The very first question I got from a student about Illustrator CS3 was about Isolation Mode, which can be used to isolate a group or sublayer to make it easier to edit in a complex design. If you haven’t tried it, do the following to give it a shot. Select a group with your Selection tool (V) that is partially hidden by other groups. Click the “Isolate Selected Group” button located between the Brush and Style sections in the Control panel. This puts the group into Isolation, which locks and ghosts all objects outside the group. It also temporarily brings this group to the front, making it easy to edit any of the group’s objects using the Group Selection tool or the Direct Selection tool (A).
It’s a great feature, which led to my student’s question. He asked, “While trying out Isolation Mode, my Layers panel only displays the Isolated Group. Is this a bug?” After a second of pondering the answer I said, “Not at all. Because Isolation Mode temporarily displays the isolated objects in front, showing anything in the Layers panel but the isolated group would be confusing.” To exit Isolation Mode, double-click outside the isolated objects, and the Layers panel with return to normal.
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since.
Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination.
Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the “go to” guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, he’s provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
