Adobe Illustrator CS4 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques

Adobe Illustrator CS4 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques

by David Karlins
Released December 2008
Publisher(s): Adobe Press
ISBN: 9780321618207

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Book description

Adobe Illustrator CS4 is more than just the world’s most popular and powerful illustration tool: As part of the Adobe’s Creative Suite 4, it’s a key component of an overall design workflow that lets users work seamlessly among all of their graphics applications to create graphically rich content for print, Web, motion graphics, and mobile devices. This info-packed guide lets users get right down to work by focusing on the Illustrator CS4 features they’re most likely to use and showcasing each in a stand-alone tip--complete with a relevant hint or two and a graphic example. In this fashion, readers learn just what they need to know, exploring the program in a way that makes sense to them. Before they know it, users will be using all the new features as well as creating symbols and applying instances and exporting their work to Adobe Flash.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Contents
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Chapter One Getting Started
    1. #1: Creating a New Document
    2. #2: Defining Preferences
    3. #3: Controlling the Workspace
    4. #4: Defining Guides and Grids
    5. #5: Working with Artboards
    6. #6: Saving Files
    7. #7: Printing Files
    8. #8: Using the Control Panel
    9. #9: Finding Tools
    10. #10: Applying Stroke and Fill Colors
    11. #11: Relying on Smart Guides
    12. #12: Working in Isolation Mode
  6. Chapter Two Drawing Lines and Shapes
    1. #13: Drawing Lines
    2. #14: Drawing Ellipses, Circles, and Spirals
    3. #15: Drawing Rectangles
    4. #16: Drawing Polygons and Stars
    5. #17: Drawing Grids
    6. #18: Drawing with the Pencil Tool
    7. #19: Drawing with the Pen Tool
    8. #20: Using the Eraser and Path Eraser Tools
    9. #21: Creating Compound Paths
    10. #22: Dividing Paths with the Scissors and Knife Tools
    11. #23: Clipping with Masks
    12. #24: Editing a Clipping Mask
  7. Chapter Three Drawing with Brushes
    1. #25: Applying or Drawing with Brushes
    2. #26: Creating Calligraphic Brushes
    3. #27: Creating Art Brushes
    4. #28: Creating Scatter Brushes
    5. #29: Working with Pattern Brushes
    6. #30: Using Blob Brushes
  8. Chapter Four Editing Paths
    1. #31: Selecting Path Segments and Paths
    2. #32: Defining, Selecting, and Isolating Groups
    3. #33: Selecting, Editing, and Aligning Anchors
    4. #34: Selecting Similar Objects
    5. #35: Editing with the Bounding Box
    6. #36: Duplicating
    7. #37: Scaling
    8. #38: Rotating
    9. #39: Shearing (Skewing)
    10. #40: Distorting with Envelopes
    11. #41: Using Pathfinders
  9. Chapter Five Creating Fills and Strokes
    1. #42: Using Color and Pattern Swatches
    2. #43: Using Color Guides and Live Color
    3. #44: Grabbing Colors with the Eyedropper
    4. #45: Defining Gradients
    5. #46: Formatting Strokes
    6. #47: Stacking Strokes in the Appearance Panel
    7. #48: Managing Fills in the Appearance Panel
    8. #49: Creating and Merging Live Paint Objects
    9. #50: Applying Color to Live Paint Strokes and Fills
    10. #51: Editing Live Paint Objects
  10. Chapter Six Working with Layers
    1. #52: Organizing Projects into Layers
    2. #53: Viewing and Isolating Layers
    3. #54: Finding Objects in Layers
    4. #55: Using Layers for Transparency or Clipping
    5. #56: Placing and Editing Raster Images
    6. #57: Using Live Trace
  11. Chapter Seven Creating and Formatting Type
    1. #58: Creating Type Inserted at a Point
    2. #59: Creating Area Type
    3. #60: Defining Font and Size
    4. #61: Selecting Type
    5. #62: Kerning, Leading, and Tracking
    6. #63: Scaling Type
    7. #64: Applying Type Attributes
    8. #65: Using Type Styles
    9. #66: Using OpenType Glyphs
    10. #67: Outlining Type
    11. #68: Formatting Paragraphs
    12. #69: Using Paragraph Styles
    13. #70: Linking Type Objects
    14. #71: Flowing Type Around Paths
    15. #72: Placing Type on Paths
  12. chapter Eight Aligning, Arranging, and Clipping
    1. #73: Aligning and Distributing Objects
    2. #74: Snapping to Grids
    3. #75: Measuring and Placing Objects
    4. #76: Managing Stacking
    5. #77: Using Clipping Masks
    6. #78: Masking with Type
    7. #79: Applying Opacity Masks
  13. chapter Nine Transparency, Filters, and Effects
    1. #80: Applying Transparency
    2. #81: Step and Smooth Blends
    3. #82: Adjusting Blends
    4. #83: Accessing Filters in Illustrator CS4
    5. #84: Applying Effects
    6. #85: Using Photoshop Effects
    7. #86: Warping with Liquify Tools
    8. #87: Using Graphic Styles
  14. chapter Ten 3-D Effects
    1. #88: 3-D Extrusion Effects
    2. #89: 3-D Rotation and Revolve Effects
    3. #90: Mapping Symbols onto 3-D Effects
  15. chapter Eleven Managing Illustration Workflow
    1. #91: Working with Symbols and Actions
    2. #92: Editing Symbols
    3. #93: Previewing in Device Central
    4. #94: Sharing Editable Illustrator Files
    5. #95: Exporting Vector Files
    6. #96: Managing File Size
    7. #97: Exporting to Raster Formats
    8. #98: Saving for the Web
    9. #99: Exporting to Flash
    10. #100: Exporting HTML Pages
  16. Index

Product information

  • Title: Adobe Illustrator CS4 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques
  • Author(s): David Karlins
  • Release date: December 2008
  • Publisher(s): Adobe Press
  • ISBN: 9780321618207