Illustrator 10?

[Atomic-Design]

I have the trial of this and it looks pretty cool. But ... what are the advantages/disadvantages compared to Fireworks, and of course Photoshop. I'm not really sure. It's vector, right? What does it offer that Photoshop doesn't have? I'm curious, and I think you guro graphics guys will know.

[DCR]

Illustrator is a vector drawing program. Photoshop is a bitmap editor. Illustrator offers a higher degree of control than the vector tools that you get with most bitmap based programs such as Photoshop, Corel Photo Paint, Paintshop Pro etc. I don't know much about Fireworks but I think it is the Macromedia equivalent of Illustrator. If you are looking for a lower cost vector drawing program, take a look at CorelDraw Essentials. It is a repackaged version of CorelDraw 9 (11 is the current version).

HTH
DCR

[komik]

There are 2 completely different types of programs. Photoshop is a pixel based program. It renders pictures according to an algorithm that calculate each individual pixel on the screen. Illustrator is a program that does this by a mathematical calculation and the picture is created from this. Or better known as Vector based graphics.

Illustrator is great for creating images with few colors and contrast between them. Photoshop is used for digital imagery with millions of colors and varing contrast. Freehand is the equivelent of Illustrator just done by a different company and may offer some different filters and tools but both do the same thing.

Illustrator is known and used widely for creating images such as logo's, and images to import into Flash or Adobe Live Motion.

Hope that helps clarify some of the differences.