AI Generated Vectors! – Illustrator CC 2024 Update

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Adobe Illustrator CC 2024, public release version 28.0 has just released this morning, so of course I’m bringing you all the new stuff that got added, and we have some really interesting things this time around! If you don’t know me, hi, I’m Andy, decade long user of Illustrator, and an Adobe Community Expert. I can’t stop wondering why half of the new features are marked as “beta” if this is the public release. Shouldn’t beta just be in the beta version, Adobe? Anyways, here’s a quick overview: we have the 3 new beta features, starting with “Text to Vector Graphic” which is basically Generative Fill from Phosothop but with vectors, that’s exciting, let’s see how well it will perform. Then we have Retype, which was already present in the beta version of Illustrator, and lets you identify fonts in raster images, and Mockup which was also in beta, and is a really cool feature, it identifies the geometry present in mockup images and sorta wraps the vectors around it. All these 3 features revolve around AI, which we all know is the big buzzword of the internet right now. Then we have “Share for Review”, which despite not being something I’ve used frequently, I’m pretty sure it was already in Illustrator, but perhaps it got some new cool features, we’ll see. And finally there’s the addition of the Contextual Task Bar, which is not actually new to 28.0, it was already introduced in the 27.9 release a few weeks ago. There’s also a new “Smooth” option in the Object menu, which is not in the “What’s new” window, but we’ll check it out anyway. Ok, let’s go straight to what we all want to check out: AI vectors! So opening up CC 2024 for the first time will already prompt you with a tutorial for Generative AI, so let’s check it out. It opened a new window with a video tutorial, which we won’t watch of course, who has time for that. Selecting the white rectangle opens the brand new Contextual Task Bar, but we’ll talk more about it later on. One of the options in the task bar, however, is the “Generate” option, just like in Photoshop. And ok, Illustrator suggested camping, so let’s try it out. Yes, agree. It is slow, ok, expected. And there we go, vectors! Wow, ok. The results are not great, but hey. Vectors. That’s a promising start. Still, I can’t help but think they kinda look like raster images you tried to convert to vectors using Image Trace. Next I tried prompting a bonfire, not realizing it was NOT a fire made out of bones. Anyway. Eh, ok. First impressions were mediocre. It got the colors right, that’s a good thing, but the overall quality was meh. Next I tried just starting from scratch and prompting an illustration of a rocket. Ok, results were about the same, perhaps a little better: identifiable shapes, nice colors, but overall really messy and chaotic, lots of small paths and wow that’s a lot of different colors, that’s not really good. But then I discovered there are presets for what you’re trying to create. Ooooh. Ok, switched to the “Icon” preset, regenerated and oh my god. That’s actually way above my expectations. Now THAT’S a clean vector. Almost perfectly placed anchor points, very cohesive style overall. That’s a 10/10, I’m genuinely impressed. Then I tried some other prompts and the results were kinda bad. Oh well. I decided then to create something bigger, like a landscape, but forgot to change the preset, so the results were kinda weird, but not awful, if I’m being honest. Then I changed it to the “Scene” preset and ok these are much better. Still have that feeling of image traced vectors, but in the right context, perhaps for a background, that might be good enough. I tried to stretch this to its limits by generating a more detailed prompt, a cyberpunk city with lights, neon signs and people. And the results were kinda disappointing. You can see what’s being depicted, you can identify where buildings, people and signs are, but it’s just very lacking in detail. It’s just messy and chaotic. Perhaps, again, for a blurred background that might work. The “Pattern” preset had really drawn my attention to I decided to give it a go and wow, the results were much better this time around. I guess Generative AI is really hit or miss, isn’t it. Anyways, I tested the hell out of Generative AI, some of it was really good, some of it was really bad, but the majority of it was average, you know. Mediocre. Almost good enough. However, this is a feature that’s in beta, so we’ll have to wait some more time for a full final opinion. As it is right now I am really surprised with some of the results, but the lack of reliable, good results is a problem. Ok, let’s move on. Retype lets you identify fonts in raster images, as long as they are present in Adobe Fonts or are installed on your computer, or it will give you the closest matches. Well, at least that’s how I think it works. And at first, that’s the only thing I thought it did. I rasterized some vector fonts inside Illustrator and tested the feature. And, well, it always got the fonts right. Like, exactly the right fonts. Though, they were all fonts from Adobe Fonts, so that’s not super surprising. So I decided to download a random image from Unsplash and see what would happen. And to my surprise, it actually got the font right again. Not even a close match, an actual match instead. But that’s when things got interesting. There was an “Apply” button, and like, apply what? So when I pressed the button: oh my god. It actually replaced the selected word on the original image and created a new text object on top. Like, it actually generated the background where the text was in the original image, just like content-aware fill in Photoshop. Like, I know, this is not a new feature inside the Creative Cloud in general, but to have it inside Illustrator, so well integrated like this, is actually really cool. So I decided to test out more challenging images and… well, it was disappointing. It failed to identify the font. Not as in like, it didn’t find a perfect match but gave me alternatives. It simply couldn’t find the text in the image, and that happened twice. Then, on my third attempt, it did worked, but generated really poor results with the content-aware fill. Oh well. I’ll give it a pass, since it’s also still in Beta, but this one really needs to improve to be just a little reliable to use. Mockup almost tricked me. Mockup almost made me really angry. At first I was not getting how to use it, I had downloaded a mockup of a cup and the Mockup Panel just didn’t have any option to turn it into an actual mockup, it was just this big list of mockups from Adobe Stock that you could buy. I was ready to say “good, now we have a store inside Illustrator”. But then it occurred to me: perhaps I have to select both the image and a vector. And… yeah. That was it. Sorry, I’m just dumb sometimes. I messed around with it for a while, and it’s quite surprising how well it identifies the geometry on the image, the way it warped around the cup and on the lid, it was actually very well put together. Of course, it took the next image I tried out for me to realize I should probably change the blending mode to Multiply for it to actually look any good. So yeah, that’s Mockup, an actual good, ready to use feature, as far as I’ve tested, and I’m excited to explore it in more detail in the future. Share for review supposedly lets you share your artwork as a PDF file that people can access through a link and leave comments which you can access right inside Illustrator through the Comments Panel. However, and this is a big however, I could not, for the life of me, get this feature to work. I kept getting error messages when I tried to generate the link. Checking my Creative Cloud libraries I found all the links I tried to create there, but none would open. So I tried restarting my computer and, of course, Illustrator, generating a new link, and the same thing happened. So, unfortunately, at least for me right now, this feature is not working. Thanks Illustrator! The contextual task bar is identical to the one present in Photoshop, if you’re familiar with that. It’s basically yet another context-based interface, just like the Properties Panel and the Control Bar. It will show you different options, depending on what object you have selected. For regular vector objects you will get the option to generate something using Text to Vector, really just like Generative Fill in Photoshop, but you also have a button for Edit Path, which simply swaps to the Direct Selection Tool, which is a tool you can use to… You know, edit paths. Then, we have the option to repeat the object, either mirroring it, repeating on a grid or repeat around a circle, which is the one I selected. Keep in mind that all the things the Contextual Task Bar do are things available through other menus or panels, it’s basically just a shortcut. Finally, you can also duplicate an object, recolor it through the Recolor Artwork feature and group and ungroup when you have more than one selected. For images, you have a shortcut for image tracing, masking the image, which basically created a Clipping Mask that’s exactly the same size as the image imported, this one’s quite useful to be honest. You can also open the Links Panel, which I don’t use all that often, but if you work with lots of images, that might just the thing you need, and a cool Photoshop icon which opens the image in Photoshop for you to edit it however you want. More features and shortcuts might be available, but I think this gives a good overview of the Contextual Task Bar for now. ### Smooth Finally we have the Smooth feature, which was not in the welcome screen, but it’s still a new feature. We had a Smooth Tool, which was a pain to use, but now we have like an auto-smooth thing. It basically takes a path and averages it out, making it smoother. This feature is a mystery to me. At first I tried just drawing some random pointy lines with the Pen Tool, but the Smooth feature didn’t seem to work on that. Then, I tried drawing random scribbles with the Brush Tool, and that worked really well! Nice, perhaps it doesn’t work on completely sharp corners or something like that, perhaps it need handles to work. But then I tried with a simple square and it did worked. So I tried with the Pen Tool again and it didn’t. But with the brush it does. And it’s really good at simulating bad calligraphy. So yeah, the new Smooth feature works. Most of the time, at least. If you enjoyed this video, check this other one here. A special thanks to all my Patreon supporters who help me make high quality content like this one. More on how you can support the channel in the description down below. Don’t forget to like, subscribe and leave a comment if you have any doubts. Thank you so much for watching and have a great day. Bye!

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