In the case of our example, only the main shape of the fruit remains. You will only maintain the elements that were at the back of the composition. Therefore, by applying the Minus Front tool, we have made these elements disappear. In the case of our example, the shadows and the leaves were in front of the composition. The Minus Front tool deletes all the elements that are in front of the illustration.

You can get the same effect by selecting all the elements and pressing Alt/Option in your keyboard. After unifying, you will have an element that keeps the features of the original shapes. The figure will have the last color you have selected in the swatches panel. The Unite Tool turns all the elements from your illustration into one figure. Keep reading to find out more information about each tool. Let’s explain them with more detail in the next paragraphs.

Pathfinders make your objects interact to generate new shapes. Shape Modes allow you to decide how do you want your objects to interact among themselves. The Pathfinder menu offers two types of tools: Shape Modes and Pathfinders. If you hover over the icon with the mouse, you will see the message “More Options.” Click the three dots to see all the tools. To see all the options, press the three small dots on the right side. Otherwise, it will appear as an independent window that you can drag and drop wherever you want. The Pathfinder menu should appear on the right side of your screen (where you can find the Properties panel). The keyboard shortcut to Pathfinder is SHIFT + CTRL + 9. To see the Pathfinder menu, go to Window > Pathfinder. The purpose of the exercise is to be able to make them interact and modify each other. To use the tools of the Pathfinder menu, you need to select every element of your drawing. After we use the different tools, the aspect of the fruit and its leaves will change in different ways. Pay attention to the image below: this is the original disposition of the elements. We hope you find it useful!įor this tutorial, we have started by drawing a simple illustration with some overlapping shapes. Take this article as a guide and start experimenting with your drawings. We’ll also explain every tool that you can find on this interface. In today’s post, we are going to explain how to display the Pathfinder menu. Most of these tools are included in the Pathfinder menu. The software provides some useful tools to help you with this process. Discover how to create new shapes and compositions.Īdobe Illustrator allows you to turn simple paths and shapes into elaborated drawings.

Pathfinder tool adobe illustrator