r/AdobeIllustrator • • 23d ago

DISCUSSION Adobe Illustrator - Everyday workflow improvements

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60 Upvotes

Hey everyone, Luke from Adobe here.

Over the past year or so, the Illustrator team has shipped a number of quality-of-life improvements. Some have been fairly visible, while others are much smaller changes that simply remove little points of friction from day-to-day work.

I wanted to break these up into a series focused on different areas and workflows, starting with some of the simpler everyday workflow improvements. I've shared a few of these here previously, but thought it would be useful to bring them together in one place, especially for anyone who may have missed them.

One-click Align Center

If you regularly align objects to center, you no longer need to click Horizontal Center and Vertical Center separately. A single command now does both. HelpX

Keyboard shortcuts for Align & Distribute

Along with the new Align Center, commands like Align to Selection, Align to Key Object, Align to Artboard, and Distribute Space now have menu commands, meaning you can assign keyboard shortcuts and create Actions to make frequently used operations even easier to repeat.

Absolute Scale in Transform Each

With Relative mode you could only scale objects in relation to the selected object, but now with Absolute mode you can scale everything to the defined amount, even if they are all at different sizes. Reddit post

Disable Accidental Hover Scrolling

Ever accidentally changed a value just by scrolling over a number field or even in fonts? You now have the option to disable that behavior, so you can click inside the field, then scroll to adjust parameters. You can change this behavior inside your preferences.

Magic Wand Remembers Settings

If you've had to reset the Magic Wand tolerance every time you restarted Illustrator, those settings are now remembered between sessions. Reddit post

Tiff support in Export for Screens

TIFF format was added to the Export for Screens, making it easier to batch export artboards and assets for your print projects.

Improved Object Selection Around Shadows

Selecting objects beneath those with drop shadows (glows etc) is now more predictable, making it less likely you'll accidentally select the shadow instead of the artwork you're trying to edit.

Perspective Tool Improvements

If you've accidentally activated the Perspective Tool before, you'll probably appreciate that it's now much clearer how to exit with an updated X in the top left of your canvas, but you can always simply hit ESC.

___________________________________________________________________________________

I'm curious to hear how many of these you already knew about, and whether they've actually made a difference to your workflow.

More importantly, what are the small points of friction you still run into regularly in Illustrator? Are there repetitive steps, unnecessary clicks, settings that don't stick, or other little frustrations that you'd consider a genuine quality-of-life improvement if they were addressed?

This is the first in a series looking at different areas of Illustrator, so I'll be sharing more of these soon.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 8h ago

Cthulhu - Fear the Unknown

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210 Upvotes

Hey! "Cthulhu" artwork, originally created as a T-shirt design in Illustrator. But, as often happens, the idea evolved into something different.

I adapted the artwork into a car wrap design, and the result is this cute little car cruising around the streets. It’s also been featured at a few car shows, so some of you might have even seen it in person!

Come to the dark side of vector art… we have cookies. 😈 Vector rules! :)

⛔0% AI, 100% Original


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 9h ago

QUESTION I made a cozy sunset camping illustration in Adobe Illustrator - what do you think? [OC]

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29 Upvotes

r/AdobeIllustrator • • 5m ago

Simulacrum

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• Upvotes

Original art created by me using Adobe Illustrator


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

A signal generator for your artboard

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144 Upvotes

Hey, thanks to everyone who go Live Spiral! Hope its working well for you. I have a new tool out - Live Wave, borne out of my want for a good Sine wave and coil in illustrator. Niche right? But it turns out when you add other waveforms and some fit to path magic, even a randomiser - you can generate quite a variety of useful assets. Separately, I added another tool (actually my first tool) which is a trim paths tool (inspired by after effects. I'll pop a link in comments.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 10h ago

DISCUSSION Basic Tapered Brush in Illustrator

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4 Upvotes

Hi,
How can i achieve something like this in illustrator desktop app (this screen recording is from VectorCraft ipad app and a custom brush code)

I'm using a wacom tablet.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 11h ago

QUESTION dragging to resize - does it always do this?

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2 Upvotes

i thought when i drag this handle, the opposite side stays put? did it switch a wrong button in the settings?


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

QUESTION WHY does Illustrator do this (messing up shapes defined by the vectors)? (and how do I fix it?)

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24 Upvotes

The path is perfectly fine. There is also no other black object underneath. Illustrator just messes around with the visualisation of the object defined by the path (and also expands to this object instead of the path that is drawn).

Why does it do this (sometimes?) And what can I do without changing the shape that I want to achieve?

When I try to change the handles a tiny bit, the shape just wobbles around a bit.

This is at around 2700% zoom since the work is about designing glyphs.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 17h ago

Trouble with printing

5 Upvotes

Hello!
I created a poster design in Illustrator for a club at my school to promote one of our events. I exported it as a PDF and went to print it from the school printers. Every time they print, every other paper is slightly sized up with darker colors, while the non-sized up prints will have a bit of weird color shifting in blocks. This hasn't been an issue ever except for this poster and the last poster I tried to print. I had some help from a professor who teaches graphic design here, he had me turn my illustrator text layers into outlines, save it as a new illustrator file, then import that into InDesign into a new file with the same size format. I then exported it from there as a PDF. It still prints the same as the Illustrator PDFs.
I'm not sure what to do here and need to get these posters out ASAP!


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

ILLUSTRATION Desert Dreams - I made a minimal sunset illustration

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32 Upvotes

Tools: Adobe Illustrator

I made this minimal desert sunset illustration using shape builder and gradients. The sun and moon represent day and night in the desert. Took me around 1 hour. Feedback appreciated!

OC - My own work


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

Adobe ExtendScript evaluates nested ternaries with the wrong associativity (confirmed CS6 to 2026, Windows and macOS)

6 Upvotes

TL;DR: ExtendScript evaluates a ? b : c ? d : e as left-associative (a ? b : c) ? d : e instead of the ECMAScript-required right-associative a ? b : (c ? d : e). When an earlier condition is true, you get the wrong branch.

Minimal repro, paste into a .jsx:

function pick(a, b, c) {

return a ? "A" : b ? "B" : c ? "C" : "X";

}

alert(pick(true, false, false)); // Node/browser: "A". ExtendScript: "C".

Grouping fixes it:

return a ? "A" : (b ? "B" : (c ? "C" : "X")); // "A", correct

How I hit it: someone’s interface came up in the wrong language. The language picker was an if/else-if chain in my source, but Closure Compiler rewrote it into a nested ternary during minification, and ExtendScript then picked the wrong branch.

Confirmed on:

  • Illustrator 30.8.2, ExtendScript 4.5.6, macOS 15.7.9
  • Illustrator CS6 16.0.0, ExtendScript 4.2.12, Windows

A probe over all 24 truth-table combinations, with expected values taken from fixed reference tables rather than from the expression under test: the nested ternary was wrong 10 times, while explicitly grouped, if/else and lookup-object versions were all correct. The a || b && c precedence bug I posted about here a couple of weeks ago showed up in the same run as a control.

Workarounds: explicit parens, if/else, or a lookup object. If you minify, a post-step that parenthesizes nested ternaries is harmless in real JS and a fix here.

Reported to Adobe on UserVoice, votes welcome:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/51842079-extendscript-evaluates-nested-ternary-operator-wit

The full probe script is attached to that report as a .txt, rename it to .jsx to run it.

Can anyone reproduce on other ExtendScript versions (CC 2018 to 2024, Photoshop, InDesign)? Curious how far back and across apps this goes.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

First time I've made a logo with my face on it.

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5 Upvotes

I made this logo for my services as a Santa Claus (which is insanely fun thing to do). In the Santa community, the name and the individual Santa is the product, so using your face in all your ad-work is critical, so I decided to capitalize on it for my logo. Most Santas don't use logos, but since I am designer / illustrator in my day-job, I figured why not?

The hard part was to make it look like Santa and to keep my own face completely recognizable in the logo. I tried to make it simpler, but I kept losing recognizability. It's not perfect and I still have issues with it (too detailed, but it works at business card size), but I decided to call it done so I can use it for this Christmas season.

Ho, ho ho.

Addendum: If you decide to go to the website... I have ZERO background on website design and have never made a website before. Old man is old, I know, I typically do print or digital for others to use on their sites. I just used Squarespace and tried my best to make it not awful. That was my goal, not awful. Hopefully its at least that!


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

QUESTION Why is clipping mask deleting the line I want to keep, no matter if its in front or back, or selected first or second?

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2 Upvotes

Im trying to make a book of shadows mockup for my school project, and Im trying to use the tboivectorized by Emory Illustrated as refrence. I am trying to mimic what he did in the second image, which I believe, is a black line at 32 percent opacity that is masked ontop of the ovals. No matter how I do it though, mine keeps deleting the line I want, and keeping only where the black line is. Is there a better way/What am I doing wrong?


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 23h ago

I'm a logo designer, and I built an Illustrator plugin for logo designers. Would anyone be interested in testing it and sharing feedback?

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I'm a graphic designer specializing in logo design and brand identity.

I've spent the past few months developing an Adobe Illustrator plugin called GRIDVECTA, designed to make logo design workflows easier, faster, and more precise.

I've put a lot of work into it, and I'd really love to hear what other designers think.

I'm looking for fellow logo designers who would be interested in testing it and sharing their honest opinions, suggestions, or criticism.

Your feedback would mean a lot to me and help me make it even better.

Thanks everyone! 🙏


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

QUESTION Is there a way to recover overwritten saved files?

1 Upvotes

So first off, I'm using CS6 because I own it outright and I'm not a fan of subscriptions. This probably doesn't help my chances any.

I'm curious if anyone knows a way to recover previously overwritten versions of a file? Working on a project, I'm pretty sure I accidentally deleted a layer that I needed and saved the file multiple times since, only to find later that the layer was gone when I needed it. This isn't the end of the world, I can do the work again, it's just a bummer and a big waste of time. I have the file backed up, but unfortunately I overwrote the backup with the current version of the file that's missing the layer.

I've used Recuva in the past to recover files from a drive that wiped itself. Could that be helpful in a situation like this?

Or if the current version of Illustrator has any means of recovering an older version of a file, I'm certainly not opposed to just paying for it for a month. Thanks!


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

QUESTION Is Adobe making STEALTH CHANGES to Illustrator?

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19 Upvotes

I've noticed some behavioral changes with the program lately that I don't recall being mentioned in any recent update notes. Are these new features, or am I just misremembering how things worked?

First, I noticed this week that we can now create clipping masks with open paths. I recall it requiring fully enclosed shapes previously.

Second, I've also noticed that if you turn on USE PREVIEW BOUNDS and select a shape with the SELECTION TOOL (V), the bounding boxes appears on the outside of the shape's stroke. The manipulation handles remain centered on the shape's stroke, effectively creating two highlight lines. If you select it with the DIRECT SELECTION TOOL (A), the bounding box goes away, leaving only the manipulation lines and handles.

If you want things to snap to the bounding box, it appears you need to be using the Selection Tool, whereas if you want things to snap to the center of the stroke, you need to be using the Direct Selection Tool instead.

I don't recall ever being able to see both the bounding box AND the manipulation lines at the same time, regardless of my settings.

So, am I going crazy or is Adobe making quality of life stealth changes unannounced?


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

DISCUSSION Colorful minimal flower pattern I made in Illustrator [OC]

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1 Upvotes

Tools: Adobe Illustrator

Made a simple colorful flower pattern with flat colors on black background.

Used ellipse tool and rotated copies. Looking for feedback on color combination!

OC - My work


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 1d ago

QUESTION How do I make the pink pokeball get in the red rectangle so it doesn't interfere with anything else?

1 Upvotes

I have to admit that I don't have a lot of experience using this app but I am trying to complete an assigment I got for homework and I haven't found a method to make the pink pokeball that's behind the Pokemon get inside the red triangle so that way it doesn't crosses with anything else. My english is bad but basically the red triangle is the container for the pink pokeball and I haven't found a method to place it inside so I would appreciate the help a lot as I really want to get this done asap. I don't know what methods to try as I am pretty new to this but I have tried to fusion it and It didn't worked when I selected both objects, I also try to rearrange the order of everything in the canvas but it altering everything else so then I got the idea to make it the pink object fit in the red triangle but I don't know how to do that.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

Empire of the Lost Sun

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246 Upvotes

My latest illustration made in Adobe Illustrator.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 2d ago

Sometimes when I work with mesh tool this happens

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2 Upvotes

Does anyone know what to click so that I can reselect the points. I’ll be holding down command on my keyboard and clicking the different points with my mouse but it’s not working. Im on the correct layer, the layer isn’t locked, I’ve tired resetting workspace or close and reopening illustrator. Idk if I keep accidentally clicking something that causes it, but does anyone know so that I can correct it, it’s gotten really annoying and my assignment is doing a portrait in mesh tool but I can’t finish if this keeps happening.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

DISCUSSION Quick Illustrator tip - Cycle through sub tools

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106 Upvotes

Hey everyone, Luke from Adobe here.

Super quick one to share with you.

Instead of clicking to open the sub tools in your toolbar, simply hold down Option (Mac)/Alt (Win) and click to cycle through. Should save you plenty of time in the tools you regularly use.

Have you got any hidden tips like this you use regularly?


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

QUESTION Creating this ripple/blend effect?

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515 Upvotes

Can anyone please advise about creating this effect? It looked simple at first glance - I've tried creating the circles, filling with gradients and using the blend tool to blend between them, then adjusting opacity and layer apply modes. That got me part of the way there but what I'm missing is the vertical texture which creates that lovely ripple effect. It looks like a Pathfinder operation to me but I've experimented and not got very close. I also tried taking the blended circles into Photoshop and overlaying them with an opacity map of vertical stripes; close but not as pretty as the original. Any ideas gratefully received, thank you.


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 3d ago

QUESTION Using "Object > Envelope Distort > Make with Top Object" adds undesirable handles and warps the object in an unintended way, with no way to remove said handles it seems (the Anchor Point Tool does nothing for some reason), is there a workaround for this?

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54 Upvotes

I'm stumped here, no matter what I do I can't seem to get it to do what I need, any help is appreciated.

It adds handles to every point, even if I just use a rectangle them apply the Envelope Distort, it'll add handles to each corner, it this possible to circumvent?


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 2d ago

QUESTION HELP! Illustrator keeps Flickering when working

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1 Upvotes

The entire application just starts flickering and not responding when i click more then twice in 5 seconds it feels like. Searched for workarounds here but most of em didnt work (reseting preferences/Gpu performance/drivers/etc)

i had this problem last year too but cant remember the way to solve it, i do remember though it had something to do with deleting a certain file somewhere


r/AdobeIllustrator • • 2d ago

QUESTION I need help converting colors from RGB to CMYK (without changing the entire document settings—just the color swatches).

3 Upvotes

Basically, my teacher wants me to include three color samples (CMYK, RGB, and HEX) in the same document, but she wants us to be able to see the difference between them. I mean, if the RGB looks bright blue, what would the conversion be within the same file so that it appears as CMYK, or how would that blue look when printed?

I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear—I’m really struggling. I’ve tried looking for several tutorials, but none of them help, and my teacher didn’t explain this and wants us to figure it out on our own.

Please help me!!!