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Selection of effects added to the same
rectangle in Adobe Illustrator. No action beyond click-and-drag was
added to any of these effects. Illustration programs have always been
best at the 2D effects. Now many of them have added a generous selection
of instant, and editable, 3D effects.
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Perhaps the holiday spirit is falling on me, but somehow revealing
a basic technique just does not seem appropriate this week, no matter
how useful. So I am going to go where there is more fun – into
effects.
But I am not going there with what you would expect. When I say effects,
my guess is that most of you fall immediately into Photoshop or Paint
Shop Pro mode. I admit, both of those programs have more effects and
variations than I can live long enough to try.
Most of the current crop of vector programs, including CorelDraw,
Illustrator and (the hybrid) Fireworks, have much to offer for special
effects. Even those of us who are on record as loving vector programs,
like yours truly, tend to forget how much special effect power is
hidden behind the wonderful, object-based plain facade.
Well, let's bring them out of the closet and see what they can do.
There is no way that I can do justice to this subject in one short
tutorial, so take my lead and start to do some of your own exploring.
You are in for a wild ride if you think of your vector programs as
the bread and butter cousins of the sexy raster programs. They may
not flaunt it, but they sure do have what it takes.
To restrict the subject a little, since I can picture me still here
weeks from now, gathering one more little idea, the effects in this
article have to be nearly instant. No full-page descriptions allowed.
After all, isn't that what an effect is supposed to do for you?
This time we will look at Adobe Illustrator. We will take the same
look at CorelDraw 10 and Fireworks in the coming weeks.
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