The long wait is over! Illustrator CS3 -- and a massive list of other Adobe CS3 applications -- are all out in the open.
Want to find out about the new features in Illustrator CS3? Watch the latest episode of the Real World Illustrator podcast!
Want to find out about the new features in InDesign CS3? Head over to InDesign Secrets. Well, I guess it isn't much of a secret anymore, is it? :)
Of course, there's plenty to read at Adobe.com as well.
There's obviously tons to talk about, so leave comments here letting me know what specifically you want to know most about, and we'll talk...
A blog about Adobe Illustrator and design in general
19 comments:
Unfortunately your .mpeg video cast doesn't play :-(
Hmmm -- it does, but I see it isn't streaming -- so you have to wait until the whole file downloads... odd... I'll see if I can fix that...
I actually right clicked the file and downloaded it. It had the suffix .mpeg and didn't open correctly in QT Player 7.
I now waited as you suggested and could watch the .mp4 podcast in my browser. Thank you.
Thanks for the podcast was a great overview and look forward to the upcoming episodes.
I just saw the new "find/change" feature in InDesign and wondering if Ai has this as well?
Some other things I'm interested in seeing (future podcast perhaps) are updated effects (like arrowhead, zigzag, scribble etc), filtering selections especially with livetrace and much improved text support - like being able to copy paste text between InDesign and Ai.
Great work and thanks again :)
Thanks for your excellent podcast. First impressions: Adobe seems to have brought some of FreeHand's point selection and manipulation tools into Illustrator. For me that's the killer feature; it has always taken me twice as long to select what I want to work with in AI than in FH.
I wonder whether the new .ai file format is backwards compatible with CS2 apps. For example, is it possible to hand over a file created in Illustrator CS3 to an art director still using InDesign CS2?
This was pretty informative. At first, I'll admit that I was annoyed by the podcast, versus a write-up that I could easily scan through.
However, after watching it, I'm glad I did. There was a lot of info in there that I wouldn't have grasped quite as clearly if it wasn't shown to me. I'd definitely encourage others with podcast aversion to check this out.
One thing: when I went to stream the file, it didn't work. It only stalled in the browser. I then went to download it, and I saw that the extension was ".mp4.mpg". This file refused to play in Quicktime.
I removed the ".mpg" from the file, and the resulting ".mp4" file payed smoothly. Perhaps you could check into that? This was at approximately 9am CST.
Anyway, great job though!
Thanks James! Yes, the new Find/Change feature in InDesign CS3 is TOTALLY awesome. Unfortunately, AI has nothing similar.
Aongus, I agree that the enhancements made to core "every day" tasks like making selection is key. I'm happy to see Adobe focus on "smaller" things like that (even though we know they aren't small at all).
As for back-saving files, it's the same as any other version -- you'd have to choose Save As and save back to CS2 to open the file in CS2. Although due to CS3's support for DeviceN color, I imagine it could be possible that under certain circumstances, you might get spot color to process color conversions by doing that.
Also, it's important to note that all of the cool Flash goodness requires the use of both Illustrator CS3 and Flash CS3.
Alright, it is Tuesday.
I'm excited over many of the features in the Podcast.
Is there an addition of a separation preview?
When saving to AI format, does is still clip at the artboard dimension if no crop area is set for the pdf portion? Does it allow to add bleed to the pdf portion when saving to AI? If setting crop area that crosses in and out of the artboard dimension, does it now save the crop area dimension in the pdf portion?
VLC played the podcast without problem.
deviceN support. : )
Wow Mordy! That was the largest - and clearest podcast yet :-)
Can future podcasts be at this higher resolution? It allows us to clearly read the contents of a screenshot.
I know I've had a privileged peek at CS3, but your podcast made the features list sound like an endless whirlwind. Perhaps I'd taken too many features for granted...
As you asked what people would want to see details of most over the coming months, I suppose Live Color will rank highly, if only due to its reach. (Oh, and minor point - you mention that the only objects it can't edit are placed bitmaps - but it can't change embedded bitmaps either.) My favourite part of this tool has to be the ability to reduce colors to any set, including specific spot color books.
I can't wait to explore the rest of the CS3 suite. InDesign seems to be making big waves with this release and some of the other features I've read about appear fantastic.
Thanks for you time in creating this resource!
Nice podcast Mordy,
but although I'm glad for all of you heavy Illustrator users, I'm nevertheless worried for Freehand's future.
Thanks Mordy,
A great tour through the new feature set.
a great quick new feature recap :)
Al thou i am a little disappointed :)
I saw that illustrator can export multiple page pdf, and i read in the feature pdf list from adobe, but i didn't see you demo this feature, nor do i think that you can actually create new pages, even at the level of multipage plugin that i've used in illustrator cs2.
Also path operation is somewhat better but still now as flexible as corel draw! yes i've sayed it ...corel draw :)
but of course that can be greatly improved with the xtreme path plugin... i actually thought that adobe would take more from that plugin and get as much as possible natively...
Overhaul this is a pretty modest new versions, at least new features wise, and i really expected more basic tweaking ...but i hope to be wrong once i get to see more of your insight articles which again i must say i truly appreciate.
David
JG - Thanks for the comments. I actually started with a write-up but realized it wouldn't do justice. As you said, seeing some of the stuff makes it easier to understand what I'm talking about :)
JK - Sadly, there have been NO changes made to the bounding box/crop issue with native Illustrator files. My understanding is that the Illustrator team is VERY aware of this issue but that the work couldn't get done in time (draw your own conclusions on that one -- is two years not enough?). HOWEVER, I can tell you that the crop area tool does lay the groundwork for how this might work in a future version. The current crop area tool was initially meant to support video and web workflows, but I think the team realizes now how it could very well enable print workflows and in our case, PDF workflows as well.
And yes, deviceN was one of the two things I had in mind for you -- the other was Live Color and it's recoloring features. I didn't even get a chance to show you the real cool stuff yet that it can do...
Nick -- thanks for the comments. Yes, I intend to keep improving the podcast. The larger size is something I've been wanting to do for a while.
Bembelembe - I haven't heard anything with regards to FreeHand from Adobe. When I do, you'll all be the first to know. But what do you think of some of the new FreeHand-like behavior that was added to CS3?
Brad -- Thanks for the comment!
Thanks David -- Illustrator's ability to export a multipage PDF was something that appeared in Illustrator CS2. It isn't new to CS3. The method required to create such a PDF is covered in several of my videos on Lynda.com
That was a great podcast! As a user of Ai and Flash I'm super excited about the new integration between the two apps. I usually complain about the drawing tools in Flash being next to useless and that they should be more like Illustrator so the improvments there sound perfect.
On the flipside of that, I've always felt that the Gradient tool in Flash is far superior to Illustrator's. I like the fact that you can adjust the opacity of each individual color in a gradient in Flash's color pallette. I know about the Opacity masking in Illustrator but it's not the easiest thing to deal with.
Also, Flash gives you tonnes of control over radial gradients with the Gradient Transform Tool. Please tell me they brought some of that control over to Illustrator... or, please tell me that there is already something like this that I have been missing for years.
Thanks for all the solid blogging
keep it up!
Hey Mark -- yeah, I'm pretty stoked about the Flash stuff too. And teh good news is that there's plenty of stuff that both AI and FL can "borrow" from each other in future versions. For now though, gradients haven't changed in either app.
Flash CS3 also introduces something called Smart Shapes which are SO cool. I'll show it in a future podcast and AI users will drooooooool... can we get those in AI? :)
this is a brilliant blog. As a long-time but non-professional illustrator user, i can appreciate how dedicated you are. You're going on my blogroll.
Hi Mordy, thanks for your podcast, very informative. I had no idea about the changes made to the masks handling (which is a HUGE deal to me) I was wondering if they had added little eyes (like the ones in the layers palette) to the appearence palette to turn effects on and off as well, I've read about that request in the Adobe forums a couple of times. Really happy to see Illy has been getting so much attention from Adobe!
Thanks!
Turtle - Thanx (blush)
Anon - always glad to help. No eyes in the Appearance palette in CS3 though. But I know that many have asked for it. Let's hope we "see" them in CS4...
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