Rating: 
Summary: For serious illustrators only
Review: First I would like to explain why I gave it four stars instead of five...it does have a couple bugs that need to be fixed.
Overall, if you are a serious computer artist this program is what you will want. I horsed around with several free trial downloads from various companies and only Adobe has what a professional needs. All other illustrating programs, including Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, are only great if you're looking for a computer toy.
Adobe Illustrator does take some learning though. Don't expect to load the program up and be able to use all of it's features. But once you do learn how to properly use all the tools, you will be glad you bought this and nothing else.
Go to the Adobe website and download their free 30 day trial.
Rating: 
Summary: What is up with this?!?
Review: I advise you to check out Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 8 after reading this review. It is both affordable (it is actually reasonably priced!) and very very usable.I fail to find a reason why Illustrator should be $500!! It is obviously a cash cow and the only reason why they (Adobe) produce products is to get money. This product is in no way intuitive and has no attention to detail. With only two gradient styles (linear and radial!) and a very confusing interface, it is by far the worst suite of products that I have ever used. Paint Shop Pro 8's tools are far more superior than Adobe Illustrator's crap, yet Adobe Illustrator remains the "industry standard" for vector graphics. At a whopping 500 dollars per copy, the license doesn't even allow you to install it on 2 home computers unless you fork out another 500 dollars just so you don't have to be limited to one workstation. If anyone can give me a rational explanation why this application should be 500 dollars and Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 8 only 80? The windows operating system is 150 dollars and that is for the recent professional edition. Might I add that that is an operating system! Taking around 1.3GB's of disk space while Adobe Illustrator is roughly around 140MB! Adobe products suck, they try to sell you 10 different products that are slight variations of their other products. Though Paint Shop Pro can practically do it all! Another funny thing about Adobe is that you have to pay, yes pay, for rights to partially load some of their file formats in your own programs.
Rating: 
Summary: Major Bugs Remain
Review: I have been using Illustrator professionally since version 6 was cutting edge. I like the product and understand how to use the various tools, how to place images, and basically WHY the thing costs $500. This is a marginal upgrade over 10 in many areas, a downgrade in terms of back-compatability, and a major upgrade in terms of additional filters and effects. Overall, about what you would expect for a version upgrade. Not nearly as major as the difference between 8 and 9, but substantial enough to warrant the upgrade price.
But there are some major bugs that have been in place for months now. They have been noted in the Adobe forums, with no response from Adobe or indication that they have any intention of repairing them. I recommend that you don't buy this product until Adobe releases their next upgrade.
Rating:
Summary: For serious illustrators only
Review: I just installed Illustrator CS today and have discovered several bugs. One file became so unmanageable, I had to start completely over (I was unable to assign a color and stroke to a shape). I tried to save a brush, but the settings I tried again and again to save would not stick, so that my efforts were useless. I have used Adobe products for years and was one of the earliest users of Illustrator. I have always loved Adobe's reliability and thought that the ease of use justified the high price. After all this is a professional product. This time Adobe failed to get the bugs out, and I can't think why anyone would put up with so much frustration. I recommend you don't buy this version.
Rating: 
Summary: Adobe Illustrator CS
Review: I just installed Illustrator CS today and have discovered several bugs. One file became so unmanageable, I had to start completely over (I was unable to assign a color and stroke to a shape). I tried to save a brush, but the settings I tried again and again to save would not stick, so that my efforts were useless. I have used Adobe products for years and was one of the earliest users of Illustrator. I have always loved Adobe's reliability and thought that the ease of use justified the high price. After all this is a professional product. This time Adobe failed to get the bugs out, and I can't think why anyone would put up with so much frustration. I recommend you don't buy this version.
Rating:
Summary: too darn buggy
Review: I'm normally a big fan of Illustrator, but this new version is much more trouble than it's worth. It doesn't seem like you get all that much more than illustrator 10, and the cost is huge.
My biggest pet peeves:
1) stability - the single most important problem with this program. Where Illustrator 10 was a workhorse, you need to make it a habit to save frequently with Illustrator 11. It crashes frequently and unpredictably. I find myself thinking that "it's not too bad, now that I save every 10 minutes...." and then realize that something is horribly wrong with this program.
2) text - this program simply can't handle large blocks of text in any appropriate fashion. I've used huge images, complex shading, and used some of the new tools to warp groups of vector images , and nothing slows the thing down more than text. It literally takes minutes for me to edit text in the thing sometimes, and it gets worse with image-heavy files. Frustrating. I know that's what InDesign is for, but again, I never had these problems with Illustrator 10.
3) the 3-d tool is a piece of garbage - why is it here? Ugh. This tool really isn't worth it. If you want to use 3-D software, use 3-D software. There are good programs out there that will do all these 3-d functions smoothly and flawlessly. When you try to use this in Illustrator, you get unpredictable, pixelated effects. If you try to use it extensively, you can not only crash Illustrator, but you can sometimes freeze your entire computer. Your effects, especially if you try to map an image on a 3-d object, look pretty pixelated. It's fun to play with if you have too much time on your hands, but don't rely on it. and get ready to crash the program if you use it.
All complaints aside, I've gotta say that warping things with the mesh tool is fun, but again, it adds a lot of processing time to the program. Just be prepared to wait to save, print and load if you use it a lot.
Overall, until Adobe improves stability and text handling, I'd stay away from this. The new features aren't worth the bugginess. If you want further instances of CS problems, go to the Adobe support site for Illustrator, and look up CS crashes. You'll find almost 200 postings from frustrated users, and equally frustrated Adobe tech support folks who can't really help.
Rating: 
Summary: A worthy upgrade if you upgrade to PS CS.
Review: Illustartor is a great program, it has a steep learning curve but once you start to get over it you can produce great pro illustrations. Few programs compare and one of them is defiently not Paint Shop Pro 8. Whenever I see someone compare a Adobe product to that crappy, slow, dumbed down program, i feel compelled to write back. I am waiting for my copy of CS to arrive in the mail, for now I use Illustrator 10. The features in that fill my needs and beyond. I won't go on about it. The biggest selling point for me is its seemless intergration with other Adobe products.
Rating:
Summary: Prepare to be annoyed!
Review: Illustrator is a good program but CS is junk. There are a slight few reasons to use CS over 10 but for those few features you have to deal with the program crashing about 3-5 times a day (and note I work in Illustrator from 9-5). And if that wasn't bad enough most of the time it crashed it while you're trying to save as if to make you as mad as possible. Also you can't save for previous versions which is a serious flaw considering not everyone is dumb enough to shell out the $500 for the CS.
I'm glad that I got to try this out at work where I didn't pay for it and that I still have my Illustrator 10 at home.
I hope Adobe clues in to everyone writing bad reviews and decides to actually check their program before releasing it. Until then SAVE YOUR MONEY!
Rating:
Summary: I love this version
Review: The school I went had the previous version of Illustrator. However, I purchased this version for myself to practice on and use once I graduated. I found it very easy to use and have had very few problems. The Adobe programs can be a little complicated to learn but once you master them the options are endless.
Rating:
Summary: Decent Product. HORRIBLE support.
Review: This may be one of the better vector graphic programs, but does not appear to have been tested. I will update this review more as I use the program more. But today is day one, and it has one MAJOR bug already.
You know how much Photoshop CS costs. And you know how much Illustrator CS costs.
So imagine buying the full Illustrator CS. You install it. And it will not open ANY JPEG pictures taken by certain SONY DIGITAL CAMERAS. The program just bombs out every time. To work around this bug you have to open the pix in any other program, like Photoshop CS, and resave them. Nor will it load TIFFs from these SONY cameras. But every other program will including Adobe Photoshop. So when I call support, with a product that is only 1 hour old, they want a credit card number in case they decide to charge me $39.
I dunno. I hope these CS products last me a long time. Because I don't think I'll buy more Adobe. They charge way too much money to treat customers like this.
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