Gradient From Art Tool

Tool Location and Cursors

The Gradient From Art tool appears in Illustrator’s main toolbar (which must be in Advanced mode: View > Toolbars > Advanced), stacked under the AG Color Select tool. As with other stacked tools, click and hold on the top tool icon to display the tools stacked under it.

Gradient From Art Tool Location

The Gradient From Art tool’s primary cursor is a crosshair, which can have badges; there is an additional form when moving a sampling line node or segment:

Gradient From Art Tool Cursors

Tool Operation

As the Gradient From Art tool has several keypresses for certain operations, we suggest installing the free Astute Graphics plugin Astute Buddy, which creates a panel that dynamically updates to inform you of the various keys which can be pressed in the tool’s current context.

The Gradient From Art tool is works in conjunction with the associated Gradient From Art panel, which should be open and accessible. If you are using the free Astute Graphics plugin DirectPrefs, you can have the Gradient From Art panel automatically be shown when the Gradient From Art tool is selected.

Note: For clarity, some of the images in this manual show a sampling line on an empty part of the artboard, but this is not particularly useful as it would simply create a gradient which is all transparent or all white. In reality, the line would always be created above actual artwork.

Creating a sampling line with the Gradient From Art tool is like creating a straight segment-only path with the native Pen tool: the cursor is clicked at the desired locations on the artboard to create nodes (visualized as small circles), which the sampling line passes through. After the first node is placed, a “rubberband” will follow the cursor previewing the next segment location. Holding down Shift constrains the new segment to 45° angles around the general constrain angle.

Gradient From Art Tool Sampling Line Creation

To place the last node, press the Option/Alt key while clicking to create it:

Gradient From Art Tool Sampling Line Creation Example 2

The sampling line can also be ended by pressing the Esc key while the cursor is moving. However, it is not strictly necessary to manually end the sampling line, as this will happen automatically when a different tool is selected.

Because single segment (two-node) sampling lines are commonly drawn, clicking-and-dragging, by default, will automatically end the line with the single segment.

To continue a sampling line which was previously terminated, click on either end node; the rubberband will become active again and the line can be continued. If it is the starting node that was clicked, the sampling line reverses itself.

Gradient From Art Tool Restart Line

Nodes or segments can be moved by dragging them (the cursor changes to a solid, tail-less arrowhead); pressing Shift constrains the motion to 45° angles around the general constrain angle. Nodes can be deleted by Option/Alt-clicking on them (the cursor shows a minus sign), and a new node may be added along an existing segment by Option/Alt-clicking on the segment (the cursor shows a plus sign).

A new sampling line may be started in two ways. If the current line is complete (not in the process of being drawn), then simply clicking anywhere other than on the existing line will begin a new line. If the current line is still being drawn, and the tool preference Dragging Starts New Line is enabled (the default), then dragging the cursor will clear the current line and start a new one.

The sampling line may be deleted without starting a new one by Option/Alt-clicking a blank area of the canvas. All changes made to the sampling line are affected by the normal undo and redo operations.