Product Description

The essential ingredients you need to produce stunning results using Illustrator CS2 are control, precision and creativity, together with exciting upgrade features such as Live Trace and Live Paint that automate and facilitate formerly complex tasks, a flexible control palette, and the all new Adobe Bridge which provides enhanced workflow productivity and efficiency.

The author, Robert Shufflebotham, has taught Illustrator to design professionals for over 12 years. In Illustrator CS2 in easy steps he uses this extensive, hands-on experience to break down the software into a series of clear, logical, structured learning steps, allowing you to develop the confidence, control and accuracy you need to set your creativity free.

The opening chapters of the book focus on the basics and build skills that underpin your understanding of the product, right through to its most advanced features. The initial chapters deal with the interface, techniques for creating, editing and manipulating basic shapes, selecting and arranging objects and working with layers, along with important controls for creating and applying colour.

The early chapters deliver a solid platform on which to build more advanced skills. With the same emphasis on clear, simple, easy to understand sequences that break down the software into easily digested blocks of learning, the book moves on to cover other core aspects of the software. There are chapters on type, including running type on paths, transformations and a detailed explanation on using the Pen tool and working with anchor points, giving you the understanding and control you need to work efficiently with paths.

The last part of the book develops the more advanced capabilities of the software and takes a look at areas such as the exciting 3D capabilities on offer in Illustrator, as well as exploring the symbol functionality, gradient meshes, filters and effects, brushes and warping tools.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #376544 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From the Publisher
Whether you want to get to grips with Windows, Photoshop, the Internet, or even a progamming language, these easy-to-follow guides are the perfect companions for fast and productive learning.

This successful series is designed to save you time and guaranteed to give you value for money. Written in a jargon-free, easy-to-follow style with helpful graphics, the in easy steps books explain everything you need to know to get working on your computer - and more!

About the Author
Robert Shufflebotham is a software training consultant with over 15 years experience of delivering software training. He trains on a regular basis for some of the largest and most prestigious magazine, book and newspaper publishers in the world. He also has a MA in Electronic Media.

He is also the author of all earlier editions of Illustrator in easy steps and the best-selling Photoshop in easy steps.

Customer Reviews

A useful starting point
I have been using Photoshop CS2 for some time but have never had the need to use Illustrator until recently.

As with other books in the Easy Steps series this is designed to be a beginner's guide. It starts off with a useful description of the differences between vector and bitmap images and what Illustrator offers to the user.

If you have some Photoshop experience many of the tools and features will be very straight forward. The user interface is much the same as that of Photoshop, and many of the tools will be very familiar. I'm not sure I would have found the book as easy to use if I was not familiar with Photoshop.

The book's main benefits are the straight forward language used and the colour images which help to bring the examples to life. The book covers all the most commonly used features and there is a quick reference to the toolbox on the inside of the front cover, which is invaluable.

The downside is that there is no accompanying CD or website download available, so you cannot follow the book's lessons on-screen as you go along. I read the book all the way through away from my PC before trying to actually use it to use Illustrator and the main thing that I would advise is that you try to replicate some of the early examples immediately so that you can use them again and build on the knowledge gained. There are no precise instructions for creating each of the examples so it is a matter or trial and error, but I got there quite happily.

Hints are provided about integration with other software applications - particularly Photoshop and Bridge. One of the most useful things that I learned was how to "place" items from other software applications - either by linking or embedding.

The book finishes with a look at 3D effects and it gives an idea of how much more there is to discover in this excellent and very powerful piece of software.

I found this book to be a very good place to start as a complete beginner, and the book gave me enough knowledge to be able to experiment on my own designing logos and creating simple cartoons with my graphic tablet.