I’m sure you know by now that Adobe has announced Creative Suite 4. Most important to me is Illustrator CS4. I was going to write a comprehensive breakdown of all the new features, but found others have done it better. Instead, I rounded up the best articles and videos I’ve found about the launch of Illustrator CS4. I am going to wait until I have CS4 in my hands to do a comprehensive review.
Adobe Illustrator CS4
Below is a quick breakdown of the new features and enhancements for Illustrator CS4. For a more in-depth review of the new features, check out some of the links in the post.
- Multiple Artboards – Create documents containing up to 100 artboards of varying sizes.
- Transparency In Gradients – Define the opacity of any individual color stop in a gradient.
- Blob Brush Tool – A Brush that creates a single vector shape.
- Gradients Exposed – Better gradient interaction.
- Enhanced User Experience – Enhanced user interface.
- In-Panel Appearance Editing – Edit object characteristics directly in the Appearance Panel.
- Refined Graphic Styles Clipping Masks Demystified – Work with masks more easily.
- Separations Preview – Preview the separation of a file before print
Adobe
Adobe Illustrator CS4 – Adobe page devoted to Illustrator CS4 where you can learn about the new features, get tips, reasons to upgrade, and purchase options.
Layers Magazine
Illustrator CS4 Artboard – Illustrator CS4’s new Multi Artboard video.
Illustrator CS4 Multi Artboards – More on Illustrator CS4’s new Multi Artboard video.
Illustrator CS4 Blob Brush – Illustrator CS4’s new Blob Brush video.
Illustrator CS4 Gradients – Illustrator CS4’s updated Gradients video.
Illustrator CS4 Appearance Panel – Illustrator CS4’s updated Appearance Panel video.
GoMediaZine
First Look: Adobe Illustrator CS4 – Summary, breakdown, and videos of Illustrator CS4 (awesome).
Real World Illustrator
Illustrator CS4: The Facts – A comprehensive guide to all the new features and updates to Illustrator CS4 from Mordy Golding.
Lynda.com
Illustrator CS4 New Features – A couple of videos showing the new Illustrator CS4 features.
More?
Since CS4 was just announced, there is going to be a great deal more information coming out on Illustrator CS4. I will keep updating good articles, posts, and video I find on the Vectips Twitter feed. If you don’t follow Vectips on Twitter, the Vectips site will update with my Twitter feed in the sidebar.
Upgrade?
At this point I have seen enough with the Multi Artboards, Blob Brush, and Gradient enhancements that I a going to upgrade. Are you?
The gradient transparency feature is super awesome! I also love the fact that Illustrator (at least the betas) launch faster than CS3 does on my MBP.
I also did a review here: http://tinyurl.com/4frnxk
Yeah, I’d have to agree with Rype on the speed issue. I use a Mac at home and Windows at work, but unless all of the keyboard shortcuts and interface is the same as the Adobe apps, I’d find a switch to another vector drawing tool quite difficult. Once you figure out all of the shortcuts and interface in one Adobe program, the others become really easy to pick up and switching between them is a cinch. When I’ve used other tools in the past (Macromedia suite, for instance), I found the differences in keyboard shortcuts a bit stifling. I’ll stick with Adobe stuff unless something really drastic happens.
Anon,
Thanks for the catch, changed it!
Jeff,
I’m in the same boat as Esben. I work on a Mac. Still, I’m pretty quick with Illustrator, even if I worked on a PC, I don’t think I would switch.
You spelled Lynda.com wrong. FAIL!
Right one Jeff!
I would love to work at full speed in my vector app, but it just comes as a too great of a cause, since Im using Mac OS X on a PPC – but you clearly have a point!
“Create documents containing up to 100 artboards of varying sizes.”
Wow! CorelDRAW can have thousands of pages, and has been able to for over 10 years!
* Transparency In Gradients – Define the opacity of any individual color stop in a gradient.
Wow! CorelDRAW has had this for over 10 years!
* Gradients Exposed – Better gradient interaction.
CorelDRAW has had this for over 10 years!
* Enhanced User Experience – Enhanced user interface.
Yes, it’s looking Like CorelDRAW more and more!
* Refined Graphic Styles Clipping Masks Demystified – Work with masks more easily.
CorelDRAW’s power clipping has made this easy for 15 years.
* Separations Preview – Preview the separation of a file before print
Wow! CorelDRAW has had this for 15 years!
Seriously. If you like to work at Half Speed, Illustrator is the right choice!
hm well calligraphy brush is broken, since you manually have to adjust and play with the settings in a dialog box, without the possibility to test the settings. I don’t know if you are familiar with Painter X og Painter Essentials, but thats actually what I was hoping for
Great Resources. Thanks mate.
Esben,
Haven’t heard that much. When I watched the Blob Brush video from Layers, the settings looked the same as CS3 Calligraphic Brushes, so I think all the other tablet settings are going to be the same. I will keep an eye out and see if I hear different.
@Rype
What have you heard about the new tablet support? So far as I’ve seen, you still have adjust your brush settings in a pop up dialog :-/
I’m going to read into this more, but I read over the basic list you have of new feature and I have to say that it looks worth it too me. Any additions to the way that illustrator deals with gradients is o.k in my books…
Still waiting to read up on the CS4 suite, but so far illustrator CS4 has my vote.
I will be upgrading.
Cheers for this looks kooool!
Cant wait 4 It!!
Illustrator CS4 yeni özellikleri toplu bildiriler
http://www.joyoge.com/oku/632/Illustrator-CS4-yeni-ozellikleri-toplu-bildiriler.html
thanks a lot…
Wow… thanks for rounding up all of those links. Illustrator CS4 looks pretty awesome. I realize a lot of people will be excited about the multi-page/artboard feature, but I honestly think the other features are much more impressive (I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve wanted to use multiple pages in Illustrator and I’ve been working with it for ten years). The improvements to the gradient tool alone are well worth the price of admission. I’ve been wishing for transparent gradients for a long, long time now. And the blob brush will help a lot when it comes to shading, especially since it can take advantage of graphic styles.
All in all, looks pretty essential to me; it’ll speed up my workflow quite a bit. Thanks for the great post.
I was wondering if anyone was going to cover this! I tried to watch the webcast, but it wouldn’t work for me. Just found out the college I work for bought 24 copies of CS3 today, and are entitled to free upgrades to CS4. Hooray!
Grant,
Yeah, still didn’t see anything about Smart Object improvement.
Will be upgrading! Still want to see how it works with Photoshop though.