Adobe Illustrator CS5 One-on-One

•

Still armed with the convert point tool, drag up and to

the right from the right-hand endpoint. (As when draw-

ing with the pen tool, the convert point tool requires you

to continue the curvature of segments in the direction of

your fi rst drag.) Again, a control handle emerges, but this

time in the opposite direction of your drag, as illustrated

in Figure 7-23.

15. Further increase the number of steps. If you zoom in on the

blend—try 400 percent or higher—you may notice that it’s

beginning to break up into a series of lumps. In the process of

extracting control handles from the path-of-the-blend, we’ve

stretched the path so that it has to cover a longer distance.

Hence, we need more steps. Double-click the blend tool icon

(

) in the toolbox to display the Blend Options dialog box.

With the Spacing value highlighted, press Shift+



to raise the

number of steps in increments of 10. When you get to 180—

which, to my eye, results in a smooth blend—click OK. The

fi nal comet trail appears independently of the rest of the illus-

tration in Figure 7-24 on the facing page.

16.

Save your changes. Press Ctrl+Shift+S (or -Shift-S), name

your fi le “The blended comet.ai,” and click the Save button.

Then set the fi le aside for the next exercise.

Figure 7-23 .

218

Lesson 7: Blends, Masks, and Gradient Mesh