How to Do Everything with Adobe Illustrator CS [Paperback]

David Karlins (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0072230924 | ISBN-13: 978-0072230925 | Publication Date: November 11, 2003 | Edition: 1

This handy resource teaches you how to generate professional graphics for multiple media, including print and Web. Master Illustrator’s defining feature: creating and editing drawings by defining anchor points and the paths between them. Plus, the book features an art gallery displaying professional work to help illustrate the lessons and inspire you.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Now in full color!

Create illustrations, maps, logos, CD covers, animation objects, fine art, and more with help from this full-color guide. Illustrator expert David Karlins' clear, step-by-step instruction will help you quickly grasp--and easily master--the fundamental and advanced features of this vector graphics tool. You'll also learn the techniques professional artists apply to their work in a special "Behind the Scenes" section. Whether your goal is to create graphics for professional or personal use, you'll find what you need in How to Do Everything with Illustrator CS.

• Understand Illustrator's capabilities in drawing and design
• Gain total control over lines, curves, fills, and color effects
• Draw with objects, shapes, intersections, cutting, and many other techniques
• Add and alter type, edit colors, sizes, fonts, and more
• Use new, advanced tools for paragraph formatting
• Master fills and effects--even integrate bitmap images
• Work with layer, style, and action strategies
• Venture into 3-D effects, warps, and envelopes
• Manage Illustrator's many color palette options for Web and print
• Export to GIF, JPEG, PNG, SVG, PDF, and Flash files for Web use

About the author: David Karlins is a graphic and Web designer who teaches Adobe Illustrator at San Francisco State University's Multimedia Studies Center. His previous books include Build Your Own Web Site, and Adobe Illustrator 10 Virtual Classroom.

About the Author

David Karlins (Oakland, CA) is a FrontPage Microsoft Certified Professional who designs Web sites for clients using FrontPage. In addition to contracted hands-on classroom materials, Karlins is the author or co-author of five successful FrontPage books. Karlins teaches FrontPage classes at Silicon Valley companies including Hewlett Packard, and at schools like University of California, Berkeley Extension Division.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (November 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072230924
• ISBN-13: 978-0072230925
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,234,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Do Everything with Illustrator CS, January 5, 2004

By 

Karen Faivre (Anchorage, AK USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Do Everything with Adobe Illustrator CS (Paperback)

This is a great book for beginning and intermediate users of Adobe Illustrator. The book is well laid out, colorful and pleasant to read. What is nice for the new user is he explains how to use the basic tools, and how to draw with them. Understanding paths and anchors are the basic elements of being able to use this type of software. You have the option of working through the whole book or picking and choosing your topic. A new user could work through the whole book, from beginning to end.

The author includes many highlighted "notes," "cautions," and "shortcuts" interspersed throughout the book. For example, in the section where he is explaining about how to draw with paintbrushes there is a note telling you that Chapter 18 explains how to define custom brushes. In another section about the Pathfinder tools you are cautioned that those tools only with with vector objects - not bitmaps. And for those who are unsure of the difference between vector art and bitmap art, that explanation was given in the beginning of the book. It is this kind of basic information that makes this such a helpful book.

He goes into great detail about the new text features and special effects.

I can't say enough about how clearly this book is written. I have had my share of technical books that are hard to understand, unpleasant to look at and have typographical errors.

While good portion of this book will be redundant to a Illustrator "power user," there is still a lot of useful information including a professional technique gallery at the back of the book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as you might be led to believe, May 2, 2004

By 

Matthew R. Holiday II (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How to Do Everything with Adobe Illustrator CS (Paperback)

Let me join the other reviewers in panning this book. The color illustrations are nice (compared to the Adobe manuals, which have gotten thin and have no color), but that's about it. The details just aren't there. For example, the author will show you the star tool, and talk about using its dialog box to set options, but doesn't mention using the Command (PC:ctrl) or Option (PC:alt) keys with this tool, nor what they do. So not only does it read a bit like a manual, but it's an incomplete manual. Beyond that, there's not much content -- try Cohen's "Creative Studio" book or Steuer's "Wow!" book, or better yet, get the video training from Total Training.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Layman's Terms .. I like it !, November 14, 2003

By 

"horzes_azz" (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Do Everything with Adobe Illustrator CS (Paperback)

What good is teaching if your not able communicate? This book "teaches" and relays information in an easy to understand way. Along with sufficient illustrations the concepts are easily explained.

If you want to "Learn" AI 10 in a painlessly way, I'd recommend this book as a must have.