And so this day will be remembered by the fact that I am the first one to post in this forum (except from Antony, but that doesn't count) :D
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And so this day will be remembered by the fact that I am the first one to post in this forum (except from Antony, but that doesn't count) :D
Yes, welcome to the forum and we do hope while you are here you can join in discussions throughout the forum, see what other artist are doing. It is lots of fun. So I am number two, I have heard that you have to try harder when you are number two. Gee, I really do need to check that this post is smelling pretty, being number two and all. (Just kidding.... they do let you do that here, don't they???)
Yes well Now I can Integrate those Illustrator animations with Flash.
I just Love the 3D effect of the software.
It is hard for me to talk about it, it just leaves me searching for words. And I rarely have that problem.
Hey sally, Illustrator is not that complicated you'll find the words, This'll get you started
http://www.livepencil.com/images/birthday_05.gif
http://www.livepencil.com/images/rap_2.gif
Hey, I learned Illustrator before Xara, before CorelDRAW, and I fell in love with Xara from day 1, DRAW took some warming up to.
I enjoy drawing and I do well with a pencil, paint brush, palette knife, any media, however, I think in terms of using the natural tools and when I am doing that, the first thing I want to do is to draw it, not go to my computer screen and enter a dialog box.
Direct editing of gradients on the object at hand is just better. Being able to control tranparency and directly and get it done faster, is a benefit because the creative epiphany doesn't last a long time and when it becomes work, it is just as much fun as any other job. And I really wasn't cut out for other types of work. I am too much left brain (as in I left my brain at home).
Xara to Illustrator is like the quickness of water colors vs. the more studied approach of oils on canvas, it isn't you can't get the same effects, you just aren't ready for a lobotomy when you are done. Tough when working under a deadline. I have an idea in my head, and then figure how to use the tools to achieve that and still meet the deadline.
Thanks for the animation, Availor, did you do it in Illustrator?
At work, I open Illustrator to check files done in Illustrator, and to correct problems with the customer files, to do impositions. It is acutally easier to bring the work into DRAW and do the imposition than to do it in AI.
Xara's tools are very similar, and it is easier to do the setup there too.
I am just curious with Adobe being as it is the most expensive drawing tool except for CAD, why it isn't more user friendly.
CAD has reasons for its interface, and once you understand how it works, it makes a great deal of sence. It leaves a lot on screen all the time to help you with your drawing.
Floating pallets... well InDesign caught on to a better workspace, collapsable docking pallets.
To me the best tool in DRAW that nothing else has something to compare to is the Mesh tool. However, when using other drawing tools, it is easier to achieve a similar result using other tools.
It all boils down to how much time can you work on a project.
It is a universally recognized format, and if you do a drawing in something else, it will correct your color space for you. But making a .pdf will do that also if you have it do that. But you can work in your program of choice and then save to .ai anyway.
In comparison to Photoshop, which is merging more and more vector capability into itself, the uniqueness of the product and the need to spend, spend, spend for very pricey software is in question.
Considering how much gaseoline costs, I need my software to be worth buying. With the other software that is out there, for the price, it is hard for me to find a reason why I would want to invest any more in Illustrator.
I have CS, not CS2 at work, and other versions, it was an easy thing to save down for compatiblity on a computer which hadn't upgraded. Shouldn't software become easier to use and not more difficult?
There is a point that a graphic artist should certainly be intelligent, but Adobe 's logic is unfathomable at times.
Thanks for the animation, did you do it in Illustrator, Availor?
Hey Sally,
The animation is not mine, I just provided a link. I like it over the boring emoticons that are inside the palette options you have.
I have one major problem, which is: I can't actualy sit and do anything unless I need to. I know Illustrator, Xara, Corel Draw, Indesign, Freehand, Photoshop and now I'm learning actionscript and advanced flash.
All the software are the same, therefore, if you know one you can get the other in no-time. Maybe it is hard to believe but usually it is so.
I also play a sax and can compare to that: When a player learns to play an instrument, for example a saxophone it's a hard task. But after he's accomplished the learning playing a different sax, clarinet, recorder, low whistle and anything alike is a matter of several weeks if not days. It has same notes, and fingering method. Same applies for software.
If you learn HTML css will be easy. If you know Javascript, Actionscript will be easy as well.
Personaly, I like Illustrator because I'm lazy. That means I like to use it's ready-made components and symbols. I like the brushes and the 3D effect of the new CS2.
Maybe that's my problem. When you are doing something for fun it's a one thing. But when you have to do something then I just want to do it and get rid of it, so I do not enjoy making stuff. Xara provides the tools. I want to create an interface... I've got an exam in few days, heck I don't want to waste time planning I just want to get done with it, so I start Illustrator... for me it's a bit easier to make simple designs with it. Or with Freehand.
Indesign is not so user friendly, regarding the advanced stuff. Sure you can make a nice layout, but creating a 400 page math book can really get you some hair pulling. That was my main work actually, to design and edit math books. It's much harder than people think. Working with graphics gives you the ability to use colors, graphics... creating a math book with equations - really requires thinking about what space to make between the letters so it's more readable, how to make notes, spaces, put the diagrams. It's a lot of grey work and a lot of typing. Boring :(
Thats why I left the job almost completely. Now I concentrate on flash site building and actionscript.
Illustrator is something I use mainly for some animations (with brushes mainly) to use with flash or just for it's meshes or 3D effects.
Oh and by the way, one thing is that I can't draw :( I never learned to draw and all I know is how to trace a photo. So that also takes the will out of me doing something.
I don't think its as easy as jumping from the Sax to the clarinet. ;)
I started out in the Arts then went into Graphic Design and Publishing, then on to Web Design and Development. Along the way I've learned all the apps you mention.
I've been a DRAW user since ver 2, Freehand since it was owned by Aldus - Boy that dates back - :eek: And learned Illustrator at ver 7.
Illustrator was by far the most illogical of the three. Simple things I took for granted in DRAW were hard to figure out the first time in Illustrator. I had a much easier time with Freehand, although I don't use it much anymore.
A language analogy would work better for me. Knowing one language helps to find the answers in another, i.e. a Line or Stroke, Node or Anchor Point. But it doesn't keep me from pulling my hair out trying to figure out the way those objects behave in each program. Another simple example is the Line again. In DRAW it's really simple put the line behind the fill - In Xtreme, yikes, what a pain. :D Then Flash is another story. It's very simple to work with vectors and such, but it behaves so differently from the others, that you almost can't put it in the same box.
With that said, it has been extremely handy to know each of those programs. Many times I have had to work in each or several to get a project done. A client might have a legacy Illustrator design or a PageMaker file with linked graphics. I feel for designers that go through that initial hair pulling trying to translate an apps features to figure out what another can and can't do for them.
I don't dislike Illustrator, it has some nice features and as I said I do use it frequently. Maybe it's a Right Brain struggle, but I do have to agree with Sally, Adobe 's logic is unfathomable at times.
Availor, I think you misunderstood what I said. I learned Illustrator at version 8, once they brought in transparency with 9, the stability was not there, it was easier to use 8 and simulate transparency.
I can draw very well in Illustrator. I have done some really fine work, and as far as one person or another using a program, I am probably faster than most users at the program, however, it is, because of its interface, slower to use. The length of time spent in a dialogue box added to the adjustments that you have to do to the drawing itself such as with the gradient tool is one example and irregardless of the number of years that Adobe has known this, they ignore it, because "Illustrator is program of choice for the Industry". If you need conical gradients, you use blends, and that is done in a dialogue box as well. Using blends is much slower than using a gradient.
Photoshop has lots of different gradients, so Adobe knows that these gradients exist, they just haven't seen to it that Illustrator has them. In both cases the means of applying the gradient, is trial and error.
Transparency is another point, it isn't very easy unless it is flat transparency. And the use of masks is supposed to be superior. If you had graduated transparency, the need of a mask is superfluous. It can take fifteen minutes or more setting up a linear transparency in a mask whereas the competitors, have drawn the same thing inside of one minute and have moved on to drawing other things.
So the consequences is this when under a deadline: you can do the same design in various programs, but the Illustrator design will be the simplest, more basic, relying on design and not effects. Just because you draw with another drawing program doesn't mean that you don't have a good design, but now if you want to pull in other elements, you have time to do it. Now you can look polished, you can gleem, shine, etc. Or you can look like rounded tinker toys. Now which would you choose? One of our clients, an Illustrator user, designed a marketing scheme in Illustrator based on stick figures. How exciting! I am glad I didn't have to put a stick figure with a sash on the front of their beauty pageant booklet. Everyone who is involved with this project hates it. True, not everyone who is a graphic designer can draw, but what a pity when there are so many who are out there who can draw and paint and the job goes to the one with the most retro design. Life is more than the symbols on restroom doors.
Illustrator does have nice brushes, and I do use them at times, but when I am racing the clock, I use Illustrator for what it is good for and go back to DRAW or Xara and complete my artwork.
As far as 3D, it is nothing in comparison to what can be achieved in Xara 3D. And then the cost involved is still more with Illustrator.
InDesign is rather built to be frustrating, but in comparison to using Quark, it is an improvement. I haven't used the new Quark which is supposed to be worlds better. InDesign has drawing tools which work just like Illustrator. One thing I like is that text wrap is based on object transparency and a clipping path does not need to be present. So you can get some cool effects with imported bitmaps with softer edges over clipping paths. The support of spot color is really good, however, don't make a mistake with spot color because it can live to haunt you. You can get it off your palette, you can make your .pdf, and it shows up irregardless. CS did this and it is still happening in CS2. The main trouble is that people can find the exact color they want with the Pantone swatches and don't change it to the CMYK equivalents, so now the spot channel is there, zeroed out and it fails preflight for CMYK. Of course there is no additional plate, but it will now cost you more or more time to furnish a new .pdf which has been remade. Part of my job is making plates, and I don't have to run plates that I know are blank, it is just a way to charge more money.
The added expense means that it is harder to afford the expensive and frequent upgrades. For the price, you think you'd get at least as much as what the competitors are offering for decidedly less money.
With gaseoline predicted to push past $4.00 a gallon in the U.S., these added expenses make it much harder on businesses to make a profit. Software is only one of the expenses of a print business.
Yes, if you learn one software, it makes it easier to learn the next. I have played violin, except for reading music, it didn't help whatsoever with the fingering on the flute, although flute helped with learning saxophone and oboe and even clarinet, and learning the piano was differnt from all of the above, except for the upper clef. So it gives greater music appreciation. And no, just as instruments are different, it doesn't make you as good at all instruments. A person with a wider spread of fingers has more of an advantage at playing some pieces. Yours is a comparison of apples and oranges, all software is not indeed created equally, they do not function the same.
With the high price of upgrade on Adobe products, there are a lot of people not waiting to chomp at the bit for the next upgrade. And that price is no where near the legal price of the full version, heaven help you if you don't purchase it with a student discount.
Hey sally you learned to play so many instruments? Wow :D I only play three... guitare, sax and a recorder... oh and I can play very well with one's nerves that's for sure :D:D:D
Anyway, RedWombat kind of got my point about apps but for me it's still easier to learn other software if I've already learned one. I kinda understand the logic behind it.
About Illustrator and adobe programs in general. There are disadvantages and advantages of their own. Illustrator is an industrial software, and as being such you can reuse objects. Something you cannot do in Xara.
Macromedia is working with objects, which is terrific, since if I'm working on a book for example, I can use the same object over and over again.
In adobe programs you can create layouts. So maybe it will take more time to really make the gradient you want, but then you can store it and reuse it. I've rarely seen a layout that needs to be very original. All magazines and books, flyers and such has all the same concept, so I can create a symbol or a style depending on a program, and then reuse it.
I think that Xara lacks few things that still puts it behind:
1. Multipages
2. Styles/symbols
3. better text handeling.
These three things will improve greatly Xara's usage. For me anyway.
Xara is meant for drawing. It's great at what it's supposed to do. But that's not what I need mostly. So I use either freehand or Illustrator. Preferably Freehand since it's the most common software to use in here, and because it has multipages.
Where are the multiple pages in Illustrator? That's InDesign and more money.
Comparing one to the other, Xara is the "mouse that roared".
Yes, Xara is for drawing, for page layout at a reasonable price, there is CorelDRAW. It does most of InDesign, most of Illustrator, most of Photoshop including PhotoPaint. Except for books, of course, the memory management isn't up to that. But it doesn't claim to be either.
For short publications, it is very good. Good print preview.
But Illustrator is getting better.
But I root for the underdog.
I've always been partial to DRAW myself. A lot of Bang for the Buck! :)
Multiple pages are possible in Illustrator, but they don't refer to it that way. You have to change the page spread with the printer driver. DRAW is much more intuitive in that respect. Click the little +, and Walla Walla Washington, you have a new page. I always found DRAW very nice to use and very versatile, that is except in the early days. I always had crashing issues back then. :D. The later versions are much more stable. I liked it enough to buy stock in the company back when they were public.
DRAW never got their just kudos that's for sure.
I do find myself jumping between apps because I find that each can do something better than the other, making my design life that much better.
I do agree with Sally though. Adobe's prices are sky high! I'm fortunate to have CS2, but that will be the last update I do for awhile.
You know, I feel the need to come up with a cool tag line like you guys have for my signature. :cool:
I think, it depends on the point of view:
- If you want to write a book, Xara Xtreme and Adobe Illustrator aren't the correct programs.
- If you want to create a vector drawing, Indesign or Quark aren't the first choice.
- If you want to draw easy and fast, Adobe Illustrator is a pain and Xara Xtreme is excellent.
- If you want to alter digitial images extensively, a vector graphics editor is not the first choice.
- If you want to create high-value 3D graphics, Xara 3D isn't the correct program.
It's the same old question, as with operating systems: Which is the best one? Windows, Mac, Linux, ...? The answer is: It depends on your requirements, your individual taste and your purse.
There is no software package, which beats the competition in all points. But it's fine, that there are several programs available. Perhaps, someday Illustrator is faster and easier than Xara Xtreme or cheaper than Corel Draw. In the meantime, I use Adobe Illustrator reluctantly.
Remi
Hi Remi,
I have agreed with all of your posts recently but I think that InDesign now is getting close to being the complete programme sice the introduction of CS2 where now you can edit PDF's without just placing them. Now before you reply stating the obvious, I did say "close to being to the complete programme".
Sorry Sally I just read your comments, and I could not agree more with your statements on AI but a few were off when it came to ID. Yes some of what you state in "spot colours" are correct but I have always found that the preflight summeries were accurate and you must know how difficult transparencies are to separate on plates which I think ID does better that CD at least I can only comment upto ver. 12.
No, no, Albacore - I would never do such a thing. ;) :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Albacore
I remember a large visionary some years ago. He had some great ideas, how modern Software should be build. He said, that there could be an centralized and open canvas to draw or write on it, and there could be developers, which creates some small tools to work with the canvas. He thought about Software as a construction kit with Objects/Components from different Software companies/Developers. There would be companies, which develops small texteditor components and other companies, which would program some pixel graphic components or vector graphic components - up to 3D graphic components . Each component would draw on the centralized canvas. There would be centralized functions to save/print/export the content of the (multipaged) canvas.
He thought, there would be no more large software packages with tons of functions. Instead there would be some small pieces of software from different vendors with access to the centralized canvas and the customers would be able to buy their components from different specialists:
- Some texteditor components from Microsoft (MS Word), Adobe (InDesign) or Quark (QuarkXPress)...
- Some bitmap manipulating components from Adobe (Photoshop) or Corel (Paintshop Pro) or an Open Source project (GIMP)...
- Some vector graphics editor components from Xara (Xara Xtreme) or Corel (Corel Draw) or Adobe (Adobe Illustrator)...
- Some 3D graphics editor/render components from Autodesk (3ds Max/Maya), Maxon, DAZ (Hexagon), McNeel (Rhinoceros) or an Open Source Project (POV-Ray or Blender)...
He had developed a great concept. And he was a personality with the necessary money to realize this concept.
But in reality it seems a little bit to complicated to develop such a software solution - even for Bill Gates, the visionary behind this thoughts.
Regards,
Remi
see also: Wikipedia article about Software componentry
To Albacore,
The newest version of DRAW X3 can handle spot color in shadows, and all types of transparency with spot color as well as spot color in blends, using the new bevel tool and the mesh tool. And translates this into .pdf with correct spot color too, including to plate. I know, I do it every day. It is a big improvement over 12. However, there are some inconsistencies that keep some users from using X3, but if you play to its strengths, it is a very powerful tool.
Viewing plates is much easier, you get a much larger view, if there is something wrong you can zoom right in and know what needs to be changed.
InDesign like Illustrator has only half of the gradient tools and handles transparency like Illustrator. It can handle creep for long publications and manages memory much better than DRAW, but DRAW isn't in competition for books, booklets and leaflets, brochures, business cards, in other words, smaller publications.
If you were doing the impositions for gang runs on large CMYK presses, you'd be using InDesign.
Quark is losing ground it seems. Even though InDesign is challenging to learn, it is easier to use than Quark. As of yet I haven't used the newest version.
The best thing about Illustrator is its brushes and support in all for pen tablets, it has nice borders. The part that really keeps me from wanting to use it more is in selecting items to edit. The layers palette doesn't really help you locate what you need. It is easier to add to a selection than to subtract from it.
I often get in designs in Illy to have to impose, half of the work is off the art board, which makes doing imposition all the harder. Printing isn't just done one at a time, but as many as you can get on the paper for economy sake, you don't want overlap of artwork as it can cause distortions on the plate. We get a lot of work in in Illy and the part we print in house, is nearly always in need of correction. Colleges teaching the next breed of designers don't teach enough about how things are printed to make work coming in at all press ready. It is harder to do an impostion when the tolerances are not as precise. It is easier to do it by the numbers when you have them always in front of you, when you have little leeway for error, I will do the imposition in DRAW because it trims right. Yes, I can get right on the money at 800% zoom, but it takes more time. And my job is all deadlines. I have to choose what is the fastest program for the job I have to do.
Presses have gripper, you can't print right up to the edge of the paper, if you are having things numbered, you have to allow room as a numbering machine has more potential for error than say a trimmer which is dialed in to be far more accurate digitally. When you have two up, you have to have double the page margin between them so they cut correctly. So I get to fix it. When I notify the customer that the work isn't correct, they often send back the exact same thing. Conclusion: they don't know the difference between CYMK green and Pantone 361, as long as it looks black, they don't look to see if it is 100% black. Very few call and find out the margins we use and gripper margins or to ask for a template. I get in work that is anything but ready to go out, one image off the web, next to another that is 800 dpi. If the designers who are using Illy are proving anything, at least 50% of them need a prepressman to fix their work or it isn't going to print at all. And this doesn't get better with service bureaus either, which kick back work with spot color in it, even in an Illustrator file which they will accept, but it costs $65.00 for them to fix it. So I preflight everything I get in, check height and width, when there are so many problems, you begin to wonder. Yes, service bureaus don't take files from Publisher, but if you are sophisticated enought to use AI, why can't they do it right?
We get in work just a badly from the local college except for one instructor who knows his stuff. We get tiffs sent in in CMYK and they look blue because they want us to print in Reflex Blue. They think I am being grumpy when I tell them we need vector art, because we do charge for reworking their artwork, and of course people haven't budgeted for this. We often end up fixing it anyway but do try to get the customer to comply first. Even in Illustrator we get .jpegs that are supposed to be color separations.
My conclusion: that CMYK is being taught, and that's about it. But there is much that is printed everyday which is spot color and for the smaller printing business where people are striving for sticking to a budget, it is going to remain a part of business. Spot color isn't just another palette to pick a pretty color from.
Yes, there are those who know what they are doing. If it isn't the program, it is the users. But I have to also wonder why they can't see their errors or why they can't check it with a .pdf, most of them have Acrobat Professional. Print preview could show more.
We do a lot of newsletters and they are always spot color. One of our clients send us files out of Quark and they just end up sending us .pdf with all work in black. We've gotten Illy files from the local newspaper in to be printed in like manner because they didn't know how to send spot color separations.
If it is so great, why so many mistakes and by people who ought to know?
My point is, it should be easier to see where the problems are. That it is unclear for the user costs the printing industry a lot of profit.
It is true that many shops turn away artwork coming in if it is CorelDRAW, we use DRAW and prefer work to arrive in .pdf because we may have a slightly different version of the font and it can change the pagination.
Whatever the program, print preview should be better understood. At least when people were printing their separations they knew what their colors were. No one does this any more, paper is cheaper than printing plates, I do it to check that work is okay. As of yet, I have not seen anyone send us a file in Illy that ever overprints a light screen of the spot color. Much easier for the pressman to not have to deal with knocked out type unless it is CMYK, then that is the way to do it. So it is very different. But designers should know, I don't know how they get a degree and don't know what they should. Whether or not you have a postscript printer attached to your computer, it would be ideal to have a separations print preview. It would be nice if the whole world were so rich they didn't know what not to buy next, the rest of us, live on a budget. I don't have a post script printer at home. So if I design at home, I am going to look at it in DRAW because there is a print preview even when my output is to my Epson printer.
Sally, I think the reason for so many so called designers making mistakes is that they don't send enough items to the printers with the modern laser it is so easy just to use that and they seldom think in CMYK and the separate plates, and with Illy since the intro of CS I find it difficult to make mistakes since you get such a comprehensive report in the printing dialogue in both RGB and CMYK and thats before any preflight.
Don't complain too much about setting up for large sheet printing thats what keep you in a job and as for spot colours thats money in the printers pocket for nothing. Mind you I find hard to believe that folk send you items to be printed and its not even on the Art Board, now that is silly.
I hope tthis forum takes off as Illustrator World at the moment is so limitted so therefore few folk are using it.
The part which makes me irked at a some of the users is that they don't understand what I am talking about, they resave the file and nothing has changed. I've had some argue that there is nothing wrong with the file and that they sent it to another printer and there was no problem. And if I knew what I am doing, (he-hmm), that there'd be no problem. And then they add, it is solely that I am not using a MAC.
We do end up correcting their file, I should say that I end up correcting the file and send them back the corrected file, so that if they re-run it at a later date, it will hopefully be correct.
We send it back corrected so they don't argue about the extra charge. Yes, you can don't have to print the extra plates out, if you are using red which is 100% yellow and 100% yellow, either plate can be printed as spot, but not if you have a color which is mixed, the result on the press is NG.
And as far as money in the printers pocket, it is the time a job takes, not necessarily the number of plates, the plates may cost as little as two dollars each, so the difference between a three color spot job and four process color job is not that much. It is the payment on the press, if the printer owns the press, but spot color jobs for low runs per unit are about the same cost as offset at high yield runs. And they aren't for gratis, short runs, unless you are using the same spot colors mean washing up the press frequently. All of that time equals labor. It isn't like running a color copier where the set up is the same no matter.
And no I am not being silly about crap on the artboard or jobs off the artboard all together, you have to hunt for them. We have one design firm that does it that way all the time and cannot be told differently.
As far as prepres mistakes out of InDesign, so long as people do not use the tools to warn them about how they are making their .pdf, there are going to be mistakes.
Often a company logo is designed in spot color as it is going on letterhead, envelope, any other stationery, but then is put on a four color business card or brochure. Placing it there doesn't change that it is spot color and the .pdf can be set to change the spot to process. On business cards it is always best to convert to outlines or curves. But InDesign users find it difficult to get rid of the spot color. Even though what they used is converted to CMYK color, about 30% of the time they have trouble with this.
The prepress we run, we don't charge the customer for, normally, and if it were all curves, I could fix their file. We have run the job from CYMK .tif because the InDesign user didn't know how to fix the file.
It saves time delay to view the file in Acrobat Professional before it is sent out, so that if there is a problem, you fix it before it is sent. This goes for output from all programs. Some printers charge as much as $65.00 an hour to fix the file and if the file is fixed by the customer, it is $32.00 for resubmittal. It pays to be careful.
Sally, I dont' quiet understand what's going on with the printing issue there.
In here, I make a CMYK, close it as a pdf and send it to a printer shop. He prints an example with the Aeries machine (or fiery or whatever). I show it to the customer and.... yes or no. I don't pay extra even if I need to run 3 or 4 tests.
I have adobe acrobat 6 professional so regardless of what program I'm using (I even made many jobs solely on MS word since it was all text that someone else started and quit in the middle) I just print that out.
Sure there are mistakes but nobody is expecting such a perfection even in big dimension print jobs.