Me, I have never used Freehand but I have gripes of my own and they seem to overlap with those of the Freehand refugees. Bruner has even gone so far as to announce a screencast comparison workflow project comparing Illustrator & FreeHand, more as a way to show Illustrator users what he feels are essential features missing from Illustrator, as well as opening a dialog to perhaps gain some feedback from AI users as to ways to accomplish some of these tasks. 

Terri Petit, Adobe Illustrator Product Manager has stated multiple times in the Adobe Forums:

“the best way to increase the likelihood that bugs will be addressed in a dot release is for multiple people to either submit an official bug report on the online form, or call the Customer Support phone lines and report it that way. The number of times a problem gets officially reported from the field by different customers is the main factor in prioritizing what gets attention and how it is handled. Feature Request/Bug Report Form: http://www.adobe.com/misc/bugreport.html. You may want to bookmark this link.

The User to User Forums are just what the name says, a way for users to help each other. They are not a way to contact Adobe. Bug reports on here may make engineers aware of the problem, but engineers have very little input into which bug fixes are slated for inclusion in updates. That decision is controlled by Customer Support and Product Marketing, with their decision being based primarily on the level of customer demand, with other factors being the risk of the change introducing other problems, whether there is sufficient QE resources to test the changes, and whether it will require changes to localized resources.”

Feature requests are in fact implemented, provided enough users request them. I proposed via Twitter that what would be most effective would be for Illustrator users to band together, vote on/submit feature request via blog comments, and then have everyone requests the exact same features. Given that I hardly know anyone who submits feature requests period, getting enough artists involved and asking for the exact same thing has to make an impact if we all banded together and submitted the exact same requests on the Adobe Bug Report/Feature Request Page.

Rick Yaeger over at MacMerc posted Von Glitschka’s list of desired new features and fuctionality enhancements for Adobe Illustrator, which I am also posting below, with some comments and additions. I think this is a great starting point, as many of the the Freehand user gripes he mentions are also complaints I have about Illustrator, and these are coming from an Illustrator-only user since version 8 of the software.

The Glitschka list (with comments):

New Feature Requests

• Transparent Color Swatch: So we can blend from a color to transparent. (Like in Photoshop and Flash). No need for the wonky opacity mask that won’t work in smart objects anyway so it’s somewhat useless
  • I have been wanting this forever. I was flabbergasted when transparency finally came to Illustrator, but there was no transparent swatch, thus making it impossible to fade a gradient to transparency without opacity mask workarounds.

• Layer Tags: Simple tag “Layers” or “Layer Groups” with a tag like “PDF” and then if you save out as a PDF it creates a multi-page PDF using only the tagged layers in order.
  • not sure about this one, want to know more about the workflow on this.

• Sub Selection of Content: The ability to sub-select down through content without having to hide, turn on/off layers in the layers palette, send to back or any of the other work around we have to do to get to the art we want to edit buried under other items in our work. Reference FreeHand for how simple this could be.
  • Illustrator does allow one to use keyboard shortcuts, but they just select objects in order from top to bottom – all the objects on the layer are included. I never use it, because it sucks. What they need is the InDesign way of doing this, where you Command-click the area and you progressively select objects below the mouse click only.
• Preview Path: Show path as you build vectors. (See FreeHand) Right now I have to commit to a final location of a point before I see how the shape of the path following it is effected [sic]. This is counter productive and just bloats build time.
  • It seems almost every vector app except for AI does this, and I agree it’s pretty handy. No idea why Adobe doesn’t adopt this. If you aren’t familiar, the working path will act like a ‘rubber band’ as you move the pen tool, allowing you to see how the path will look when you click the next point. Illustrator currently gives no such preview of any kind as you are building an open path and adding points. I’d like to see this one as an otion in case I don’t like it.

Functionality Improvement Requests

• Modify snapping performance on Objects. Right now it’s based on cursor location rather then point location. That is just nuts and makes editing art a pain in the keester.
  • Agreed. this one has been argued endlessly in the Adobe forums. At the very least, make it an option in the preferences.
• Align tool: Create a pref that by default sets the alignment tool to automatically align based on larger item selected. Having to do the second option click is just a waste of time.
  • I would disagree here, and would rather have it align to the first item you click on as the align-to object.
• Pathfinder: Make pathfinder functions expand automatically by default. If people prefer not to do this then have it a pref we can turn on/off. (Like most functions let us decide, don’t dictate it).
  • It used to be this way in older versions. I can understand why they did this, with the editable Effects; but it used to be only applying Pathfinder as an effect would require an expansion – the Pathfinder palette always used to be immediate.
• Non-Breaking Path Pref: A pref we can turn on/off to prevent paths from being able to be accidently pulled off a shape. (Why they even have this function is beyond me? It’s just simply stupid. I still have yet to hear anyone explain why you’d want to do this to begin with?).
  • I don’t know what this is all about – never came across this, or even understand what’s happening on his end.
• Masked Items Pref: Build in a preference that allows users to turn on/off the ability to click on masked items outside the masked area. Kind of defeats the purpose of a mask if you can still click on the hidden areas Adobe.
  • Big time agree here.
• Masked content bounding box: When copying out or sizing content that has larger content masked into smaller shapes within my art it bases the bounding box off the hidden masked content. This is a major pain in the ass and the way Adobe has chosen to handle the functionality is just moronic. Fix it.
  • Another long-standing gripe on my end.

As I mentioned, many of these have been long-standing gripes by Illustrator users (including myself) over the years. I have a few to add myself – such as the fact that not all palettes in Illustrator respond to the scroll wheel – but I am going to compile those for a future post.

In the meantime, if you agree with the above I urge you to head over to the Adobe Bug Report/Feature Request Page and request any or all of the items here you’d like to see changed.

The Beziér Artist’s Liberation Front: Adobe Illustrator Feature Requests is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

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So I head on over to Google to do a search for some images, and what do I find? A Sasquatch character with boots on. What? That would be like putting wheels on a UFO, or a snorkeling mask on the Loch Ness Monster. They’ll probably make a crop circle of the Olympics logo — using a lawnmower.

OK, so it’s Sasquatch, not Bigfoot, but we all know it’s the same dude. Sure, the etymology of Sasquatch is “hairy man”, but what a fun feature to work into the character – big feet. Instead, he gets Moon Boots™ from the 1980’s. “Hairy Man” – gross; “Big Feet” – fun! (“Hairy Feet” – gross and fun?).

Overall the character is kinda cool I guess – simple, Web-2.0-y vector art character. Typical coloring-book kid-friendly approach. But I really think they could have had some fun with the feet being bare – think of the marketing and branding gimmicks they could have with footprints going everywhere and such.

I suppose the furry guy could take his boots off, but then it all just kind of gets too complicated. I guess because I am a Bigfoot fan, this hits a bit closer to home. I shouldn’t complain – it’s pretty neat that a Cryptid is getting such prominent placement in such an international event.

Quatchi, The Vancouver 2010 Olympics Mascot: Off On The Wrong Foot is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

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Because of this, I make it a standard practice to ask for a 50% deposit for all work before starting a project. But this only covers you so far. I also do not transfer any high-resolution or vector art until the final balance is paid, but sometimes this doesn’t cover your butt — for example, the client may only want to use the art on their website, or may have no clue about proper printing resolutions and will go ahead an use the low-resolution JPEG preview images you’ve been sending them.

A very simple solution to this problem: watermark your images. A simple extra layer in Photoshop with the word “PROOF”, with the color set to 100% magenta and the opacity from 5 to 15% is all it takes. It just needs to be there enough to be readable, but not obscuring the art. Another very good reason to do this is to ensure that when the final art finally sent, the preliminary art is never used. This is the standard reason to use the “PROOF” watermark, but the great thing is that it solves two problems with one solution.

The best thing to do is just to start incorporating this technique as part of your habit when sending any files to any client — even long-standing clients. Sketches, color studies, JPEG vector art previews, layouts, PDF— you name it. As mentioned above, not only does it ensure the proper final files are used, but also protects you from unsavory types out there. By incorporating this into your standard procedure for sending files, you not only get in the habit of doing it (so you won’t forget), but also you’ll work out that naggging thought that “this client is cool, I don’t need to worry about protecting my art this time”. By doing this across the board with every single client & project, you avoid any second thoughts.

To be honest, I am not consistent with this myself, and part of the impetus behind this blog post is to get me focused. For most of your projects and clients, this will (hopefully) be unnecessary 99% of the time. It’s that 1% time that you’ll be avoiding, and those usually come up when they are least convenient — whether financially or deadline-wise. Every time the usefulness of this comes up and smacks me on the head, I always think to myself “why am I not watermarking these images?”. So, here’s to a new start.

Avoid Non-Paying Clients With Watermarks is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

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The automatic del.ici.ous link posts I thought would be a good way to keep the information flowing without having full posts. I am curious how the readers out there feel about the del.ici.ous link posts — should they stay or go?

And while you are posting in the comments, please feel free to offer suggestions for future posts you’d like to see or topics you’d like to see covered. Lately it seems I have been overdosing on the Adobe Illustrator topic, and I would like to get more focused on cartooning and illustration in general. Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees…

I look forward to your thoughts.

Feedback: Del.ici.ous Link Posts; Blog: Post Frequency Update is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

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I ran the Photoshop CS3 beta release many moons ago – for about 14 seconds on both machines – the brush cursors weren’t showing the brush size, and I can’t work without those. Anyways, I bring this up because you need to do an uninstall of the PS CS3 beta before installing the Creative Suite, and if you have any problems there’s another cleanup program you can download from Adobe.

I didn’t need to run it on the G4, but did need to do so on the MacBook, and I think because I don’t run my main accounts as Administrator accounts (for extra security), I had to actually log in to the Admin account to run the script. It just wouldn’t run under my regular non-Admin user account (“not enough permissions” blah blah blah).

Installation took a bit longer than I thought, but I did go for the CS3 Design Premium version as I wanted/needed Dreamweaver CS3 and to a lesser extent Flash CS3.

Today was not the best day to get new software (especially for a geek like me) as I had a client meeting this afternoon, and also have a bunch of projects on my plate right now. I knew I could still use the CS1 versions I had been using, so I knew it wouldn’t hurt to install.

I have not had much time to play with all of the software, but just launching the programs is significantly faster on both machines, especially the MacBook (both Macs are maxed out at 2Gb of RAM). I have not really used any of the apps at all on the MacBook, so I will hold off on that review for another post.

Of course I opened up Illustrator first on the G4, and tried out the new features I was most looking forward to – OK, I admit it; the features I was most excited about (yes, I was excited about software features). For Illustrator it was the Zooming Anchor Points and Isolation Mode. Isolation Mode kicks butt, and it’s something you immediately know the first time you use it that it will speed up workflow and make things much easier.

Isolation Mode allows you to double-click on a group (a collection of objects that have been grouped), and once you double click you enter into Isolation Mode which fades out the rest of the artwork, and then allows you to work on just the group. The killer thing here is that the objects are no longer grouped, meaning you don’t have to switch over to the Group Selection tool (white arrow with the plus sign) to select individual objects. You are in a “virtual space” inside the group. If you’ve worked with Flash at all you’ll know exactly what I mean, and I am sure Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia played a part in this. It’s awesome.

Zooming Anchor Points are a feature that I was really amped about, but it’s implementation – unless I am missing something – is just not all that great. Granted, I have yet to work seriously with Illustrator CS3, but just trying them out left me unimpressed. Still handy, but I felt they could have allowed for more customization of the size of the zoom. It’s pretty minor. I’ll hold off judgement until I have used them more though.

Photoshop CS3 I used for a while today on a drawing project that I am finishing up. Purely layers with color and line art, so I though working on a copy couldn’t hurt anything. The great thing was that I jumped into things immediately, and while I didn’t notice any major speed improvements, it also seemed just as if I picked up where I left off with CS1. That in itself is important. Everything worked fine with the Wacom tablets (which I had to reconfigure for the new software, as well as update my brushes for CS3 – I never saved the previous brushes as an actual set).

I also dipped into InDesign a bit and there are some really cool new features in there as well. I am curious how many are CS2 features I never had, since I skipped a version for the upgrade. Regardless, lots of cool and time-saving stuff in all the apps so far, and this is just a few hours for all of them combined.

All in all, things installed smoothly, I was able to use the new software with existing work and transition just fine. As I mentioned I haven’t yet grasped the full extent of all the new features – I’m actually not even aware of all them them for each program yet. But so far, a satisfying purchase, and I am really looking forward to immersing myself into CS3 and sharing all the good stuff I discover.

More to come.

Adobe Creative Suite 3: First Thoughts is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghill Cartooning

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