Re: can you recommend a good book on the mysteries of Illustrator and graphic file formats in general?

Subject: Re: can you recommend a good book on the mysteries of Illustrator and graphic file formats in general?
From: "Ed Wurster" <eawurster -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 10:20:38 -0500

I feel your pain. It sounds like your job is a handful. Some comments inline
for you.

> I'm probably looking for the impossible: a book that explains things
> for
> a not-very-graphically-orientated newish user of Illustrator and gives
> lots of tips and tricks.

Illustrator is difficult to learn and use. Others will post their favorite
books I'm sure. You do need one good reference book. Tonight I am meeting
two friends. They teach AI from time to time. I'll ask them for their
opinion about a book. Conveniently enough we are meeting at a book store.

I think you'll benefit from skimming a newsgroup like
adobe.illustrator.windows or .macintosh. This is what I do. If the tool is
really critical, then you must read and participate on a regular basis.
There are other groups besides adobe-sponsored ones. You can use google to
search groups, get an idea of what kind of answers you'll receive, and then
make the right choice for yourself.

> What I don't want is a 'classroom in a book'. We have Adobe's book on
> Illustrator, which I hate. For me it's useless. What I don't need is a
> book that steps me through a hypothetical project. I need a book that
> explains what everything is. For example, I can save an image for the
> web, and I can choose different settings for the gif. What do those
> settings mean? That's what I need to know.

I think if you can set aside an hour each day to participate, you'll find
concise answers to these types of newbie questions.

> I also need to know about different image file formats. When do I use
> tiffs? How do I decide optimal image sizes for the web?

Tiffs are lossless. Many scanners will leave you with Tiffs. You've probably
found a lot of these laying around. Tiffs are not native format for most
graphics programs, but they are useful. When you go to print, the publisher
may require Tiffs.

Optimal image size for the web is as close to zero bytes as you can get it.
For now, concentrate on the difference between JPG and GIF, and what will
serve your web purpose with efficiency. Of course 1MB is too big, and 1K
would be great, but it will take time for you to understand each software
tool you use, and set up a work flow that is perfect in all phases.

> What's the best
> way to manage our graphics library (which doesn't exist. There's just
> a
> huge collection of images all over the network).

Managing a graphics library is another job. Obviously it hasn't been done
lately. Forget about managing. Get something free and fast that will search
every share and give you a database of pre-views. This is what you need to
put together your documentation. Find 15 versions of the ALWAYSON product,
pick the source, or best JPG to date, copy that to your project folder and
move on to the next problem.

Ed




References:
can you recommend a good book on the mysteries of Illustrator and graphic file formats in general?: From: Elizabeth O'Shea

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