Don't be fooled when you first fire up the latest version of Adobe Illustrator. Version 6.0 of Adobe's powerhouse illustration program may look nearly identical to the previous release, version 5.5, but beneath the program's familiar-looking surface are welcome new treasures.
Thanks to the exploding popularity of the World Wide Web, bitmapped images rule these days. Consequently, Adobe has turned up the volume on Illustrator's bitmap support from nearly inaudible to ear-shattering. Not even Macromedia FreeHand can match the scope of Illustrator's bitmap support. And Illustrator users will no longer be inconvenienced when presented with EPS files created in FreeHand -- you can now open and edit any EPS file that contains object information, regardless of its creator. Other version 6.0 highlights include a more powerful API for extending Illustrator's talents, built-in color-separation facilities, several new palettes, and support for a wider range of file formats.
Raster-farian
Illustrator 6.0 speaks bitmap with a vengeance. Whereas previous versions could import bitmaps only if they were saved in EPS format, version 6.0 can open or place files in a slew of bitmap file formats, including Acrobat (PDF 1.1), TIFF, Photoshop 2.5 and 3.0, Photoshop JPEG, PICT, PCX, Pixar, Kodak CD, Targa, EPS (if an EPS file has a clipping path, Illustrator will automatically convert it to a mask), and all previous Illustrator formats. The program can save files in the following formats: Illustrator, EPS, Acrobat (PDF 1.1), Amiga IFF, BMP, PCX, Photoshop JPEG, Pixar, and Targa. Unfortunately, Illustrator 6.0 can't import or export GIF files, but Adobe promised that a free GIF import/export filter would be available by the time this review appears.
What's really slick is that Illustrator now lets you create and modify bitmaps from within it. You can select any object in Illustrator and convert it to a placed bitmap, using the Rasterize command. Color-space conversion options include RGB, CMYK, grayscale, and one-bit raster image. Illustrator-created bitmaps are rectangular, but you can have the program automatically create a mask for any nonrectangular objects you want rasterized.
Once you've rasterized an image, you can enhance it by applying Illustrator's Adjust Colors, Invert Colors, Overprint Black, or Saturate filters or by issuing the Mosaic command. Even better, thanks to the program's beefed-up API, you can also apply any Photoshop-compatible filter to your image. Both volumes of Adobe Gallery Effects are included with the package, and you can even access a variety of Photoshop's own filters from within Illustrator. Unfortunately, the list of Photoshop filters you can access doesn't include the oft used blur and sharpen filters, but it does include the radial blur and lighting-effects filters.
If you choose to use the Gallery Effects filters, you'll find that you can use them only with images converted to the RGB color space -- you can't use them with CMYK images. It's easy enough to convert images from one color space to another, but there is one caveat for designers of images destined for on-screen viewing, such as Web artwork or presentations. You can't define colors by using the RGB color space, which is what monitors are based on. Illustrator's color space is centered on print devices, which use the CMYK color space. True, you can bring an Illustrator image into Photoshop for final RGB tweaking, but if you choose to skip this step, you'll have to be content with eyeballing your colors on-screen.
Down the Right Path
In addition to the familiar filters you can use from within Illustrator, Adobe has provided several brand-new ones with version 6.0. The Path Pattern filter lets you apply any custom pattern to a path. Most users will apply this filter to closed paths in order to create borders and frames. You can assign pattern elements to inside and outside corners as well as to the sides of a path. When you apply a pattern to a path, Illustrator scales and sizes pattern elements to fit the path. The pattern is generated as a fully editable vector object. The new Expand command is also worth mentioning. For starters, it lets you break up a pattern into individual objects you can edit separately. Additionally, you can use it to convert gradient fills into masked objects -- you specify the number of steps you want to use in the conversion.
Also new is the Ink Pen Effects filter, which provides a mind-boggling number of options for filling shapes with various cross-hatching patterns. This tool is particularly useful for creating hand-shaded effects, stippling, wood grains, and the like without the tedium of having to manually create each line and dot. It's also a good example of how Adobe has refined Illustrator's interface, replacing multiple menu choices with a single Photoshop-style dialog box, complete with a preview.
Another good example of Illustrator's more convenient interface is the Saturate dialog box -- it combines the Saturate, Saturate More, Desaturate, and Desaturate More filters into a single dialog box. A slider for controlling the amount of saturation and a preview of the results are added pluses. In the same vein, the Adjust Colors dialog box has a slider for controlling each of the four process colors as well as the very handy ability to convert all selected custom colors to CMYK colors in one operation. You can even convert selected blacks to CMYK.
New Palettes
Although the new Illustrator doesn't feature the tabbed palettes introduced with Photoshop 3.0 nor a space-saving context-sensitive palette, such as FreeHand's Inspector, its palettes can now snap to the edge of your screen or document window or to each other. That makes it easier to minimize screen clutter -- an especially good thing, given that the program now has four additional palettes.
The new Control palette works much like the one in Adobe PageMaker, displaying the x and y coordinates, as well as the height and width, of selected objects. You can change coordinates by typing in new values in the appropriate fields. There are also fields that affect scaling and rotating. As with QuarkXPress and PageMaker, you can enter addition and subtraction calculations in these fields and mix units of measurement. However, it would be nice if Illustrator remembered the original scale and rotation values for an object -- these fields always reset to 100% and 0deg., respectively, after every rescaling and rotation.
The new Align palette provides a more accessible means for aligning and distributing selected objects than did the previous version, which buried these functions in the Filters menu. The new Tools palette contains the five special plug-ins provided with the package: the Star, Polygon, Spiral, and Twirl tools as well as the new Knife tool, which lets you quickly slice objects apart simply by drawing a path through them (with previous versions, this was a multistep process -- you had to use the Scissors tool to break an object apart and then the Pen tool to close the resulting open paths). In keeping with Illustrator's new extensibility, developers of third-party plug-ins can also add tools to the palette.
Because Illustrator has more keyboard shortcuts than before, the new Shortcuts palette is a welcome addition. Accessible from the Guide menu, the palette has eight screens of keyboard and mouse-click shortcuts. The Guide menu also includes pointers to the extensive online documentation provided on the Illustrator CD-ROM in Acrobat PDF format.
Finally, Adobe has incorporated most of the functionality of its Separator application into Illustrator: You can finally print separations, with a multitude of controls over screen angles and crop and separation marks. You can also specify whether custom colors print as spot colors or become integrated into CMYK plates.
The Illustrator 6.0 package comes with floppies and the Deluxe CD-ROM, which contains a variety of goodies, including 300 Adobe Type 1 fonts, Adobe Dimensions 2.0, Adobe ScreenReady, and Adobe Gallery Effects, as well as the program itself.
The Bottom Line
With its new plug-ins, built-in color-separation abilities, vastly improved support for raster images, and ability to edit almost any EPS file, Illustrator 6.0 is a powerful production tool. Although several items remain on our wish list -- including style sheets for objects, the ability to define colors using the RGB color space, and access to all of Photoshop's tools from within Illustrator -- we recommend the new release without reservation.
Adobe Illustrator 6.0, $595 (list). Company: Adobe Systems, Mountain View, CA; 800-521-1976 or 415-961-4400. Reader Service: Circle #401.
With Adobe Illustrator 6.0's new Rasterize command, you can convert your artwork to a bitmap in Illustrator (left window) and then drag and drop it into PageMill to create a Web page (right window). The page background and the border around "Classical Music" were both created with Illustrator's new Path Pattern filter.
Illustrator's new Ink Pen Effects filter (top) lets you create organic-looking fills, using various cross-hatching patterns. The Adjust Colors feature (bottom) is a good example of Illustrator's newly refined interface -- it organizes handy slider controls into a single Photoshop-like dialog box and lets you preview the results of your adjustments.
