Microsoft Graphic Designer is a new hybrid drawing, painting, illustration, and effects application that's part of the new Microsoft Expressions suite launching in 2006 Aimed at professional graphic designers and illustrators-and also software developers who want to design Microsoft Vista user interfaces using Graphic Designer's xaml formatting-the book offers real-world techniques and case studies for achieving professional results Provides coverage on creating compound paths, applying strokes and fills to paths, converting vectors to pixels, creating custom gradients, and much more Graphic Designer is said to be more powerful than Illustrator while incorporating many of the creative tools found in Painter and Photoshop