Adobe Illustrator CS Classroom in a Book

Rating:
Summary: Illustrator CS Classroom in a Book
Review: Adobe Illustrator CS Classroom in a Book is comprehensive and clearly written, and it is based on a series of exercises that effectively guide students in mastering both the tools and the concepts of Illustrator. The Pen tool exercises, if followed carefully, comprise a complete training regime for this necessary tool.
This book, with its included CD-ROM, is a thorough course of study for creating in Illustrator and for utilizing Illustrator files in other applications. Chapter 18, Combining Illustrator Graphics and Photoshop Images, is an excellent example of the practicality of this text. This book is a bargain, and a must have for serious computer graphics students and artists.

Rating:
Summary: Start here if you're new to the world of Illustrator
Review: Adobe Illustrator CS Classroom in a Book provides a solid foundation for beginners and novices of the Illustrator application. As someone who was intimidated by vector graphics, I found this book to be a great introduction to the power of Illustrator, and provided me with some good ideas for my own projects.

This book, like many other Classroom in a Book texts, provides step-by-step instructions on how to do some of Illustrator's most popular and useful commands. Users of Photoshop will notice lots of similarities in the interface and tools, yet there are differences between commands that do the same thing (such as Ctrl+D to deselect in Photoshop, and Ctrl+Shift+A to deselect in Illustrator).

The Illustrator book in particular, however, was full of typographical errors that seemed rather embarrassing for being an official Adobe training book. While I understand the importance of being on bookshelves in a timely manner, taking a few extra days to properly proof their text would be appreciated by this particular user. This is especially true when considering the book's price, and the fact that the book is black and white, except for a small color section. The paper and type, however, are excellent, and the binding is flexible, while being strong at the same time.

I found this book to be a lot more in-depth than the Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book, as this text went on to describe the steps in clearer detail. It offers clear explanations for many of the choices that the user is instructed to make, while also focusing more time on the interesting exercises, as opposed to tasks that are rather redundant between any other similar application.

It will take the user approximately forty-five minutes to an hour and a half to complete each of the 19 lessons, making the book's completion time about one week.

Some of the book's later chapters deal with Illustrator-Photoshop workflows, so having Photoshop in addition to Illustrator is recommended. The book questionably refers the user to use the outdated Photoshop version 6 later in the book, leading me to believe that the author failed to update the text to the current version. Also be aware that some naming conventions do not match up with the application 100%. They are close, but I found it odd that many of these were not cross-checked for exact matches.

All in all, after completing this book, I am ready to move on to more specialized books on Illustrator, and look forward to implementing what I've learned to create streamlined work pipelines between this, Photoshop, and other graphic/layout programs.

Rating:
Summary: Start here if you're new to the world of Illustrator
Review: Adobe Illustrator CS Classroom in a Book provides a solid foundation for beginners and novices of the Illustrator application. As someone who was intimidated by vector graphics, I found this book to be a great introduction to the power of Illustrator, and provided me with some good ideas for my own projects.

This book, like many other Classroom in a Book texts, provides step-by-step instructions on how to do some of Illustrator's most popular and useful commands. Users of Photoshop will notice lots of similarities in the interface and tools, yet there are differences between commands that do the same thing (such as Ctrl+D to deselect in Photoshop, and Ctrl+Shift+A to deselect in Illustrator).

The Illustrator book in particular, however, was full of typographical errors that seemed rather embarrassing for being an official Adobe training book. While I understand the importance of being on bookshelves in a timely manner, taking a few extra days to properly proof their text would be appreciated by this particular user. This is especially true when considering the book's price, and the fact that the book is black and white, except for a small color section. The paper and type, however, are excellent, and the binding is flexible, while being strong at the same time.

I found this book to be a lot more in-depth than the Photoshop CS Classroom in a Book, as this text went on to describe the steps in clearer detail. It offers clear explanations for many of the choices that the user is instructed to make, while also focusing more time on the interesting exercises, as opposed to tasks that are rather redundant between any other similar application.

It will take the user approximately forty-five minutes to an hour and a half to complete each of the 19 lessons, making the book's completion time about one week.

Some of the book's later chapters deal with Illustrator-Photoshop workflows, so having Photoshop in addition to Illustrator is recommended. The book questionably refers the user to use the outdated Photoshop version 6 later in the book, leading me to believe that the author failed to update the text to the current version. Also be aware that some naming conventions do not match up with the application 100%. They are close, but I found it odd that many of these were not cross-checked for exact matches.

All in all, after completing this book, I am ready to move on to more specialized books on Illustrator, and look forward to implementing what I've learned to create streamlined work pipelines between this, Photoshop, and other graphic/layout programs.

Rating:
Summary: Great book if you are an instructor
Review: Good book to discover features even advanced users miss. This book is great for teaching students fundementals like using the pen and shape tools on up to using the appearance palette and dealing with flattening.
I like the fact that there is a primer on selections. This seems to be where most new users get lost.

Rating:
Summary: Great On Hands Guide!
Review: I highly recommend this book for those who like to learn hands on. I've done 4 lessons in one day--I can take a break, walk away, and easily return to what I was learning. And they give you many pictures as you go -- very different from the Ill. 10 Dummies book.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book For A Powerful Program
Review: I purchased this book so that I could independently learn AI for a graphic design class. I'm certain that I would never have figured out all of the powerful features of AI without the help of this book. The layout is perfect; you can use this as a step-by-step walkthrough and then later as a reference. The projects in each chapter really help to embed the knowledge into your brain because you learn by doing. The projects also help to stimulate your creativity by giving you examples of what can be done while showing you how to do it. This is an almost perfect book that elicits my first review anywhere. I observed no substantial errors and only a few typos.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent learning resource
Review: I teach Illustrator and use this for my college courses. It is a fantastic book that includes lots of new material for the latest CS version. I used the previous Classroom in a Book for my classes before our school upgraded to CS. Much of the material is new or improved. There is an updated chapter on transparency and lots of new features are covered - like the 3D effects, which have a new chapter. In fact there are several new chapters covering new features - making it difficult to determine how much to include in a semester long course - but the book lets my students go through additional material on their own following the course. I find it silly that someone who has not read the book (only flipped through it at a local bookstore) has decided to provide a poor review. I'd encourage they take the time and actually read the book. I have not found any errors, and I've been using Illustrator since version 3.

Rating:
Summary: Every bit like school.
Review: I used this for an online Illustrator class and was impressed. Not unlike a classroom setting, you do moan and groan as you plod through the lessons. The reward is that you do learn quite a bit. Each tool is explained along with a basic technique. After that, the creativity and vision is up to you. This is a great starting point for the program, even if you are arrogant enough to believe you can 'figure it out'.

Rating:
Summary: Errors in a book by Adobe?
Review: Maybe mistakes are inevitable, but in a book published under Adobe's name? I was lookng through a copy at a bookstore to see if I wanted to buy it, and happened to flip to the section on Illustrator and Photoshop and found several mistakes - not spelling mistakes mind you, but technical errors. For example, it says you cannot export type on a path or area type from Ill to PS but as of CS you can.
Makes me wonder how many other things were not updated to the latest version? Also makes me hestitate to buy it.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT Self Teaching Tool
Review: This is the official training workbook for Adobe Illustrator cs.

The book is organized and laid out to be used as a textbook/workbook for a class. But, if you don't have the time or money to take a class, you can work through this book yourself.

All materials and files for the lessons in the book are included on the CD (except, of course, for the application itself). You'll need to copy all the files from the CD to your hard drive and work with them from there, in order to make the changes to them as you work through the lessons.

Before you get to Lesson 1, there is "A Quick Tour of Adobe Illustrator," an interactive demo that gives you an overview of the key features of Illustrator cs. You actually use one of the art files on the CD and follow along with the book to try some features. The book says it takes about an hour.

This books will help you discover that even though Illustrator keeps adding more features, it is actually easier to use than it used to be. There are lessons on drawing with the pen tool, painting, working with type, working with brushes and scribbles, using the airbrush features, transforming objects, using the 3-D Effect (!), printing artwork and color separations, and combining Illustrator graphics with Photoshop images, and more.

Every lesson begins with a list of what you'll learn in the lesson, exactly which files from the CD you'll need to use and how to set up the document(s) you'll use in the lesson. From there, it has very clear lessons. You'll definitely learn how to use Illustrator if you follow this book.