Illustrator 8 for Windows & Macintosh, Fifth Edition (Visual QuickStart Guide)

The authors teach you how to create basic objects and show you the options and techniques for selecting, moving, reshaping, and transforming objects. Next you learn how to use Illustrator's Fill, Stroke, brushes, and pen options; add and manipulate type; work with layers; combine paths; and create gradients.

Later chapters teach you to apply filters, work with masks, create graphs, use precision tools, work with the Actions feature, change the program's preferences, create separations, and output your work for print and for the Web. A full-color section in the center of the book offers eye-catching artwork to help get your creative juices flowing. The book closes with a guide to those contributing artists and a quick reference guide to keyboard shortcuts. --Kathleen Caster

Product Description
Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard in desktop illustration programs, but it can be intimidating to newcomers. It's a complex, powerful tool. Illustrator 8 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide is the ideal way for anyone to learn the newest version of the program. This step-by-step guide gives readers what they need to get right to work, without having to wander through menus or read a lot of text.

The book is an instruction guide to the newest version of the top-selling Illustrator program,written by two experienced computer instructors. Like the authors' previous Visual QuickStarts covering the best-selling QuarkXPress and Photoshop, the Illustrator Visual QuickStart Guide's unique easy-to-use format is specifically tailored for the beginning to intermediate user: step-by-step instructions, hundreds of illustrations with detailed captions, and special tips to help users avoid potential problems. Elegant, original artwork created in Adobe Illustrator by the authors and their colleagues will both inspire and illuminate.