Chapter 3. Building Your Toolbox

You walk through your favorite bookstore. An artfully crafted cover catches your attention, and you pick up a fantastic graphics book. The book seems to teach exactly what you want to know. The book is well written, beautifully illustrated, and has hundreds of screenshots to guide you through one wonderful project after another.

You buy the book and take it home. You are excited to try the first project, when those three horrifying words hit you: “software not included.” There are dozens of wonderful graphics books on the market. Most of them focus on a single software package, and most of these software packages are extremely expensive.