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Adobe Illustrator

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Rusty Shackleford, Feb 18, 2011.

  1. Rusty Shackleford

    Rusty Shackleford Active Member

    I'm not putting this on the design board because nobody will see it. Anyway, what's the learning curve like on Illustrator for somebody who's used to Photoshop? I know they serve different functions, and that's why I'm trying to learn Illustrator. But it's frustrating the heck out of me so far.
     
  2. JRoyal

    JRoyal Well-Known Member

    I've only learned the basics of Illustrator, and I'm pretty good with Photoshop. I'd definitely recommend getting a book on it. If you're looking for something really basic, InDesign for Dummies was a pretty good guide for some of the folk in our newsroom when we switched over, so I'd bet the Illustrator book would be good too. If you want something more advanced, check out the comments on Amazon. When I've been looking for books on Photoshop and other programs, they've done a good job explaining how good the books are and how advanced the are. I really think it would be hard to pick up Illustrator without some guidance (a tutor or book or something) or a LOT of time to play on it.
     
  3. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    It's not that hard. It's been a couple years since I've used either, but I remember the phase going from Photoshop to Illustrator being pretty easy.
     
  4. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Not sure what the learning curve is, because I have used both for years and sort of learned to work with each at the same time.

    They are similar in the interface, so it's not like starting from scratch. The tools differ, though. And they are different programs, in that Illustrator is mainly a vector-based program and Photoshop is a bitmap-based program. There will be a learning curve with Illustrator, because there are just so many features, but depending on what you want to use it for, I'd suggest just firing it up and playing with it. Maybe get a book. Or try to find an online course.
     
  5. Buck

    Buck Well-Known Member

    Learning some basic stuff, if you're already familiar with PS and IND, is simple.
    But there's a lot more than basics, and that's where the real design happens.
     
  6. Killick

    Killick Well-Known Member

    Exactly. This. I picked up alot of stuff on Illustrator just by playing around with it... enough that I could use it to turn out some great art. But it wasn't until I read up on it that I *really* learned how to use it.
     
  7. ADodgen

    ADodgen Member

    There are some really great tutorials at http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/ and http://vector.tutsplus.com/.

    You may have no use for the actual designs you're learning to make, but they're great for learning the program.
     
  8. I would also recommend looking to take a class on it. That's how I learned Indesign as opposed to Quark, which I was trained on. For guys like me, I need practical working knowlege to learn a product properly. Classes are great because while they teach you the basics, you can always pepper the professor with questions after class.
     
  9. Tucsondriver

    Tucsondriver Member

    I just downloaded a 30-day trial version of CS5 from download.com, and it includes a video tutorial from Lynda.com. If I had the money, I'd buy the program and subscribe to Lynda for a few months until I knew what I was doing. I'm in a desktop publishing class and need to get up to speed pronto. Good thing about taking a class is it's a safe place to fail. No matter how badly you screw up, you can't get fired.
     
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