Once again Illustrator and FreeHand come up against each other. The two titans of PostScript have returned to the fray with brand new versions, bristling with an arsenal of new and improved features with which to try to capture the coveted vector crown. Whenever there's a whole number version upgrade available, there are always ambivalent feelings of dread and excitement. When many of us started out using electronic illustration programs our sole goal was to produce an illustration that looked as good as one created with a pen and ink and that exported as an Encapsulated PostScript file. After all, we were just going to drop the artwork into QuarkXPress or PageMaker, combine it with type, and print it.
Vector drawing apps create precise, professional-quality images.
Read on to find out which of these top four digital illustrators will fulfill your graphics needs. The program is adept at most illustration tasks, although technical illustration is weaker than we would have desired. If this were a boxing match, we would see FreeHand throwing punch after furious punch as Illustrator dodged, cringed, and ducked. FreeHand 8 still doesn't have superscript and subscript text styles. Inc. All rights reserved.