How to Move Illusions in Illustrator

Moving your illusion to a new background means grouping the layers.

Although creating illusions in Illustrator can be complicated, with many gradients, grids and layers, moving the illusions is quick if you set up the file in layers from the beginning. When designing your illusion, start by adding a new layer so the illusion is separate from the background layer. Add as many new layers as you need to build the different aspects of the illusion -- you can lock the illusion's layers to move it later. Keeping the illusion layers separate from the background makes moving the illusion around or to another graphic fairly simple.

Instructions

1. • 1
     Open your Illustrator file containing your illusion.
   • 2
     Open your Layers palette by going to the "Window" menu and selecting "Layers."
   • 3
     Click on the eye icons to the left of any layers that don't contain illusion graphics. This will hide the layers in your image, so all you should see is your illusion.
   • 4
     Click on the empty boxes immediately to the right of the remaining eye icons in the layers palette. A padlock icon should appear. This locks the illusion's layers together, so if you move one layer, you will move all the illusion's layers.
   • 5
     Click on the empty eye icon boxes to unhide the non-illusion layers. Click on one of the illusion layers in the Layer palette to highlight it, then use your pointer tool to move the illusion to a different location on your image.
   • 6
     Select an illusion layer, then choose "Cut" from the "Edit" menu to move the illusion to a different file. Open the different Illustrator file, then go to "Edit" and "Paste." The locked illusion layers should appear in the Layers palette, and the image should appear on top of the existing image.