Adobe Illustrator Tips and Articles

From PrintingForLess Subsidiary CreativePro.com

Digital Illustrator How-To: Create the Hottest Look Today
Illustrations today often mix vectors and photos. This step-by-step how-to (complete with downloadable source file) will have you riding the crest of this trend in no time.

Illustrator How-To: Live Paint Is a Bucket of Fun
Illustrator's newest coloring tool gives you a more intuitive way to paint, so you can color shapes and spaces the way your eye sees them. In this article, one of the writers of "The Adobe Illustrator CS2 Wow! Book" shows you how to click with Live Paint.

Illustrator How-To: When Work Is Play
LiveTrace, which converts bitmaps to vector images, debuted in Illustrator CS2. Hands down, LiveTrace is my favorite new feature ever, in any software application. Not only is practical -- for example, it takes mere seconds to flawlessly draw that ancient logo your client has only on a piece of paper -- it's hecka fun, too. Learn all about tracing in this comprehensive article.

Illustrator How-To: Number Crunching
When it comes to numbers, proper fractions, ordinals, and old-style figures separate the pros from the amateurs. Let Deke McClelland show you the easy way to set professional-looking numbers. This video tutorial is a QuickTime movie.

Illustrator How-to: Brand-New Tool in CS2
The new LiveTrace feature in Adobe Illustrator CS2 is an incredible timesaver for illustrators -- and a gift for those of us whose drawing skills are sub par. Here's how to quickly and effectively convert a photographic image into a stylized vector drawing.

Illustrator How-To: Masks, Meatballs, and Robots
This how-to is not an April Fools joke, even though it does contain such an unlikely trio. Deke McClelland combines practical advice and his oddball sense of humor to make masking items in Illustrator CS mere child's play. This video tutorial is a QuickTime movie.

Illustrator How-To: Make a Logo Flow in Illustrator
When does 1 + 1 + 1 -1 = 1 great image? When you use the Subtract from shape area command in Illustrator CS's Pathfinder Palette. It all adds up in this how-to drawn from a real-life logo design.

Illustrator How-To: Drawing with Naturalistic Pen, Ink & Wash
While you can draw expressive brushstrokes in pixel-based programs like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter, drawing variable-weight strokes in Illustrator gives you the option to reshape the strokes at any time. In this exclusive preview from the new and revised "Adobe Illustrator CS WOW! Book," to be published by Peachpit Press, see how to draw customizable vector-based ink and wash strokes.

Illustrator How-To: Going Negative with the Opacity Mask
When does negative become a positive? When you apply Illustrator's opacity mask. In this exclusive preview from the new and revised "Adobe Illustrator CS WOW! Book," to be published by Peachpit Press, see how to add an antique effect to type using this hidden feature.

Illustrator How-To: Using Stroke Offsets for Depth Effects
Adding strokes to type lends definition to text, but adding offset strokes adds dimension to text. In this video tutorial, Deke McClelland shows how to use the Transform Effect feature in Illustrator CS to add depth to text. This video tutorial is a QuickTime movie.

Illustrator Tips: Top Questions Answered
Learn how to create realistic lens flares, make a symbol, turn a symbol into an art brush, and create multiple-page documents.

Get Your Mitts on Illustrator's Free, High-Quality Templates, Clip Art, and More
Adobe bundles 320MB of templates, clip art, stock photos, and sample files with Illustrator CS2. The trick is to first find where those freebies live, then create a catalog for easy browsing and selection. Here's how.

Review: Adobe Illustrator CS2
Adobe's vector-art creation tool comes alive, learns a few new tricks, and leads the pack.

Plug-Ins and XTensions: Helpers for Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, InDesign, and QuarkXPress
This month's round-up of plug-ins and XTensions includes tools for getting better black-and-white images, adding frames to photos, exporting PSD files from PDFs, educating style sheets in Quark, and more.

Plug-In Upgrades: Software Helpers for Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
This month's round-up of plug-ins includes tools for fixing color easily in Photoshop, pushing Illustrator paths to their utmost, and managing overset text frames in InDesign.

Plug-Ins and XTensions: It's a Plug-Inpalooza!
Create Brushes, Backdrops, and Engravings in Photoshop; Correct PDFs; Add Maps and Automate Data in Illustrator; Relink Pictures in QuarkXPress and InDesign; and Record QuarkXPress AppleScripts.

Plug-Ins and XTensions: Amp Your Apps
Whether you're an expert who knows all the shortcuts or your software skills could use a helping hand, specialized plug-ins let you work smarter, not harder. Check out this round-up of the latest plug-ins for Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, and QuarkXPress.

Plug-Ins and XTensions: QuarkXPress Duplicators, InDesign Catalogers, Illustrator Pages, Photoshop Lenses
This month's round-up of plug-ins and XTensions includes tools for adding multiple pages to Illustrator, creating catalogs in InDesign, correcting image distortion in Photoshop, and copying attributes in QuarkXPress. Plus, a free Photoshop filter and cool movie effects in Final Cut Pro.