TheSnowman
New Member
Heck, I'm still on CS2 and it's working fine. My problem is, I have to upgrade to a new PC to go along with my new printer coming in. Am I gonna have to update my Adobe stuff too, or will Win 7 run CS2?
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Illustrator CS6: What do YOU think?
- Thread starter James Burke
- Start date
SightLine
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Likes....
Biggest plus is 64 bit. It's much faster especially when a file has linked or embedded raster images or stupid soft drop shadow effects.
New dark interface. Took a couple days to get used to. I do like it.
Canvas - still same size BUT Illy no longer bitches and complains if you try to scale something larger than the canvas now. Useful for quick scaling a template 2000% to get some quick overall measurements. It will let you save with stuff way off the canvas but it's only useable within Illy.
Live trace is now Image Trace and does indeed work much better. Still not going to give the results that hand tracing something will but it is improved.
Default mouse scrolling is much finer now, hold shift for the prior faster scrolling.
New Pantone Plus color books integrated.
Text tools are slightly improved - it now has SMALL CAPS like PS.
Gradients on strokes. Nice....
New pattern tool. Will be handy but have not had a chance to try that yet either.
Probably other things but those are ones I've noticed.
Dislikes.
Same old 227" canvas with a realistically 200" max artboard.
Scrolling while using a shape tool still does not refresh.
Free distort tool is still a tiny box of fail and aids.
Biggest plus is 64 bit. It's much faster especially when a file has linked or embedded raster images or stupid soft drop shadow effects.
New dark interface. Took a couple days to get used to. I do like it.
Canvas - still same size BUT Illy no longer bitches and complains if you try to scale something larger than the canvas now. Useful for quick scaling a template 2000% to get some quick overall measurements. It will let you save with stuff way off the canvas but it's only useable within Illy.
Live trace is now Image Trace and does indeed work much better. Still not going to give the results that hand tracing something will but it is improved.
Default mouse scrolling is much finer now, hold shift for the prior faster scrolling.
New Pantone Plus color books integrated.
Text tools are slightly improved - it now has SMALL CAPS like PS.
Gradients on strokes. Nice....
New pattern tool. Will be handy but have not had a chance to try that yet either.
Probably other things but those are ones I've noticed.
Dislikes.
Same old 227" canvas with a realistically 200" max artboard.
Scrolling while using a shape tool still does not refresh.
Free distort tool is still a tiny box of fail and aids.
Letterbox Mike
New Member
For what it's worth the "new" dark interface isn't actually new, it's just the new default. CS5 also has the option to be dark, and I think it went back to CS4 but I can't remember. If you don't like it, it's adjustable in the preferences, from one shade darker than default (basically black and IMO hard to see some tools) to I think 2 or 3 shades lighter (up to what you're used to, and maybe a step lighter than that).
I'd never played around with adjusting the interface level in previous versions although I knew it was there, so I'm forcing myself to get used to the default darkness of CS6. So far I'm on the fence, there are things that it makes easier to see and things that I think disappear into it. It's a sleeker look but I'm not sure it's doing anything for me yet...
I'd never played around with adjusting the interface level in previous versions although I knew it was there, so I'm forcing myself to get used to the default darkness of CS6. So far I'm on the fence, there are things that it makes easier to see and things that I think disappear into it. It's a sleeker look but I'm not sure it's doing anything for me yet...
James Burke
Being a grandpa is more fun than working
I like it....and I want it, but I've decided to put my upgrade purchase on hold. It's got a few new bells and whistles, but not enough to make it a priority for this year.
One of my goals this year is excercising better discipline and judgement when it comes to purchases. It's so dang hard when cool and nifty stuff comes along.
All said, my return on investment for CS6 really wouldn't amount to much.
JB
One of my goals this year is excercising better discipline and judgement when it comes to purchases. It's so dang hard when cool and nifty stuff comes along.
All said, my return on investment for CS6 really wouldn't amount to much.
JB
ProWraps
New Member
does anyone know if graphtecs cutting master plug in will work with cs6? if not, its a no go for us.
problem in seeing with adobe in the future is you have to upgrade in sequence or your screwed meaning if you are on 5, you wont be able to skip to 7 which is bull shat if you ask me.
problem in seeing with adobe in the future is you have to upgrade in sequence or your screwed meaning if you are on 5, you wont be able to skip to 7 which is bull shat if you ask me.
James Burke
Being a grandpa is more fun than working
It's a free download to try. I'm running a DSL connection and the two gigs took me darn near 8 hours to download.
More than likely, I'll always stay one version behind current and only upgrade when absolutely necessary.
Last year when I upgraded my PS to CS5, they had it priced for $139.00 during their Black Friday sale.
I suspect there will be more special offers designed to stimulate their balance sheet and prompt fence sitters to finally make the jump.
Yeah, it's kinda crappy about the new upgrade policy, but it is what it is and must be factored into the cost of doing business. There's always a possibility for future threats of competition, and that may change things. Or...enough users may band together and form their own "occupy" movement and get things back to the way the used to be.
JB
GAC05
Quit buggin' me
I'm planning on going with the upgrade to maintain compatibility with clients files.
I'm in a good place with the ad agencies that do the art for 2 of my largest customers.
They send me the approved proofs along with the source files and I rearrange them to fit the different sized layouts needed for posters banners, car ramps etc..
Much easier to do the edits myself than to ask to save down or have them re-size and hope they fit once printed.
64bit should be a plus.
wayne k
guam usa
I'm in a good place with the ad agencies that do the art for 2 of my largest customers.
They send me the approved proofs along with the source files and I rearrange them to fit the different sized layouts needed for posters banners, car ramps etc..
Much easier to do the edits myself than to ask to save down or have them re-size and hope they fit once printed.
64bit should be a plus.
wayne k
guam usa
qmr55
New Member
I still run CS3 on one of my laptops and it's available as an option in this as well. In fact, that's what I've been using for awhile now. Prefer it over the light background. Even use it on my main with CS4, glad it is the norm in CS6 though.
qmr55
New Member
Yes one of my guys had a laptop with win7 and ran CS2 on it for awhile. If I remember correctly, he had to change the path on install and run as administrator.
I wish I didn't have to upgrade, but probably will within the next few day or so.
Adobe's upgrade policy is the main reason forcing the upgrade. I think that policy absolutely stinks because it would effectively let the company get off Scott free when releasing a version that simply isn't worth buying (if it has serious bugs, lack of new features, etc.). Basically Adobe can now just change the number on the box and some packaging artwork and us registered users have to buy it or pay full price the next time we actually want to upgrade. Not good.
Certain effects in Illustrator CS6 are probably not going to be backward compatible at all -namely those new pattern fills and gradients on strokes. Those are pretty big changes.
Adobe's upgrade policy is the main reason forcing the upgrade. I think that policy absolutely stinks because it would effectively let the company get off Scott free when releasing a version that simply isn't worth buying (if it has serious bugs, lack of new features, etc.). Basically Adobe can now just change the number on the box and some packaging artwork and us registered users have to buy it or pay full price the next time we actually want to upgrade. Not good.
Certain effects in Illustrator CS6 are probably not going to be backward compatible at all -namely those new pattern fills and gradients on strokes. Those are pretty big changes.
rfulford
New Member
I installed CS6 last night to test on a wrap for a MCI J4500 transit bus. This bus is about 45' wide by 10' tall. Long story short, I was able to export an entire bus side to a tiff file with bleed in less than a minute. The final pixel count was 54300x1300 pixels. This is well over the 32000 pixel limit you can rasterize in Photoshop and incredibly more than I had hoped for. With 32 bit Illustrator, I used to get the "Combination of artwork size and resolution exceeds the maximum that can be rasterized" message all the time on seemingly small jobs. This job was fairly complex and I threw in some extra transparency just for fun. I prefer illustrator for layout but used to have to go to photoshop for large jobs in order to circumvent the limits of Illustrator, PDF, and the photoshop 32000 pixel raster limit. This alone makes CS6 a fantastic upgrade for me.
GAC05
Quit buggin' me
+1
Yes, this was a major pain for me as I do not own Photoshop.
Call Abobe for a commission - you've made them at least one sale today.
wayne k
guam usa
rfulford
New Member
Yet another nice feature
Just found another nice feature (for me at least). If you name your art boards, the tiff files you export will be named after the art board. So, if you are doing a vehicle wrap and you name an art board passenger door, the exported tiff file will be named passenger door. I am not sure if this feature was always there since I used to have to take an intermediate step to PDF in order to rasterize illustrator files.
Just found another nice feature (for me at least). If you name your art boards, the tiff files you export will be named after the art board. So, if you are doing a vehicle wrap and you name an art board passenger door, the exported tiff file will be named passenger door. I am not sure if this feature was always there since I used to have to take an intermediate step to PDF in order to rasterize illustrator files.
fredges
Fred
I just installed Illustrator CS6 today, and it tells me it can't load the plugin for Cutting Master 2. Other than that, CM2 seems to be running well on my 2.5Ghz Intel Corei5 iMac....
I tried using the plugins that I used to use on my old PPC Mac, from Illustrator CS2, but they did not work either. Hopefully, I'll get some CM2 plug-ins that work with AI CS6 soon!!
C
ColoPrinthead
Guest
I've been playing with CS6 for a couple of months now and like it but am annoyed by the art board changes.
Does anyone know how I can save a file as a legacy/older AI version? I can't seem to find anything helpful on the web.
Does anyone know how I can save a file as a legacy/older AI version? I can't seem to find anything helpful on the web.
synergy_jim
New Member
File> Save As> Select the older version from drop down....
We are on subscription now.... Love it.... 29.99 a month and I get all adobe updates for free!
We are on subscription now.... Love it.... 29.99 a month and I get all adobe updates for free!
James Burke
Being a grandpa is more fun than working
I was in Staples yesterday and noticed a very drastic change in their Adobe software display....there were only one or two "boxed" products available, but quite a few options for online subscriptions.
Packaged like a gift card, you can purchase subsciptions for as short as one month. In a way, I think it's a good way to test drive a version beyond the typical 30 day trial period.
JB
Packaged like a gift card, you can purchase subsciptions for as short as one month. In a way, I think it's a good way to test drive a version beyond the typical 30 day trial period.
JB