Freehand User now using Illustrator, my experience and comments
Jack.sg Dec 25, 2009 8:36 AMHi All,
It has been sometime since I last visited the Freehand Forum. Am glad that many are still fighting to stay with their beloved vector software, FH.
We have thrown everything we have got on Adobe. All kinds for comments were made, some constructive ones and others pure anger and frustrations. Even a short clip on FH vs IA, so very interesting. Now a new movement have emerged, http://www.freefreehand.org/. What will happen next, we are all waiting and waiting. At the mean time, I thought it would be good to start a new thread sharing with Adobe the FH User experience when using AI.
In the beginning it was really tough. Every time I try to do something what I consider very simple in FH, in AI it is totally wrong. For example, when you want to edit a stroke in FH, all you need is to select any part of the object, be it the fill or the stroke, and you can start editing using a combination of Pen & Selection Tool. In AI, you must use only the Direct Selection Tool after anchor points are added, click only on the Stroke and not on the fill before you can edit it. This is only one simple example on two seemingly similar Vector software on the outside but the inside of it, it is rather different. It was painful. I had to drop all the productivity that FH has given me all these years to learn AI. I knew some of the things AI had which I can't get it in FH like the ability to import .psd file which allow transparency without the hard edge of clipping path, the ability of using PS Blending Mode in the layers and more, so I try. I started from scratch, which I am sure many FH Users will not be willing to do. The more I learned, the more I see how different these two software are and the more I understand why FH users will not want to make the switch. Here I would like to put across a very strong statement to Adobe, FH & AI although they are both vector based software but have very different user approach and therefore is not easy to transit. He or she must be willing to give up every thing that was learnt in FH in order to learn AI. Is this approach of transition a practical request? How many can survive the productivity drop? In my case, I was lucky, I had FH to keep my bread and butter while learning AI. When you know where the pitfalls are, AI can be useful. One thing for certain, never need to worry about what is inside the Layers as they are too complex sometime. Use it only when you need to set a special effect into a particular object or regrouping of layers into a more organized mass. Never use the Effect Feathering unless really necessary as it will just make your file size incredibly gigantic, plus the screen will need to redraw every time you try to do something. I am sure many of you FH users have tried AI, for me AI have move much more ahead of FreeHand in term of functions but it is quite unfair to compare as FH have not receive any upgrade for a many years already. Given a choice, I would still hope that Adobe would rethink what they have done to FH and its users many years ago. Making a mistake not knowing the consequence is not an offense but allowing the mistake to continue knowing how many people in the world have suffered and still do nothing about it.....?????
Why must there be only one vector software when we have two in the beginning?
Similarly, we have a better world when there are many different point of views. Different colours, different people. Everything become more interesting when there are varieties.
Please Adobe, you can make this world a better place.
You have the power to make the different.
Use it.
Share your experience, let Adobe know what happen during the transitions.
Make them understand us better.
Thanks

