If you are like me and you are wondering why in the world Adobe decided to eliminate the previous functionality of the Paint Bucket tool in Illustrator CS3 with the introduction of the new ‘Live Paint Bucket’ tool, fear not — a solution is at hand.

Ever since upgrading to CS3, I have been extremely annoyed — to say the least — that the Paint bucket tool was “updated” to the new Live Paint paint bucket tool. Want to extend the toolset? Fine. but don’t take away existing tools.

Not yet having the time to fully explore all the new features of Illustrator CS3, including the new Live Paint features, I am for the most part using the tools I am familiar with to create my artwork. The Paint Bucket tool was one that I used quite a bit, and not really understanding the functionality of the new Live Paint Bucket tool, I found myself slowing down quite a bit to use unwieldy workarounds to accomplish what the paint bucket did.

Finally fed up, a quick Google search revealed the solution: option-click with the Eyedropper tool achieves the same effect. Thanks to the poster over at the Adobe Forums for the tip!