Adobe Illustrator CS2, Revealed, Deluxe Education Edition (Revealed (Thomson)) [Paperback]

Chris Botello (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1418839647 | ISBN-13: 978-1418839642 | Publication Date: May 26, 2005 | Edition: 001

This new title offers comprehensive step-by-step instructions and in-depth explanations of the "how" and "why" behind the skills of Adobe Illustrator, CS2. Students will easily master each feature as they work through a wealth of information, including end-of-chapter learning projects and reviews and step-by-step tutorials. The full-color interior and user-friendly design create the ideal book for learning the latest features of this popular design application.

Product Details

• Paperback: 568 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology; 001 edition (May 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1418839647
• ISBN-13: 978-1418839642
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,233,693 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Botello is a Photoshop artist and graphic designer living in Los Angeles, where he works as a retoucher and finisher on movie posters and marketing campaigns for the motion picture industry. He began his career as a production manager for Premiere magazine. Chris has designed movie posters for Miramax Films and served as the art director for Microsoft's launch of sidewalk.com/boston. He is the author of the Revealed Series books on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator as well as InDesign and is the co-author of YouTube for Dummies. When not working, Chris loves to travel and gets the opportunity to do so as a guest instructor for Crystal Cruises. Visit www.cengage.com/community/mediaarts&design for more information.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Bad, April 13, 2006

By 

C. VinCross (South Bend, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adobe Illustrator CS2, Revealed, Deluxe Education Edition (Revealed (Thomson)) (Paperback)

This book will drive you insane...the directions are extremely hard to understand.

The focus of the book is on mindless duplication of ugly projects instead of learning the tools to create. The focus on detail in the step by step directions is maddening (go to pixel located at x234 y250 and click mouse button three times)

This book is a actually harmful to the learning process

Avoid it.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written intructions..., February 11, 2006

By 

Amelia L. Reynolds "auntmilly" (Raleigh) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adobe Illustrator CS2, Revealed, Deluxe Education Edition (Revealed (Thomson)) (Paperback)

This book is not worth its price. The poorly written instructions are confusing, not to mention that steps are often left out of the examples. Not a useful learning tool for a beginning learner.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a great book for learning Illustrator, December 20, 2006

By 

Paul (Oklahoma City, OK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Adobe Illustrator CS2, Revealed, Deluxe Education Edition (Revealed (Thomson)) (Paperback)

I have worked through every page and exercise in both this book and the official Adobe "Classroom in a Book" for Illustrator CS2. Chris Botello's book (this one) is far better in my opinion. Chris covers features, topics, and techniques that the official book completely ignores (gradient meshes, as one of many possible examples). I suppose the official book may have a couple of very minor things that this book doesn't, but no book like this is completely encompassing. This book certainly comes closer to giving a fuller picture of what you can do in Illustrator than the official book.

While I find that some of the comments in other reviews below to be exaggerated, I do agree that a very small amount of the instruction text in just a couple of the particular steps of only a few of the tons of exercises could be worded better, but it's far from incomprehensible. Just a tiny amount of thinking and experimentation reveals the "why" of any step you may find baffling. I might even suggest that if this simple book befuddles you, maybe Illustrator isn't right for you altogether. No one will be holding your hand when you are doing *real* work with Illustrator.

Think of my 4 start rating as more of a 4-and-a-half star rating. I would have given the book 5 stars if it had been in full-color and included a CD. A very small number of the examples refer to a color you should be seeing in the accompanying picture, but the whole book is in black-and-white. That isn't really a big deal, since it's always obvious what the text is referring to. About the CD: while I'm sure it was a smart, cost-efficient solution for the publisher, including a CD with the book's example files would have been nice. As it is, you must download the examples from the publisher's website. Still, that isn't really a problem.

So, for greater exposure to what Illustrator CS2 does and how to do it, I highly recommend this book. It covers many features, has lots of exercises, and it has better-than-what-some-people-would-have-you-believe explanations for everything. It is worth spending time with.