doug_katz

Just want to confirm my understanding of this command on the Layers palette flyout menu:

1. It applies to selected LAYERS and NOT individual objects or groups?
2. It creates a new layer and places the selected layers AS SUBLAYERS within?
3. The selected layers RETAIN their names when converted to sublayers by this command?

This raises a related question: Is the GROUP command the only way to quickly select individual objects on different layers and gather them in a single layer? All other "collecting" commands (e.g., Collect in new layer, Merge, Flatten artwork) work at the layer level versus the individual object level?

Thanks.

gary_newman

3. Yes.

Grouping is a quick way to do this, but it's not the only way, or the way I'd do it. I don't like making groups unless I really want it to function as a group (like the number and shield on a road sign).

To get a bunch of objects onto a new layer, I do one of two things.

1. Drag the objects' layer color indicator to the new layer. Corollary: I have a Layer 1 with 10 objects in it. I want items 3, 5 and 7 to go to a new layer. I select the objects. In the Layers palette, each object now has a color indicator. I can drag them individually to the new layer. OR, I can drag just the color indicator on Layer 1 to the new layer, and only the sub-selected objects will move.

2. Select objects. Cut. Select new layer. Paste in Front.

doug_katz

Thanks, Gary. I really should have asked "... ASIDE from shift-selecting individual object selection rectangles in the layers palette (or the objects themselves on the artboard) and dragging the rectangles to a new layer, is there any quick way to gather...."

Cut and Paste in Front is a very efficient alternative to grouping. Thanks for that!

And I had no idea that the smaller selection rectangle on a layer (indicating some but not all objects on the layer are selected) could be dragged to move just those selected objects!

And while we're not on the subject, HOW ABOUT MA ZHI LIANG'S UNCANNY MASTERY OF THE GRADIENT MESH TOOL!! AND YUKIO MIYAMOTO'S!! AND ANN PAIDRICK'S!!

I am fully dumbstruck by these artists' absolutely breathtaking manipulations with that unruly tool! When I saw their work for the first time (in Steuer's WOW), I was simultaneously exhilarated by the unimaginable possibilities, and thoroughly despondent that I could never ever achieve anything even remotely approximating what they have. You look at their hyper-realistic work - I mean you STARE at every minute detail - and still the eye is beguiled into believing it's seeing a photograph. Just spellbinding.

gary_newman

I agree. I'm astonished and envious.

wade_zimmerman

Oh, I can do that stuff blindfolded…stop laughing!

doug_katz

You've seen it, Wade? It's mind boggling, isn't it?

You know, like most any artist, I know good art is in the details - the tiny specular highlight, the barely distinguishable gradation from shadow to midtone, the color scheme, the curvature of a fold in material, the tiniest wrinkles of flesh, and like that.

But these guys don't just know about the importance, they can wield that gradient mesh tool to EXECUTE the detail. And they can do it in ways I can't even begin to imitate.

Think I'll get into bed now... for six months or so until the despair lifts.

wade_zimmerman

I have a copy personalized by Sharon of the WOW book!

doug_katz

You can keep that if I can have the personalized gradient mesh skills of some of the artists IN that book.