Editing Freeform Paths

Editing Freeform Paths

Even the best artists sometimes need to make changes or delete parts of their work. If you have made mistakes or change your mind about a drawing you have made, follow the steps in this section to make your changes.

In order to change a path segment, you need to select a point. When a point is selected, it appears solid; unselected points appear hollow. You can see this difference in Figure.

Figure: Selected and unselected points.

All you need to do to select a point is use your cursor to click the point itself. Then you can use the handles that appear when the point is selected to modify the segments as follows:

1. Select the Direct Selection tool from the toolbox, and then click a point.

   The selected point appears solid and has handles extending from it, as shown in Figure.

   
   Figure: The Direct Selection tool and a selected point with handles.

2. Select a handle end and drag the handle left or right.

   The path changes, depending on how you drag the handles, as shown in Figure.

   
   Figure: Editing a corner point and editing a curved point.

A curved point and a corner point edit differently when you select and drag them. Curve points have handles that extend from the point, but corner points don’t. However, you can edit a corner point without needing handles by dragging it in any direction. Figure shows the difference between a corner point and a curved point when editing their shapes.

Follow these steps to change a corner point into a curved point and vice versa:

1. Select the Convert Direction Point tool.

   This tool resides in a menu under the Pen tool in the toolbox. Hold the mouse button down over the Pen tool icon until a menu appears; select the Convert Direction Point tool from the menu.

2. Click a curved point with the Convert Direction Point tool.

   The point you click changes into a corner point, which changes the path’s appearance.

3. Click and drag a corner point with the Convert Direction Point tool.

   The point is modified as a curved point. This changes the appearance of the path again.

As you can see, this tool is handy when you need to alter the way your path changes direction. If you need to manipulate a point in a different way, you might need to change its type by using the Convert Direction Point tool.