Adobe Illustrator CS2

Increased speed, dependability, and ease of use, and a handful of truly useful new features make Illustrator CS2 one of the most exciting updates released by Adobe in recent years.

As Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and GoLive continue to play better together, the recently released Illustrator CS2 is redefining itself as a vector-art creation tool by incorporating an improved working environment; new drawing, painting, and tracing tools; and by seamlessly integrating live Photoshop effects with Illustrator's unmatched Appearance Palette. The question is not "Should I upgrade to Adobe Illustrator CS2?" but rather, "How soon can I get my hands on it?" And that's coming from someone who's used many a previous version and the CS2 beta constantly in many projects for The Chopping Block, a design studio in New York City.

The stand-alone version of Illustrator CS2 costs $499, with upgrades from Illustrator CS and 10 at $169. It's also available as part of the Creative Suite 2 Standard package for $899 and the Creative Suite 2 Premium for $1,199.

Getting Things Done
Previous versions of Adobe Illustrator left its users feeling a bit cramped for working space. I, along with many other designers and illustrators, was more than accustomed to working with palettes two rows deep, and at the same time, hesitant to close or move any floating palettes from within reach.

Adobe heard our cries of frustration and delivered. Illustrator CS2's first new addition is the Control Palette, sitting (by default!) at the top of a document. What would you say if I told you that 80 percent of the controls you need the most are all in this one place? While the Control Palette looks similar to the Options Palette in Photoshop, it performs in an entirely different way. Within Illustrator CS2, the Control Palette is context-sensitive, which means it changes based on what objects -- and what type of object -- you have selected. It offers stroke, fill, type, alignment, and a handful of other options. You can even customize your Control Palette options using the fly-out menu on the right. While it may take seasoned users a little while to get comfy using the Control Palette exclusively, I can help you along by pointing out that many of the additional full palette options are linked to off the Control Palette itself.

Now that I've teased you with the ideas of less palette clutter and customizing your working environment, it's time to pull out the big guns and acquaint you with Custom Workspaces, a feature I've wanted for a while now. The ability to save your palette layout -- or several different palette layouts -- in what Adobe calls "workspaces" has made its way from other CS apps into Illustrator. It's right where you'd expect it to be, at the top of the Window menu, and it allows you to save, share, and access saved palette layouts for specific tasks.

Live Paint
Traditionally, you build compositions in Illustrator using a fairly simple stackable object model; in fact, that's where most designers and illustrators first learned the concept of "send to back" and "bring to front." Beyond this, many of us have become accustomed to using groups or the pathfinder tools to nest or combine basic objects into more complex shapes. Live Paint introduces a better, faster way in an entirely new kind of drawing object: a live paint object. You can convert any traditional Illustrator object to a Live Paint object by clicking on a selected group of objects with the new Live Paint Bucket or Live Paint Selection tool. Once converted, the new tools can then easily fill any region in one click, automatically detecting and correcting for gaps, and solving one of the more frustrating side effects of traditionally structured compositions by opening up entirely new possibilities for drawing and design techniques