Illustrator vs. Freehand vs. Canvas???
Wade Heninger
advice on purchasing a high-end illustration/drawing package. It seems as
though I have three choices, being illustrator, freehand and canvas.
I would like your opinions (nay...the naked truth) regarding which of
these three applications (or one I forgot to mention) would be best for
one looking to get into DTP. I can get all three at a greatly reduced
student price, and I find them to be about the same price, so
features/ease of use are the main points I am looking at.
Thanks in advance.
Peace,
Wade
________________________________________________________
Wade Heninger
801.375.7018 "They can drive you crazy. They really can."
heni...@yvax.byu.edu Holden Caulfield
________________________________________________________
Michael B. Moore
>I am new at creating graphics on the Macintosh, and would like to get some
>advice on purchasing a high-end illustration/drawing package. It seems as
>though I have three choices, being illustrator, freehand and canvas.
>
>I would like your opinions (nay...the naked truth) regarding which of
>these three applications (or one I forgot to mention) would be best for
>one looking to get into DTP. I can get all three at a greatly reduced
>student price, and I find them to be about the same price, so
>features/ease of use are the main points I am looking at.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Peace,
>Wade
Wade, it depends on what kind of DTP you want to do. If you're talking
about postscript quality freeform drawings with lots of textures, colors,
and unusual shapes, Illustrator or Freehand will fit the bill. If you're
talking about Quickdraw-level technical schematics and illustrations, i.e.,
lots of straight lines and simple arcs with dimensions, then Canvas is it.
I periodically draw technical schematics, and on occasion I scan images.
Canvas is very good for these two purposes because it has both draw and
paint tools in the same package. The paint tools are apparently not as
powerful as those in Illustrator and Freehand (I've never used either of
these.), but they're plenty good enough for cleaning up scanned images.
Canvas is not a heavy-duty technical drawing package (i.e., for CAD), but
again, it is very good at simple technical illustrations.
Mike
P Eric Menchen
(Illustrator 1) I used both, and went through a series of
upgrades of each. Freehand led in features for a while, but
with many features I didn't need as I had other programs.
On a daily basis, my preference was based on "feel", and
there was a distinct difference in my opinion.
So what did I prefer, and what have I bought for use at home?
I like Illustrator better. But in all my experience in dealing
with other graphics professionals (mostly in packaging design)
who have used both Illustrator and Freehand, they prefer
whichever they learned first. You get used to a feel, and
you like it.
I've never used Canvas, and haven't encountered it in professional
circles.
/------------------------------------------------
/ /| /| Paul Eric Menchen
/---- / | / | emen...@fwb.gulf.net
/ / |/ | My other .sig won a Pulitzer Prize!
/----------------------------------------------------
Jim Mitchell
heni...@yvax.byu.edu (Wade Heninger) wrote:
> I am new at creating graphics on the Macintosh, and would like to get some
> advice on purchasing a high-end illustration/drawing package. It seems as
> though I have three choices, being illustrator, freehand and canvas.
> I would like your opinions (nay...the naked truth) regarding which of
> these three applications (or one I forgot to mention) would be best for
> one looking to get into DTP. I can get all three at a greatly reduced
> student price, and I find them to be about the same price, so
> features/ease of use are the main points I am looking at.
Wade,
Having to work in both Freehand & Illustrator on a regular basis, my
honest opinion is to go with Illustrator. Freehand is easier to learn
because you have a ton of floating pallets, but it is much slower and
doesn't handle gradient fills as well as Illustrator. You also have to
save two versions of Freehand files if you need an editable eps file, the
original working file, and the unchangeable eps file.
Illustrator on the other hand is more of a design industry standard. Yes,
it is a bit more difficult to learn, but with the aid of several good
books on the market today, learning is a snap. Because of the postscript
language the files are saved in, they are much smaller and faster to work
in. You can create real intricate gradients, fills & patterns easily.
Finally, you only need to save one file as the eps file you save is
editable.
If you go with Illustrator, pick up "The Illustrator 5.5 Book" by Deke
McClelland, published by Peach Pit Press. It really helped me learn the
program when I got tired of Freehand.
There are a thousand other features I could go on about but won't 'cause I
just don't feel like typing them. If you have any other questions, contact
me via email. I'll be more than happy to help you out.
Regards,
Jim Mitchell
Macdada Graphic Designs, Ltd.
Newbury Park, California
Tom Attix
known to man (and a few I'm sure no man has ever seen) but it's handling
of bezier curves is less than wonderful (it sucks). Since beziers are the
main tool of any illustration program, this lack is pretty inexcusable.
Between Illustrator and Freehand, I think it pretty much comes down to
personal choice and whichever one you learned first. They are pretty much
the same feature wise (and if one gets a new feature, wait for an upgrade
from the other one, it'll be there). I use Illustrator mostly because it
was the first one I was exposed to and because it's files can be easily
opened by Photoshop (which is a big plus if you're a heavy Pshop user).
Tom Attix
Graham Allsopp
>honest opinion is to go with Illustrator.
Just to balance the arguement a bit, I use both and favour FreeHand.
Despite what Illustrator users may like to think, Freehand is slightly
easier to pick up, use and print from. However, it has to be said that
both packages are more than capable of producing almost anything you want.
If you can't afford a separate DTP package, FreeHand definately has the
edge on handling large blocks of type, but if you are thinking of any
serious DTP work you will have to look to a separate application (I'd go
for Quark XPress).
Check with anyone you will be working with, and if you will be doing this
on a regular basis, go with the application they use. One final point:
FreeHand can open and save Illustrator files; Illustrator cannot open or
save FreeHand files.
Canvas is fine for low-end stuff, but isn't a serious professional
graphics application.
Hope this helps,
Graham
Patrick Dunlavey
have added Illustrator to my software tool box. I agree with most people
that FreeHand's zillion pallette interface is a good idea poorly
executed. However, and this may be because I started out in FreeHand, I
just cannot imagine what was going through the minds of the designers at
Adobe when they decided that they needed not one, not two, but three
different object selection tools! With Illustrator, you will spend all
day long mousing back and forth to the tool pallette. Illustrator's
object manipulation is not only inefficient, but I find completely
non-intuitive.
Some of Illustrator's other lame points:
Very slow screen draw (it's slower in keyline than FH is in preview)
Weak implementation of layers
No graphic or text styles, in FH you can attach a style definition to any
object, changing the definition changes all instances.
When I got my copy of Illustrator 5.5, I worked hard with it for a week
desperately trying to understand why people say it's better than FH, and I
could not come up with more than a handful of trivial advantages. In
almost all categories, FH wins.
Illustrator vs. FreeHand vs. Canvas is like
Windows 3.1 vs. MacOS 7.5 vs. Novell Netware
--
Pat Dunlavey pdun...@williams.edu
TOPO MAGIC, 40 Oblong Road, Williamstown, MA 01267
413-458-9836 voice 413-45809273 fax
David Mendels
FreeHand 5.5. See http://www.macromedia.com for details.
Charles may be right that Illustrator's upcoming upgrade (when?) will be
"more significant" than the 5.5 release, but FreeHand had a major
release just in January, so (yes, I work for Macromedia) it has still
had more "significant" improvement over the last year than Illustrator.
Let the battle rage on....or use both, many people do. Again, check the
Macromedia web page for detailed info if you need it.
-David
Macromedia
j. delgrosso
>easier to pick up, use and print from. However, it has to be said that
>both packages are more than capable of producing almost anything you want.
>
great, I just prefer I. You can do anything with either of them, although I
like some of the features on F5. (fisheye, for one) another thing is I find
the user interface a lot nicer on illustrator. FOr so me reason, fh reminds
me of those old superpaint programs. I like illustrator 5's layering, and I have
yet to figure it out on the new version of freehand.
A couple questions spring to mind:
how come Illustrator and Photoshop are not as compatible as one might like,
especially considering they are made by the same software company?
and what do you think of the new freehand? I got freehand and illustrator
when I bought my computer, because at the time I used both of them at
school, but I haven't opened fH in awhile. I was thinking of upgrading but
since I don't use it a lot, the new version would have to be really good.
jn
j. delgrosso
Patrick Dunlavey <pdun...@williams.edu> wrote:
>I started off with FreeHand, and only relatively recently (one year ago)
>have added Illustrator to my software tool box. I agree with most people
>that FreeHand's zillion pallette interface is a good idea poorly
>executed. However, and this may be because I started out in FreeHand, I
>just cannot imagine what was going through the minds of the designers at
>Adobe when they decided that they needed not one, not two, but three
>different object selection tools! With Illustrator, you will spend all
No way! I love the different selection tools. Agreed, it's harder to learn,
but *much* easier to implement once you get the hang of it. if the
varying degrees of selection are available in FH, I haven't figured it out yet.
jn
James Hastings-Trew
(Patrick Dunlavey) wrote:
> Some of Illustrator's other lame points:
> Very slow screen draw (it's slower in keyline than FH is in preview)
I can't agree with your assesment of Illustrator vs. Freehand. Perhaps
Illustrator's screen redraws are slower than Freehand's but by the time
Freehand has finished *loading* I have already gone in, done the job
previewed, and left Illustrator... (an exageration perhaps, but Freehand's
performance is not what I would call speedy by any stretch of the
imagination.
> Weak implementation of layers
I don't know what you call weak, other than that Illustrator's layers are
very intuitive, and they work. Freehand has layers within layers, and it
gets very frustrating to try to tear apart someone's work when you are
having a hard time trying to figure out what is where in the file.
> No graphic or text styles, in FH you can attach a style definition to any
> object, changing the definition changes all instances.
Other than named pattern and gradient fills, no. Of course, you can use
custom colours and when you change the colour definition, all object
coloured that way will change. And you have the selection filters at your
disposal as well if you need to do global fill/stroke edits.
> When I got my copy of Illustrator 5.5, I worked hard with it for a week
> desperately trying to understand why people say it's better than FH, and I
> could not come up with more than a handful of trivial advantages. In
> almost all categories, FH wins.
Precision, integration, speed, convenience, and the fact that Illustrator
files print when placed in page layout programs. I don't care what
features a program has, if it causes trouble at RIP time, it is simply
hard-drive filler. As your local service bureau which they would rather
work with, and you'll be told in no uncertain terms, Illustrator.
I will agree with your assesment of Illustrators' selection tools. Prior
to version 5, there was only one pointer tool, which could be switched
between different modes by the use of keyboard modifiers. Why they changed
it to the split tool that they have now (it really isn't three tools, it
is two, one with two modes, and the mode of the direct selection tool is
controled by a keyboard modifier, making that trip to the tool menu
unnecessary) is beyond me, and it was a sticking point with me in
upgrading from Illustrator 3 to 5.
James Hastings-Trew
Systems Administrator, Mister Print Productions Ltd.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
esma...@ucsd.edu
other product...not even Illustrator or Freehand! If you purchased this
product already you will be very surprised out how versatile it is. Many
users and reviewers have described it as the "swiss army knife" of draw
programs insofar as it can manipulate both vector and bitmapped (tiff)
images. It can even use photoshop filters, incredible special effects like
extrusion and envelope abilities and even play quicktime movies. From
within Canvas you can directly open illustrator 1.1 files, mcdraw files,
epsf files, and many other file types. It does a lot of other productive
functions that are too numerous to mention. All I know is that I can do
things in Canvas other software programs could only dream about.
Those who would dismiss Canvas as a serious drawing program underestimate
the tremendous productivity tools that Canvas offers. The external plug in
tools are really amazing...if you learn how to use them (those who dismiss
Canvas probably never took the time to really learn how to use the myriad
tools and their frustration is misplaced in their criticism instead of
themselves).
I guess it depends on what you do. As a graphic artists and desktop
publisher I use Canvas not only to create artwork, but also business forms,
page layouts, flyers, invitations, and myriad other projects from A to Z.
Bezier curves is by no means the end'all to graphics professionals as far
as I'm concerned.
Mike Irwin
<7133...@CompuServe.COM> wrote:
>Jim writes that Illustrator's more of a design standard. Nope!
>FreeHand sales dipped far down during the Adobe/Aldus imbroglio, but
>since then it's been exceeding Illustrator domestically, and has
>been much stronger internationally, and is big on Windows, too.
>
>Hope my contrariness doesn't offend, but the above's the scoop!
>
>Regards, John Dowdell (works with Macromedia)
Do any non-Macromedia associates have other positive opinions of Freehand?
I'm very strongly considering adding it to my tool chest, but still wonder
if it's necessary if one has Illustrator. I don't really accept many
client files...mostly self-generated. Thus, compatibility's not an
issue...just features and performance.
Cheers,
Mike Irwin
Minotaur Design
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Keep an open mind, but don't let the wind blow freely through it.
Patrick Dunlavey
jhas...@eagle.wbm.ca (James Hastings-Trew) wrote:
> In article <pdunlave-260...@192.0.2.1>, pdun...@williams.edu
> (Patrick Dunlavey) wrote:
>
> > Some of Illustrator's other lame points:
> > Very slow screen draw (it's slower in keyline than FH is in preview)
>
> I can't agree with your assesment of Illustrator vs. Freehand. Perhaps
> Illustrator's screen redraws are slower than Freehand's but by the time
> Freehand has finished *loading* I have already gone in, done the job
> previewed, and left Illustrator... (an exageration perhaps, but Freehand's
> performance is not what I would call speedy by any stretch of the
> imagination.
>
If that's the way you work, I don't see how you can have an opinion on the
actual usability of the software! I launch my illustration software in
the morning and work all day. Screen update is the single performance
area that most profoundly affects productivity. In large files (I
routinely work on all-object illustrations [no placed images] in 5-10
megabyte files), FH is twice as fast in preview, easy. That could save me
an hour per day!
> > Weak implementation of layers
>
> I don't know what you call weak, other than that Illustrator's layers are
> very intuitive, and they work. Freehand has layers within layers,
huh? Do you mean that the contents of groups may at the user's preference
retain their original layer linkage (so that they can revert to the
original layering when they are ungrouped)? Otherwise, I have no idea
what you're talking about.
> and it
> gets very frustrating to try to tear apart someone's work when you are
> having a hard time trying to figure out what is where in the file.
>
One can be just as disorganized in Illustrator. FreeHand has had layers
since version 1.0 (I think), and unlimited named layers since version
3.0. On maps, I routinely use more than 100 layers. FreeHand is geared
towards organized work. In Illustrator, it's a version 5 afterthought.
> > No graphic or text styles, in FH you can attach a style definition to any
> > object, changing the definition changes all instances.
>
> Other than named pattern and gradient fills, no. Of course, you can use
> custom colours and when you change the colour definition, all object
> coloured that way will change. And you have the selection filters at your
> disposal as well if you need to do global fill/stroke edits.
These too are IL5.5 "innovations" that have been around for years in FH
(except for the selection filters, which are not very useful in organized
work - they were added in FH5). I do not regard graphical styles as a
"feature". It's incredibly essential for anyone doing any kind of
technical illustration. When you're handling masses of data, you cannot
afford to be unorganized. FreeHand's styles are implemented at the very
core of an object oriented data model.
>
> > When I got my copy of Illustrator 5.5, I worked hard with it for a week
> > desperately trying to understand why people say it's better than FH, and I
> > could not come up with more than a handful of trivial advantages. In
> > almost all categories, FH wins.
>
> Precision, integration, speed, convenience, and the fact that Illustrator
> files print when placed in page layout programs.
Sounds great, James. What are you talking about?!
Precision... You mean, like keyboard input, or magnification levels?
Please be specific, because on my score sheet, FH wins by a mile.
Integration... Oh, you mean the ability to open and export other file
formats? FH imports and exports all Illustrator formats, Illustrator opens
Illustrator - period.
Speed... what are we talking about here? Launching? OK, I'll give you
that one, happy launching! I'll bet Illustrator quits quicker too!
Convenience... I don't see how slower screen draw, limited file formats,
clumsy editing tools, etc. amount to convenience. Oh, you mean _less_
convenient.
> I don't care what
> features a program has, if it causes trouble at RIP time, it is simply
> hard-drive filler. As your local service bureau which they would rather
> work with, and you'll be told in no uncertain terms, Illustrator.
The only problems I've ever had outputting FH files were during debugging
of custom PostScript code that I created and linked to objects in the
illustration. Since Illustrator can't link custom PostScript code, I
guess I would not have had that problem if I had been using Illustrator.
Of course, then I couldn't have rendered the complex algorithmic linestyle
I needed either. As for service bureau preference, they prefer what
they're most used to. Just as we all do. Marketshare/mindshare does not
mean that the product is superior, as any Mac user will attest.
>
> I will agree with your assesment of Illustrators' selection tools. Prior
> to version 5, there was only one pointer tool, which could be switched
> between different modes by the use of keyboard modifiers. Why they changed
> it to the split tool that they have now (it really isn't three tools, it
> is two, one with two modes, and the mode of the direct selection tool is
> controled by a keyboard modifier, making that trip to the tool menu
> unnecessary) is beyond me, and it was a sticking point with me in
> upgrading from Illustrator 3 to 5.
I guess it's still a sticking point for me. No matter how hard I try, I
cannot reconcile myself to it.
John Dowdell
<g>
Jim Mitchell wrote on Sept 23 that FreeHand needs to save two
versions of a file destined elsewhere: one in EPS, on in FH native
format for editing. Nope! FreeHand 5.0 and later give you the option
of holding the editable FreeHand info right within the EPS, so you
get both transport and editability within a single file. (FreeHand
5.5/Mac, introduced this week, can edit PDF files too.)
Jim writes that FreeHand's "much slower" than Illustrator. Nope! (I
love this. ;) FreeHand's been consistently faster, particularly in
preview mode, and FH5.5 increases that speed still further to go up
to 200% of Illustrator speed, depending on task. Zipzipzip! <g>
Jim Mitchell
<7133...@CompuServe.COM> wrote:
> Jim Mitchell wrote on Sept 23 that FreeHand needs to save two
> versions of a file destined elsewhere: one in EPS, on in FH native
> format for editing. Nope! FreeHand 5.0 and later give you the option
> of holding the editable FreeHand info right within the EPS, so you
> get both transport and editability within a single file. (FreeHand
> 5.5/Mac, introduced this week, can edit PDF files too.)
Admittedly, I was incorrect on this item, my profuse apologies. Even version
4.0 supports this...
> Jim writes that FreeHand's "much slower" than Illustrator.
I own FH 4.0 & AI 5.5, and *yes*, Illustrator is faster. AI opens the same
file (Illustrator 3.0 file / 850 kb) in 1/3 the time (11 sec. vs. 34 sec.)
than FH does. It also redraws faster and saves faster. Illustrator saves
smaller too.
> Jim writes that Illustrator's more of a design standard. Nope!
Beg pardon, but Yep! As was posted in the string earlier this week, ask
any service bureau which they prefer & 4 out of 5 will say AI. All of *my*
bureaus wince at the mention of FH.
Graham Allsopp
<7133...@CompuServe.COM> wrote:
>Jim Mitchell wrote on Sept 23 that FreeHand needs to save two
>versions of a file destined elsewhere: one in EPS, on in FH native
>format for editing. Nope! FreeHand 5.0 and later give you the option
>of holding the editable FreeHand info right within the EPS, so you
>get both transport and editability within a single file.
Well, this isn't strictly true. FreeHand doesn't save EPSs in the same way
as Illustrator. When you open up a FH-editable EPS, FH converts it, giving
it a name filename.eps-converted.1. When you re-save it, by default it is
saved as a FH-only file - to get an editable EPS you have to re-export it.
The ability is there, but it's nowhere near as easy to use as Illustrator.
I've been reading all this thread, and would currently summarise the
opinions in terms of operating systems:
Canvas = Acorn What's an Acorn ?
Illustrator = Windows 3.11 Well, everyone else uses it, so it MUST be good !
FreeHand = Macintosh Why consider anything else, we KNOW what's best !
Awaiting your flames,
Graham
Paul M. Hudy
>> I will agree with your assesment of Illustrators' selection tools. Prior
>> to version 5, there was only one pointer tool, which could be switched
>> between different modes by the use of keyboard modifiers. Why they changed
>> it to the split tool that they have now (it really isn't three tools, it
>> is two, one with two modes, and the mode of the direct selection tool is
>> controled by a keyboard modifier, making that trip to the tool menu
>> unnecessary) is beyond me, and it was a sticking point with me in
>> upgrading from Illustrator 3 to 5.
>I guess it's still a sticking point for me. No matter how hard I try, I
>cannot reconcile myself to it.
>--
>Pat Dunlavey pdun...@williams.edu
>TOPO MAGIC, 40 Oblong Road, Williamstown, MA 01267
>413-458-9836 voice 413-45809273 fax
Do you guys actually use these products...specifically Illustrator? Or do
you just talk about it? Or is it you never read the manuals?
The Illustrator (Mac) selection tools work the same as before....all
are controlled by keyboard modifiers....command-tab will switch between
the selection tools (dark arrow to white arrow, for lack of a better
description, and visa versa--sp?) and adding the shift key will while
using the white arrow will change the modes.
Quit comparing the size of your pr*cks, none of these tools make you an
artist and both in the hands of a good artist will do the job.
Cranky but cheerfully yours
Paul
Mark Burgess
: In article <pdunlave-260...@192.0.2.1>,
: Patrick Dunlavey <pdun...@williams.edu> wrote:
: >I just cannot imagine what was going through the minds of the designers at
: >Adobe when they decided that they needed not one, not two, but three
: >different object selection tools! With Illustrator, you will spend all
:
: No way! I love the different selection tools. Agreed, it's harder to learn,
: but *much* easier to implement once you get the hang of it. if the
: varying degrees of selection are available in FH, I haven't figured it out
: yet.
I agree. The three-arrow thing is *sweet*! Because of that, the
object-level locking and hiding, and the ability to align & average
points, I always go with Illustrator for serious path manipulation. FH is
good at other things, though.
--
Mark
Mark Burgess
(Mike Irwin) wrote:
: Do any non-Macromedia associates have other positive opinions of Freehand?
: I'm very strongly considering adding it to my tool chest, but still wonder
: if it's necessary if one has Illustrator. I don't really accept many
: client files...mostly self-generated. Thus, compatibility's not an
: issue...just features and performance.
Sure, Mike. As a die-hard Illustrator head, I can recommend FH.
On a PowerMac, FH's screen redraw is so much faster then Illustrator's
that I often bring Illustrator files into it just for the speed. FH5, in
24-bit/preview mode, is in the neighborhood of Illustrator in
8-bit/artwork view.
One nice feature of FH is that you can grab in the middle of a group
somewhere and snap its edges to guides (wish this worked in reverse
though, i.e. snap guides to the bounding box of a group).
FH's ability to print separations is invaluable to us -- there is no way
to overprint a bitmap in Illustrator. FH's ink-level overprinting works
for this (object-level tiff overprinting would be nicer though)
Another great thing about the way FH works is that it recognizes/remembers
primitives. If you make a rectangle, then need it to be a different
dimension, you just type in the new size (or you can drag a corner and it
remains a rectangle). Same with circles.
FH's coordinate system works that way too. It's like Quark, where you can
reset the zero point (sure wish Illustrator could do that!), then type in
new coordinates for any object.
Of course, tiff support is a nice feature too. High-resolution tiff
display lets you align a bitmap to a postscript object better than any
other program I've used. Looking forward to Illustrator 6 for this...
--
Mark
David Mendels
this thread is losing usefulness but one thing I don't want to let
stand.
Mark, you write emphatically that Illustrator is faster than FreeHand.
But, not fair, you are comparing the newest software from Adobe to old
software from Macromedia/Altsys. Check the latest version of FreeHand
5.5, or even 5.0. FreeHand 5.5 is 200% faster than Illustrator 5.5 in
color preview mode, faster in most if not all other regards. I have
never seen a straght comparison of file opening time, but I know it was
speeded up dramatically in FreeHand 5.5. Check it out.
One thing everyone should know is that we are fully aware that a very
significant percentage of all our customers and Adobe's use both. We'll
both keep upgrading. They will both get cooler. Competition is good.
(Of course, FreeHand will win in the end :))
-David (works for Macromedia)
John Dowdell
Illustrator and FreeHand will have upgrades by the end of the year
-- Illustrator's will be more significant then FreeHand's."
I just came from Seybold where Adobe launched Illustrator 6.0 for
the Mac. Their product sheet says that it will ship "in the first
quarter of 1996." FreeHand 5.5 was also launched at Seybold, is
already in production and will be available early October.
I'd agree that the Illustrator upgrade will be more significant in
terms of where it's coming from, but check the specs on it... it
looks to this (admittedly biased!) reporter that it's playing
catch-up with FreeHand 5, released at the turn of the year. Dragging
Knife, plug-in tools, TIFF support, Eyedropper, Alignment,
Saturation, transformation and other advances match older versions
of FreeHand. Rasterization and Photoshop filters will be in FH5.5.
It's got drag'n'drop to Photoshop, and also a nice "path patterns,"
but it still needs to catch up on speed, inline graphics,
antialiasing, text handling and such.
I don't have the best view on this, and so would like to hear from
others. It's a significant upgrade from current Illustrator, true,
but does the new version puzzle you as much as it does me?
John Dowdell
reproduce here -- am limited to 25 lines in my reader.
The vector-to-bitmap conversion in FreeHand 5.5 offers three main
options: the physical resolution in dpi, the colordepth (millions on
down), and the degree of antialiasing. Higher antialiasing takes
longer time, but you can still get crisp images if you want them,
too. Point is that more options are under your control in FH5.5.
(It's possible to rasterize down with low antialiasing and then to
use a Blur-type filter in FreeHand on the bitmap, but that would not
contain as much info as sampling directly from the curves.)
One thing FH5.5 does _not_ yet have in the rasterization is palette
control. If going from FreeHand to Director I'd rasterize in 32-bit
or 16-bit, import to Director at high color, and then dither down to
an arbitrary palette from there. You could always just go through
the Clipboard if crisp edges were desired.
In-line graphics allow graphics on a curve, too.... ;) And you're
right that we don't yet know of speed improvements in Ill '96... we
do know that FH5 was faster than Ill5.5, and that FH5.5 is faster
still, but there was no mention of speed in Adobe 6-page sheet....
VWBUGR
FRO BITMAP/VECTORS. I CAN COMBINE THE TWO AND FREEZE OUT ONE LAYER TO WORK
ON THE OTHER.
James Hastings-Trew
(Patrick Dunlavey) wrote:
> If that's the way you work, I don't see how you can have an opinion on the
> actual usability of the software! I launch my illustration software in
> the morning and work all day. Screen update is the single performance
> area that most profoundly affects productivity. In large files (I
> routinely work on all-object illustrations [no placed images] in 5-10
> megabyte files), FH is twice as fast in preview, easy. That could save me
> an hour per day!
I suspect that this discussion is devolving into a religious discussion,
which I have no intention of joining. However, I will make the following
comments, which will be my last word on this subject:
I have been working in the service bureau business since early days of Mac
DTP. I have a core group of applications that I use for in-house designed
work, chosen for many reasons -- speed, reliability, flexibility, and
integration. Other factors also come into the picture when evaluating a
product for inclusion in the core group -- service from the publisher,
user-interface style, and other intangibles.
Because customers use a wider range of tools than we do in-house (based on
factors other than performance -- price point, platform, etc.) I have had
to work with a lot of applications not in our core group. Most of these
applications are inferior in many ways. Corel Draw, for example, is an
extremely popular product on Intel platforms, but is widely regarded in
service bureau circles as an utter piece of crap (a technical term for bad
software). It is popular because it is cheap -- often purcashed at bargain
basement prices by unknowledgable customers based on the misinfomation of
fast-buck salesmen who would know a killer app if it, well, came up and
killed them. So it can be readily demonstrated that the popularity of a
product is no measure at all of its fitness for a particular purpose.
Therefore, measures of sales of Freehand over Illustrator demonstate
nothing other than sales performance, and possibly says nothing at all
about how fit the product is for its purpose.
Over the years, I have come to realize that there are two kinds of
designers in the world -- Illustrator/Quark people, and Freehand/PageMaker
people. One favors fast, clean, precise software that gets the job done
with a minimum of fuss and bother, and the other prefers warm, fuzzy,
pointy/clickly software that favors fudging and pushing things around the
page for hours on end.
In a direct comparison between Illustrator and Freehand, Illustrator's
tool set shines. Redraw speed is inconsequential if the bezier curve tool
is poorly or clumsily implemented. My contention is that all of the speed
advantages of the software are illustory and based only on redraw speeds,
not on the actual usability of the software, interface, feature set, or
tools. I have been forced to used Freehand on and off for years, and I
find the implementation of simple bezier curve editing to be poor, overly
complex, slow, and clumsy. Similar concerns with other features in
Freehand keep this software on the hard drive only for the times that
customers supply Freehand files, and then it is only used to convert them
to Illustrator where they can be fixed and printed properly.
As for usability, an application is hard drive filler if the files it
produces cannot be printed reliabily. I received E-Mail from a
representative of Macromedia after my last posting on this subject,
concerned that there was the impression that Freehand files did not print
reliably. As well they should be concerned. After having a GTO-DI press
stand idle and tearing apart a poorly constructed Quark file supplied from
a customer for two hours, only to find that the culprit was a Freehand EPS
file placed in the job, you get a pretty dim view of the capabilities of
the software. Features such as "Past Inside", poorly implemented gradient
blends (I have taken apart Freehand Postscript code to discover that there
are bugs in Freehand's implementation of gradient blends -- infinite loops
in the radial blend for example) and Postscript fill patterns invite
customers to create supremely unprintable files. The Macromedia
representative was concerned that I was talking about the latest version
of the software -- we have Freehand 5.0 for both Mac and Windows,
registered, and I have received upgrade notices from Macromedia regarding
any newer versions.
Not all of my comments are based on the current version of the software.
They are impressions gathered over years of using the software on and off.
I have been so soured on the use of Freehand for anything useful that I
have honestly not looked closely at version 5.0. I installed it, booted
it, went "Ugh." and I have used it infrequently for the few misguided
customers I have that insist on using it. Kind of in the same way I "use"
Corel Draw...
If anyone is contemplating purchasing a drawing/illustration package, I
urge them to seriously site down at the dealer and really try them all.
However, I will say that if you plan to take your files to a service
bureau, do anything serious with Photoshop and your EPS files, or if you
have a lot of experience with other Adobe products, then chances are,
Illustrator is the program for you.
Ed Fortmiller
specify the outside dimensions of objects in Illustrator or Freehand?
I entered this as a separate topic about 2 weeks ago but didn't get much of
response.
I had been using SuperPaint in Draw mode however Canvas was
offering what seemed like a good deal ($99) at MacExpo so I picked
up a copy however I'm not real happy thus far with the Canvas
definition of Bounding Rectangle.
SuperPaint appears to define the bounding rectangle to be the
smallest rectangle which completely encloses the object. Canvas
appears to define the bounding box from the center of the selection
handles. In the case of fat lines the object is larger than Object
Specs reports.
For example if I draw a 4" x 2" rectangle with a 9 point pen with the
tracking lines in the ruler starting at 1", 1" and drawing to 5", 3"
what I wind up with in Superpaint is a 4" x 2" rectangle (outside
dimensions). If I repeat the same in Canvas I wind up with an object
that is about 4.12" x 2.12". Get info in SuperPaint and Object Specs
in Canvas both report the size to be 4" x 2".
If I need to draw a object such as the one I described above how does
one use programs such as Canvas to product an object with exact
outside dimensions? In SuperPaint I can enter the outside dimensions in
the GetInfo Box.
How does Adobe Illustrator define bounding box? Can I specify the
outside dimensions of objects in Illustrator?
--
Ed Fortmiller | Hudson MA | e...@ultranet.com
Zalman Stern
cwil...@fancymedia.com (Charles Wiltgen) wrote:
> It fixes 5.5's obvious holes, takes the app cross-platform, and takes the
> feature set to the next logical progression. How could this be puzzling?
The implication here is that Illustrator 6.0 is cross-platform between Mac
and Windows. I do not believe this is true. (And if it were, I'd expect it
to show up in Adobe press releases in *big* type.)
Personally, I came upon Illustrator at version 3.2 and took an instant
dislike to the application. (The UI sucked. It got better in 5.0, but its
still not great.) The only vector based drawing I do is simple maps so I
haven't needed to use Illustrator since I discovered the arrow head
feature on Photoshop's line tool. I've fired up FreeHand a couple times
and find it much more intuitive than Illustrator, but can't say I've
really used the app.
One thing is for sure though, competition breeds better applications. Look
at Microsoft word on the Mac for an example of monopoly quality.
-Z-
John Dowdell
Windows. I do not believe this is true. (And if it were, I'd expect
it to show up in Adobe press releases in *big* type.)"
Experience of past lives holds true. <g> For Windows, Illustrator 4
has been the version for a few years now. There will be a 4.03 patch
available "sooner" which will fix things broken by Win95. Adobe
announced an Ill 4.1/Win at Seybold, which is apparently a beefier
patch, available "later." It has clipart and is available for $50,
or you can pick up just the code for $10. I saw no mention of
Illustrator 6/Win in the Illustrator 6/Mac press release... although
Ill6/Mac is noted on the sheet as being "early next year," I've not
yet seen mention of Ill6/Win. It's almost certainly under
development, but yes, you're correct, not yet platform-independent.
Jason Fabbri
--
Jason C Fabbri
jfa...@mv.us.adobe.com
http://www.spies.com/jfabbri
Adobe Systems, Inc.
Stanley Q. Woodvine
>I have had to work with a lot of applications not in our core group.
>Most of these applications are inferior in many ways. Corel Draw,
>for example, is an extremely popular product on Intel platforms, but
>is widely regarded in service bureau circles as an utter piece of
>crap (a technical term for bad software). It is popular because it is
>cheap -- often purcashed at bargain basement prices by
>unknowledgable customers based on the misinfomation of fast-buck
>salesmen who would know a killer app if it, well, came up and
>killed them.
Itıs so important for a graphic designer to know the right tecnical
prepress terminology. Thanks. :-)
>Over the years, I have come to realize that there are two kinds of
>designers in the world -- Illustrator/Quark people, and Freehand/PageMaker
>people. One favors fast, clean, precise software that gets the job done
>with a minimum of fuss and bother, and the other prefers warm, fuzzy,
>pointy/clickly software that favors fudging and pushing things around the
>page for hours on end.
Iıd be insulted if the above didnıt, in fact, mean that I and the many
other designers I know who use QuarkXPress and FreeHand rather than
PageMaker and Illustrator, do not exist.
Everything you go on to say against FreeHand, makes perfect sense to me
only if I substitute ³Illustrator² for ³FreeHand². I believe Freehandıs
bezier controls are superior and that as a result, intelligent Freehand
users are encouraged to use less points to get a given job done.
Interestingly, the only probs *Iıve* had with XPress docs were both caused
by AI EPS logo files, supplied by a client.
Upon cracking them open I worked out that the designer had degraded text
in Photoshop and most likely just done a Paths to Illustrator. I was
easily able to clean out 400 points out of a 700 point closed path with
*no* lose of path integrity.
In working with Illustrator users I find they consistently use more
points, and, in some cases eshew curves altogether in favour of super
point-laden paths made of straight segments. Yikes. I think the way AI
handles the creation of control points encourages needlessly complex
construction habits.
And excuse me, you refer to FreeHandıs Paste Inside feature, as if
Illustrator didnıt have an exactly comparable ability, namely the Mask
option. Clipping paths whether theyıre done in FreeHand, Illustrator,
Photoshop or XPress, will be a problem if theyıre too complex. At least
Freehand imposes a limit on the number of points in a single path.
The bit about FreeHandıs blends is pretty funny given the fact that Adobe
had to come out with a bug fix for AI 5.5ıs blends.
>and Postscript fill patterns invite customers to create supremely
>unprintable files.
I agree with this and donıt use them unless Iım converting them with
epsConverter into editable path objects. But, really, this again is not
specific to Freehand, Every second effects Plug-In in Illustrator 5.5
makes a path more complex; Punk and Bloat, Roughen, Scribble and Tweak,
and of course, Add Anchor Points. FreeHand, on the other hand, has a
Simplify Path Operator.
>Not all of my comments are based on the current version of the software.
>They are impressions gathered over years of using the software on and off.
>I have been so soured on the use of Freehand for anything useful that I
>have honestly not looked closely at version 5.0. I installed it, booted
>it, went "Ugh." and I have used it infrequently for the few misguided
>customers I have that insist on using it. Kind of in the same way I "use"
>Corel Draw...
So you made up your mind with FreeHand 2.0 and Illustrator 88, or what?
>
>If anyone is contemplating purchasing a drawing/illustration package, I
>urge them to seriously site down at the dealer and really try them all.
>However, I will say that if you plan to take your files to a service
>bureau, do anything serious with Photoshop and your EPS files, or if you
>have a lot of experience with other Adobe products, then chances are,
>Illustrator is the program for you.
So why do I see long time Illustrator users switching over to FreeHand 5.5?
Iıve found that when an output technician gets it into their head that
they hate a certain program, they can make itıs files fail at will.
>James Hastings-Trew
>Systems Administrator, Mister Print Productions Ltd.
>Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Glad I moved from Saskatoon to Vancouver, where the service bureaus can
handle the evil FreeHand just fine.
Stanley Q. Woodvine
stan...@wimsey.com
Mark Burgess
Fortmiller) wrote:
: [...]
: For example if I draw a 4" x 2" rectangle with a 9 point pen with the
: tracking lines in the ruler starting at 1", 1" and drawing to 5", 3"
: what I wind up with in Superpaint is a 4" x 2" rectangle (outside
: dimensions). If I repeat the same in Canvas I wind up with an object
: that is about 4.12" x 2.12". Get info in SuperPaint and Object Specs
: in Canvas both report the size to be 4" x 2".
:
: If I need to draw a object such as the one I described above how does
: one use programs such as Canvas to product an object with exact
: outside dimensions? In SuperPaint I can enter the outside dimensions in
: the GetInfo Box.
:
: How does Adobe Illustrator define bounding box? Can I specify the
: outside dimensions of objects in Illustrator?
Illustrator's bounding box includes the stroke weight. So in your example
above, the bounding box would be 4.12 x 2.12. This is also the number
reported by the info palette (I would much rather see the info palette
*exclude* the stroke weight though).
It's easy to create rectangles or ovals in Illustrator that are a
particular size. It's hard (without a plugin, like KPT Vector) to resize
existing objects to a particular dimension.
--
Mark
Marcus Wilson
[snip]
> In a direct comparison between Illustrator and Freehand, Illustrator's
> tool set shines. Redraw speed is inconsequential if the bezier curve tool
> is poorly or clumsily implemented. My contention is that all of the speed
> advantages of the software are illustory and based only on redraw speeds,
> not on the actual usability of the software, interface, feature set, or
> tools. I have been forced to used Freehand on and off for years, and I
> find the implementation of simple bezier curve editing to be poor, overly
> complex, slow, and clumsy. Similar concerns with other features in
> Freehand keep this software on the hard drive only for the times that
> customers supply Freehand files, and then it is only used to convert them
> to Illustrator where they can be fixed and printed properly.
I have found this to be similar to my own experience, when trying to get into a freehand file to add trapping, it takes hours just to ungroup far enough to work out how a path has been created, to then apply appropriate trapping. (probably due to operator work habits more than the program, but still damn hard to change later). (I have been using illustrator since v1.0, photoshop since 1.0 and freehand (ugh) since v2.0).
> As for usability, an application is hard drive filler if the files it
> produces cannot be printed reliabily.
I have had significant problems with freehand (v4.0 however) when trying to output files for imagesetting. if your page is set to tall, generally it will work, but trying to print a .ps file with the page wide produces many inexplicable results. all very time consuming and costly. Similarly when outputting placed fh eps files from quark, there is an annoying tendancy for Quark to believe that there is process colour art if the eps is saved with the fh art, but not if it is eps only. This causes difficulty in having to check each plate before output to imagesetter, to avoid costly film wastage.
> reliably. As well they should be concerned. After having a GTO-DI press
> stand idle and tearing apart a poorly constructed Quark file supplied from
> a customer for two hours, only to find that the culprit was a Freehand EPS
> file placed in the job, you get a pretty dim view of the capabilities of
> the software. Features such as "Past Inside", poorly implemented gradient
> blends (I have taken apart Freehand Postscript code to discover that there
> are bugs in Freehand's implementation of gradient blends -- infinite loops
> in the radial blend for example) and Postscript fill patterns invite
> customers to create supremely unprintable files
This has also been my experience. I do have some problems with illustrator, to do with:
b/w templates at 72dpi only,
Separator not handling jpeg eps files when outputting cmyk seps,(if it could do this, there would be less of a need to support tiff directly.)
Lack of tiff support and trapping control over placed eps files.
inability to change an objects dimension or location by entering new co-ordinates.
slow sep printing from separator.
Freehand (up to v4) has many areas that I do not like, and upon trying to work with v5.0 the other day, I ended up exporting the fh file to illustrator to work on it quickly. This is a good feature, and allows me to retain my sanity.
I find the tools in freehand (esp bezier handling) to be very clunky and imprecise (is that a word?). and the text handling has always been difficult to work with (slow and difficult to locate). With Ill. however, I have always been able to place type exactly where I want it, with one dialog box controlling all common aspects of type, and I can always see which point I need.
If you are like me and creating new artwork, you may find the bezier tools and basic functions of illustrator (all colours blends etc can be seen at once, instead of cycling through numerous switches on inspector) to be far superior to fh.
These areas are my core tools, and when setting type or preparing art for clothing etc,. Ill is way faster and less complicated. Freehand does have some nice features, but for me it is not worth the time to learn where to find what I need as I can do them from ill. Others will no doubt differ.
Perhaps a distinction that forms in my mind is one of the suited job. I use Ill. mainly to create ads, tee shirts, forms and any kind of single page art for a printing business where the client usually knows what they want, and I just need to implement it quickly.
Freehand seems to be used by more "arty" people, to create nice effects on screen which usually turn into printers nightmares. Complexity of design is not necessarily greatness of design.
Other discussions in this thread talk of the incredibly complex number of points they have in their ill. files. How does this happen?? The only time I have complex points is when using streamline to vectorise bitmaps, and then I find that often Freehand cant even open the file to allow me to simplify one path to below 1000 (or is it 1500 pts). Instead I have to go back and reprocess the picture.
When I need to create a logo, I usually find it worth the extra ten minutes at the start to create a logo from scratch rather than have a poor quality artefacts left from a converted scan. This means that there are no stray points, and that I have crisp art at whatever resolution. (one great advantage of postscript).
Ill has a larger pasteboard than fh, which is another limitation I have come across.
Anyway, I could ramble all day, but there will always be a better package around the corner. For me the question is what do I need to do, and which tool allows me to do this best. For me the answer is Illustrator, as I have 6 years exp. with it, and can convert any file I receive to illustrator using utils like epsconverter etc. There is no need for me to work outside ill.
There may be for you.
Regards,
Marcus Wilson