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This section of Mike's Sketchpad takes up the
drawing features of Deneba Canvas™, Adobe®
Illustrator®, CorelDRAW® and Macromedia®
FreeHand®. No attempt is being made to review
these products or cover all their features. Instead,
this section covers the most common features between
these four applications. These are the basics
of all drawing programs. Once you grasp these
basics, then the most difficult part is behind
you.
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Mastering Illustration Programs
To master any program and before being able to attain
any skill one has to first clear up and define the
major functions and understand them conceptually.
Find out for yourself what the words mean. Unfortunately,
when a computer is going to be used as a drawing
tool, the finished work and all its intervening
steps have to be defined and described down to the
last detail. These things must all have names and
exact descriptions in order to communicate to you,
the user. There are quite a few of these concepts
along with the words that describe them.
Fortunately, there are many points of agreement
between the four applications. Even though
you plan to specialize in only one of them the job
of learning will be easier. This is because there
is a simple pattern common to all illustration programs
which lies beneath the apparent complexity. I have
tried to simplify it here in these web pages.
Digital illustration is a fairly deep subject and
is a worthy challenge to master. The payoff is worth
the effort and illustrators will be able to realize
their talents by putting forth the work and discipline
needed to master the subject. |
