Early History Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator was first developed for the Apple Macintosh in 1986 (shipping in January 1987) as a commercialization of Adobe's in-house font development software and PostScript file format. Adobe Illustrator is the companion product of Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is primarily geared toward digital photophotorealistic styles of computer illustration, while Illustrator provides results in the typesetting and logo graphic areas of design. Early magazine ads (featured in graphic design trade magazines such as Communication Arts) referred to the product as "the Adobe Illustrator". Illustrator 88 was released in 1988 and introduced many new tools and features.[1] manipulation and photorealistic styles of computer illustration, while Illustrator provides results in the typesetting and logo graphic areas of design. Early magazine ads (featured in graphic design trade magazines such as Communication Arts) referred to the product as "the Adobe Illustrator". Illustrator 88 was released in 1 988 and introduced many new tools and features.
Versions 2–5
Although, during its first decade, Adobe developed Illustrator primarily for Macintosh, it sporadically supported other platforms. In the early 1990s, Adobe released versions of Illustrator for NeXT, Silicon Graphics IRIX, and Sun Solaris platforms, but they were discontinued due to poor market acceptance. The first version of Illustrator for Windows, version 2.0, was released in early 1989 and flopped. The next Windows version, version 4.0, was widely criticized as being too similar to Illustrator 1.1 instead of the Macintosh 3.0 version, and certainly not the equal of Windows' most popular illustration package CorelDraw. (Note that there were no versions 2.0 or 4.0 for the Macintosh - although the second release for the Mac was titled Illustrator 88 - the year of its release.) Version 4 was, however the first version of Illustrator to support editing in preview mode, which did not appear in a Macintosh version until 5.0 in 1993.
Versions 6–10
With the introduction of Illustrator 6 in 1996, Adobe made critical changes in the user interface with regards to path editing (and also to converge on the same user interface as Adobe Photoshop), and many users opted not to upgrade. Illustrator also began to support TrueType, making the "font wars" between PostScript Type 1 and TrueType largely moot. Like Photoshop, Illustrator also began supporting plug-ins, greatly and quickly extending its abilities.
With true ports of the Macintosh versions to Windows starting with version 7 in 1997, designers could finally standardize on Illustrator. Corel did port CorelDRAW 6.0 to the Macintosh in late 1996, but it was received as too little, too late. Aldus ported FreeHand to Windows but it was not the equal of Illustrator.[citation needed] Adobe bought Aldus in 1994 for PageMaker, and as part of the transaction it sold FreeHand to Macromedia (which was later acquired by Adobe). Clarifying difference in strengths between Photoshop and Illustrator with the rise of the Internet, Illustrator was enhanced to support Web publishing, rasterizationPDF, and SVG. Version 9 included a tracing feature, similar to that within Adobe's discontinued product Streamline. previewing,
Versions CS–CS4
Illustrator CS2 (version 12) to reflect its integration with the Adobe Creative Suite, was available for both the Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the last version for the Mac which did not run natively on both Intel and PowerPC processors. Illustrator CS was the first version to include 3-dimensional capabilities allowing users to extrude or revolve shapes to create simple 3D objects.
Among the new features included in Illustrator CS2 were Live Trace, Live Paint, a control palette and custom workspaces. Live Trace allows for the conversion of bitmap imagery into vector art and improved upon the previous tracing abilities. Live Paint allows users more flexibility in applying color to objects, specifically those that overlap.
CS3 included interface updates to the Control Bar, the ability to align individual points, multiple Crop Areas, the Color Guide panel and the Live Color feature among others.
CS4 was released in October 2008. It features a variety of improvements to old tools along with the introduction of a few brand new tools. The ability to create Multiple Artboards is one of CS4’s main additions. The Artboards allow you to create multiple versions of a piece of work within a single document. Other tools include the Blob Brush, which allows you to make a more natural paint brush stroke (reminiscent of Microsoft paint or other non-vector drawing programs) which then becomes vectorized, and a new gradient tool that allows for more in depth manipulation of colors.
Branding
Starting with version 1.0, Adobe chose to license an image of Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" from the Bettmann Archive and use the portion containing Venus' face as Illustrator's branding image. Warnock desired a Renaissance image to evoke his vision of Postscript as a new Renaissance in publishing, and Adobe employee Luanne Seymour Cohen, who was responsible for the early marketing material, found Venus' flowing tresses a perfect vehicle for demonstrating Illustrator's strength in tracing smooth curves over bitmap source images. Over the years the rendition of this image on Illustrator's splash screen and packaging became more stylized to reflect features added in each version.
The image of Venus was replaced (albeit still accessible via easter egg) in Illustrator CS (11.0) and CS2 (12.0) by a stylized flower to conform to the Creative Suite's nature imagery.[2] In CS3, Adobe changed the suite branding once again, to simple colored blocks with two-letter abbreviations, resembling a periodic table of elements.[3] Illustrator was represented by the letters Ai in white against an orange background (oranges and yellows were prominent color schemes in Illustrator branding going back as far as version 4.0). The CS4 icon is almost identical, except for a slight alteration to the font and the color which is dark gray.
Software Definition
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems. The latest version, Illustrator CS4, is the fourteenth generation in the product line. Numerous new features include multiple artboards in a single document, a "blob brush" that is similar to the brush in Adobe Flash, and support for transparency in gradients among other features. |
Features
Live Color enhanced Explore, apply, and control color variations using Live Color to interactively edit or replace colors. Use the Color Guide panel to quickly choose tints, shades, or harmonious combinations. ive PaintEasily paint closed or partially closed objects with the Live Paint Bucket, which automatically detects and corrects gaps. Interactively select colors from the Swatches panel for faster work. Adobe PDF file creation tools enhancedCreate protected, graphic-rich PDF files with Adobe® Illustrator® layers retained, multiple pages, color space and transparency handling, and ultimate prepress control, including printer's marks and bleeds. In-panel appearance editing newEdit object characteristics directly in the Appearance panel, eliminating the need to open fill, stroke, or effects panels. Work with shared attributes and control display for faster rendering. Gradients and transparency enhancedEdit
gradients directly on your object. Rotate them, add and adjust colors,
and create elliptical gradients. You can even define the transparency
of individual color stops in a gradient. Live Trace Quickly and accurately convert photos, scans, or other bitmap images to editable and scalable vector paths using Live Trace.
| Sophisticated vector drawing controls enhancedSketch naturally using the Blob Brush tool that turns strokes into a single filled object. Advanced path controls, graphic styles, and appearance editing enable intuitive vector drawing. Integration with Adobe design applications enhancedShare files smoothly with other Adobe professional design applications, collaborate with colleagues, and work easily among multiple tools for different media. Advanced typography enhancedEnjoy easy type creation and professional control with more than 80 Open Type® fonts, paragraph and character styles, paragraph composition, underlining and strike throughs, transparent effects, and more. Multiple artboards newCreate files containing up to 100 artboards of varying sizes and display them any way you want — overlapping, side by side, or stacked. Save, export, and print artboards independently or together. Save a selected range or all artboards as a multi page PDF file. Download Lesson for Photoshop here Contents of ILLustrator Lessons |
Development
New APIs:
- Annotation Drawing (see AIAnnotatorDrawerSuite),
- Crop Area Range (see AICropAreaRangeSuite)
- FXG File Format (see AIFXGFileFormatSuite)
AIFilterSuite deprecated
The AIFilterSuite is deprecated as of CS4. Support for filters will remain for the near future; however, we recommend you replace filters with live effects (see AILiveEffectSuite). The Filter menu item also was removed from the user interface, and any filters added are now in the Objects > Filters menu.
Sample code changes:
Annotator plug-in added
This plug-in uses the AIAnnotatorSuite and AIAnnotatorDrawerSuite to add annotations to art items when the Annotator tool is selected. The sample demonstrates how to add an annotator and update the annotations on change of selection and movement of the cursor.
SnippetRunner Code Snippets
Several code snippets were added to the SnippetRunner project. New content includes snippets for Artboards, Gradients, Patterns, Graphic Styles, and the new FXG file format. There also are new categories: Data Utility Snippets (contains Dictionary snippet) and XML snippet.
C++ recommended framework
The recommended framework to use when developing Illustrator CS4 plug-ins is the C++ based framework, now used in all sample plug-ins except Shell.
Shell plug-in legacy
The Shell sample plug-in is now legacy and will be removed from future versions of the Illustrator SDK. Common files used by this plug-in were moved to legacy folders.
EVE dialog used by MarkedObjects sample
The MarkedObjects sample now uses EVE-based (Express View Engine) cross-platform layout definitions for the preferences dialog.
Binary resources removed
The binary .rsrc resource files were removed from the CS4 SDK and replaced by .r files, which provide the required resource definitions in source format.
