Newbie paintbrush question - How to paint within the lines

[Aspirin99]

I am an absolute new user of Illustrator. I've been using Photoshop for years... anyway...

I've drawn a tree and I want to change the color along some of the edges. I set my fill to zero and I'm just using the stroke color. How can I paint along the edge and force it to stay within the border?

If this is a common task, what section of the manual/help file should I read? I can't find it. THanks.

 

[Sheri99]

In Illustrator, a path can be filled and/or stroked. The fill and the stroke can be using various styles or brushes that will effect how they appear. Its not like painting in Photoshop. On the tools palette where you would see foreground and background colors in Photoshop, you see the default fill and and stroke in Illustrator. To change the stroke, you would first use path select tools to choose lines, curves, shapes, etc you want to be affected. Then you would select the stroke in palette and make it the color you want. Finally, to be able to see the stroke you would need to change the stroke weight of the paths to at least 1 pixel. The stroke weight of the selected paths can be changed from the stroke palette. Checkmark "Stroke" from the Windows menu to make this palette visible.

I think it would be helpful to read from the help file the sections which appear when you click Help - Tutorials (at least in the CS version). Or try some separate books and tutorials. Its not a program you can easily learn without instruction and practice. I learned from older version of the Adobe Classroom in a Book but have already forgotten most of it due to lack of practice and use.

Sheri

 

[Aspirin99]

Thanks. I think I understand.