Adobe Releases Illustrator CS5
Press Release
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) has announced Adobe® Illustrator® CS5, a compelling new release of its comprehensive vector graphics software that allows users to create distinctive artwork with sophisticated drawing tools, expressive lifelike brushes and a host of other every day time-savers that dramatically impact the efficiency of the software. Adobe Illustrator CS5 will be available as a stand-alone application or as a component across multiple Adobe Creative Suite® 5 editions (see separate releases).
“Illustrator is a main-stay across creative disciplines and when coupled with new tools, such as Flash Catalyst, gives graphics professionals and artists a new entry point into interactive design,” said David Burkett, vice president and general manager of Creative Solutions at Adobe. “Whether you’re creating for print or digital media, Illustrator CS5 strikes the right balance of productivity enhancements and powerful new drawing and paint tools that allow you to deliver striking, high-impact designs.”
Design with Powerful Creative Tools
New stroke and paint capabilities anchor Illustrator CS5. Designing with strokes is now more powerful and flexible than ever: users can control stroke width at any point along a path, align dashes to corners and path ends, add accurately placed arrowheads directly from the Stroke panel and control how brushes stretch along a path. Painting with vectors now resembles real-world brush strokes with the new Bristle Brush, which offers breakthrough control of painting. Using this highly anticipated tool, designers can set bristle characteristics such as size, length, thickness and stiffness, as well as brush shape, bristle density and paint opacity, for simulated life-like blending.
In addition, new perspective drawing capabilities bring depth to designs. Artists can use perspective grids to draw shapes and scenes in accurate 1-, 2- and 3- point linear perspectives and dynamically move, scale, duplicate and transform objects, including live text and symbols, in perspective.
“Adobe Illustrator CS5 offers many new features that help our team work quickly while delivering crisp, precise graphics for print, Web, interactive and mobile designs,” says Andy Hawgood, art director of Ordinary Kids, a graphics and interactive arts studio with clients including Adidas Skateboarding, Nike Biz, GAP, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Tracy Chapman and more. “For instance, I tried the variable width stroke feature in Illustrator CS5 on the nuances of a logo, and wow—designers are definitely going to want to check this feature out.”
Work Smoothly, Efficiently and Deliver Virtually Anywhere
New innovations in Illustrator CS5 encourage efficient ways of working. Multiple artboards now can be named, organized and viewed more easily. New capabilities for drawing behind and inside other objects enable fast creation of complex designs with automatic masking and layer control. Join paths with a single keystroke, scale symbols with nine-slice control and intuitively combine shapes directly on the artboard.
Adobe Illustrator CS5 allows designers to incorporate vector artwork into virtually any project and deliver it reliably across media. When designing artwork for Adobe Flash® Catalyst® CS5 (see separate press release), Adobe Flash Professional CS5 and Adobe Dreamweaver® CS5 software, Illustrator users can create vector objects precisely on the file’s pixel grid for delivering pixel-aligned artwork that keeps raster images looking sharp.
Additionally, Illustrator designs can be opened in Flash Catalyst CS5, where they can be transformed into interactive components without writing code. When changes are needed, round-trip editing allows artwork to be perfected in Illustrator, while preserving the structure and interactivity added in Flash Catalyst.
Adobe Illustrator CS5 is being introduced hot on the heels of Adobe Ideas digital sketchbook for Apple® iPad™ and iPhone, which was announced earlier this month. Adobe Ideas is an ideal companion for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop® software, allowing users to sketch design concepts from anywhere, capture and store color themes from photos saved on their tablet or phone and e-mail ideas as PDF files for editing in Illustrator or Photoshop or viewing with any PDF viewer. Key features include simple vector-based drawing tools, zoom control, variable-size brushes with multi-touch control and more.
Streamline Review Processes
New tools and services integrate with Adobe Illustrator CS5 to make review processes more efficient. With Adobe CS Review, users can create and share document reviews online from within Illustrator CS5. Adobe CS Review is part of Adobe CS Live, a new set of five online services that accelerate and improve key aspects of the creative workflow. CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time* and currently include: Adobe BrowserLab, Adobe CS Review, Acrobat.com, Adobe Story and SiteCatalyst® NetAverages™ from Omniture.
Pricing and Availability
Adobe Illustrator CS5 is scheduled to ship within 30 days, with availability through Adobe Authorized Resellers, the Adobe Store and Adobe Direct Sales. Estimated street price for Adobe Illustrator CS5 will be US$599. Upgrade pricing and volume licensing are available. For more detailed information about features, OS support, upgrade policies, pricing and International versions, please visit https://www.adobe.com/go/illustrator.
