If you’re a designer and work regularly with Adobe Illustrator, then you’re probably aware that the Adobe Illustrator CS5 was released not too long ago. A lot of people that have previous versions of Illustrator are wondering if they really do need to upgrade to the CS5. To answer, here are some of the new features that you can find and how they can help you.
The first feature is the perspective drawing feature. You can open a perspective grid and set it the way you want the grid to appear. From here, you can start your artwork on the grid. What makes this tool really unique is that you can set images on the grid and it will automatically adjust it for you based on the perspective. That means that if a window is on the far end of the grid, it will look smaller than one that is close to the center.
This will really help you save a lot of time when coming up with designs that call for using images and setting in different perspectives. The best example that can help you understand is drawing multiple windows on a building. You will not have to create multiple graphics of the window in order to show the various angles.
The second feature is the features that make designing with strokes more intuitive. You can vary the width of your strokes, get better control of dashed lines, and create accurate arrowheads. These tools allow you to just work on your drawing and play around with the strokes after you finish so you don’t have to keep editing your work as you move forward with your project.
The third feature is the improved multiple artboards feature. Now you can work on up to 100 artboards at one time. You now have more options from being able to reorder your artboards, name them, define the rows and columns, and also copy one artboard to another relatively quickly to combine multiple works with minimum hassle.
The fourth feature that you will find useful is the shapebuilder tool. Now you can easily combine, edit, and fill shapes. You do this by moving your mouse over individual shapes and creating a whole new shape making it seem like you painstakingly created that shape to begin with.
This is perfect for the logo designer that works with many shapes. It is also great for people that use symbols for maps, presentations, and guides. This will make everything more intuitive and will give you the control that you’ve always wanted as a designer.
Basically, the Adobe Illustrator CS5 is improved to give you more options and save you hours of work. If you are a professional, those hours that you save can easily justify the cost of upgrading to the new version. Some of the features are in CS4 but have been made better. Those using CS3 will be able to catch up on the features that were originally presented in CS4.
