Copying and pasting a custom shape

- [Instructor] All right so we're starting this movie in Photoshop, where I'm going to show you how to copy one of your several 100 custom path outlines and then paste it into illustrator. And so the first thing you want to do is make sure that Photoshop is set up to export its clipboard. And you do that here on the PC, by going to the edit menu and dropping down to the preferences command. If you're working on a Mac, you want to go to the Photoshop menu and drop down to the preferences command, which is not nearly so low in the menu, and then choose general, which has a keyboard shortcut of control K, or command K on the Mac. And that's your cut has the same function inside illustrator and InDesign. All right, so I'll go ahead and choose that command. And then you want to make sure that this checkbox right here export clipboard is turned on then click OK. And then you want to go up to the window menu and choose the shapes command to bring up the shapes panel and you can work with any shape you like. I'm going to go ahead and twirl open the Cactus group right here, and I'll select this very first guy shape 385 as its name, and I'll drag it and drop it into the image window. And then I'll go ahead and hide the shapes panel. So I have a little more room to work. Now notice that Photoshop is named as new shape layer, shaped 385 one because it's the first occurrence of that shape. All right, now I'm invited to scale the shape if I like by dragging any of these handles. All right, now go up to the edit menu and notice that the copy command is dimmed and that's because I haven't really placed the shape yet. So I'm going to go ahead and escape out of there and I'll press the enter key or the return key on the Mac and notice that dismisses that transformation boundary. All right, now go ahead and switch to the black arrow tool. The one that illustrator calls the path selection tool, and you should see a bunch of anchor points. If not, just go ahead and click on that shape to select it. Now you want to go up to the edit menu and choose the copy command, which has a keyboard shortcut of Control C here on a PC or Command C on the Mac. Now switch over to illustrator and then go up to the edit menu and choose the pace command or press Control V or Command V on the Mac. Now if your paste command is dimmed here in illustrator, then you've encountered a problem that I'm prepared to solve in the next movie. But for now, I'll just choose the pace command. And most likely illustrator is going to ask you how you want to pace the path outline as a compound shape or a Compound Path. Now this option in my opinion is very misleading. A Compound Shape in this regard is no more editable than a compound path. So just go ahead and select the latter option and click OK. In order to pace that path outline most likely the path is all you'll see, that is to say it won't have a feel or a stroke. And so I'm going to go ahead and click on the fill swatch over here in the Properties panel. You can also find that swatch in the horizontal control panel, if it's available on screen. And then I'll just go ahead and change the color to white and I'll press the enter key or the return key on the Mac to dismiss that panel. Now notice that my bounding box is turned off. If you're seeing a rectangular bounding box, then go up to the view menu and choose this command, which will read hide bounding box. If it reads show bounding box, then it's already turned off. All right, so armed with my black arrow tool up here at the top of the toolbox, which illustrator calls the selection tool. I'll just press control zero or commands zero on a Mac so that I can see my black art-board along with the red bleed boundary. And so I'll go ahead and drag this bottom right anchor point until it snaps into alignment with the bottom right corner of the bleed boundary. And now I'll select the scale tool, which you can get by pressing the S key And I'll go ahead and position my cursor right there on that bottom right anchor point. And I'll opt or option click in order to bring up the scale dialog box. And you just want to increase the uniform value there. I'm taking the value up by pressing the up arrow key, or you can press shift up arrow in order to move in increments of 10%. And so at 230% things look pretty good at which point I'll click OK. Now the thing that it doesn't look good about this is all these extra anchor points along the bottom. And so I'm just going to switch to the white arrow tool. The one that illustrator calls the Direct Selection tool, even though it has a keyboard shortcut of eight for arrow, and I'm going to very carefully marquee these bottom anchor points like so in order to select them independently of the rest of the Cactus shape and I'll press the backspace key or the delete key on the Mac to get rid of them, then click on this anchor point and press the backspace key, or the delete key on the Mac to get rid of it. I'll select this guy and drag it down until it snaps into alignment with the bottom left corner of that red bleed boundary. And by the way, for that snap to work, your Smart Guides need to be turned on. And so make sure there's a check mark in front of Smart Guides here inside the View menu. And then finally, I'll go ahead and shift click on this bottom right anchor point. So both of the end points are selected and then I'll right click anywhere inside the document window and choose the join command in order to close that otherwise open path. Now click off the path to deselected and I'll press Control zero or Command zero on the Mac in order to center my art-board. And that is how you copy a custom shape from Photoshop and paste it into illustrator. Assuming of course that your paste command was available. If not stay tuned for the very next movie.