Some of us have been eagerly awaiting it, others have been casually disinterested, and some have even expressed irritation. The fact of the matter is, though, that this September 23rd saw the official announcement of Adobe's latest release of their Creative Suite. Here at VECTORTUTS we thought it fair to give vector fans a taste of what's new in Illustrator CS4.
The following information and more is available from adobe.com. See the announcement here:Adobe Illustrator CS4.
Workflow and Efficiency
Our screens are getting bigger, platforms are offering us space-saving window and desktop dynamism, but Adobe felt we needed further assistance with our workspace and workflow. Most of Illustrator's new additions aim to improve the way in which we interact with it.
Multiple Artboards
Up to 100 separate artboards within the same document. Your artboards can be displayed side by side, overlapping or stacked. They can be saved, exported or printed as a group or individually. Previous versions of Illustrator offer multipage PDF publishing from page tiles; Illustrator CS4 also allows multiple artboards to be published in this way.
Tabbed Documents
The familiar modern way of working with multiple documents or windows. Cascading or tiled tabs will allow you to switch between and move objects across to other open documents with ease.
In-Panel Appearance Editing
Reducing the need for ever-present panels appears to be have been high on the list of priorities for CS4. The introduction of 'In-panel appearance editing' gives complete control of an object's characteristics, fill, stroke, effects - all in one (small) place.
Actions on the Artboard
Another new feature providing relevant menus wherever your cursor is on the artboard. Playing with options within panels at the edge of your screen is therefore reduced.
Tools
The essence of our working with Illustrator; they help us make our marks, add our text and give us color. CS4 presents a few welcome tool additions.
Gradients Annotator
The way in which gradients are created hasn't really changed much over the years and this has received it's fair share of frowns from users. Adobe will be looking to silence the critics with the gradients annotator. Total intuitive control of your gradients direct from the object you're working on. Angle, position, and (also newly introduced) elliptical dimensions, all editable with sliders giving direct feedback.
Transparency in Gradients
Further tweaking of Illustrator's gradient tools! Those of you familiar with gradients in Photoshop or Flash will be glad of this new feature; allowing you to define the opacity of any given stop in an object's gradient.
Blob Brush Tool
Another feature which may ring a bell with Flash users. Paint with the Blob Brush tool to create a single, clean vector object. Further interaction with the Eraser and the Smooth tool allow fluid path creation.
Production
Illustrator helps us deliver our files to an increasingly long list of media. This time round, it was the turn of print for a little attention.
Prepress
The printers among you may be more accustomed to checking your color output with Acrobat. Illustrator now provides a Separations Panel to ensure your document is composed only of the colors you intended and that they will be printed exactly as you plan.
Bleeds
Also new to CS4 is what Adobe are calling the 'Bleeds document attribute'. Choose to work with bleeds when setting up your document, or later on.
Online Services
Adobe Community Help
Search Adobe's product help online with improved search facilities. Help contributions from 3rd party community members keep this resource growing and current.
Adobe Kuler™
Anyone who read 5 Ways to Customize Adobe Illustrator will remember Kuler™, the color palette feed available from Adobe Labs. Not surprisingly this has been made a permanent feature of Illustrator's CS4 edition, giving you access to color, theme and swatch contributions from a huge online community.
Now it's Your Turn
Let's hear it then, are you impatiently drumming your credit card on the desk, waiting for CS4 to be made available? Or are you quietly resentful at the thought of investing more hard-earned cash for tools which you'll rarely make use of? We want to hear your thoughts.
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Josef September 24th
FIRST!
I cant wait for CS4, gonna b quality!!
( )giackop September 24th
looking forward to try it!!!
( )QVectors September 24th
Unlike the PS CS4 I think ill be buying this new AI version, the gradient enhancement looks sweet.
( )Vince September 24th
Im excited for it but at the same time I feel a bit burnt, for illustrator it was 3 patches then a new version. I feel jipped
( )Sean Hodge September 24th
I can’t wait to demo this at least. The controlling Opacity in Gradients is something that I’ve wanted since version 8, which is where I picked up Illustrator years ago. It’s that feature that I always wished was there. I hope it works good.
( )Keith September 24th
I hope it comes out before Christmas because there is no way that I can afford this on my own after getting CS3. The opacity in gradients and the multiple art boards is what I’m looking forward to the most.
( )Shane September 24th
Interesting intro into CS4. Not sure when I’ll get around to using it though.
( )Aditya September 24th
The illustrations are absolutely cool!
Hope you guys come up with a tutorial on how to make stuff like that…
CS4 seems to be nice….
( )greg September 24th
Compared to the other products in the CS4 suite, I feel this one is more of a dud. I wish they would work on enhancing the 3D features (effects) while editing it, allowing users to spin it around live, etc … Kind of like Google’s Sketchup!
( )Seraphim Collective September 24th
This is exiting, can’t wait for the launch!
( )Jobbertown September 24th
I am excited and jaded all in one. The upcoming additions are by far the coolest. I watched the release movie on the 23rd and of the the programs that they showcased, I was most excited about the Illustrator enhancements. Wish they would have given more time to DW, but oh well. The only reason I say I am kind of jaded is I just plunked out cash for the master collection just a couple months ago, now it seems I will have to do the same again. *sigh* the things we do for love
( )Thanks Vectortuts…keep up the stellar work!
Josh September 25th
yup, gonna buy it. can’t wait to try out the blob brush and the new clipping mask behavior is pretty cool as well.
( )Sporky September 25th
Oh wow. Now I am looking forward to Illustrator CS4. Especially with the new features for working with gradients. The current version of Flash has them and I’ve always thought Illustrator could use a tool like that. Though it looks like AI CS4’s will be better.
( )Mr Kuzio September 25th
This feature is really useful.
( )Thanks to Adobe and thanks to you guys.
Nathan Rutman September 25th
The one thing I was hoping CS4 would have was cutting-edge tracing, ala VectorMagic (http://vectormagic.com/). It does an amazing job, and it’s a shame I have to pay $300 for an app when Illustrator should do this just as well. That aside, it looks like a fantastic release!
( )Dainis Graveris September 25th
Nice review! It’s really going to be brilliant!
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( )Grafiko September 26th
Simply can’t wait
( )Runa September 27th
Hmm, I have seen the blob tool in a movie already. Pls Adobe, keep AI free from the Flash look&feel. These muddy pixel stripes they call vector and that feel like baby toys. I am already angry when AI is talking about “Save symbol as movie clip?” What fucking movie clip?! It is a symbol.
( )Rivera November 19th
Anyone who hails the new clipping mask behavior is clearly a shortsighted amateur, the level of flexibility that allowed the “classic” clipping mask behavior was unparalleled by any other “alternative”, the isolate clipping mask (reminiscent of the edit powerclip feature that corel did have since the early 90’s) is not as efficient as selecting the clipping mask, selecting inverse (custom command command + i), locking everything else, doing your edit and then unlock all, all this without navigation menus or control clicks.
Some people says that the hide clipped artwork outlines is a nice feature, but what about the command + h function that we had in previous versions?
Even to make simple operations like selecting a clipping mask FROM A GROUP OF OVERLAPPING CLIPPING MASKs now get all messed up, because now there is no way someone can tell what’s inside overlapping clipping masks!!! and NO THE HAVENT FIXED THE GROUP RELEASE CLIPPING MASK BUG!!! so if i accidentally release the clipping mask (trying to know what belongs to where) without releasing any other nested clipping mask that were inside the original clipping mask… then you UNDO and get ready for this: YOU ARTWORK TOTALLY DISAPPEARS!!!
In trying to appeal a mainstream non-power user base, adobe has really fucked it up with the professional, efficient-leaned user base in not including at least an “Use Classic Clipping mask behavior” option on the preferences…
This UPDATE, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IT IS AN UPDATE really had it messed up in one of the most important and most used features of adobe illustrator, let’s hope the FIX THIS PROBLEM.
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