Introducing the Inflate Deflate tool
3 minute readInflate Deflate is an Astute Graphics tool for Adobe Illustrator that moves art objects further apart or closer together without changing their size.
Watch the full tutorial
How to get started
You can find the Inflate Deflate tool stacked under the Main Selection tool in the advanced toolbar (Window > Toolbars > Advanced).
Select your artwork and select the Inflate Deflate Tool. A small red crosshair annotation will appear, which indicates the transformation point around which the inflation and deflation will take place.
Clicking-and-dragging the cursor will either move your objects further away or closer together from the transformation point. The transformation will not change the original object's size, it will only add or remove the space in between the objects.
As the Inflate Deflate tool has several keypresses which can add or change its functionality, we strongly suggest installing the free Astute Graphics plugin AstuteBuddy, which creates a panel that dynamically updates to inform you of the various keys which can be pressed in the tool’s current context. Pressing one or more modifier keys while dragging the tool changes its functionality:
Shift: Transforms the art only in the horizontal direction.
Option/Alt: Duplicates the selected objects to the new locations instead of moving them.
Command/Ctrl: Transforms the art only in the vertical direction.
Shift+Command/Ctrl: Transforms the art only along the direction of the general constrain angle; i.e., only the components of each object’s movement vector that lies along the direction of the constrain angle are used.
The Inflate Deflate tool also has a ‘warp factor’ allowing you to distort the space, creating a pucker and bloat type effect with the spacing. You can enable this by using the Up/Down modifier keys while dragging the tool.
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Inflate Deflate is part of the ColliderScribe plugin and is one of the 21 plugins you can try free for 7 days with just your email address. Find out more here…
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Ensure you have the ColliderScribe plugin installed through your Astute Manager, then you can find the Inflate Deflate tool stacked under the Native Selection tool in the Advanced Toolbar (Window > Toolbars > Advanced).
Need more help on this tool? Here's the full documentation for the Inflate Deflate tool.
