Illustrator CS5

Well it came out this week with numerous enhancements like the following:
Draw accurately in perspective, create variable-width strokes, paint with lifelike brushes.

The two bits that I really like is the way that you can draw and object on a 2D plane and then when your drag it onto the new perspective grid it snap to that perspective. See in operation here: http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/ill...D=0&npObjID=17

The other features that I would use a lot would be the ability to draw line and shapes only inside that object and the ease of placing an object behind with a click of a button. See it in operation here: http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/ill...D=0&npObjID=13

Will I buy it for myself, think not! I will try and get my employers to buy it but that will be like "f_rting against thunder" as they think that AI CS is enough to do my work.

This looks like a substantial improvement on CS4...very tempting. ;))
Thanks for the links.
Saludos,
Bob.

create variable width strokes: that is the ability to sculpt and edit your own stroke shapes on the fly :cool:

and the perspective drawing, very useful.... shape builder tool could speed a lot of things up....too

it looks good...

WOW, It is like an autoclipview, I think It should be posted in Dear xara....
Thanks Albacore.

Yes that's taking the Pathfinder to a new level Jvila. Also for anyone doing cartoons that create variable width strokes tool would be very handy indeed. Still nearly £200 pounds for an upgrade to me is an awful lot of freelance work to get my money back.

I knew this was just out and I have been reading some of the reviews. Of course the updates make it more of a bloat from the CS$ version which I have. The upgrades are steep in price. I have spent a lot on Illy over the years, why I'm not sure. I use the Extreme Path plug-in to help in node editing. My request for years has been A b-spline tool and scanning ability, of course you are supposed to use Photoshop for that. Creature House Expression 3 has had variable stokes for 10 years. That stroke is not exactly the same as Illustrator where you pull on a stroke like liquid ink, which Real Draw has.

Without a doubt if you need to learn the program there is more tutorials on Illustrator and Photoshop than any other programs out there. I think I will wait a while to upgrade and give it time to shakedown with the tutorials that I think will be forthcoming.

All of the these illustrator drawing features are all very well, but as an illustration program how good is it at publishing websites?

See my point - major features left out and neglected - you wont find Xara wasting their time with that new illustrator nonsense. While Xara continues to makes strides in the important stuff - web publishing, it's leaving illustrator way behind the game. Who needs illustration features in a vector drawing program anyway.. ? Nobody is going to pay to get that kind of stuff until it adds web publishing to the mix.

;-)

I rather think adobe's web publishing is in another program of theirs - illustrator is geared for printing first and foremost...

I also think vector is just as useful, if not more so, for print than web

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Originally Posted by handrawn

I rather think adobe's web publishing is in another program of theirs - illustrator is geared for printing first and foremost...

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Yes, that's where they've got it wrong - nobody want an illustrator program that doesn't publish to the web, so they shoul include Dreamweaver as part of illustrator and sell Dreamweaver Lite.

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I also think vector is just as useful, if not more so, for print than web

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Nah, if it isn't a web publishing feature, it's pointless.

;-)

well Paul, I'm not going to defend adobe's business model, but it is as it is ...

the second comment you make -it's ironic right :D

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Originally Posted by handrawn

well Paul, I'm not going to defend adobe's business model, but it is as it is ...

the second comment you make -it's ironic right :D

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..there's been a smiley on EVERY POST.

Think of it as "What illustrator would be if Adobe were Xara".. ;-)

:D :-O

I think your being at bit harsh when you say that it can't publish to the web. It can slice and dice with the best of them but your java script has got to be good if you want a complete web page. The newer vers. also great for mobile devices through an other programme and even exporting into Flash from CS 4 onwards is easy you can treat it as a smart object or cut and paste directly. Adobe are no fools when it comes to marketing and rely on firms and people to buy the Creative Suite for the web, print or both

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Originally Posted by Albacore

I think your being at bit harsh when you say that it can't publish to the web. It can slice and dice with the best of them but your java script has got to be good if you want a complete web page. The newer vers. also great for mobile devices through an other programme and even exporting into Flash from CS 4 onwards is easy you can treat it as a smart object or cut and paste directly. Adobe are no fools when it comes to marketing and rely on firms and people to buy the Creative Suite for the web, print or both

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Albacore, I'm not being harsh at all. None of my comments were meant to be taken seriously, it was a good natured dig at Xara about a rival "foolishly" introducing drawing tools in an illustration program while "neglecting" web publishing - kind of the reverse of Xaras policy.

I think the irony and smileys were a bit too subtle for some!

I have CS3 and will need to move to CS5 and have spent the last month working for a print/web company using CS4.

:)

one problem I have is that I speed read posts and one thing I nearly always miss is a 'smiley' that is typed in punctuation - my brain seems to filter them out :eek: dyspepsia probably don't help

Beware! The "company man" is watching. >:)
;))

:p

:D

You got me as well!

trial version CS5 now available - downloading as I type ... :-bd

beautiful strokes? - bit of a disapointment :( but then , I don't draw that way really

bristle brush? - brilliant [did not get much sleep last night :D]

attach a quick cartoon sketch - this was done in less than two minutes on the tablet [literally] and was the first go, duck to water I think :cool: - it can be imported into xtreme as fully editable vector, but [so far] it doesn't seem this can be done in multi layer....AI or PDF....

Well are you going to up grade because of the brushes? I am thinking about it, will try the download now. It takes so much room in the hard drive but I have plenty to spare so I will.

well first I'll have to check right through and establish workflow[s] - it looks very promising, but there are [nearly] always issues, as is life

it seems to me that the rendering on zoom out is better too, more on a par with photoshop CS4 than illy CS4 was [daren't even try CS5 photoshop at the moment :eek: its going to be a tough year ..] .....

the brushes do the job I need them to do - plus illy live paint makes creating coloring shapes on a duplicate layer very easy

xtreme struggles after a while to redraw the imported vectors though - I think because there can be many hundreds of transparent shapes here - I've tried tweaking the live drag and cache, but it still isn't as happy as illy in this respect which 'leverages the power of the GPU' for its rendering [I think I know what that means :D]

I'm going to have think hard about this - £190+ for the upgrade [and VAT will go up after the election I reckon..] - but they are exactly what I have been after for a long time :cool:

yep - it's all good

now take care y'all...

it was nice

all power to the web and photopharties...

may you prosper and grow...

I'm officially out of the upgrade path now as I have CS and you need CS2 or better.

That's always been the case that you have to upgrade every 5 years unless you have a registered copy of PS and upgrade to the Creative Suite I think.

To enquire from Handrawn is a silly thing to do as he seems very happy with his purchase I am a bit more sceptical as I to have been playing with Illustrator and with CS 3 on my drive I can't really afford the benefits of the nice masking using the new brushes. Can't see myself using the 3D effects very often or the art strokes which seem a hype. Still I have some time left to play and will make my mind up later.

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Originally Posted by Albacore

To enquire from Handrawn is a silly thing to do...

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:-O forgive me my enthusiasm :D

handrawn is an Artist [with a capital A] and not a Designer [Graphic or otherwise] so he/she/it is going to look at things from that point of view; if this is atypical [here] so be it :p

the really nice thing about the bristle brushes, for me, is that they are stroked by a group of lines of varying levels of transparency - and that as you curve the line you get 'extra sweep' similar to a real brush [in principle]

this means, for example, that when the lines are reduced they still retain visual character, and do not become 'flat looking' in the way solid or single transparency strokes would - and all this is laid down in real time so it can be drawn freehand and spontaneously...

I think drawing in the style of JA might be a good example here Peter...

attached are some [default] stroke examples - there is a very useful amount of variation possible

You got it in one there Handrawn as the only time I would use the bristle brush would be in my own work which is on the back burner a bit at the moment. Most of my work at the moment is straight vector, info posters, backgrounds for power point, technical illustrations, newsletters upon newsletter and cartoons for the newsletters. I thought the new art strokes might help with the cartoons but at the moment they don't feel right when using them but I will try a bit longer before reverting back to the normal strokes and brushes.

Since you draw cartoons most of the time why so much emphasis on the bristle brush? Do you not want a clean clear outline like an old fashion pen gives you with thickness and thinness given the way you angle the pen. Its what I am looking for and since I draw out the cartoon before loading it into the computer. Sometimes it just goes into PS for a quick clean, while other times its drawn in either XPro 5 or in Illy and is pure vector with very little in the way of shading as that is my style.

CS5 with tiny hardly can see icons at 1920x1080 hp W7 ultimate. I haven't used Illustrator since way back Version7. Still as clumsy as ever and now with tiny icons, brushes? Painter for brushes. Xara is excellent for vectors and ordered 5 a bit ago looks like improvements since my 3.2.
I have linux on another system and I can adjust fonts on every part of the desktop, toolbars, menus, W7 is sorely lacking here.

@crayola painter is fine for raster brushes, and if that was what I currently wanted, I would still be using it ;)

@albacore yes well, if I use the same [mapping type] pen and the same ink and the same stroke on:

canson bristol
saunders waterford
daler rowney drawing paper

I will get three different looking lines, due to the interaction of ink and paper; and further it will not even be 100% consistent [think sizing; think bleed]

You can imitate this to an extent in raster, with painter as mentioned, but so far not in vector - CS5 is a step in the right direction

Art [with the capital A] is called Art because you accept the line you get when you finally come to render - and the Art[ifice] is in taking it from there, even if it is not quite what you wanted - otherwise its not Art, its Craft...

just my way of seeing it ;)

No argument there Handrawn.

Some bits are clumsy but the wont change because everyone used to that, the speed of Illustrator is better now than version 9 & 10 and if you want to change the way the icons are shown you can through the workspace.

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Originally Posted by handrawn

handrawn is an Artist [with a capital A]

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You must place it on the signature to avoid further confusion!

@crayola - welcome to TG - sorry, I saw you joined feb 10, but missed this was your first post ...:o

@Add.O.B - welcome to TG also - the ironic [and slightly iambosic] rhetoric you quote was a predication, not a declaration of being ;):p

I hope this is the Right place for this question :o I have Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium. I am thinking of upgrading my Illustrator CS3 and Photoshop CS3 to CS5. The Creative Suite upgrade is $769.00, kind of steep. Can you buy just the Ill Cs5 and Photoshop CS5 upgrade separately and have them wok :o even though the ones I have, came in the Creative Suite bundle?

Also I hear war stories reference the Adobe Licensing, it has been said if your computer crashes and you loose your Adobe programs it is hard as heck to get them to redo the licensing :-O I guess my question is, is it worth upgrading :D

Is it worth upgrading? It really all depends on what you do with the software. My advice would be to try out the 30 day trials before you go ahead and upgrade, then you can decide for yourself. There is no problem with keeping CS3 installed and installing the trials. Remember, though that if you do open a file you created in CS3 - don't save it back using CS5 or you may be unable to open it again if you decide not to upgrade. There's a ton of online stuff that tells you about the new CS5 featues if you go to the adobe site.

I think there is little value to upgrading two programs from the suite seperately - I think the total will be just about the same as upgrading the whole suite.

If it makes you feel better, the upgrade is even more expensive outside the US.

The suite upgrades are basically designed to move you up one level in future upgrade revenue. Of course the other way to look at it is that you have the use of the other suite programs at a discounted rate.

Whether the upgrade is worthwhile is entirely dependent on what you intend to do with the software and whether you can afford the cost. In my case I was forced to upgrade because as a freelancer, my clients were using CS5 and they couldn't send me files in formats less than CS4. Adobe knows how to make people pay out..

[Oh, I've never had a problem re-installing software on my machines - through machine upgrades or HD replacements ]

Adobe don't bother people with older versions of their software at all and if you do have problems just use the help number given with your software they are very helpful. I don't upgrade just for the sake of upgrading but the one that I would do is PS as this piece of software gives you the rights to upgrade all other programmes in the Suite. I think now, this year, is the last time you can upgrade from PS CS(1) without paying the full whack price just the upgrade price which means you get around 10 years at the upgrade price if you can understand that.

Yes you can just upgrade the one bit of software and in the UK to upgrade Illy to CS5 for me would be around the £200 mark. I am happy like you just with Illy CS 3 and I get my freelance clients to send any work to me using the PDF format which they are all happy to do. It means it is a bit extra work for me if they have used some of the new gradients but all the rest works well even the new transparency type brushes and perspective grids.