stroke weight of pencil won't go back to 1 pt. after using brush tool

[AnneBP...@adobeforums.com]

Using 10.0.3 on Mac system X. When I draw with a pencil tool in 1 pt., then switch to the brush tool using default 3pt., I go back to the pencil tool and it is now stuck in 3 pt. The stroke weight in the stroke window says 1 pt. but the path is still 3 pt. I even try adjusting it there to smaller pts. but it doesn't budge. Nothing seems to allow you to return the pencil tool back to 1 pt. until you start a new document. Therefore, I can never get 1pt pencil or pen stroke weight again on the same document that I also used brush tool on. This also happens to pen tool. It is not just a glitch on my computer. I have tried it on 3 separate computers. (I teach computer graphics in a school with 15 emacs.)

[Teri Pettit]

Anne,

What is going on is that Illustrator by default draws new objects with the same style as the last selected object in that document. Since the last selected object had a brush stroke on it, the new objects you draw are also getting a brush stroke. Conceptually, this is no different than new objects drawing green when the last selected object was green.

When an object has a brush stroke applied to it, the stroke weight is treated as a multiplier against the basic brush definition. For example, if you take a calligraphic brush defined as 20 pts wide, and set your stroke weight to 1, it draws as 20 pts wide. If you set your stroke weight to 2, it draws as 40 pts wide. Etc. (This is more obvious when the assigned brush is an Art Brush, Pattern Brush or Scatter Brush instead of a Calligraphic Brush, since all of those kinds of brushes don't look anything like a regular stroke, and they all typically have a "base size" which is much bigger than 1 pt.)

There are many ways of removing an unwanted brush stroke (or any effects) from existing objects or from your drawing tools. You should not ever have to start a new document.

Here are some of them (these are separate ways, not a list of steps):

1. Hit the D key to assign the Default style (white fill, black 1 pt regular stroke, no effects)

2. Click on the little Default Fill & Stroke icon at the bottom left of the tool box, next to the main Fill & Stroke indicators.

Both of the above will reset your fill as well as your stroke. If you want to keep a non-default fill but just remove the brush, you will want to use a different method.

3. If there is anything already in your document that has the style you want to draw your next object in (in particular, any object that doesn't have a brush stroke on it), just select that object before you start drawing.

4. Go to the Brushes palette, and click on the "No Brush" button at the bottom that has an icon with a slash through a brush.

5. Use the Remove Brush Stroke command from the Brush palette menu.

6. Go to the Appearance palette, and click on the "Reduce to Basic Appearance" button at the bottom of the palette, the one that looks like a rounded gray bump changing to a flat white circle.

7. Use the Reduce to Basic Appearance command from the Appearance palette menu.

8. Select the line that has the brush name in the Appearance palette, and either drag that line to the palette's trash can button, or click on the trash can.

9. Click on the leftmost button on the bottom of the Appearance palette, the one with the tooltip that says "New Art Has Basic Appearance" when it is depressed, and "New Art Maintains Appearance" when it is up.

10. Choose the New Art Has Basic Appearance command from the Appearance palette menu.

The last two methods will not change the style of selected objects, but they will keep the drawing tools from drawing new objects with the brushes, effects, transparency settings, multiple fill/stroke layers, or other "fancy" appearance aspects of the previously selected object. The New Art Appearance setting is a sticky option which is remembered in your Preferences file.

There are probably more ways, but those were the ones I could think of offhand.

[Doug...@adobeforums.com]

(C'mon, Teri. Only 10 ways? Pretty meager. We all expect much more from you....)

"Illustrator by default draws new objects with the same style as the last selected object in that document."

Please tell me if I'm correct on this:

There's an exception to the statement above. If I apply a brush to a path, change the brush color, increase the brush from its default weight of 1 point to 2 points, keep that brush selected, and draw a second path with the brush tool, the second brush will NOT be drawn "with the same style as the last selected" brush. In fact, the second brush will be drawn with the default weight (1 point) and the brush's default color (i.e., the color it was created with).

In fact, even if I make a style of the altered brush, and then paint a second one, it will pick up the altered color, BUT WILL REMAIN at the default weight.

If I AM right about this, and, let's say I was drawing a head of hair with many strokes applied rapidly that I wanted to be .5 points in weight, how would I set myself up to avoid having to make a weight change before each stroke or having to select all later and change the weights at once? (The former slows me down; the latter prevents me from seeing in real time what my strokes will look like.)

Thanks.

[Teri Pettit]

Doug,

I was referring to drawing objects with the pen, pencil, and shape tools.

The brush tool has many special rules. (The most obvious one being that it always has a brush applied to it, even if the last selected object didn't. Less obvious ones being that it never creates objects that have a named style on them, even if "New Art Maintains Appearance" is on and the selected named style has a brush in it.)

If the definition of the selected Brush is set to use a Colorization method, then any stroke color that was set on the last selected object (even if that object did not use a brush) does get applied to the next object you draw with the brush tool! However, if the brush definition is not colorized, but you use the "Options of Selected Object" to make a particular brush stroke be colorized (or change any other brush options of that object), then it is true that none of the non-default brush options of the previously selected object get transferred. Instead of applying the style of the last selected object, what the Brush tool is doing is applying the "base" brush from the Brushes palette, and then transferring the stroke color, fill color, and effects from the same tool style that would be used by the regular drawing tools. So it is picking up the color, just not the Colorization setting.

The business about the brush tool always resetting to 1 pt is a minor glitch which we've never got around to fixing. It used to, in AI 8, transfer the stroke weight from the previously selected object too, just like it transfers the stroke color, but that caused huge strokes if someone had a normal stroke that was, say, 10 pts wide, and then selected a brush that looks about 10 pts wide, and they'd get something 100 pts wide on the screen. So in AI 9 we made it stop transferring the stroke weight, and thereby traded one annoyance for another. In retrospect, what we really should have made it do is use all the attributes from the previously selected object if that object already had a brush on it, including the stroke weight, colorization, and other brush options, and only revert to the 1 pt weight if the previously selected object did not have a brush stroke. We realized this a long time ago, but the engineer who did the Brush feature is no longer on the Illustrator team, and I guess nobody else has taken enough interest in brushes to fix such minor annoyances.

As far as your head of hair, if you need the pressure sensitive capabilities of the brush tool, I would define a new brush where a 1 pt stroke weight means a 0.5 point wide brush. People who use the brush tool a lot and need the pressure sensitive aspects usually set up a palette of their favorite brushes in many widths, and load it as a library. (Some people did this even in AI 8 when the stroke weight was sticky, because they found it more fluid and intuitive to click on the right width brush than to change the stroke weight in the Stroke palette. It's just like having an array of traditional pens set up. And that way you don't have to take into account a multiplier factor.)

If you don't need anything to vary with pressure, an alternative would be to use the pencil tool instead of the brush tool.

[Teri Pettit]

Re: " (C'mon, Teri. Only 10 ways? Pretty meager. We all expect much more from you....)"

Well, then here's #11:

11. Click on the top-left style in the Styles palette, the one named [Default].

I actually thought of that one, and considered placing it after 1 and 2, but decided not to because it is equivalent to 1 and 2, but harder to get to.

By the way, the [Default] style is placed in the Styles palette not in the expectation that anyone will use it to apply a white fill and 1 pt black stroke, since there are easier ways to do that, but as a way to allow redefining the default style.

If you prefer that new objects draw with a 0.5 mm black stroke and no fill, for example, you can create such an object, and then option-drag it onto the [Default] style's thumbnail. From then on, using the D key in that file will set objects to have that style. If you do this in your Startup documents, then it will be the Default style in new blank documents, and thus the first object drawn a new black document will have that style.

[Doug...@adobeforums.com]

As always, Teri, thanks for a lesson I could learn nowhere else.

This is really embarrassing. I am unaware of brush pressure sensitivity. You mean stylus pressure sensitivity? And I never realized the brushes had this? Is it their WEIGHT that varies with pressure? Is there a setting or set of settings for this In the bursh dialog? (I'm not on a machine with AI right now so I can't explore this for myself at the moment.)

[AnneBP...@adobeforums.com]

Terri,

Thank you very much for your help with the stroke weight dilemma. I have explained the steps to my students. It would be nice if in the future we could have the option of having a more traditional feel to our tools. If I had chosen a red thin pencil and a fat black brush to do an illustration, I would like to pick up my red thin pencil any time I want and know that it had not morphed into something else. I do understand why some would want the current situation, but I imagine there are a lot of users who are expecting the tools to be more like the traditional tools that they were named after, including teenage computer graphics students (future customers), who are some of the least patient people in the world and when frustrated, scream out "I hate this stupid software," even though they love it the next day, as they did the day before.

Anne

[Doug...@adobeforums.com]

Dopey me. Of course the brushes are pressure sensitive. EXCEPT (I believe) the Art and Pattern brushes, right? And why didn't I realize this? Because in the few months I've been using AI, the ONLY brand I've used is the Art brush.

Lesson: Do not assume you know anything until you've explored everything.

[Teri Pettit]

Anne,

The "New Art Has Basic Appearance" is the option you refer to. When it is on, the pencil, pen, and object tools will not apply brush strokes, but the brush tool will.

In AI CS the default is for this option to be on. So users will have to explicitly change it to New Art Maintains Appearance if they want the pencil, pen and object tools to apply any brushes or effects that were on the last selected object.

[AnneBP...@adobeforums.com]

Terri,

Thanks. It takes me awhile to get it, I guess. You did write that in the 10 things to do. I must have thought I was trying it, but must have deselected that option thinking I had selected it... Now I can see that with that option on it works the way we need it to. You've been a big help.

Anne