Chapter Five Creating Fills and Strokes

In this chapter I’ll explain the basic techniques for assigning colors in Illustrator, and beyond that, the most useful ways to take advantage of Illustrator’s wide array of color palettes and color tools. I’ll also show you how to manage the ways in which color fills interact with each other—including through gradient fills (which are much easier to manage in CS4). In addition, I’ll explain how to use the Appearance panel (substantially enhanced in CS4) to manage fill and stroke attributes.

Along the way, you’ll examine Illustrator’s jack-of-all-trades—the Swatches panel, which allows you to apply any color, pattern, or gradient as an object fill. Those fills can be applied to closed paths (paths ...

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