how to make selection on certain part of shape in adobe illustrator?

Question

I'm new to illustrator. I just want to ask how and what is the best way to make selection of certain part of shape in illustrator. Currently i'm just using pen tool and it's quite messy. In photoshop we can use the quick selection tool. Is there similar tool like that?

For example i can easily make selection of the bear's head without his body and background to resize it accordingly

Answer 1

I'am afraid you cannot perform the action you want because selection in Vector Editors deals with Objects and Vectors, not with Pixels.

I suggest you using Photoshop or other raster based editor.

Remember that Terminology about "shapes" means vector based objects, and not raster based. Illustrator deals with picture as a square window objects and there is nothing to do about that.

Answer 2

As @Ilan mentioned, if you need to manipulate pixels, Photoshop's the way to go. Illustrator is for vector graphics.

There are multiple ways of making a selection, but in your case the Quick Selection Tool (W) does a decent job:

• click on the bear itself and drag outwards little by little and make sure the selection is only within the bear shape (even if it doesn't include every since hair edge)
• in the top bar select Refine Edge and play with the parameters until you get the results you're after (exclude the background without loosing too much of the hair detail)
• hit Ctrl+J/CMD+J to copy the selection to a new layer

Here's a what I got in a fairly short time:

Notices that the right side isn't perfect. The photo is slightly over exposed and it's hard to separate the hair highlights on from the bright background, but a bit either pre-processing tones or post selection cleanup can help if necessary.