Each week you will need to respond to two questions posted. Your response should be a minimum of 150 words for both questions. You should also include at least one response to your fellow students. The responses are a requirement for participation part of your grade.
Question 01 –
Describe how to use the divide tool. What happens to the overlapping areas?
Question 02 –
What choices can you make when using the Blend Mode Options?
Question 01 –
Describe how to use the divide tool. What happens to the overlapping areas?
Select the objects you want to divide or you can just press control and A at the same time. Then, look for windows on your left corner of the screen, and scroll down to pathfinder. When the areas are overlapped, you could cut it by using the divide tool and make it into more shapes.
The overlapping areas
Question 02 –
What choices can you make when using the Blend Mode Options?
There’s plenty of choices you can make when using the Blend Mode Options, normal default mode, dissolve mode, darken mode, color burn mode, lighten mode, overlay mode, hard mix mode, soft light mode, vivid light mode, clear mode, etc. My favorite mode is the color burn mode because it darkens the base color, and that makes the contrast stand out more, which I find really cool.
Question 01 –
Describe how to use the divide tool. What happens to the overlapping areas?
First I select the shapes that i want to divide then get the pathfinder tool choose the divide button and divide the shap I want. overlapping areas separated into individual shapes.
Question 02 –
What choices can you make when using the Blend Mode Options?
We can choose how colors blend adjust and control layer interactions for different effects.
Question 01 –
Describe how to use the divide tool. What happens to the overlapping areas?
The divide tool in Illustrator allows you to cut and separate an existing combined shape into other shapes with the help of lines. To access this tool, we can go to Windows, then Pathfinder, and the popup for Pathfinder should show. An alternative method to access the popup would be to use the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+F9. Within that window, the first icon under Pathfinders will be the divide tool. First select the overlapping objects you wish to divide and then use the tool. The resulting area that forms from the overlapping becomes a new shape.
Question 02 –
What choices can you make when using the Blend Mode Options?
Blending modes in Illustrator allow you to control how the objects’ visuals interact on different layers. Some of the many choices include Multiply, Color Burn, Screen, Soft Light, Difference, Saturation, and Luminosity. All the options from the dropdown can affect how the layering of the selected objects look. To access this function, we can go to Window, and scroll down to select Transparency. Alternatively, the shortcut to this is Ctrl+Shift+F10.
To divide a form by another shape in Illustrator, use the Divide Tool (Window > Pathfinder). The overlapping area is divided into several portions according to the overlapping shapes when two overlapping shapes are selected and the Divide Tool is used. Where the original shapes overlap, a number of additional shapes are produced as a result. Using Illustrator’s Divide Tool, overlapping sections of shapes split into new shapes according to each shape’s contour. This implies that when two shapes partially overlap, the overlapping area between them will be represented by a new shape.
As for the options that you can make using the Blend Mode Options. There are several but I like to use three of them the most. They are described as follows: Normal: In this blend mode, which is the default one, objects don’t interact with one another based on color. The thing at the top fully encloses the object at the bottom. Multiply: This blend mode produces a deeper color by multiplying the color values of overlapping objects. It is frequently used to produce deep, rich colors and shadows. Overlay: This blend style preserves highlights and shadows while boosting contrast by combining the Multiply and Screen blend modes. It helps give an illustration more depth or texture. There is also Screen, Color dodge, Color burn, Hue, Saturation, etc.
I like how you explained a few of the blending modes in detail! It’s proof you interact with them quite often, and so you’re familiar with their effects.
Question 01 –
Contrary to what “divide tool” implies, it is not one of the tools in your toolbar. Instead, you’ll be able to find it under Window > Pathfinder. This is because the divide tool is one of the methods that will help in making new shapes. Here’s what I mean: Before using the divide tool, you must have two shapes, preferably one smaller than the other. Next, overlap the small shape onto the bigger one, and then in the Pathfinder panel, there should be an option for “Divide” if you hover your mouse over the different icons under Pathfinders. This will cut the overlapping shapes into different segments according the edges of the shapes now giving you multiple pieces! Among the Pathfinder tools, there are many other options that will also cut your shapes into plenty of other shapes as well.
Question 02 –
Like the Pathfinders, you can also find the Blend Mode Options under the Transparent panel by activating it from the Windows tab. In the Transparency panel, there should be a dropdown menu that says “Normal”, so simply open it and you will be given a whole list of different Blend Mode Options. These are: Normal, Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, Lighten, Screen, Color Dodge, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Difference, Exclusion, Hue, Saturation, Color, and Luminosity. A lot!
I completely agree with your response to both questions! Great job on explaining question one especially, it was really difficult for me to word but you did it perfectly! Woohoo Richard!
Hello Richard! thank you for providing such insightful explanation. I barely used this Illustrator tool before but reading your responses (especially for question two) hast taught me about the names of the other options for the Blend Mode. Awesome!
Thanks Richard for your response, it’s well answered and it’s literally like giving us a visual tutorial in our heads.
Question 01 – Describe how to use the divide tool. What happens to the overlapping areas?
When using the divide tool you want to first open up the Pathfinder! This can be found in the windows drop down menu > pathfinder. The option to divide should be on the bottom left. Next you would want to overlap 2 or more shapes. Once you’ve made all the shapes you want/need you would just select all (Control A / Command A) and then CMD/CTRL G to group (technically you don’t have to group everything, it just makes it easier.); If you were to click divide on the pathfinder now the overlapped shapes would have a separate shape on every part that is outside the base shape (for example, if you have a small rectangle below a large star, the points of the star would likely be separate shapes after dividing). Now if you use the direct select shape tool on the outer shapes that you just created, you would be able to delete or even move them (and much more!).
Question 02 – What choices can you make when using the Blend Mode Options?
Firstly to gain access to the Blend Mode Options, you would select the windows option to open up the drop down menu again from here select transparency. From here the choices you can make when using the Blend Mode Options consist of: Normal, Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, Lighten, Screen, Color Dodge, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Difference, Exclusion, Hue, Saturation, Color, and lastly Luminosity. As you can see there’s is tons of variety when it comes to picking something within the blend mode options.
Hi Raesa! I love how you also listed the shortcut command keys as well! It’s never not helpful to not learn about the different shortcuts to make our work easier.