My Illustrator hates me!

[Lasa]

I rarely ever-never use illustrator...I use Ps for everything, but when I have to, as in the case of a logo, it drives me insane! It hates everything i do, it gives me warnings, it laughs at me, it's like anti-photoshop logic... nothing is logical, the pentool is mean, gradients have a mind of their own and I need to have the blood book at my side to simply turn the rabbid thing on!
Now I feel better.

My the way I'm not a fan of illustrator.
Lasa

[CathyH]

Lasa that was funny!
I just tried to give someone a over the phone lesson on how to use it, and it was a failure. We had different version, different plat forms and different level of patience....
good luck.

[Lasa]

GOOD LUCK!? I need a miracle!...The truth being I'm actually figuring this thing out in a sad, fearful and pathetic way...so don't call rescue just yet...

Its just soooo different from Ps, I think knowing Ps actually hinders my learning this evil-piece-of-Adobehood.

Lasa

[lkroll]

In PS, can try to play with paths to do the logo. That way, it should be scalable (paths are pretty much vector selections).

In a past life, I had to use Illustrator and PS with a Mac (9.x OS that is; lol). Used Quark too. Just can't beat vectors for logo design.

[irshgrlkc]

I know how you feel. I actually took an Illustrator class a year ago and unfortunately nothing stuck. I wish they would put the few extra capabilites Illustrator has into PhotoShop and toss the darned thing off a VERY high cliff. Everytime I decide to use Illustrator I invariably have to grab my textbook and reread the thing again.

Here is a quick overview pdf that Adobe put out to help those trying Illustrator. It might be too basic for you but maybe it'll help someone else out there who stumbles onto this thread.

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/il..._fhillmigr.pdf

[CathyH]

Thanks Kerry for the overview.
I sent it to my aunt, who I was trying to help over the phone.

[Lasa]

Thanks Kerry,...nothing is to basic when it comes down to the ol'water torture...drip drip drip...
Lasa

[Swampy]

I couldn't agree more!

Back in the mid 80's I set out to purchase a vector drawing program. Illustrator (ai) and Freehand (fhd) were the only two being offered. I sat in a computer store and compared them side-by-side for about two hours. Fhd was _so_ far ahead of ai at that time. The learning curve, tutorials and manuals were so much better than ai. Doing the tutorials in fhd was actually fun!.

My primary need was to be able to convert scanned material in TIFF format to vector line drawings. Although fhd could import bit-mapped files, ai, at that time, could not. Fhd even allowed for layers that would let you put the TIFF on a background layer and lock it there and would also tint it a medium gray like laying onion skin or tracing paper over it! Marvelous stuff. Ai didn't entroduce layers until much much later.

Fhd's ability to gracefully deal with double arc text (button text) still outshines ai's painful unintuative process of doing the same task. I once asked Terry White, at an Adobe user's conference, how he would make button text in ai. After 15 minutes he still was working on it.

The entire user interface in ai is convoluted and difficult to master. There are so many "hidden" key stroke combinations required... hold down the Alt/Opt key while clicking and draging... etc. Very little of that in fhd.

Ai has no control over screen rulings for individual elements of a design. Screen ruling is a global setting in ai, while in fhd you can select specific elements in a design and render them at a different line or dot pattern at a given screen ruling. This is such a necessary and important procedure when dealing with silk screen or working on one color designs that need variations in dot patterns to provide visual effects of depth or color differences when you only have a single ink color to work with.

With every new release of ai I always hope to see some of these short coming addressed, but I am usually dissapointed. Ai has become so bloated and complex and I cringe every time I'm force to enter its labyrinth of palettes and key strokes.

I have CS2 and about the only thing I use AI for these days is to convert WMF files to Ai version 3 files so I can continue modifying them in FHD.

[Lasa]

I have a friend that swears by Freehand..is it really easier? I just assumend its because she's been using it forever..she paints some of my illustrations using freehand.
Lasa

[Swampy]

Originally Posted by Lasa

I have a friend that swears by Freehand..is it really easier? I just assumend its because she's been using it forever..she paints some of my illustrations using freehand.
Lasa

I find it MUCH easier. I've included a screen shot below my palette set for 90% of my work in Freehand. (I did move them over the FHD document page for a tighter screen shot)

1. Just below the rulers is a customizable tool bar to add some of your favorite tools for easy access. Things like alignment, attach text to path, convert text to outline are some of mine.
2. Far left is the basic tool bar with drawing tools and manipulations such as reflect, rotate, scale, etc.
3. Top right is called the "Inspector Palette" that contains all your controls for the Object (size, page location, closed path etc.); Stroke - here shown open for point size, caps, color, arrowheads and dashed lines; Fill tool, for gradients, transparency, color etc.; Text point size, leading, kerning, subscript, justification, and Document inspector to duplicate a page, create custom size page, orientation etc.
4. Swatch palette
5. Layer Palette

The Inspector Palette is so great. You can control so many things from this one tabbed palette. The dialog boxes are straight forward and minimal.

Another advantage that is great in FHD is the ability to have more than one "document" within the same file and the "pages" can be of different sizes. For example, one FHD can contain a full 8.5 x 11 document for a letter head, a 2.5 x 3 inch business card document and a #10 envelope document all saved in one FHD file. You can print the documents separately and they will rotate on the printer according to the orientation you set up when creating the "page". I create sponsor signs for a local golf tournament at 11 x 17 and now have about 100 sponsor signs in full color with sponsor logos. I print them out on my Epson 1280 on 11 x 17 paper and scotch tape them to corregated "flats" like real estate folks use. Since it is all vector that one file with 100+ "pages" is only 1.1mb in file size!

You can probably find a Freehand 10 version (which is what I still use even though version 11 "MX" is on my shelf) on Ebay at a reasonable price if you want to give it a whirl. I don't know what Adobe plans for it now that they purchased it from Macromedia, but I'm sure I will be using it well into the future.

[Lasa]

Thanks for the heads up...
Lasa

[lkroll]

Another program to try (and completely free) is Inkscape. I think you'll like it once you play with it. Almost has the capability of painting like PS, but it is truly vector. Files can be exported as eps so they can be imported into most other applications. Natively, it uses SVG.

[Lasa]

Always willing to try.
Thanks.
Lasa

[plugsnpixels]

While I have access to the entire Adobe CS2 suite, Stone Create, etc., etc., I do my vector and publication work with Canvas X in association with Photoshop. Follow the "READ MORE ABOUT CANVAS!" link on this page to see what I was doing with Canvas before publishing my current ezine (I still use Canvas for layout and export of my new ezine to PDF).

Users agree Canvas is much easier to use than evil Illustrator, with the added benefit of being able to place and edit images on the page as if you were in Photoshop, publish multiple page documents, etc. in a unique integrated environment.

The bad news is, Canvas was purchased about 4 years back by the folks who bring you ACDSee, and they don't seem to have a clue what to do with it! Canvas hasn't been updated for a year now, so we wait and see.

Canvas 8 was offered for free last year on UK magazine CDs, so if you can find it, you'll be in good shape.

Inkscape and other such freebies have some promise, but you get what you pay for ;-).

[skydog]

I don't use illustrator, but I did come upon this site...

http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com/20...r_archive.html