JDW

How is there NOT prejudice in the output? By definition vector art will be outputted at the maximum resolution of the printing device, but raster art will only render as well as its fixed resolution allows. Output a vector and a 300ppi raster in a 1200 ppi printer and the vector will get printed at 1200ppi while the raster will be printed at 300ppi and the raster will be comparatively be more jagged when the hard copy is scrutinized. If you still don't follow what I mean, or if I am still misunderstanding you, then allow me to be clarity to the both of us with this one question: What is Illustrator doing inferior to AD in terms of how Illustrator displays rasters? (You seem to prefer AD over Illustrator in this regard, but can you please explain why?) Thanks.

Do we not still use Mice? Do we not still use Icons and Windows? My Mac 128k had these in 1984, yet I still use those "old concepts" today. "If it ain't broke..." One must also consider that the more similar AD is to Illustrator (without crossing into their intellectual property, of course) the more likely Illustrator Pros like myself will be drawn like flies to AD. And with a wider user base comes a better app down the line. There are already many similarities to Illlutrator even now. For example I was pleasantly surprised to see just how many keyboard shortcuts are identical to Illutrator. Had we followed the "let's ditch old concepts" path, those shortcuts very well might be totally different, introducing an unecessary learning curve for veteran Illustrator users. With that said, thank you for the tip about View > View Mode > Pixels. That mimics Illustrator. However, when set to Vector, the Raster effects are perfectly smooth, which means you need to remember which View Mode you're in so you never lose sight of what is truly vector and what is raster. I am not trying to say anything negative against AD if left as it is. If I thought AD wasn't good enough to buy, I would not have bought it. I am just "talking out loud" as an Iilustrator veteran and AD newbie. I have much to learn and explore in AD. Thanks in advance for your patience with me.

That is impossible to intuitively determine from your existing UI. Try this: 1. New document set to 300dpi. 2. Sketch a rectangle. 3. Give it a Stroke. 4. Thicken the stroke until you can see it. 5. Zoom in to 1000%. The rounded corners of that stroke appear perfectly smooth like a vector. If a fixed bitmap (raster), you would expect it to get blocky / jagged after you zoomed close to the 300dpi resolution. Now repeat the above for the Outer Shadow "Raster" effect. When you zoom in, the shadow never looks blocky. To compare, open Illustrator, sketch a box and do Effect > Drop Shadow. Zoom in and it becomes blocky in accordance with your Document Raster Effects settings. It's very intuitive. You are never confused about what is a Vector and what is a Raster. No need for the user to read a manual or "just remember that Effects are Rasters." If AD is targeted at becoming a full Adobe Illustrator replacement app someday (and I for one see it as the only app out there for the Mac which has that potential), then adding a more intuitive display of what is Raster vs. Vector is an important consideration. Thanks.

I'm a veteran Illustrator user who recently purchased AD. I am now comparing "Stroke" features between the two apps. Here are my questions: 1) Sketch a rectangle and give it an opaque color, then sketch a second rectangle above it and give your second rectangle X% Opacity. Now tick / Enable "Stroke" in the Effects. Slowly move the Radius to the right and you will then suddenly see your X% Opacity become complete Opaque. Why? 2) In Illustrator I can put a Stroke on a rectangle and then make that stroke to be Centered or Inside or Outside. But AD is very different. When I sketch a rectangle in AD and then when I add a "Line" to it, I am presented with a large number of options, but the ability to move that Line to the Outside or Inside is mysteriously absent. So I was thinking to myself, well, maybe the developers of AD want me to use the "Stroke" Effect instead. And truly, when I apply a Stroke, I have the 3 options available (Center, Inside, Outside). But the disadvantage to using Stroke is that the corners are always curved. Why is that? 3) Stroke does not seem to be a replacement for Line. Try this. Sketch a rectangle but set Fill and Line to NONE. Now tick/Enable Stroke and expand the Radius. Nothing appears on screen at all! But as soon as I give it a fill color, then the Stroke magically appears. It seems a bit strange. If Line would give me the option to have Center or Inside or Outside, this wouldn't matter as I could then use Line instead. 4) Illustrator empowers me to add multiple strokes to the same object, and when I set those strokes behind the fill, I can then do some pretty interesting things. I cannot seem to find a way to do this in AD. 5) It seems that AD only allows me to add a gradient to a Stroke but not to a Line. This is unfortunate because I cannot seem to create a Stroke WITHOUT rounded corners. 6) Illustrator CC has some powerful new Corner features for Strokes. For example, I can sketch a rectangle and then give it a 5pt stroke and then I can grab any one of the 4 round tabs and drag inward to give all 4 corners the same roundness. Furthermore, I can use Illustrator's Direct Selection tool to draw a selection rec around only on of the corners, which will enable me to round that one corner independently of the others. How can I accomplish the same in AD? 7) Dashed lines and Arrowheads are very common in my work but such features appear to be absent in the current version of AD? 8) In Illustrator, I can sketch a line or Stroke a box and then have "Width Profile" that I can choose in the Stroke panel. This can be very useful at times. For example, in Illustrator, if I sketch a line that is 26pt thickness and then give it Width Profile 4, the 26pt thickness decreases linearly to zero, giving it the shape of a spike. Can such be done in AD? 9) Another tool I always use in Illustrator when dealing with Strokes and Objects is the CUT tool. I can't seem to find it in AD. How do I sketch a rectangle and then cut pieces out of it? Sorry for all the questions, but Strokes and Corners and Cutting are the biggest part of what I do in Illustrator, and such is what I intend to do in AD as well. Thanks.