Re:CSS Hat translates Photoshop layer styles to CSS3
by jasomill on Thursday May 17, 2012 @09:16PM
(#3989949)
In your example, why not select the non-circles with one rectangle select, then invert the selection by Shift-rectangle selecting everything?
As an aside, the lasso is a "direct selection" tool, operating on individual paths rather than shapes, not that this helps in your example. But it'd work well if I wanted to select, say, only the bottom side of your rectangle, for essentially the reason you dislike.
Re:CSS Hat translates Photoshop layer styles to CSS3
by DavidAbrams on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @10:18PM
(#4016444)
That works only in a simple example like this, where you can make contact with all of the undesired objects without making contact with the desired ones. This is almost never the case in a real-world illustration.
This is just one example:
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2362/1800773495_d1f776e335.jpg
Many (most?) vector-drawing applications let you select only the items that are fully enclosed by a selection rectangle. So if you wanted to select only the circles in that image, you'd need only to draw a selection rectangle around them.
Illustrator gives you no way to do this. Every shape that comes into contact with the selection rectangle (or even the path of the lasso tool) is selected. You can fire up Windows and do the whole thing in Corel Draw in the time you'll waste tediously clicking on everything in Illustrator.