Re: Survey on illustration tools

[" David Neeley" <dbneeley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Comparing Illustrator and Corel Draw is truly a good problem to have, since both are full of amazing capabilities. To me, the most significant features include:

1. If you are comfortable with the Adobe graphics editors' approach--say, in Photoshop or GoLive--you'd find the Illustrator interface easy. If you're not familiar with any graphic editors, you might find Draw easier to get your hands around...although with the last few versions it seems to have caught the Adobe fondness for flooding the desktop with a blizzard of small pallettes.

2. Illustrator has better fountain fills (by far) and as you might expect the best .eps and other PostScript related file generation in the business.

3. Contrary to what others have said, there really doesn't seem to be a major difference in support by professionals or others for one over the other. Those who began life as professional illustrators often began with Illustrator (on Mac or Windows). Those who began their art on the P.C. often began with Corel Draw. Like most people, such folks generally tend to stay with what they know.

I have in my career been called upon to evaluate programs of many types, including those for illustration...although I'm certainly no artist! Since you work with Frame, I'd venture a guess that with a little work to familiarize yourself with whichever tool you choose, you can do fine. However, I think you'll find that Illustrator will be a more satisfying product from a throughput standpoint--you'll probably get more done with less effort.

Be aware, though, that Draw comes bundled with an amazing number of tools and capabilities that are much more expensive from the Adobe stable. PhotoPaint is amazingly close in capability to Photoshop, and comes bundled with Draw as only one example.

Finally, if you do much art stuff, I think you'll have more benefit from a second monitor and a good graphics tablet (Wacom is the best) than you'll see with the simple choice of a tool, regardless of which tool it is.

Regards,

David


----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Gruener <bill.gruener@att.net>
Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 19:57:45 -0700
To:  <larry.kollar@arrisi.com>, Morton Dave Contr OO-ALC/LHM <Dave.Morton@HILL.af.mil>
Subject: Re: Survey on illustration tools


> Hi,
> 
> I'm a word person not a graphic person. I'm updating my skills and am in a
> masters program in technical writing at Northeastern U, Boston, MA. I took a
> graphics course in the program, and I tried to learn CorelDraw. I never
> learned. I work some with Illustrator if I can't get our artist to do the
> work. Although, I'm not an expert, not even adept, Illustrator is
> understandable, and I can do simple tasks. I recommend Illustrator. Also,
> the after-market documentation is better. The Illustrator for Dummies is
> good. (I know what people say about the Dummies series, but those books work
> for me, and I believe in whatever gets the job done.)
> 
> > From: larry.kollar@arrisi.com
> > Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 15:45:28 -0400
> > To: Morton Dave Contr OO-ALC/LHM <Dave.Morton@HILL.af.mil>
> > Cc: framers@FrameUsers.com, framers@omsys.com
> > Subject: Re: Survey on illustration tools
> > 
> > David Morton wrote:
> > 
> >> We are looking at upgrading our illustration capability for use in
> >> publications.  We are considering either CorelDraw or Illustrator. ...
> > 
> >> For those of you who do your own illustrations, what are your opinions
> >> regarding illustration tools?
> > 
> > Illustrator is a popular choice among graphics professionals,
> > including those who created a large body of legacy illustrations
> > here. I know about enough to make minor changes to drawings
> > already done in Illustrator, and that's about it. If we need an
> > original, complex drawing, we'd have to bring in a contractor
> > since I don't have much artistic talent beyond simple line
> > drawings.
> > 
> > When I'm creating my own drawings, I either use Visual Thought
> > on Windows or Dia on Linux. More often than not, though, we
> > use digital photographs now.
> > 
> > --
> > Larry Kollar, Senior Technical Writer, ARRIS
> > "Content creators are the engine that drives
> > value in the information life cycle."
> > -- Barry Schaeffer, on XML-Doc
> > 
> > 
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> 
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