Color Fill , F keys, actions

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
April 5, 2024
4 replies
1006 views

So i know when using the magic wand tool in order to select an area to fill. you then have to expand, fill, then deselect. I have been on some discussions of illustrators talking about using the F keys for this. Is there another way to do it rather than option or command and delete for foreground or background fill. what were these F keys that they said thats how all professional illustrators do their coloring anf fills...? Also do people have actions built that have it so you can just select with wand or lasso or any selection tool and use a key command to run the entire action of doing that. if so is there download links to install the actions. to have. I know there is a way to do it myself, but was just asking if there any places with a bunch of helpful things like that already made for conveneince. Thank you.

macOS

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Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Something to remember with shortcuts is that you can save them with cuctom workspaces, so you can keep the defaults with one of the default workspaces. I use three of the function keys to trigger actions that select and reset my three main workspaces. The reset is import because we are forever dragging panels around, and the reset tidies things up.

Unless you have a single small screen, like a notebook or small laptop, the function key defaults are completely wasted IMO. Being able perform a function, or better still, a series of functions, can become addictive. I find that even using the F keys with modifiers (Shift and Ctrl are options for running actions) is easy because the F keys seem aso accessible despite what c.p says.

The Function key defaults. F1 is hard wired of course.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

I have been on some discussions of illustrators talking about using the F keys for this. Is there another way to do it rather than option or command and delete for foreground or background fill. what were these F keys that they said thats how all professional illustrators do their coloring..,

By @Dylan Simic Kaminsky

Actions can use Function key shortcuts, however they are not always finger friendly.

Installed scripts can have alternative keyboard shortcuts assigned via Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts which might be easier on the fingers or muscle memory.

The process that is used in the action can be created as script steps, or a one line script can simply be used to run an action via the script keyboard shortcut.

D

Dylan Simic KaminskyAuthor

Known Participant

which way do you recommend? as definetely want one shortcut to create a new layer and clip mask it. and another key shortcut to expand selected area, fill, and deselect. I think this would speed up workflow. do you have any like this

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Could you please post screenshots to clarify in your scenario and what kinds of illustration you are talking about?

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

I suspect there may be offerings, some probably even free.

But as for »these F keys that they said thats how all professional illustrators do their coloring anf fills« I would be wary.

»all« of any group like illustrators doing something the same way? I’d be surprised.

Recording the Action/s seems easy and deciding which f-keys to assign to them is something you should do yourself anyway, in my opinion.

With time you may decide to reorganize the shortcuts depending on the frequency with which you need to invoke them and the ease of reaching the keys on the keyboard.

Please make sure to save both the atn- and kys-files and back them up (as one should do for all custom presets).

That way you can easily transport them if you should need to work on another computer for whatever reason.

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Dylan Simic KaminskyAuthor

Known Participant

thank you so much! ok so for the select expand fill deselect. I just record myself and then can assign the key. and I saw it in an adobe forum somewhere on here about the F keys and I was confused as to which actions they were talking about as didnt give any detail. and as you said to rope in and say all illustrators work that way doesnt make sense as through all of my youtube and domestika tutorials i havent seen that yet. and I have never done my own recoding of action myself yet. I assume its a simple process. and so i need to save the script and the action file? also was hoping maybe you could help me with another post I had a quesiton on. This comic colorer was going over flattening. and was flattening all colors on one layer. So you se the lasso tool goes outside of the hair but whemn he filled it was inside of the hair layer. As he already went around the hair and body wiht one layer before. But he said the settings to be able to do this were at the top of the screen but I couldnt see anthing. Do you have any idea how hes doing this? I also attached the full video as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Qg6Svszy0