Please read my post before responding, not just the title. I'm more used to the way the pen tool works in Photoshop than in Illustrator and I want to know if what I'm trying to do is possible.
In Photoshop, if I draw a line with the pen tool (one anchor point to the other) and I later decide I want to curve that line, I can do that easily by adding another point to the line.
If I hold CTRL when I click to drag the point, which turns the pen tool into a direct selection tool, it curves the line where I drag it like SAMPLE A. If I don't hold CTRL when I click to drag the point, it instead curves up from the the ends like SAMPLE B.
SAMPLE A is what I want to do with the pen tool in AI.
BUT in Illustrator, if I try to do the same thing with the pen tool, adding a point then clicking CTRL and dragging it, it doesn't curve the line. It brings it to a sharp point like SAMPLE C. Only if I double click and drag the point with the curvature tool does it curve the way I want like SAMPLE D.
Double clicking the anchor point to switch the line between curved and straight only seems to work with the curvature tool. I'm manually tracing over my old sketches and I'm not going to constantly switch back and forth between pen and curvature.
I know I can click and drag as I create points to curve lines with the pen tool. That's not the kind of curving I want. I specifically want to be able to curve an already completed line in a path after the fact in the way I've shown.
I've already read Adobe articles like this one: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/how-to/draw-edit-curves.html. I've already watched videos. They don't seem to answer the direct question: Can I get the regular pen tool to behave like it does in PS?
If not, I'll do the tracing in PS and export the paths to AI instead and only use AI when I'm drawing something new.
Thanks!
3
Replies
AdChoices