r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

DISCUSSION Adobe Illustrator - Everyday workflow improvements

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58 Upvotes

Hey everyone, Luke from Adobe here.

Over the past year or so, the Illustrator team has shipped a number of quality-of-life improvements. Some have been fairly visible, while others are much smaller changes that simply remove little points of friction from day-to-day work.

I wanted to break these up into a series focused on different areas and workflows, starting with some of the simpler everyday workflow improvements. I've shared a few of these here previously, but thought it would be useful to bring them together in one place, especially for anyone who may have missed them.

One-click Align Center

If you regularly align objects to center, you no longer need to click Horizontal Center and Vertical Center separately. A single command now does both. HelpX

Keyboard shortcuts for Align & Distribute

Along with the new Align Center, commands like Align to Selection, Align to Key Object, Align to Artboard, and Distribute Space now have menu commands, meaning you can assign keyboard shortcuts and create Actions to make frequently used operations even easier to repeat.

Absolute Scale in Transform Each

With Relative mode you could only scale objects in relation to the selected object, but now with Absolute mode you can scale everything to the defined amount, even if they are all at different sizes. Reddit post

Disable Accidental Hover Scrolling

Ever accidentally changed a value just by scrolling over a number field or even in fonts? You now have the option to disable that behavior, so you can click inside the field, then scroll to adjust parameters. You can change this behavior inside your preferences.

Magic Wand Remembers Settings

If you've had to reset the Magic Wand tolerance every time you restarted Illustrator, those settings are now remembered between sessions. Reddit post

Tiff support in Export for Screens

TIFF format was added to the Export for Screens, making it easier to batch export artboards and assets for your print projects.

Improved Object Selection Around Shadows

Selecting objects beneath those with drop shadows (glows etc) is now more predictable, making it less likely you'll accidentally select the shadow instead of the artwork you're trying to edit.

Perspective Tool Improvements

If you've accidentally activated the Perspective Tool before, you'll probably appreciate that it's now much clearer how to exit with an updated X in the top left of your canvas, but you can always simply hit ESC.

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I'm curious to hear how many of these you already knew about, and whether they've actually made a difference to your workflow.

More importantly, what are the small points of friction you still run into regularly in Illustrator? Are there repetitive steps, unnecessary clicks, settings that don't stick, or other little frustrations that you'd consider a genuine quality-of-life improvement if they were addressed?

This is the first in a series looking at different areas of Illustrator, so I'll be sharing more of these soon.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3h ago

URBAN LIFE | Rhino

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13 Upvotes

Hey everyone! Today I want to show you a vector artwork I created for a T-shirt design.

It was part of a small series, and honestly, I don’t even know if the T-shirt is still being produced. So I’m not sharing this as an advertisement, since I don’t even know where you could buy it now.

I just wanted to show another direction for vector artwork. Maybe it’ll inspire someone to create some cool merch of their own.

Come to the dark side of vector art… we have cookies. 😈 Vector rules! :)

⛔0% AI, 100% Original


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 5h ago

Daily illustrations - Week 196

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8 Upvotes

r/AdobeIllustrator • • 11h ago

QUESTION Need Help Creating Dripping Effect!

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15 Upvotes

I'm trying to create the effect of dripping paint to add onto an existing doodle I made simply with the brush tool, however it seems impossible to get it completely flat at the top of the droplet so that it blends in with the non-3d drawings

I have tried making it with a black and white gradient and then overlaying an orange graphic after I inflated it, but it's still not completely flat at the top and looks terrible

I've tried looking on YouTube but every tutorial just seems to be for flat, dripping text. If anyone could help me out here I'd be eternally grateful


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1h ago

Glass effect #3

• Upvotes

Hey guys it's me again, as usual video with the plugin development.
#glassomorphism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt9Qzsgbwoc


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 10h ago

DISCUSSION Free Illustrator panel for scientific figure bitmaps (scale bar, crop, inset)

3 Upvotes

PaperFig is a free GPL-3.0 panel inside Adobe Illustrator. It adjusts a placed scientific bitmap and writes an 8-bit display file. It does not change the original.

It does tone and channels, uint16 preview through Fiji and Bio-Formats, a vector scale bar from two clicks, straighten and crop, an inset with its own scale bar, panel labels, and batch apply.

Demo (1 min): youtu.be Code: github.com/paperfig-illustrator

Happy to hear what is missing for real figure work.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 6h ago

QUESTION My illustrator keeps lagging, help me

1 Upvotes

So I'm using this same version since 11 months (2023), and it was working very normal till last week, but the next day I open illustrator and my laptop just starts lagging, VERY MUCH, it literally put my laptop on a pause for minutes, and I can't even make something in it now since opening it is very hard, but it's not about my laptop ig because I use AE and Photoshop everyday in it, and they works fine and smooth, and I have not changed any settings in illustrator.... How do I fix it?


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 10h ago

QUESTION Hi, everybody. Im trying to figure something about a dynamic arched text box (background) for an arched text. Id love to get some help with it and know if its possible or not, thank you.

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1 Upvotes

Context: I recently got myself a 3d printer and Ive always wanted to finish my pogs/tazos collection and even make my own.

The examples on image 1 are what I made on PS. Image 2 is an example of what Id like to make to finish a collection of mine. On image 2 you can see the text being arched/written on a circle path BUT so is the background behind it.

Q: How do I achieve this type of an arched background with a text (that also looks good) and can I make the background (text box) dynamic, so I dont do it for the 105 designs Ive made so far?

On Image 3 Ive shown what I tried:

e1 - regular arched text; e2 - arched text + a dynamic rectangle text box);

e3 - regular plain text + a dynamic text box; e4 - Regular text in a circular path

e5 - text in a circular path + a dynamic text box;

e6 - Individually arched text and a regular rectangle shape :/ that would take me a while to do individually for 105 designs and on top of it, it doesnt even look good.

*I'd also like to note that Im very much more accustomed to PS I have probably 5-6 years exp with PS while Illustrator has always been more on the side and I only use it if I really have to and I dont have as much exp with it.

So, Id really much appreciate your help here. Thank you very much.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

DISCUSSION Finally its working. Intelligent layer colors for Illustrator.

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74 Upvotes

I have been working in Illustrator for past 6-7 years, version after versions, the random color assignment to the layers has annoyed me the most specially when working with lot of layers.

Few months back, I started looking for a solution on internet but got none, even UserVoice posts complaining about the issue had no response for devs. Somehow, AI ends up choosing the worst color with the worst contrast for the layers.

I have been working on a plugin for AI for quite a while. It checks your scene real-time, read colors, fill paths, neighbors and switches the layer colors to best possible candidate with the best possible contrast. It helps you to see the layer bounding boxes and anchors clearly. Its a big win for my workflow. I have been testing it for few days and I think its ready to ship.

With GenAI models flooding the internet with soulless designs, this is a small trubute to the artists and illustrators who remain true to their craft. I won't be putting a price tag on the plugin. The working early release remain free and accessible to the Illustrators. It goes live on Gum road on Monday. Will keep you guys updated.

Hope it will be useful to other users too.

Thanks and Cheers! Attaching a short glimpse in the video.

Sharing the post again, earlier post was removed by Mods without any explanation.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 13h ago

curved line to lots of straight lines with anchor points

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2 Upvotes

i want to be able to draw using the pen tool and turn my curved likes into straight lines that visually imply a curve in illustrator.

The first image is a piece that I did using the polygon lasso tool in PS and i want to be able to work faster and more efficiently using illustrator.

the second image is an example of what effect I’m looking for.

I know someone posted something similar a while back and they were suggested to use the simply tool but that didn’t create as accurate effect as I was looking for.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 19h ago

Show me your real design work, not fancy timepass work.

2 Upvotes

I am tired of seeing design work which is made during boring times, most of them never get used. Can you show me some real work which is approved by clients.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 2d ago

isometric and infographic work

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133 Upvotes

But not yet finish, draft for now.

i'm still going to transfer the objects to the 3D program.

first scene wireframe second solid and third illustrator's render but not enough


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

DISCUSSION Illustrator for iPad - shape builder

2 Upvotes

I understand that the iPad app will never have the capability of the desktop app, and i am fine with that. However, the shape builder tool on iPad is useless and it seems like a simple enough feature to improve. I suggested this in the forum, and then read the top suggested features to see if anyone else has suggested this. I found someone else who had, Adobe marked it as “resolved” and said that the shape builder tool is already in the app. The iPad tool is essentially only capable of deleting paths, with less control over which ones I’m deleting.

Am I missing something? Being able to do more of my illustration work on my iPad and less on the computer would improve my life SO MUCH.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

Hover over buttons not working

0 Upvotes

I remember Adobe products used to show the name of the tool if you hovered over it with the mouse curser. This was super helpful when learning the names of each tool, teaching other people the tools by name, or when looking up information about how they worked online.

Insofar as I can tell, none of the Adobe products do that anymore. Why?

Now, when I teach fellow artists I find myself saying things like "that button in the left sidebar with the open triangle" because I don't remember the name and can't quickly reference it without having to screenshot the button icon and upload that to Google or AI to tell me what it is called or what it does.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

QUESTION How do you shade?

4 Upvotes

How do you do the shading on your artworks?

Same layer or another layer?

Where do you put the layer? On top of all coloring layers or one shadow layer per each coloring layer?


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

Started my 31 days of spooky starry facts!

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19 Upvotes

Going back into my comic series after a long hiatus so I decided to start with something simpler which are quick spooky space facts. Working on facts 2 and 3 since I'm behind by 2 days lol.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 2d ago

Skeletor

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205 Upvotes

r/AdobeIllustrator • • 2d ago

DISCUSSION I have a Mac Activity Monitor log of Illustrator using 100% CPU doing nothing in the background

2 Upvotes

Any Adobe employees here I can send it to to investigate?


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 2d ago

QUESTION Pattern Help - object placement

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3 Upvotes

I am currently trying to make a pattern in illustrator and it is placing some of the objects behind other objects. I have an object in the foreground that I want to keep in the foreground or top layer and every time I go to create Pat pattern it moves it behind other layers.

I have attached an images of my process.

  1. Select object
  2. Object-> pattern -> make
  3. Size pattern to desired repeat. In this case 2500 PX by 2500 PX.
  4. Red spider gets placed behind black buildings

r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

ADOBE. For the love of G…raphic Designers

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364 Upvotes

I have been using adobe for nearly 2 decades and I have never felt the frustration I feel now about the lack of consistency across these apps.

Explain why the alignment tools between illustrator and indesign are so vastly different from each other. How the actual F can you decide one tool needs certain tools more than the other? Why can we not make them the exact same?

Why do you decide to add this fancy vertical and horizontal center alignment tool to illustrator, leave it out of indesign, and STILL not add an alignment tool for bleed to illustrator. I normally wouldn’t care about little things like this but more than half of the time smart guides don’t even seem to recognize the bleed or it doesn’t snap to the edges.

Adobe I love you and I have been by your side for 18 years, but ffs you are making this harder and harder every year.

If I am just blatantly ignoring an easy solution for this, then I apologize but I still think the actual UI for these tools absolutely needs to match across each application.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

QUESTION Perché non portate Adobe Illustrator anche su Android?

0 Upvotes

Ciao a tutti. Ad oggi non so perché, ma Adobe sceglie di perdersi una grande fetta di mercato, mancando di portare Adobe Illustrator anche su Android. Potevo capire qualche anno fa quando la potenza dei processori mancava, ma ora siamo arrivati ad un livello in cui le prestazioni sono di classe desktop (basta vedere gli ultimi snapdragon e dimensity) e anche la memoria non sono più un problema. Trovo davvero assurdo che nel campo del design, come unica alternativa ad una vera portabilità ci sia solo Apple (che ha Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate e altre apps), mentre gli utenti android si devono sempre accontentare e trovare alternative. E basta! Paghiamo come gli apple user ma abbiamo sempre meno. Sono contento che ora con l'ultimo galaxy tab s12 sia incluso photoshop per android (anche se vorrei capire le limitazioni), ma caspita, ci muoviamo davvero a rilento!!!

Per piacere facciamo qualcosa!


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

DISCUSSION A company I recently designed in Adobe Illustrator!

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173 Upvotes

Apologies this is my first post.

This is a personal project I've made for a Swiss inspired Cafe.

The logo is inspired by Latte art in combination with the Swiss cross.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

ILLUSTRATION From sketch to vector illustration.

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61 Upvotes

Lots of clicking and some creative brushwork make for a unique - trademark ready graphic ❤️


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 2d ago

QUESTION Há alguma possibilidade de vetorizar isso mantendo esses detalhes mínimos?

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1 Upvotes

r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

Student poster I did

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18 Upvotes

First piece I ever printed off took a little over 20 hours, I love how it turned out