Adobe Illustrator CS5 one-on-on
Once again, I’m behind on writing blog posts. However, I do have some new good books that I’d like to share, especially since some may make a great gift. I’ll start with Adobe Illustrator CS5, one-on-one by Deke McClelland and published by Deke Press/O’Reilly.
Like the CS5 Photoshop one-on-one book, this is another winner. It’s a full color, 480 page book printed on glossy paper. The book is physically heavy, and heavy on instruction. It set up in lessons:
Lesson 1 – Starting a document; Lesson 2 – Lines, Shapes and Color; Lesson 3, Using the Pen Tool (yes, an entire lesson on it); Lesson 4 Creating and Formatting Text; Lesson 6 – Transform and Reshape; Lesson 6 Pathfinder Operations; Lesson 7 – Blends, Masks, and Gradient Mesh; Lesson 8 – Working with Transparency; Lesson 9 – Brushes and Symbols; Lesson 10 – The Amazing World of Dynamic Effects; Lesson 11 – Live Trace, Paint, and Color; Lesson 12 – Printing and Exporting. Whew!
Going through this book chapter by chapter, or lesson by lesson, is truly like having a class with master teacher Deke McClelland. But be forewarned, the book is intensive, and you will work hard getting through each lesson. However, if your goal is to finally master Illustrator, this is the book to have. Readers of my blog will know that Deke is a long-time author of instructional books and an incredibly knowledgeable and sharing teacher (you can catch him at Photoshop World). If you cannot take a class directly with him, this is the next best thing. While there is no DVD included in the book, there are URLs throughout the book to find additional instructional videos online.
It’s not an inexpensive book, retailing at $49.99; but you can find it at Amazon for less. Again, if you want to learn Illustrator, this is your book.