Gettin' Geek

Three ways to have perspective in Illustrator. This was performed on the CS3 version, but I don't think it's much different on CS2 .. First is to use the 3D Rotate effect: Select your shape then go to " Effect > 3D > Rotate... ", play with the X, Y & Z axis angles & don't forget to give the Prespective box a value other than 0° .. Second & maybe the easiest way is the Free Transform tool: Its icon is in the Tools palette on the left & it has "E" as keyboard shortcut. To distort in perspective you have first to select the tool, a frame will surround your selected shape (or shapes), the frame has four handles in the sides & four others in the corners. Start dragging one of the corners handles than do one of the following: - To distort the shape from the corner you're dragging from, hold " Ctrl " on your keyboard & continue dragging, - To distort in a symmetric manner, hold the 3 keys " Shift+

I always wanted to know how many paths contains an illustration I make, just to have an idea about its complexity & brag about it, but couldn't find that info in Illustrator. Actually it's very simple, should have searched better .. This works on Adobe Illustrator CS3, but i guess it would work on CS2 & some other older versions. There are two palettes for information in Illustrator, one called just "Info" , basically displays cursor position & some color values, the second, which we need here is named "Document Info" , to show it, go on Window > Document Info . By default this palette displays general information about the document, that's why when I checked it first time I didn't see what I was looking for, to see all the other information this palette offers, go click on the little arrow on top-right of it, a menu will show with plenty of information types, the one that's gonna get paths number for us is named "Obj