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connorv53462612
Participating Frequently
June 4, 2018
Answered

Illustrator - Layer via cut? (SVG <g> Group)

  • June 4, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 2986 views

As a Photoshop user I'm frustrated coming to Illustrator where I must work because of the SVG features.

I have a .ai file that is all hand drawn graphics (using a tablet type device) so imagine pencil doodles but on a transparent background. Most of the doodles aren't connected but are a bunch of tiny, separate drawings, so for instance one area has a bunch of hearts on it. For some reason, all of the hearts are one ?object?(I don't want to use this terminology wrong) so that if I click on one heart it puts a big blue box around all of them, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of "path" that shows up on the line itself.

But in another area of the drawing, there's "confetti" (just a bunch of tiny lines) and I can select every single piece of confetti, plus it shows a thin blue line & says "path" in tiny text.

What I want is to make the hearts (which are acting like one big conjoined object) act more like the confetti. I looked at the layers & sure enough there is 1 layer for every piece of "confetti" so like 500 layers, but for the hearts there just seems to be one. In Photoshop I could simply draw a rectangle marquee over the heart & select "layer via cut" & I would be good to go, but I have no idea how I can select these individual hearts.

I need to do this so I have greater control of what is being saved... I want Illustrator to save this file as hundreds of SVG's(Assets) rather than one. I know what I'm asking is very simple, I'm just new & I can't find any information on this. Believe me I've tried but part of the problem is I'm not sure how to even word what I'm trying to ask

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Correct answer jane-e

Well, now you know what you are working with! It's possible they used Photoshop to create the hearts. When you zoom in, do you see pixels? If yes, it's raster.

If you look at it in Outline View (View menu), you will see a rectangle for an image.

  • You could use Image Trace to try to trace them into paths, which may or may not work.

  • You could put them on a locked layer and draw with the Pen (or Pencil) tool on top of them to get new paths.

  • You could work on it in Photoshop, but I think SVG wants vector.

Does it have to be identical to the original? If not, you can just draw them freeform and even copy some, then rotate, scale, and flip to make them look different. It looks like the hearts were drawn freeform originally.

In the control panel, does it tell you the name of the image?

2 replies

jane-e
Community Expert
jane-eCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 5, 2018

connorv53462612  wrote

but I have no idea how I can select these individual hearts.

Illustrator will tell you what you are working with (in several places). Look, for example, in the far left of the Control panel if it is open or the upper right of the Properties panel if you are using the Essentials Workspace.

When you click a heart, and they all get selected, does it say path (not likely), compound path, group, or something else?

You might be able to double-click with your Selection tool to go into isolation mode to select individual hearts. Watch your Layers panel and the upper left hand corner when you do this. For instance, you could possibly have nested groups, and you'll see this.

Escape will exit Isolation mode.

C
connorv53462612Author
Participating Frequently
June 5, 2018

In the Properties panel it says image! When the other layers are showing up as "anchor points". Why is this happening? Including some photos here:

That's what shows when I click on ANY of the hearts to the right... It's obviously one large 'selection'(Im from Photoshop & awful at Illustrator). Also notice that it says Image in the properties pane.

Here's what the other stuff shows when I click on it, which would be much nicer & the end goal here because I can save each and every one of these little pieces as separate SVG "assets" when using the export pane:

I made the image much smaller but you can see it also shows up as an Anchor Point here but it does not if I try to click the hearts.

So I'm guessing what's happening here is that this AI file was made with an image dropped into it rather than kept as anchor points(?) is there any way for me to just cut these out, so that I could set each one to a different layer(and therefore have it save as a separate SVG asset)? It doesn't even have to be a super clean selection because the background is just transparent, so if I could just draw even a square around these that would suffice.

jane-e
Community Expert
jane-eCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
June 5, 2018

Well, now you know what you are working with! It's possible they used Photoshop to create the hearts. When you zoom in, do you see pixels? If yes, it's raster.

If you look at it in Outline View (View menu), you will see a rectangle for an image.

  • You could use Image Trace to try to trace them into paths, which may or may not work.

  • You could put them on a locked layer and draw with the Pen (or Pencil) tool on top of them to get new paths.

  • You could work on it in Photoshop, but I think SVG wants vector.

Does it have to be identical to the original? If not, you can just draw them freeform and even copy some, then rotate, scale, and flip to make them look different. It looks like the hearts were drawn freeform originally.

In the control panel, does it tell you the name of the image?

Omar.Fathy
Community Expert
Omar.FathyCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 4, 2018

Make sure that:

- All of your objects are Unlocked by pressing Ctrl+Alt+2 or  Object>Unlock All
- Double click your object more times with Selection Tool  (Dark Arrow) till you get it selected. (it may be in a group or compound paths)

Note: Ctrl+Y will change your preview to outlines. As long as objects paths appears, you can select, copy and cut it.
then you can press Ctrl+Y to back to normal mode.

C
connorv53462612Author
Participating Frequently
June 5, 2018

Thanks for your reply. I have made sure that all of my objects are unlocked (Unlock all is greyed out. I selected "lock selection" and then hit Unlock all just for good measure)

I try double, triple, or 10+ clicks with the selection tool and the direct selection tool but it's super clear that the "group" or whatever is much bigger than than what I can click - the blue selection rectangle encompasses like 20 of the items I'm trying to select. Basically I need to separate these into smaller "groups" of one, so that they export as individual assets in the export pane...

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 5, 2018

Please show screenshots of the artwork and the layers panel.

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