Illustrator CS4

September 22, 2008 | Be the first to comment

is one part of Adobe announced today by Adobe, and has been testing a Beta release. Here are our initial thoughts

Illustrator CS4 sees a blend of new and exciting tools, with an interface enhancement aimed at highlighting some of the application's more under-used tools.

Headline features include multiple artboards - something the Illustrator community has long been calling for - and a new Blob brush tool.

The Blob brush is designed to produce clean, filled vector shapes while you sketch, merging paths automatically, resulting in a far more direct drawing and painting experience.

Further workflow enhancements include Smart Guides and Isolation Modes, the latter of which allows detailed editing of a specific vector region without disturbing other paths.

New support for transparency in gradients is a welcome update for Illustrator CS4, as is tighter integration with Adobe's RIA environments, Flash CS4 and Adobe AIR and Flex.

You can read our first impressions of other elements of Creative Suite 4, including Photoshop CS4, InDesign CS4 and Flash CS4 here.

A full, in-depth review and analysis of Illustrator CS4 and the rest of Creative Suite 4 will be in November's Computer Arts magazine, issue 155 - on sale October 23.

What's new in Illustrator CS4