"Select Same Fill/Opacity/Appearance/etc" in Freeform Gradients
I work in printing, we just got 15 files in using freeform gradients where the majority of the gradient is 80% opacity and the edges of the shapes are 10% opacity. After printing samples, the customer has decided to change the 80% to 100%. Normally, this is very quickly executed with solid colors and within gradient meshes by selecting one object or point and choosing "select same opacity" from the menu. But this feature is not available in the freeform gradients. I now have the task of individually changing the opacity on over 1500 points across all of the files. With how popular the freeform gradients are becoming, I expect this issue may arise more often as many artists will need to perform minor tweaks which should take literally seconds, but will turn into multiple hours of tedious work. Not to mention that the opacities are similar enough that it leaves a large margin of error if any of the color points are missed. because of human error. Please let the computer do the dirty work!
Coral Cashes
shared this idea
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Coral Cashes
commented
I'm hopeful. Adobe is always really good at implementing faster/better ways of doing things within the software. I've been using AI since version 7. I just hope this issue is addressed sooner rather than later, because I think the new freeform tool is great and much needed, but I'm afraid its downfalls may stop people from using it, which in turn lowers the priority for updates to the feature.
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Yeah, I can relate, easily.
The sad thing about this issue is that even scripts can’t solve that — there is no API. I hope yet, but we need to bring awareness to this. Unfortunately, there are many Creative Artists, but only a few tech designers who have to deal with tasks like this.
Thanks for bringing this up. -
Coral Cashes
commented
I didn't decide to do it like this. These are files provided by a customer for printing, as I explained in the first sentence. Most everyone in the world that does graphics now-a-days are self-taught and design for the web. So, those of us who still work in printing are left to fix files made by complete amateurs in order to print their artwork on commercial presses. Whatever made them decide to do it this way doesn't change the fact that there are likely many people who create artwork using the freeform gradient who could benefit from selecting the same fill/opacity as they edit the colors in their artwork. If I were creating an intricate illustration of a jungle scene, I might get to the end and decide there's not enough variation in the greens of the leaves and want to tweak certain shades. Turns a 5 minute change into 3 hours if you have hundreds of color points to change manually. What is this? 1999?
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While I am 100% agree on that, and I hate Ai decided to rob us from all the palette of tools we could have been using with these gradient points — if the were triangular mesh control points — I can't but also notice that this is the most unexpected way to get a feather in Illustrator I've seen! Wow!
Why did you decide to do it like that? I am so sorry for the time you waste on editing this :(
