the Properties panel on the right click the Vertical Align Top button to align the text.
The key object doesn't move as you saw in this case.
To see the final poster designs with nothing selected click in a blank area away from the artwork.
Using the different alignment methods in Illustrator CC makes it easier to create cohesive user-friendly designs for all kinds of projects.
They are a great way to save time and maximize the impact of your artwork.
What you learned: Align objects
Select multiple objects. Click Align To in the Properties panel to the right of the document and make sure Align To Selection is chosen to align the objects to one another.
Click an align option to align objects to one another.
Select a single object. Open the Align panel (Window > Align). Click Align To and choose Align To Artboard to align the objects to the artboard.
Click an align option in the Align panel to align objects to one another. Aligning to a key object allows you to align to a specific object.
4 Cut and erase artwork
Transform your artwork by cutting and erasing content.
In this video you'll learn how to erase artwork using the Eraser tool, then you'll learn how to cut artwork to create different paths and shapes using the Scissors tool.
You can open this file from the practice files for this tutorial if you want to follow along.
Now to start with, the handle parts that appear between these lines needs to be removed so the text you're going to put here is more readable.
You can use the Eraser tool to erase content.
Now, you want to select them first because erasing with Eraser tool only affects selected artwork.
Also know that the Eraser tool in Illustrator CC is only meant to erase vector artwork like shapes and paths, not raster images you place in Illustrator CC.
With the Selection tool selected in the Tools panel on the left click one of the green handle shapes, pressing the Shift key click the other handle shape to select them both.
To zoom into the selected artwork, choose View, Zoom In a few times.
To erase, select the Eraser tool on the Tools panel on the left.
When you move the pointer out into the document, the circle and cross-hair you see indicate the size of the eraser.
So, press and drag across the green handles here to erase part of them.
Then try pressing and dragging across the line down here and notice it looks like it's erasing, but when you release the mouse button nothing happens.
That's because the line isn't selected.
Now you can also erase in a straight line.
This is really useful when erasing along an edge for instance.
To erase in a straight line, you press the Shift key.
So, pressing the Shift key press and drag across here to erase straight across.
Release the mouse button and then the key.
Now don't worry about it being perfect.
If you want to undo what you did you can always choose Edit, Undo Eraser and then try it again.
Do the same down here with the Shift key held down.
After you're finished release the Shift key and drag across the rest of the green handle shapes in the middle to remove them.
Now, to temporarily lock the handles so you don't accidentally select or move them later choose Object, Lock, Selection.
Another way to edit vector artwork is to cut shapes and paths to create new ones.
You'll remove the center part of this line between the handles.
Now, to do that you'll cut this single path into three separate paths using the Scissors tool, so you can delete the middle path.
Now, to cut this line you're going to select it first.
So, select the Selection tool and click to select this line.
Then drag it down a little bit so it's easier to see.
To select the Scissors tool in the Tools panel on the left, press and hold on the Eraser tool to show the other tools.
The Scissors tool is meant to cut a path into multiple paths or cut a shape at a point.
So, select the Scissors tool and click on the path here to cut it.
I know it's hard to tell but this path is now cut into two different length paths.
Click over here to cut the path on the right and there are now three paths.
Now, you'll select the middle path and delete it.
Select the Selection tool, click away from the artwork then click on the center path to select it.
Press Backspace or Delete to remove it and drag each the remaining paths up here.
To see the whole design again choose View, Fit Artboard in Window.
To finish this drag this NOWHERE text into the area where you erased.
The tools and methods you just learned can be used to create all kinds of artwork.
For instance, you could create a cloud by drawing a circle then erasing parts of it with the Eraser tool.
Try editing some of the paths with the Eraser and Scissors tool and see what you come up with.
What you learned: Erase and cut artwork
Select the Eraser tool in the Tools panel to erase parts of your artwork. Only selected content will be erased. Shift-drag to erase in a straight line.
To cut a path, click and hold the Eraser tool to select the Scissors tool.
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