Illustrator 8 for Windows & Macintosh, Fifth Edition - Softcover

Weinmann, Elaine; Lourekas, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0201353881 ISBN 13: 9780201353884

Publisher: Peachpit Pr, 1999

Synopsis

Takes a visual approach to a popular graphic design program, offering step-by-step instructions, concise commentary, and b&w and color illustrations. Covers new and improved features of Illustrator 8, and discusses Web issues, with chapters on the Illustrator interface, startup, views, object basics, and tools for selecting, reshaping, transforming, filling, drawing, and painting. Also covers type, gradients, filters, masks, and separations. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

About the Author

From the Back Cover

Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard indesktop 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 IIlustrator 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.

Reviews

Illustrator 8 is the latest version of Adobe's excellent vector program for image manipulation and creation. Vectors are lines of art in which Photoshop is a matrix of colors in rows and columns. Vectors are much easier to manipulate than a matrix of colors; they allow you to select areas of color easily for color change or line-size change. All these books are solid titles for folks trying to upgrade to Illustrator 8 or learn Illustrator for the first time. Alspach's and Weinmann's books are fine for starting out; Pirouz's and Steuer's works are for advanced users.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

To transform an object using its bounding box:
1. Turn on the Use Bounding box option in File menu > Preferences > General.
2. Choose the Selection tool, and select an object (or objects). A rectangular box with eight handles will surround the object. The handles and box will be drawn in the color of the currently active layer.
3. To scale the object, drag a corner handle to resize along two axes or drag a center handle to resize along one axis. Shift-drag to resize proportionally. Hold down Option/Alt to scale from the object's center 1-2. or

To create a reflection (mirror image) of the object, drag a center handle

all the way across it.or

To flip the object, drag a corner handle all the way across the object or

Shift-drag a center handle to reflect and flip 3-4. Option-drag/Alt-drag to reflect or flip from the object's center.tip If all of an object's anchor points are selected and then the Selection tool is chosen, the bounding box will appear automatically.tip If you rotate a box using either the Rotate tool or the Free Transform tool, the bounding box edges no longer align with the x/y axes of the page. To reset the bounding box to align with the page, choose Object menu > Transform > Reset Bounding Box or Control-click/Right-click and choose Transform > Reset Bounding Box from the context menu. The Free Transform tool performs all the transformations of the individual tools, plus distort and perspective.
Note: The Free Transform tool always works from the center of the object or objects. This point of origin is not moveable.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peachpit Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0201353881
• ISBN 13: 9780201353884
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 362