I am taking a course in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop through my church and need a guide that tells me how to execute basic procedures. In college bookstores, I’ve seen these 8 x 11 inch laminated “cheat sheets” that give you the essentials of chemistry, algebra, physiology, etc.
What I am looking for is a handy-dandy chart that will walk me through the basic procedures of creating SIMPLE documents in these applications. I seem to be getting lost in my class.
Any tips?
Well it depends on which version you are using but… here are a couple-
http://www.illustratortraining.com/
http://www.asap.net/downcheat.html
Adobes own page has some useful tips as well.
Good Luck with your class!
Photoshop:
I don’t know if you have spoken at length with your other classmates but I do suspect you might not be the only one “…getting lost” because it is one heck of a program to get your head around. I suppose what I mean is, don’t get disillusioned (if you were).
Not sure if cheat sheets would help too much as it’s a very, very broad-based product and a hands-on, learning by dabbling-around-and-making-mistakes subject. Learning software like this product doesn’t fit in well with conventional school learin’, IMHO a - and I’m old school, used to learning in the traditional way. Maybe it’s also worth bearing in mind that, sure you can do simple things in Photoshop, but it is designed with professionals in mind. Perhaps a less comprehensive program like Paint Shop Pro would be of more use if you don’t plan to take this subject too far ?
If you are going to stick with it, I actually think you’re probably doing the right thing by trying to learn the basic procedures, the problem is: there are so many and they need to cover so many different aspects of the application.
Have you done the tutorials that come with the programme itself ? (These are good for the image manipulation tools. If you don’t have a copy of the full product, you can download the trial and do the tutorials from there).
Also, Adobe do a series called ‘Classroom in a book’ which is a teaching aid that can also be downloaded, I believe, from the Adobe.com site – I’d look at that after the tuts that come with the programme. That should give you a good start.
From then on, I believe tutorial after tutorial is a particularly good way to slowly but certainly broaden out your understanding.
This is a link to a site I like a lot at the moment because I find all their tuts to be well-explained and designed to broaden knowledge (the magazine is also very highly regarded as a source of Macromedia tutorials but is not always easy to find across the pond):
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/type/tutorial.asp?id=28616
And this is a ‘link of links’ page with a tut search engine:
http://www.fmotion.net/Photoshoplinks.html
There are, quite literally, hundreds of sites out there covering this area, the problem is, finding the best tuts.
Good luck !!..