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So I have been bashing my head against this for hours now
I made a shape Rasterized it then image traced it because I want to use it for a laser file and need the negitive space. Then I expand it and copy paste it then un group it and try to change the colours of the individual lines and they wont change individually. All the lines change. I have deselected and re selected tried cutting lines and breaking the shape nothing works I do not know what I need to click on to make this happen but I am out of ideas. ( I can individualy edit lines but the colour still changes everything)
A feature that could be handy for you is the Live Paint Bucket tool. To use it on your illustration, select all objects. Use the Live Paint Bucket to select a color and fill areas with that color. In order to change the color of strokes or lines (which is not the default), double-click the Live Paint Bucket tool in the Tools panel to change it's settings.
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Tara,
I doubt whether you really needed to rasterize, and it may have complicated the task, in addition to inevitably lowering the quality.
Can you show what you started with, and which parts you wish to have in different colours?
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I am not understanding your workflow process. Can you explain why you went from a vector to a raster back to a vector. It seems that that is where your problems start. Why can't you just start with the vector and go from there?
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I dont know how to get the lines I need just keeping it in the vector format.
Im pretty new to this. I had put together a bunch of compound shapes and different thickness lines and this was the only way I could think to get an outline of all of it.
I am drawing the black lines but I need the white spaces outlined basically so I can use a laser cutter to cut these out. If you look at the picture. the image on the right is what I have drawn but the one on the left are the lines I need but they have to be different colours to define cut order for the laser.
but when I select one of those like shapes say the one in the middle and change the colour. Everything changes not jsut the path I have selected. dosent matter if I select individual points or path segments or groups it still all changes.
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Ok so I have 2 pictures here. The first is the shape I made the second is the lines I want that I got to by bucket filling in pieces and then playing with it using the rasterize and trace tool. highlighted is one of the line segments I want to change but when I try to change jsut that piece everything changes colour. Im also game for another way to get to those lines but I have no idea
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A feature that could be handy for you is the Live Paint Bucket tool. To use it on your illustration, select all objects. Use the Live Paint Bucket to select a color and fill areas with that color. In order to change the color of strokes or lines (which is not the default), double-click the Live Paint Bucket tool in the Tools panel to change it's settings.
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Thank you. This seems really usefull
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You can cut a hole out using Pathfinder, as one way to do it. For a simple example, starting with this shape.
Select it and Object > Path > Offset Path.
Select the inner shape. Cut it and Edit > Paste in Front.
Select both shapes and click second icon in Pathfinder.
I put a shape behind to show the cutout.
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Tara,
I believe you may be happier if you start over and get rid of the Compound Shapes (you can Release them), then show us what you have with the Layer expanded enough (in the Layers palette), enough meaning that we can see the different objects, so Groups may need to be expanded as well.
Also, you may like the Shape Builder Tool: maybe that is all you need to work with once you are rid of the Compound Shapes. If you need the outlines of thick stroked paths, you may Object>Path>Outline Stroke (and Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+G to Ungroup) and Release the Compound Path (and switch from fill to stroke) to have the outer and inner paths as stroked paths.
For the Shape Builder you can have a look here and/or here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/creating-shapes-shape-builder-tool.html
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/atv/cs5-tutorials/creating-complex-art-with-the-shape-builder-to...
Always set a copy of the original artwork aside before you start destroying it.
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Thank you for the suggestions already the outlines of stroked paths sounds like it will make this a lot easier. This is my piece after I released compound shapes and expanded all the layers. I got this shape to start by making a symbol of a triangle and rotating it arround to make the shape and editing it as one to be copied on all of them. then I broke them appart and used the line joining tool to join the points.