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Illustrator continued

The Verdict

Admittedly, these are very minor complaints. This is a very powerful and full-featured drawing application, even if it is a tad less potent than either CorelDraw or Freehand. Illustrator is one of the most used graphics applications on the Mac platform and it now appears as though Adobe is poised to try and take over some of the Wintel market. It's hard to beat the new 'jive' between Illustrator and Photoshop, and you will appreciate the feeling that you are simply working in an extension of the other program. A friend of mine who is an art director for a Mac-based design firm in New York City recently related to me that he's been won over from the Freehand camp because of the amount of time that he spends working with both vector-based and bitmapped images. This well thought-out integration, he says, makes him much happier than having to keep track of two sets of shortcuts in his head.

If you also fall into the category above, or if you do the at-work Mac, at-home PC hustle, then do yourself a favor and go grab Illustrator. The measly admission price of a $129 upgrade (list, both platforms) is well worth the money for this feature-packed drawing program. Mac users may feel a little left out of the celebration, but this is still a birthday party that almost everyone will be glad they attended.