Learning the Basics of the Illustrator Pen Tool

[Treehouse presents] 0:00 [Quick Tips][Learning the Basics of the Pen Tool in Adobe Illustrator][with Mat Helme] 0:02 Hey, what's up—Mat Helme here with a Treehouse Quick Tip: 0:06 Learning the basics with the Pen tool in Adobe Illustrator CS6. 0:09 To begin, let's grab the Pen tool from the Tools Panel and drag out all of the Pen tools. 0:13 You can do this by selecting the Pen tool, 0:18 selecting the drag-out arrow, 0:21 and then positioning the Pen tools. 0:25 Now, by default, we've grabbed the Pen tool, 0:28 so with the Pen tool, let's make sure we have no stroke and a solid color for a fill. 0:30 Let's create 4 points with the 4th point meeting our original point. 0:38 Now you can see that we've created a shape with the Pen tool. 0:43 Now, say if I want to add a point to this object, 0:47 I can do this by grabbing the Add Anchor Point, selecting it, and then selecting the path to our object. 0:50 Now you can clearly see that there are 5 points. 0:57 When I grab the Selection tool, I can grab that 5th point, drag it out, and alter our object. 1:01 Now say if I want this object to only have 3 points, 1:07 I could then grab the Delete Anchor Point tool and delete 2 of the points, 1:09 thus leaving us with 3 points in our object. 1:16 Now say if we want our object to have curves to it; 1:21 we can do this by using the Convert Anchor Point tool. 1:23 Select one of the points, hold down, and drag out; 1:29 this creates a Bézier curve. 1:34 Now when you hold Shift, it'll actually straighten out your point. 1:39 Let's go ahead and delete that object, grab the Pen tool— 1:46 you can use a shortcut by simply selecting 'P'— 1:50 press and hold down and drag out, and you can see that this point now has a Bézier curve. 1:53 Release, now make another point directly below it and—again—drag out. 1:59 You can see we've made another Bézier curve. 2:08 Now if I want to get rid of that, 2:10 I can simply select Alt, select that point, 2:13 and get rid of the Bézier curve on the left side, 2:16 thus making this a straight line. 2:20 Now, this works the same with a Bézier curve. 2:25 Again, if I use the Pen tool, select and drag out, and again make another point, select and drag out, 2:29 I can now take the Alt key and grab the handle to that Bézier curve and then alter it. 2:37 Like so. 2:48 Now with using the Pen tool, I can also hold Shift and make straight lines or at a 45-degree angle; 2:52 this comes in handy—say—if you're trying to make a house icon. 2:57 I would select with the Pen tool, hold Shift, go straight, make another point, go directly above it while holding Shift, 3:01 select another point and—again—still holding shift the whole time, creating our object. 3:10 While holding Shift throughout the whole object, 3:28 you can see that it makes perfect lines. 3:30 That—my friends—is how you use the Pen tool in Adobe Illustrator CS6. 3:35

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