1 00:00:00.04 --> 00:00:02.07 - [Voiceover] Now, the truth of path finder operations 2 00:00:02.07 --> 00:00:05.04 is they're a little long in the tooth. 3 00:00:05.04 --> 00:00:08.02 They were originally introduced in Illustrator five. 4 00:00:08.02 --> 00:00:11.06 And the guys at top, these so-called shape modes, 5 00:00:11.06 --> 00:00:15.07 they've been upgraded over time but the others have not. 6 00:00:15.07 --> 00:00:18.03 And as a result, they're a little finicky sometimes. 7 00:00:18.03 --> 00:00:20.09 They tend to really like filled, closed, 8 00:00:20.09 --> 00:00:23.07 path outlines, so filled shapes. 9 00:00:23.07 --> 00:00:27.01 So notice here that we have these daggers and double daggers 10 00:00:27.01 --> 00:00:29.06 following the names of some of these operations. 11 00:00:29.06 --> 00:00:32.00 The dagger means the operation is incompatible 12 00:00:32.00 --> 00:00:34.08 with unfilled paths, and the double dagger means 13 00:00:34.08 --> 00:00:37.05 that it has problems with open paths. 14 00:00:37.05 --> 00:00:39.08 And so as you can see, trim all the way 15 00:00:39.08 --> 00:00:42.08 through outline, have problems with both. 16 00:00:42.08 --> 00:00:45.03 Divide has a big problem with open paths. 17 00:00:45.03 --> 00:00:47.07 But minus back has no problems at all 18 00:00:47.07 --> 00:00:50.06 and neither do that fab four up here at the top. 19 00:00:50.06 --> 00:00:53.01 So, just to give you a sense of what I mean by all this 20 00:00:53.01 --> 00:00:56.00 I'll just go ahead and zoom in on my unfilled paths, 21 00:00:56.00 --> 00:00:59.04 and I'll marquee both of these guys here so they're stroked, 22 00:00:59.04 --> 00:01:02.01 they're not filled, they are closed path outlines. 23 00:01:02.01 --> 00:01:03.09 So it's the same square and ring 24 00:01:03.09 --> 00:01:06.05 that we had before, just without a fill. 25 00:01:06.05 --> 00:01:08.08 And now, I'll go ahead and click on a representative 26 00:01:08.08 --> 00:01:12.07 path finder trim, and as you can see, I get an error message 27 00:01:12.07 --> 00:01:16.07 telling me this path finder operation requires filled paths. 28 00:01:16.07 --> 00:01:17.08 And that's the same error message 29 00:01:17.08 --> 00:01:20.07 you're gonna get from merge as well. 30 00:01:20.07 --> 00:01:23.06 Crop will work, technically, but it doesn't do 31 00:01:23.06 --> 00:01:25.07 what it's supposed to, notice that it ends up 32 00:01:25.07 --> 00:01:27.07 giving us back two circles, 33 00:01:27.07 --> 00:01:30.04 and if I ungroup them by pressing Control Shift G, 34 00:01:30.04 --> 00:01:34.05 or Command Shift G on the Mac, and then just tap the D key, 35 00:01:34.05 --> 00:01:36.06 you can see what we have is a compound path 36 00:01:36.06 --> 00:01:40.07 with a circle inside of it but it's no longer a live shape. 37 00:01:40.07 --> 00:01:43.02 So we just kinda wrecked the path outlines. 38 00:01:43.02 --> 00:01:45.02 Alright, so I'll just go ahead and undo back. 39 00:01:45.02 --> 00:01:47.04 I'll be doing a lot of undoing here. 40 00:01:47.04 --> 00:01:50.09 Next comes outline, which does its job except for the 41 00:01:50.09 --> 00:01:54.00 fact that it just gets rid of the strokes. 42 00:01:54.00 --> 00:01:56.06 So if I were to tap the D key, we can see 43 00:01:56.06 --> 00:01:59.04 that everything's here, and I could pick it apart too, 44 00:01:59.04 --> 00:02:02.04 by pressing Control Shift G or Command Shift G on a Mac, 45 00:02:02.04 --> 00:02:05.00 and then just start dragging these guys apart, 46 00:02:05.00 --> 00:02:07.08 and so you can see, we still have the separated paths 47 00:02:07.08 --> 00:02:11.05 just like we did before, it's just that we lost the strokes. 48 00:02:11.05 --> 00:02:14.01 So it's not terrible, just a little bit of inconvenience. 49 00:02:14.01 --> 00:02:15.09 Alright, I'll go ahead and undo that again 50 00:02:15.09 --> 00:02:18.00 in order to put things back together. 51 00:02:18.00 --> 00:02:20.05 And let's try out divide, which works exactly 52 00:02:20.05 --> 00:02:22.05 as it's supposed to, by the way, 53 00:02:22.05 --> 00:02:24.04 and so, if I was to press Control Shift G 54 00:02:24.04 --> 00:02:26.03 or Command Shift G on a Mac, in order 55 00:02:26.03 --> 00:02:29.01 to ungroup these shapes and start moving them apart, 56 00:02:29.01 --> 00:02:32.02 you can see that they are indeed the shapes we were 57 00:02:32.02 --> 00:02:33.09 looking for, and of course we have 58 00:02:33.09 --> 00:02:36.02 Mr. Negative Space as well. 59 00:02:36.02 --> 00:02:38.01 Alright, we'll go ahead and undo all the way back 60 00:02:38.01 --> 00:02:40.08 till we get the original shapes, 61 00:02:40.08 --> 00:02:43.07 and I'll just demonstrate very quickly, 62 00:02:43.07 --> 00:02:46.08 that minus back works exactly as you'd hope it would, 63 00:02:46.08 --> 00:02:50.01 and so do, if I press Control Z or Command Z on a Mac, 64 00:02:50.01 --> 00:02:52.01 so do all of the shape modes, 65 00:02:52.01 --> 00:02:55.09 including, for example, unite, works just great. 66 00:02:55.09 --> 00:02:59.00 Alright, now let's check out what happens with open paths, 67 00:02:59.00 --> 00:03:00.08 if I go ahead and marquee these guys, 68 00:03:00.08 --> 00:03:03.03 both of which are open, as you can see. 69 00:03:03.03 --> 00:03:04.08 Both trim and merge are gonna 70 00:03:04.08 --> 00:03:07.00 do the same things we saw before. 71 00:03:07.00 --> 00:03:09.03 Crop is gonna result in a similar failure 72 00:03:09.03 --> 00:03:11.07 to what we saw before as well. 73 00:03:11.07 --> 00:03:14.03 And then outline is gonna do its standard thing 74 00:03:14.03 --> 00:03:15.07 where it divides all the lines 75 00:03:15.07 --> 00:03:17.04 but it throws away the strokes. 76 00:03:17.04 --> 00:03:19.09 The one that behaves very strangely in this case, 77 00:03:19.09 --> 00:03:22.02 differently than we saw with unfilled paths, 78 00:03:22.02 --> 00:03:25.00 is divide, which just plain fails. 79 00:03:25.00 --> 00:03:28.05 And so you can see here, even if I marquee this region 80 00:03:28.05 --> 00:03:31.09 all I get is these two path outlines right here. 81 00:03:31.09 --> 00:03:33.07 So there's not a bunch of hidden stuff, 82 00:03:33.07 --> 00:03:35.06 or anything like that, it's just that 83 00:03:35.06 --> 00:03:38.05 the operation doesn't perform the way it's supposed to. 84 00:03:38.05 --> 00:03:41.06 However, if I go ahead and undo that, you can see 85 00:03:41.06 --> 00:03:44.09 that minus back works just great except 86 00:03:44.09 --> 00:03:47.02 it does deliver a closed path outline. 87 00:03:47.02 --> 00:03:48.08 That's the thing to bear in mind. 88 00:03:48.08 --> 00:03:53.04 So anytime you apply minus back or any of the shape modes 89 00:03:53.04 --> 00:03:54.09 to unfilled path outlines, 90 00:03:54.09 --> 00:03:57.05 they will deliver closed path outlines, 91 00:03:57.05 --> 00:04:00.07 which I can also demonstrate by clicking on unite, 92 00:04:00.07 --> 00:04:04.07 which produces this very interesting effect, right here. 93 00:04:04.07 --> 00:04:07.07 So, just be aware that many of the path finder operations 94 00:04:07.07 --> 00:04:12.01 do not work with unfilled or open path outlines. 95 00:04:12.01 --> 00:04:16.02 And, if you want my summary here, this would be it. 96 00:04:16.02 --> 00:04:18.08 My favorite path finder operations, the ones I use 97 00:04:18.08 --> 00:04:22.03 on a regular basis, are unite through exclude, up here 98 00:04:22.03 --> 00:04:25.04 in the top row, as well as divide and minus back, 99 00:04:25.04 --> 00:04:29.03 which are the first and last icons in the bottom row. 100 00:04:29.03 --> 00:04:31.07 With the one caveat being that divide 101 00:04:31.07 --> 00:04:35.07 is not gonna serve you well with open path outlines.