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Adobe Illustrator CS4
By Colleen Huber
Illustrator is a vector drawing program. Vector graphics consist of solid lines versus pixels and because of this are easily scaled, and are useful for every purpose for which messier, larger, and less specific raster (bitmap) graphics are not required. In our workflow, we seldom have to use Illustrator.

And I mean HAVE to use, because we have always found it much tougher to operate, and the learning curve for it is extensive. For those reasons, we normally use PhotoShop for the bulk of our print projects.

Illustrator CS4  

Illustrator CS4 can be purchased as a standalone product or as part of the following Creative Suite 4 packages:

  • Design Premium
  • Design Standard
  • Web Premium
  • Production Premium
  • Master Collection

There are many enhancements new features in Illustrator CS4. One of the most useful, and one which may make us more happy Illustrator users is the option to have a single document encompass multiple outputs and multiple artboards up to 100 in varying sizes. This makes it much easier to update colors, type and symbols across the entire project components. Projects such as product packaging, promotional materials, as well as things like business cards, letterheads, envelopes, etc., can now all be laid out in a single project, ensuring that color and other attributes all match across the project.

Gradients have been redesigned so that you can define the opacity of any individual color stop in a gradient. You can now reveal underlying objects and images, and create rich color and texture mixes using multiple layers, knockouts, and cover-up fades.

Totally new is the Blob Brush tool which you can use to sketch with a brush that generates a single clean vector shape, even when strokes overlap. Draw naturally, using the Blob Brush tool together with the Eraser and Smooth tools.

A terrific tool is the new Separations Preview. You can avoid color output surprises such as unexpected spot colors, unwanted overprinting, overprints that don't overprint, white overprinting, and CMYK blacks in text and placed files. It also supports bleeds with added functionality.

A terrific new addition is the In-panel appearance editing with which you can Edit object characteristics directly in the Appearance panel, eliminating the need to open fill, stroke, or effects panels.