Freehand was once a powerful illustration tool, but does Macromedia's newest release keep up with the latest versions of CorelDraw, Illustrator and its other competition?
Once an illustration powerhouse, FreeHand now offers a feature set that looks shallow compared to the competition. AU$999 Version 10 of the program comes up short on basics such as precision graphics tools, as well as cutting-edge enhancements like live layer effects, interactive transparency, and Web graphic creation functions.
Although suited to general illustration tasks, FreeHand 10 has no special forte and is very expensive for what it offers.
In the arena of vector illustration, FreeHand is an uninspiring contender. The problem with the program isn't a lack of competence--it provides a good set of drawing tools and respectable features. It's just that this software hasn't kept up with the competition. In their newest incarnations, both CorelDraw and Illustrator offer cool special effects, considerable support for bitmap editing, slick tools for Web graphics, and a fully stocked larder of goodies for adding sparkle to line drawings. We were frankly surprised when we tested the beta of Freehand 10. Macromedia has made some incremental improvements and revamped the interface to conform to those of Dreamweaver, Director, and Fireworks, but by and large, the enhancements still leave the program with the short end of the functionality stick.
Like Illustrator, FreeHand has an interface centreed on a set of tabbed palettes, which can now be nested to save screen space. The palettes are used to access most of the program's feature set, such as colours, fills, strokes, transformations, and page setup.
Unfortunately, Macromedia arbitrarily calls some of the palettes panels and calls others inspectors, although all of them are basically palettes. We found it confusing to rummage around the Windows menu to find the one we wanted to open. FreeHand has a Layers palette, but it's pathetically limited. There's no hierarchical object manager like those found in CorelDraw and Illustrator, so we couldn't group layers or organize objects within them. And there are no thumbnail previews to help you find your way around the illustration.
FreeHand offers a toolbox that's well stocked with geometric and line drawing tools. But again, the organisation is haphazard: There's a main toolbar, an Xtra toolbar, and yet another toolbar filled with Xtra operations. We could, for example, draw circles by selecting the tool from the main toolbar, but the Arc tool is located in the Xtra toolbar. And while the Envelope function is in the Modify menu, Emboss is found in the Xtra operations palette. Fortunately, you can create your own toolbars to force a logical arrangement, but we think Macromedia should group tools and functions more sensibly--users don't care whether a tool is a basic feature or a plug-in Xtra.
4%
4%
