Macromedia FreeHand 9 It's Not Just Illustration Anymore Paul Jones
It used to be that illustration software was simply illustration software. An illustrator could open up his drawing program, fiddle around with Bezier tools, primitive shapes, and text distortion, then export the file for use in another program. That's not quite how it works now. It can still be done that way, and frequently is, but an illustrator is no longer limited to just illustration.
The newer illustration tools are so much more advanced than even just a few versions ago that they are hardly recognizable is "illustration" tools. Now they automatically optimize files for use on screen or in print. They make previously imposing tasks like gradients, shadows and 3D effects quite simple. It's a new kind of beast altogether--tamer, more capable, and better groomed.
Computer illustrators have an array of drawing software programs to choose from, but they generally seem to gather around three popular illustration tools: Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia FreeHand, and CorelDraw. Of course there are other popular illustration programs out there (some of them quite good, like Canvas) but in my experience, illustrators lean toward one of those top three. This review will focus on Macromedia FreeHand 9.
