- [Voiceover] In this movie we'll talk about stacking order.
Which is, quite simply, the order in which
individual objects and entire layers are stacked
from the back of your illustration all the way to the front.
So, let's say my text layer is selected,
which is currently at the top of the stack.
And I decide to switch to the Blob Brush.
Which, if you went ahead and customized your shortcuts
along with me back in chapter 11 of the Fundamentals Course,
has a short cut of B for brush.
All right, so I've made my cursor pretty big
by pressing the right bracket key a few times.
And now let's say I just decide to paint
a random brushstroke, and it appears in black.
All right, now I'm gonna switch to a different color.
Let's say this shade of green right here,
doesn't really matter.
Press the Enter key,
and then I'll paint a new brushstroke.
And notice the new one appears in front of the old one.
So every time you draw something in Illustrator
it's appearing at the top of the stack.
But that doesn't mean it's the top object
in your entire document.
And so, this time I'm gonna switch to yellow, let's say,
and now I'll draw a really big brushstroke like so,
and it appears in front of the text
because I'm working on the text layer.
Compare that to what happens if I go ahead
and undo that brushstroke,
and I instead switch to the head layer right here,
and I again paint my brushstroke.
It looks like I'm painting over the text,
but as soon as I release, it goes behind the text.
And that's because you're always working
within the confines of the active layer.
And so now, if I were to switch to, let's say
this shade of purple right here,
and then paint yet another brushstroke.
It's going to initially, as I'm painting it,
appear to be at the very front of the document.
But as soon as I release,
it resolves as being at the top of the active layer.
So in other words, in front of the yellow brushstroke,
but in back of the text.
You can, however, change the stacking order
any time you like by pressing the V key
to switch back to the black arrow tool
up here at the top of the tool box.
And then select the object
that you wanna send backward or forward.
And right click anywhere inside the document window.
You don't have to right click on the object itself.
Then, drop down to Arrange,
and notice that you have these various options to work with.
Starting with Bring to Front, and ending with Send to Back.
So let's say I choose Bring to Front.
That's gonna bring the object
to the front of the active layer.
So it's not gonna move it from the head layer
to any other layer.
If I wanted that to happen I would have to do so manually
by dragging that little square
up or down the stack, like so.
Of course, that's not what I want.
So, I'll press Ctrl + Z, or Cmd + Z on the Mac,
to undo that change.
The thing you really wanna know
about Bring to Front or Send to Back,
besides their, I think, fairly obvious meanings.
If I go ahead choose Send to Back,
I will send this object to the back of the active layer.
Which is too far back, as you can see right here,
because I've moved his face back
behind this little edge right there.
So what I'd need to do is right click, once again,
anywhere inside the document window.
Choose a range and choose Bring Forward,
in order to nudge that guy forward.
That is not to the front of the stack,
but just one object forward inside this layer.
Now, a lot of folks will caution you, you know what,
you don't ever wanna use those options.
Instead, what you wanna do is do a cut.
Followed by either a Paste in Front or a Paste in Back.
Because that way you're changing the stacking order
relative to the existing document.
And so, I might do that.
I'll go ahead and choose cut.
Or you can press Ctrl + X, or Cmd + X on the Mac.
And then, I might click on an object that,
obviously, the face needs to be behind.
And then, I'll go up to Edit menu and choose Paste in Back.
Or I can press Ctrl + B, or Cmd + B on the Mac.
But, that doesn't really do the trick for us.
That puts things in the wrong location.
And my experience over time has been,
the more complicated your document becomes,
the less you can afford to rely on Paste in Front
and Paste in Back.
Which is why these relative options here,
Right click, Arrange, Bring Forward and Send Backward
have their own keyboard shortcuts
that I really urge you to memorize.
They're Ctrl or Cmd, depending on your platform,
and one of the square bracket keys.
And these are the keys just to the right
of the P as in Paul key on an American keyboard.
So Ctrl + right bracket is going to bring
the object forward.
Ctrl + left bracket,
that would be Cmd + left bracket on the Mac,
is gonna send it backward.
Again, one object.
If you wanna send it all the way back.
All I'm doing, by the way,
is repeating the keyboard shortcuts
that you can see for yourself inside of this submenu.
But if you wanna send things all the way to back
you would press Ctrl + Shift + left bracket,
that's Cmd + Shift + left bracket on a Mac.
To send it all the way forward,
press Ctrl + Shift or Cmd + Shift + right bracket.
Now, I've really messed things up, of course,
so what I'm gonna do is send it all the way back,
which is Ctrl or Cmd + Shift + left bracket,
and then I'm gonna nudge it forward just one object
by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + right bracket,
and that ends up being the proper location
for this specific object.
All right, you can also adjust
the stacking order of entire layers.
And you do that just by dragging and dropping layers
here inside the Layers panel.
So notice if I drag the body layer
in front of the head layer,
I get this effect here.
I could drag the aura layer all the way up
so it's covering up these two layers.
You can also move multiple layers at a time.
So let's say I wanna grab both the body layer
and the head layer.
I click on one, Shift + click on the other,
and then drag them and drop them above the aura layer.
A couple of things to be careful about,
obviously, at this point, I need the head layer
to be in front of the body layer.
But, notice what happens if I drag it
and then drop it in the middle.
I will go ahead and drop the head layer
inside the body layer, at which point,
notice it disappeared,
I have to twirl open the body layer to find the head layer,
which is now a sublayer inside the body layer.
Now, I'm not a big fan of sub-layers.
I think you're better off working inside groups
if you're looking for yet another container
inside of a layer.
And one of the big reasons is, notice how I've gone
and messed up the coloring of all the objects
inside the body layer.
They are now gold like the head layer.
Which is not what I want.
So, I'm just gonna drag this head layer
and drop it out in between the text and body layers.
And now, it exists as a separate layer
in the proper stacking order inside this illustration.
The color of the objects inside the body layer
are still messed up and you can fix that by twirling closed
that body layer and then twirling it back open.
At which point, everything should look correct again.
All right, another thing to bear in mind
is that layers span artboards inside of Illustrator.
So if I go ahead and switch over to this document.
Notice that I've changed the coloring scheme
of that Wizard of Oz excerpt
from chapter eight of the Fundamentals Course.
And I've also added some coloring inside the Scarecrow
that exists on this green layer right here.
Now obviously, if I accidentally drag and drop
this guy above the Tin man layer,
I'm gonna notice that,
and I'm gonna think "Okay, that was wrong."
So, I'll just grab the Tin Man layer
and put him on top of the green layer,
and everything's the way it should be.
Well, this document contains multiple artboards.
And so, if I were to press Shift + page down
in order to advance to the second artboard,
everything's gonna look fine.
But if I press Shift + page down again,
I'm gonna see that my green fill
now exists in front of the Scarecrow.
And of course, the solution in that case
is to grab the Scarecrow layer
and drag it and drop it above the green layer, like so.
And that, friends, is my whirlwind tour
of everything related to stacking order.
Whether we're talking about objects inside of a layer
or entire layers with respect to each other.
Here, inside Illustrator.