The release of Adobe Illustrator CC 2019 offers many cool new features and enhancements for designers – beginners and experts alike. The new and upgraded tool is developed to include an array of innovative and intelligent tool sets. With the introduction of features like free-form gradients and puppet wraps, illustrators and designers are able to use Adobe Illustrator CC 2019 to add incredible details to their designs, create photorealistic renderings and improve their workflows. Let us take a look at the recent additions to Illustrator and features and how best to use them to add that final polish to your designs.
1. Free Form Gradients
One of the great features of Adobe Illustrator CC 2019 is free form gradients. With free-form gradients, you are able to blend colors to create richer and photo-realistic gradients that look and feel natural. In addition to having linear and radial gradients, this new gradient feature gives you the capability to mix colors by dropping points at various parts of the object. By adding stops at different points on the artwork, you are able to create a smooth gradation all around the curvature of the object. This simple and easy to use tool lets you not only add stops and apply gradients on objects but also on line segments. This can be applied in two different modes.
* Lines – Apply gradients by adding stops on a line segment
* Objects – Apply gradients by adding stops at different points in an object.
2. Global Edits
How many times have you had to edit a logo in multiple locations? Changing size, shape color and various other design elements of an artwork is a time-consuming task, especially when you have to edit it in multiple locations and across various documents. One of the latest features in Adobe Illustrator CC 2019, Global Edits, which solves this problem by making it easier for users to find and edit the artwork across art-boards. With this simple and easy to use tool, designers are able to edit their artwork in one step. Not just across groups but also globally.
3. Visual Font Browsing
With this 2019 release, Adobe Creative Cloud brings in an enhanced font browsing experience to Adobe Illustrator. The character panel is customized and enhanced to have a variety of new shortcuts and features. The new tab ‘Find more’ lets you browse through thousands of typefaces from type foundries within illustrator. You don’t necessarily have to activate them to see them in your designs. With the integration of Adobe Typekit, you are able to browse and find a typeface you like and activate it when you are ready to use it.
‘Show similar fonts’ and ‘add to favorites’ options’ are also available for every font and can be discovered when you hover over the typeface.
Besides these features, you are also able to control the size of the sample text from the art board by simply selecting sample text size options from the character panel.
4. Custom Tool Bar
Adobe Illustrator provides two sets of toolbar options — Basic and Advanced from which you are able to access all the tools that are needed to create an artwork. Now with this 2019 release, Adobe Illustrator software gives you the ability to customize your toolbar. You are able to group all the tools under one place for easy access. Adding a tool, grouping them, removing a group or re-ordering them has never been easier. If you have a tool that you keep using, you can drag and drop it into the customized panel. Tailor the toolbar to fit your illustration and design needs.
5. Presentation Mode
Adobe Illustrator CC 2019 enables you to view your artwork in full-screen presentation mode. The sidebar, grids menu, and other panels are hidden in this window. You won’t be able to edit your work in this mode but you should be able to switch between different art-boards by pressing the arrow keys.
6. Trim View
Adobe Illustrator Creative Cloud 2019 allows you to view your artwork without guides, grids and other elements that extend beyond the edge of the artboard. Any artwork extending beyond the artboard will be clipped. You should still be able to edit and rework your artwork in this mode.
7. Scalable User Interface
In 2019, Adobe Illustrator detects your screen resolution and adjusts the display automatically. Scaling your interface to match the display can also be done manually by using a user interface dialog box.
8. Content-aware crop
When applying the crop tool to an image, Adobe Illustrator CC now identifies significant areas around the image. This default cropping box appears on the image and can be manually used to change the image size as needed. Click on apply or enter key to crop the image and save the changes.
9. Puppet Warp
Adobe Illustrator CC 2019 automatically identifies the best areas in your artwork that would benefit from using this tool. It does this by adding pins to these areas. As a user, you are able to add or delete pins as needed. This feature is enabled automatically and can be disabled by de-selecting ‘Enable Content Aware defaults’ in the Preferences panel.
10. Home Screen
When launching Adobe Illustrator CC 2019, a home screen appears on the display panel with a set of resources and presets to guide you as you navigate through the interface. This includes a set of tutorials to help you understand the tips, tricks and inner workings of the software. It also has a list of presets that can be used as a guide when creating a document. You can access your recent documents through this panel or start a new one by clicking on the new document button or open a version you have already worked on.
With these exciting new features in hand, illustrators and designers have already started working on improving their artwork and design flows and are growing their design business.
