Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are two of the most widely-used and powerful image-editing and illustration programs available. Graphic designers, illustrators, artists, and Web gurus often turn to both products in tandem to create professional-quality graphics for print and the Web.
Design Essentials, which has been called "the Joy of Cooking for designers," is part tutorial, part inspirational resource for graphic designers and illustrators who are familiar with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator and want to produce superb graphics. Perhaps you need to create text effects, patterns, textures, or transparent shadows? Look up the technique you want to learn, and this book leads you through the paces. Concise two-page spreads let readers digest the information quickly and easily--just follow the step-by-step text and four-color graphics. Readers will discover operations and techniques that open up new avenues of creativity.
Luanne Seymour Cohen has assembled another solid design "cookbook" in which the recipes are complete meals, not just snacks. Design Essentials for Adobe Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10 has step-by-step instructions for real-world design and illustration problems using Photoshop and Illustrator. It's perfect for those times when you know exactly which visual style you need--perhaps a neon lighting effect or that cool "graphic novel" look. And it's equally as helpful for times when you're just looking for inspiration or to sharpen your skills--for example, learning how Channels can be better for turning a photo from color to grayscale.
Projects include transforming a photograph into various styles of painterly images and into a mosaic composition that looks handcrafted out of tissue paper. Readers also find out how to simulate marbled paper, make transparent shadows and gradients on a path, draw 3-D packages and bar charts, create type with a scratchboard fill or even in the style of a '60s psychedelic poster. One section shows a sampling of filter combinations, like "Mosaic + Ripple" and "Dry Brush + Graphic Pen."
Design Essentials is laid out with the steps on the left of the page, color screen shots on the right. Although this is not a "basics" book, even a beginner would be able to follow along. The book assumes that readers are familiar with Photoshop and Illustrator, but a nifty appendix of shortcuts and handy tips (for example, hit the X key to switch the foreground/background colors) makes this a great reference for readers of all levels. And even though the focus is on the latest versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, several of the sections will still make sense to those readers who haven't yet upgraded.
Featuring completely new examples, this book's usefulness will last long after newer versions of Photoshop and Illustrator have come out. I still regularly reach for my copy of Cohen's 1993 Imaging Essentials (featuring similar tips on using Photoshop 2.5 and Illustrator 5!). This new edition has now earned a prominent place on my bookshelf as well. --Mike Caputo
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Photoshop & Illustrator tutorials:
In Italy this book is considered as one of the best graphic design "bible", is used in every graphic institute to teach & learn essential tutorials that everyone who wants to become a graphic designer must know.
THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR WEB ARTISTS:
I am not an artistically gifted person, so I was excited to see this book. I hoped, by the title, that there would be some good ideas for doing cool stuff with vector graphics in Illustrator and then optimizing them for the web with Photoshop, but I was sadly mistaken. The coolest elements of this book were the "60's Style" Conformed Text and the Text Following Path tidbits, but anyone with much experience in Illustrator probably already knows those things.
Do not get this book if you're looking for... more info
Slight additions to 3rd Edition:
It is an interesting book if you happen not to have the previous edition. There are not too many new examples, these are added to most that appeared on 3rd edition. Sadly a compact narrow book format has replaced a more suited wide desktop size. Techniques have not either got to far or up, is still somewhat basic and does not cover transparencies or other Illustrator 9/10 features. A pity I went on holidays and could not return it on time. If you have have earlier book, look elsewhere.
Useful and inspiring:
I'm not a professional graphic designer. But as a graphics enthusiast, and webmaster by profession, i take my occasional graphic design work quite seriously. As someone who is always searching for ways to use PhotoShop in better, more efficient ways, I found this book to be both helpful and inspiring.
Design Essentials is a very hands-on book, providing basic, short instructions, which familiarize the beginner and novice PhotoShop user with all the little tricks that transform an image from "nice" to... more info
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