Design Essentials for Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) 7 and Illustrator(R) 10 (4th Edition) (Professional Studio Techniques) [Paperback]

Luanne Seymour Cohen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201713632 | ISBN-13: 978-0201713633 | Publication Date: July 9, 2002 | Edition: 4

Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are two of the most widely-used and powerful image-editing and illustration programs available. Graphic designers, illustrators, artists, and Web gurus often turn to both products in tandem to create professional-quality graphics for print and the Web.

Design Essentials, which has been called "the Joy of Cooking for designers," is part tutorial, part inspirational resource for graphic designers and illustrators who are familiar with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and want to produce superb graphics. Perhaps you need to create text effects, patterns, textures, or transparent shadows? Look up the technique you want to learn, and this book leads you through the paces. Concise two-page spreads let readers digest the information quickly and easily--just follow the step-by-step text and four-color graphics. Readers will discover operations and techniques that open up new avenues of creativity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Luanne Seymour Cohen has assembled another solid design "cookbook" in which the recipes are complete meals, not just snacks. Design Essentials for Adobe Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10 has step-by-step instructions for real-world design and illustration problems using Photoshop and Illustrator. It's perfect for those times when you know exactly which visual style you need--perhaps a neon lighting effect or that cool "graphic novel" look. And it's equally as helpful for times when you're just looking for inspiration or to sharpen your skills--for example, learning how Channels can be better for turning a photo from color to grayscale.

Projects include transforming a photograph into various styles of painterly images and into a mosaic composition that looks handcrafted out of tissue paper. Readers also find out how to simulate marbled paper, make transparent shadows and gradients on a path, draw 3-D packages and bar charts, create type with a scratchboard fill or even in the style of a '60s psychedelic poster. One section shows a sampling of filter combinations, like "Mosaic + Ripple" and "Dry Brush + Graphic Pen."

Design Essentials is laid out with the steps on the left of the page, color screen shots on the right. Although this is not a "basics" book, even a beginner would be able to follow along. The book assumes that readers are familiar with Photoshop and Illustrator, but a nifty appendix of shortcuts and handy tips (for example, hit the X key to switch the foreground/background colors) makes this a great reference for readers of all levels. And even though the focus is on the latest versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, several of the sections will still make sense to those readers who haven't yet upgraded.

Featuring completely new examples, this book's usefulness will last long after newer versions of Photoshop and Illustrator have come out. I still regularly reach for my copy of Cohen's 1993 Imaging Essentials (featuring similar tips on using Photoshop 2.5 and Illustrator 5!). This new edition has now earned a prominent place on my bookshelf as well. --Mike Caputo

From Library Journal

Here are the latest editions of two very good manuals.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Adobe Press; 4 edition (July 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201713632
• ISBN-13: 978-0201713633
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,807,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasantly Surprised, August 17, 2002

By 

A. W. Crawford (WI, US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Design Essentials for Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) 7 and Illustrator(R) 10 (4th Edition) (Professional Studio Techniques) (Paperback)

As someone who's come to Photoshop and Illustrator from a tech background (I started out using them to design graphics for websites I was coding, and I'm now moving into using them purely for their own sake) I bought this expecting something high-brow and fairly abstract. Still, the reviews of past editions were good, so it must be worth a read...

However, on actually reading the book I was very pleasantly surprised to find...a recipe book. Lots of nice, step-by-step, two or three page descriptions of interesting graphical techniques you can apply, either to spruce up something you've already done, or as inspiration for something new altogether. Many of them are applicable to both Photoshop and Illustrator, and where appropriate instructions are given for both applications.

The techniques illustrated cover a wide range of subjects, from applying filters to photos to get a more painterly appearance to the creation of seamless textures, image compositing and the creation of semi-transparent object shadows in Illustrator. You'll almost certainly have seen some of them before (or arrived at your own ways to achieve similar effects) but there's enough in this book that you're sure to find something you'll want to add to your own list of techniques.

In a way this is "Photoshop 7 Down And Dirty Tricks" polite sister. The basic idea's the same (like I said, a recipe book) but the aim's slightly higher (i.e. improving your art, rather than impressing your boss). There's even some overlap in the techniques presented, although generally this book favours aesthetic results over flashy impact.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Beginner Book to Get Started with Advanced Techniques, August 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Design Essentials (3rd Edition) (Professional Studio Techniques) (Paperback)

The book goes through different techniques suchs as Cast Shadows, Texture patterns, and 3-D packages. There is not too much reading involved; you could just look and the pictures and read the one line step of what to do next. This book is a perfect supplement to other Photoshop/Illustrator books.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars vague in places, August 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Design Essentials (3rd Edition) (Professional Studio Techniques) (Paperback)

I had been looking for a book like this and was very disappionted and frustrated after trying to do the first chapter. I got to the point where you create the corner piece and ran into a brick wall. There was nothing telling you how to proceed. The adobe class room in a book are so much better at giving step by step instructions.