I have to admit, Illy's pretty darn good

Despite the negative comments generally associated with Adobe products, I must say that the more I use Illustrator, the happier I am using it.
It's like it repays you for taking the time and trouble to get acquainted. I particularly like the way I can easily achieve grunge type effects like
the one I have attached below. I wasn't able to get the clipping mask to do what I wanted in Illustrator, so I saved the work and brought it
into XDP 7 to use clipview and on importing, it came in as a whole load of paths. I wasn't successful in grouping them all and so some got left
outside of the clip...I liked the happy accident, though.
Bob.

it should be good for the price

I sure dislike discussions which revolve around price. Pricing is really a take it or leave it thing and has little to do with the issues. For many, DP is too expensive. So? For others even more budget conscious, P&G is expensive. Again, so?

Illy does work well for what it does, but isn't a do all, end all product. There are features designers have been longing for in Illy and likely will never get. Sound familiar?

I have and still use Illustrator for some things. Mostly I use it when it is a company/job requirement as my design work is rather simply and doesn't tax the capabilities in either it or DP.

Nice design, Bob. And it is a happy accident you achieved. I wouldn't have known it was an accident if you hadn't mentioned it. The elements outside the clip just look right.

Take care, Mike

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mwenz

I sure dislike discussions which revolve around price.

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so you dont compare products in the supermarket

sorry Frank, but you are being silly - I don't believe for a moment you do not understand what is being said

what matters is that you get what you want and you get it at a fair price - there are many who need what illustrator has, and the price for that is reasonable; if you don't need it well, its not even an issue, is it ;)

no, what is silly is not talking about value for money

Adobe Illustrator CS5 €860,00 convert

Adobe Photoshop CS5 €969,90 convert

Adobe CS5.5 Design Standard €1 895,24 convert

links from amazon.fr

no wonder 99% of people who use it have a pirate copy

i paid a grand for my copy of cs1 and regretted it ever since not because its crap software but because its hugely overpriced and in the end i found workarounds for everything using non-adobe prods

and yes i compare products in the supermarket not because im poor but because i dont like being ripped off and this is no different

Even "ripped off" is a value judgment for the individual to make. You obviously have made that judgment as regards your purchase. Others perhaps make a different value judgment. Neither is the right nor the wrong judgment in this case.

I do some testing for some very reasonably priced software. One title can be purchased for about $50 legally. There are known to be tens of thousands of illegitimate copies floating around world wide. Ripping off a company--because that is what it is--is not done by people with a modicum of ethics. And the flip side is that people who desire to steal will do so regardless of the cost of the software.

Take care, Mike

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Big Frank

no wonder 99% of people who use it have a pirate copy

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hyperbole

I can quite happily accept it is not for you Frank and you are entitled to think it is crap - but that does not mean it is crap and it does not make it bad value for money in it's target markets which are corporate

just like the vector editor that I happen to know you do use, illustrator comes with a 30day trial period, long enough to check it out in comparision with said other editor which I know you have had for a long time

eyebrows are always raised elsewhere when people say they buy product without taking full advantage of trial period..but I've done it myself and it is annoying true

the reason I said you were being silly is this - in a computer warehouse [hypermarket] I have a whole load of choice - just recently I needed a new color printer and I could have spent anything from 200 GBP to 2000 GBP or more - the higher end machines do all sorts of things I simply don't need, and they are sometimes rather complicated to setup and or use ... this does not make them crap, and it does not make them a rip off, just because I can print perfectly well from a much lower end machine - it just means they are oriented to a different set of requirements and environments ;)

you are basing your reply on the premise that highly priced products are inherently better than lower priced products

that is simply not true, it is, in fact, silly

its not a premise Frank :rolleyes: - its a specific case [illustrator] and an analogy [colour printers]

of course it is not true that all expensive stuff is better, but by exactly the same token not all inexpensive stuff is better either - depends a lot on what you need

it doesn't do to confuse value for money with suitability for purpose

in this case illustrator was not suitable for you, and a 'bad purchase' in your specific case

but crap it is not

@ BOB I really like that illustratoin too Bob, well done [I wish I had more time to explore illustrator, particularlly the brushes, which are far better than xara's but hey life is getting shorter by the day....]

a can of beans at 34p is suitable for the purpose, at £3.34 it's still fit for the purpose but hugely overpriced

I have CS5.5 Web Design Premium . I don't use half of it. One program I use heavily, others a lot some hardly at all.

The program I use heavily has no equivalent, the others do.

I don't religiously upgrade the Adobe software. I started with one program and then I really need two and so inevitably one you use two Adobe products one of the suites becomes more cost effective.

My upgrade path has rarely been because of killer features, it has been because of my clients. My clients often use Adobe software. They give me assets created in Adobe software and expect back assets for use in Adobe software. When one of my clients engaged me on a project for $7,000 and they bought CS5 I was forced to upgrade from CS3 to CS5. The CS5.5 release included mobile development features and that was a required upgrade on my part.

For me, the value for money aspect of the software is less relevant. The cost of using Adobe software is, for me, the cost of doing business with many of my clients.

If a client was using product X and I was going to work with them and the money was right, I would buy product X.

I mention this because generally the circles in which Adobe software legitimately moves, isn't buying it purely on a feature basis, or value for money basis - Adobe software has become the common language of interchange between companies involved in Media. Besides being the common language of asset interchange, it is also the common language of skillsets amongst people - there's an expectation that you know how to use Adobe software.

If I was an Artist/Graphic designer working on commissions to produce pure artwork rather than work in a pipeline, then I would be interested in price and probably giving non-Adobe products serious consideration. We all know that for artwork Xara is capable of anything illustrator can do - when the right artist is using it.

At one time I used Xara Xtreme heavily and indeed made good use of XWD for projects where the Adobe pipeline came into play. Lately that isn't the case.

34p can of beans versus £3.34 can of beans bundled with a shopping cart full of other stuff you don't need :D:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pauland

We all know that for artwork Xara is capable of anything illustrator can do - when the right artist is using it.

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you know I get a serious attack of the raised eyebrows heavenwards whenever anyone says anything like that - what [I hope] you mean is that the vector drawing tools in xara will do everything the vector drawing tools in illustrator will do .... but it doesn't stop there, there are lots of other issues eg color space to name but one ...

anyhow I've probably said enough

Lets just say "for most intents and purposes", then your eyebrows can return to the normal position .. ;-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

34p can of beans versus £3.34 can of beans bundled with a shopping cart full of other stuff you don't need :D:D

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LOL, there's nothing like a bit of exaggeration.. ..even ironic when you point out in a later post why the 34p can is inferior to the £3.34 one!

Just think of the extra stuff as ingredients that will sit in the kitchen cupboard - some will be used, some will expire their best before date.

Some people will not be happy with Tesco Value, if they've lived an extravagant life on Heinz Beans.

Whichever way the wind blows, as it were..

:D:D

Well, I can honestly say that I never expected my post to generate this number of replies.
Let's nail this price thing once and for all. Illustrator CS5 on the Adobe site costs $599, which converts to €455 and not $860 as quoted above. Your markup seems a bit excessive, Frank. It doesn't make Illustrator a bargain at €455, but it's not the rip off it has been made out to be either.
So for €455 it is good for the price.

Frank, I appreciate that you get along without Illustrator very well, your work shows that you are at the top of your game using Xara.

I wasn't trying to make any comparisons with other design software, but for €85 I think Xara Photo & Graphic Designer is an absolute bargain, but perhaps Inkscape is the best value of all. Value for money is however dependent on a lot of variables, not least being what the intended use of the product is. You could spend your hard-earned on Serif DrawPlus X5 which at €100 looks pretty good, slotting into the same bracket as the Xara product. But in fact Drawplus X5 is extremely buggy. It does have an eraser tool and an CMYK environment and publishes to .pdf and lots more quick shapes, but its brushes are raster and overall the program is a bit of a lame duck in my opinion.

Illustrator is, as has been pointed out here, the preferred software as pauland said; "Adobe software has become the common language of interchange between companies involved in Media. Besides being the common language of asset interchange, it is also the common language of skillsets amongst people - there's an expectation that you know how to use Adobe software."
If you are just a hobbyist then you probably don't need to own Illustrator, but it is still a nice thing to have, you do get a lot of bang for your buck. Luckily for me I was given it as a present, so price isn't a concern for me. it just took me a long time to dip my toe into the water, and having immersed myself, I'm pleased that I did.

Thanks Mike (mwenz) and Steve J for your comments - much appreciated.
Bob.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pauland

We all know that for artwork Xara is capable of anything illustrator can do - when the right artist is using it.

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that's a very good point. you can be some poor noob who knows how to downloadand activate a pirate copy of cs5 but the results of his work will be directly related to his talent and effort not his tools - granted what comes out from illy may be better than what you can do with mspaint, but i think that's because it automates a lot of tasks you have to do by hand in an app that has 90% fewer tools (or had to do by hand in older versions of illy)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

34p can of beans versus £3.34 can of beans bundled with a shopping cart full of other stuff you don't need :D:D

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very good analogy indeed - which one would you buy?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iamtheblues

Your markup seems a bit excessive, Frank.

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i was directly quoting today's prices on amazon.fr which i assumed perhaps incorrectly to be competitive

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iamtheblues

Frank, I appreciate that you get along without Illustrator very well, your work shows that you are at the top of your game using Xara.

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no, i'm still learning all the time - if you want to see an expert what i is in awe of, look at gary bouton's work and as far as sketching is concerned, there's a bunch of people who make me look the amateur that i am, people like steve handdrawn and zeb the toon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iamtheblues

for €85 I think Xara Photo & Graphic Designer is an absolute bargain, but perhaps Inkscape is the best value of all

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i agree on both points

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iamtheblues

If you are just a hobbyist then you probably don't need to own Illustrator, but it is still a nice thing to have, you do get a lot of bang for your buck

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especially if it's a pirate copy, i am convinced there'd be far fewer pirate copies of creative suite if the prices weren't so damn extortionate. for me the matter of price does come into it. but for my business i need a tool that can fulfil all of my needs. i'm sure illustrotar could be that tool but it's not even in the ranking (neither is any serif product) because i am so deeply satisfied with xara - and i get away every time with exporting from xara as pdf for every client who "absolutely and irrevocably" insists on having an ai file - and many printers i have come across in my work seem to be unaware that an ai or an eps is simply not required if you supply a pdf (and I have had some who have truly argued the toss with me over it until they have had to be proved wrong) - it would be nice if xara could export illustrator compatible ai and eps files to keep such people happy

i am probably talking out of my boot but i did like your happy accident image at the beginning of this thread bob

To get back to your drawing Bob nice result. What problem did you have using the Clipping Mask maybe I could help? Normally it is a combo of the Pathfinder Tool & Clipping Mask command that I use in most situations. I agree with your statement about the brushes it is so easy to use and they are all vector with only the Scatter Brush which is not (exactly like Xara's).

I did not want to get into Franks discussion but I want to talk from my point of view. To upgrade from Design Pro 6 to 7, talking vector improvements only here, the number that I would count would be 2 vector type upgrades: Live Copies & Improved Snapping & Alignment (OK you could count that as 3)

How many vector upgrades would you get going from AI CS4 to CS5? I counted 8: http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/features.html

What about the upgrade price for me Design Pro7 £119 (143.35 euro)
What about upgrading from CS3 which I have got to CS5 £190.80 (229.72 euro)

Will not upgrade to any of them. I am 64 and next November will be retiring from work so no need to get the most recent upgrades because between the 2 programmes that I own at the moment I can do my work, thank you.

Bob it is still a nice bit of work which should have been the discussion here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Big Frank

there's a bunch of people who make me look the amateur that i am, people like steve handdrawn and zeb the toon

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thanks Frank - and the photo realistic art of yourself, Gary and others has me in awe, I really just would not have the patience

I thought Bob that this vid might help with the masking problem that you had with the design. The video can be viewed from the Layers Mag here: http://layersmagazine.com/creative-m...lustrator.html

Illustrator has some darn amazing features!

The core usability doesn't agree with me though.

Marc

Thanks for the offer of help, Peter. I am really not sure what is going on here. I have attached the file as a .pdf so you can open it in your version of Illy.
I have also attached screenshots of what I did and what I got. As I mentioned earlier, I worked around the problem by importing into Xara and applying the clip there.
Bob.

Hi Bob,

I moved things around a little and changed color. Is this sort of the effect you wanted? If so, make each group a compound path and recolor. With the S on top, then make the mask.

Take care, Mike

Sorry really busy day, may try again tonight! Between work spent about 1/2 hour but couldn't really use PDF as it has a clipping mask which stops me using it. Copied rectangle and left the shadow till last but did it the way you stated. Used the copy to put behind after clipping so I am not much help really tried to get the hairy line to go outside rectangle but without spending time could not. Now I have to see if file uploads! bum it exceeds the limit by 27 bytes!