articles/Photoshop/adobecreativeuitecs4-page7
by Mike McNamee Published 01/02/2009
ILLUSTRATOR CS4
The killer feature in CS3 Illustrator was the implementation of Live Colour, with its ability to recolour artwork in accord with the harmony rules of Kuler. This has use in graphic design (for rapidly creating options) but also has implications for wedding album page design. For CS4 the killer and long-awaited feature is multiple art boards. Previously, Illustrator has been a one-page-at-a-time program and lagged behind both CorelDRAW and Macromedia Freehand in this respect. Adobe bought Macromedia, but has taken quite a long time to get around to migrating this 'multi-page' feature from Freehand.
Illustrator is a complex program, as difficult to master as Photoshop and probably even harder at first. For the social photographer the only use we can think of is for preparing bespoke front sheets to albums in, say, illuminated capitals, and for exploiting the charms of Kuler in harmonising the colours across an album. This could be more powerful than might at first appear. Suppose you have designed an illuminated poem for an album, which you proudly show off to potential new client-couples. Now suppose they request a similar treatment for their album but you have styled the colour quite differently. This is a pain to reconstruct in Photoshop but a doodle in Illustrator, the work of seconds in fact. Now you can present a bespoke page for each couple with very little effort - your investment in learning Illustrator is suddenly paid for!
For a photographer, then, the potential uses for Illustrator are limited to:
1. Album design and colour selection
2. Illuminated pages to front an album
3. Design of business logos and stationery
4. Poster design
5. Brochure design
These may be relatively poor pickings for some photographers but you imagine being called to complete a commercial job for a relatively small, local company. A classic example is a small company with a fleet of new vans, in their sparkly, new livery. The boss will want images of the flawless vans (which is why he called you in originally). However, he may have deferred thinking about the new brochure (he has had enough to worry about sorting the new vans out). Should you find that the pictures are intended for a future brochure, that is the time to make a pitch for that work as well. A small company might have no skills in this direction (just look in your local free paper at the adverts to see what we mean). Suddenly an afternoon's photography work has got you a few days of design work!
The rarity of Illustrator gives the skilled user an advantage in a mixed photography/design department of a larger company (typified by teaching hospitals, illustration departments, and university departments) - they all need graphs, posters and presentation graphics on a regular basis. Sometimes crazy academics need protection from their own ghastly offerings in PowerPoint! For those involved in this type of work, which often includes material for display in the public sector, CS4 has also implemented a proofing system for testing your design against the problems associated with colour-deficient sight. You can now soft proof for either protanopia or dueteranopia in both Photoshop and Illustrator (but not as far as we can tell, in InDesign or Acrobat).
This is part of a drive for inclusiveness for people with disabilities associated with vision and hearing, something the major software houses have taken on-board (it is in fact a legal requirement for web design that has not (yet) been very vigorously implemented).
There are 21 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Wednesday 15th January 2025
SWPP - Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers
The Society of Photographers
Clwyd Chambers, Clwyd Street, Rhyl, Denbighshire, LL18 3LA, UK
Tel 00 44 (0) 1745 356935
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