Comments on: Illustrator CS5 has excellent pixel chops (at last)

By: stavros

stavros — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:43:31 +0000

can anyone tell me if it possible to draq a one pixel width diagonal line in illustrator now without it forcing anti-aliasing?

[Try choosing Effect->Rasterize, then choosing 72ppi and no anti-aliasing. --J.]

By: David Macy

David Macy — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:01:12 +0000

Can you elaborate on how you are saving this? Save for Web or export, or some other method? This is working well for many people.

By: Thijs van der Vossen

Thijs van der Vossen — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 06:52:21 +0000

Works great while drawing. Saving however still introduces AA artifacts. See http://tweetphoto.com/38314743 for example.

By: Delfeld

Delfeld — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:03:21 +0000

This is a great feature, but somewhat uncontrollable. It’s better than not having it, but what I would like to see is:

1. Direction. A direction box – so all points could be forced to move “down and to the left” to find the nearest pixel, that sort of thing.

2. Revert FROM Pixel Grid. As implied in the first couple of posts here.

3. Preserve Vertical/Horizontal Alignment. An automatic alignment range that is controllable – all horizontal and vertical points within x-number of points (or even pixels) snap to the same line, etc.

4. Pixel Range. Snap to closest pixel within x-number of pixels. So not must snapping to nearest, but allowing Illustrator the ability to, for example, make sure that square boxes stay square.

5. Maintain Proportions. From the idea of Pixel Range . . . a checkbox for this, too.

6. Pixel Snapping Panel. Move this feature out of the “Align” panel, and make it’s own panel. Using it in “Align” implies that alignment actually *should* happen when snapping to pixels, which is not necessarily true. I think it is at least equally important to maintain ratios.

I realize that some of these ideas present significant challenges for complex shapes, and for curves, but the options should exist regardless.

Despite these criticisms, I do think that the feature is a great feature as is, and “Thanks!” to the people who made it happen!

By: Fabrice Delaneau

Fabrice Delaneau — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:30:01 +0000

Great feature but why is this not available in Photoshop too ?

The pixel grid is also in Ps but I couldn’t find to any option to snap to this pixel grid.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 09 May 2010 14:42:52 +0000

This was such a nightmare for me for over 10 years. I had made scripts that snapped selected artwork to whole pixel numbers but the artwork always had slight artifacts on the horizontal lines; almost a blurry effect. It made the output almost useless for detailed work. Unfortunately Fireworks and Illustrator are not compatible, they don’t even handle color, gradients or drop shadows in the same manner.
All our designers worked in Illustrator first to get the design right and redid the last version in Fireworks to output the artwork. That’s countless man-hours lost, but we don’t have a choice.
So congratulations to the illustrator team for figuring out what a pixel is.

By: Steven Greenfield

Steven Greenfield — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:31:48 +0000

This is wonderful! We create barcodes on low res printers and this is something that we have been waiting for forever.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 05 May 2010 04:55:45 +0000

Nice, something that I as a Fireworks user can really appreciate.

By: Mark Alan Thomas

Mark Alan Thomas — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:28:57 +0000

This feature alone makes me want to upgrade.

By: Phil Brown

Phil Brown — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:14:55 +0000

This got a lot of applause at the Sydney Roadshow on Monday :-)

By: David

David — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:54:17 +0000

When is PS going to be pixel accurate? The brush tool is still .7 pixels off target.
And on the topic of Illustrator’s most important tool, the pen tool in Photoshop CS5 has issues. When clipping over a 128 RGB gray (exact value depends on color profile), the pen path completely disappears. This is only with OpenGL off.
With CS4 and below, there is plenty of contrast on any background.

By: Herman

Herman — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:49:57 +0000

* hug * :) thanks for this! Please disregard that part of my email! :)
One thing though, illustrator still insists on turning *on* snap to pixel in the view menu when I switch to pixel preview mode. I think the reasoning behind that has actually been made redundant by this awesome new feature – so I hope that can be turned off. (and we all win… I’m impressed :)
Aren’t “view > snap to pixel” and this document wide feature actually the same? What’s the difference?
Kind greetings,

By: David Macy

David Macy — Tue, 04 May 2010 13:52:06 +0000

In simple cases, the path itself is moved. If you watch Mordy’s video carefully you’ll see that un-checking the checkbox does not make the stroke fuzzy again – it does not move the path back, so it is not the same as undo. In more complex cases, like multiple strokes or effects applied on a path, Illustrator is adjusting the rendered output.

By: Gilles

Gilles — Tue, 04 May 2010 13:22:34 +0000

Awesome news!
However, what isn’t clear is whether the underlying vector is actually moved, or if the alignment only happens as part of the rendering process.
This is obviously important as if the vector is changed, then the accumulation of those changes could cause problems after a number of moves (and consequent adjustments).
Therefore, I’m guessing/hoping that it’s the latter. John, could you clarify?