20 March 2020

Should I Use Photoshop or Illustrator?

Photoshop has just celebrated its 30th birthday (if applications celebrate), but older sibling Illustrator is 33 years old. And to answer the question posed by the title, Yes, you should.

Illustrator is the vector drawing application that’s most used by graphics professionals, but in the early days I preferred vector applications such as Corel Draw. Today even Photoshop can handle vector components. Illustrator’s tool set is well beyond impressive, though, and Creative Cloud subscribers already have it. Maybe it’s time to look again.

Understanding the differences between vector images and raster images is an essential first step.

 Click any of the small images for a full-size view. To dismiss the larger image, press ESC or tap outside the image.

Vector or Raster (Bitmap)?

Photographs are raster images that are stored as arrays of dots. These are referred to as raster or bitmap images. The two terms have different definitions but are often used interchangeably. Files with extensions such as BMP, TIFF, JPEG, and GIF are bitmap images. Resizing these images reduces their quality. Large bitmap files are huge.

Vector images are made of math. Regardless of the output size, the size of the vector file stays the same because the file contains mathematical descriptions of lines and curves. Files with extensions such as AI, EXP, SVG, and DXF are vector images. They can be resized with no loss of quality.

Regardless of how an image is represented in the computer, it will be converted to a raster image when it’s printed so it’s easy to conclude that all graphics should be stored as raster images. That’s not the case, though. Nearly any image that contains letterforms is better represented as a vector image. Logos and business graphics are generally better as vectors if for no reason other than they may need to be sized to fit on a business card, a truck, or anything in between.

Photoshop sometimes uses vectors and Illustrator sometimes uses bitmaps, so maybe it would be better to just pick one application and use it. Sorry, but no. Illustrator uses raster components only for effects that can’t easily be rendered as vectors. Drop shadows are raster graphics. Photoshop includes vector drawing tools, primarily for text and objects. When vectors are included, Photoshop stores the vector information inside the raster-based image file.

The 2018 and 2019 versions of Illustrator have added lots of enticing features and that, by the way, is one of the main advantages of the subscription-based Creative Cloud program. Although users can subscribe to individual programs or packages such as the Photography plan that includes Photoshop, Adobe Camera Raw, and Lightroom, a full Creative Cloud subscription is the best choice for anyone who needs multiple applications.

An Illustrator license costs $20 per month. Someone who needs Photoshop would pay $20 for that license or $10 for the Photography package. That’s $30 to $40 and the full Creative Cloud plan is $53 per month. So, grumbling aside, those who need Photoshop and Illustrator, and who think they might ever need even one of the other audio, video, website creation, or design applications will find Creative Cloud to be the cost-effective choice. Creative Cloud includes almost 30 applications and the ability to explore applications and creative endeavors well beyond one's needs can be mind expanding.

In November 2018 an Illustrator update added a properties panel with context-sensitive information and settings, Puppet Warp to let the user warp just part of an image, better support for high-definition screens, and support for OpenType Variable typefaces. The November 2019 update added an automatic spelling checker, path simplification that removes unnecessary points from hand-drawn components, and faster rendering of effects that are created with raster components.

Digging In

Variable Text: Adobe introduced support for the OpenType Variable format for the 2019 version and included Acumin, Minion, Myriad, Source Code, Source Sans, and Source Serif, but it’s still a big deal a year later. OpenType Variable is a descendant of 1992’s Multiple Master typefaces. This was exciting 28 years ago because it allowed designers to create typeface variants on the fly by adjusting weight, width, skew, height, and other factors besides standard adjustments such as size and linespacing.

The technology never caught on, though, mainly due to lack of support by applications. Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft have agreed on OpenType Variable format specifications and now designers will be able to create the exact typeface variant needed.

The typefaces provided include up to 100 variants from extra condensed thin to wide ultra-black italic, and if none of the (1) variants quite fits the designer’s needs, (2) additional adjustments are available.

Adobe has spent a lot of time developing interoperability between its many applications. There are still inconsistencies. For example, resizing an object in Photoshop now maintains the aspect ratio by default while Illustrator does not. When possible, developers use components from one application to perform tasks in another.

One of the welcome additions to Illustrator comes from InDesign: The OpenType glyph selector. Some letters and numbers have variants that can be substituted for the normal character. Let’s take as an example old-style numbers. In a typeface with old-style numbers, the digits have variable heights and some of the numbers slide below the baseline. To create the effect in a modern style typeface, the user can select a numeral (9 is a number that’s below the baseline in an old-style face), right-click it, and then choose the old-style variant.

Ligatures are specialized glyphs that combine two or three letters into a single character, and they date back to the earliest days of writing when monks realized that some letter combinations could be improved. The letters “fi” can be combined as “fi”. The ligature connects the top part of the lowercase I to the crossbar of the lowercase F. Depending on the letterform, the dot over the lowercase I may be eliminated. Ligatures can be created automatically just as they are by InDesign when the feature is enabled.

Simplifying paths isn’t new to Illustrator 2020, but the feature has been improved. The example image is trivial because it contains only a few dozen points, but imagine an object with hundreds of lines and possibly tens of thousands of points. Extra points are created when accuracy is set too high for images that have been scanned and converted to vector objects or when the user’s hand wavers when creating a component.

The (1) original image has a lot of needless points. Using Illustrator’s Object > Path > Simplify function (2) removes most of the points, applies a bit of smoothing, and leaves the object virtually unchanged visually. In addition to the simple slider tool, Illustrator provides a detailed settings panel that can display before and after views and allow the user to set thresholds for changes.

Illustrator’s new Touch Type tool makes it possible to add fine adjustments in a block of text. There might be a time when you want to select the letter O from a word, rotate it a bit, and pull it well below the baseline. This is not a feature you’ll use often, but I can see how a designer might use it as part of a visual pun.

A much more common (and much more subtle) use would be to kern letters in a headline or a logo. Corel Draw had a similar feature more than two decades ago, but the new function in Illustrator is more robust.

The developers have added impressive graphing tools to illustrate data visually with common bar and pie charts, scatter charts, and radar charts.

 Even Photoshop-only users should sometimes use Illustrator

Adobe Photoshop includes some features from Illustrator, but it is not Illustrator. Despite the features they share, both Photoshop and Illustrator have strengths where the other does not. If you're working with a photograph or other raster image, reach for Photoshop. When you need to work with vector images, perhaps to create a logo, Illustrator is your friend. Neither is the right tool for brochures, magazines, and books. For that, you need InDesign, but that's another story.
Additional details about Illustrator are available on the Adobe website.

Short Circuits

Many Responses to the Novel Coronavirus

The usual basketball March Madness has been canceled and replaced with Coronavirus Madness. Disneyland is closed. The National Association of Broadcasters annual convention is off. Schools are closed. Broadway shows are shut down. People are working from home if they can. Regardless of how this plays out, there's plenty of inconvenience to go around even if you don't get sick.

The responses come in various sizes and shapes and, when possible, technology can help.

• TechSmith has announced that it will provide SnagIt without charge to any organization that needs it through the end of June. Presumably they're setting up an extended trial period that will time out on 30 June. With lots of schools and colleges switching to online instruction and organizations encouraging people to work from home, this will be a useful tool for sharing information. TechSmith may make some sales in July as people who used the extended free trial decide that they want to continue using it, but the primary reason for the offer seems simply to be a desire to help.
• Libraries across Ohio started canceling events, programs, story times, classes, book discussion groups, and all other group activities as well as closing public meeting rooms and homework help centers through early April. Then they announced that they would close all locations for at least three weeks; both Columbus and Worthington libraries posted photos from closing time on Friday. Patrons had scooped up books for use during the interim. Many libraries offer an enormous amount of information online so that people who are stuck at home can still access some resources.
• Many grocery stores offer online ordering with either home delivery or parking lot pickup. Either of these will be helpful in achieving social distancing, so that customers won't need to stand in long lines. In Ohio, just about everything is closed. Restaurants can offer delivery or pick-up. Some brewers are offering home delivery. And Ohio's primary election voting has been postponed until June.
• Anything written or said about plans or responses is likely to be outdated even before I finish typing, so all of that is simply prologue to what follows.

And what follows is this: There's little good to be found in this event. Small businesses and their employees are going to be hurt badly, particularly those who work hourly jobs in the hospitality industry, survive on tips, or live paycheck to paycheck. Technology can't help those people. Time will tell whether what passes for government these days will finally step up to do what's needed.

Trimming the WinSxS Directory

Anyone who occasionally goes prospecting to find temporary files and other junk that can be deleted to reclaim disk space may have encountered a directory called WinSxS inside the Windows directory and wondered what it is.

Display the contents of that directory and you'll find thousands of additional directories and tens of thousands of files that consume many gigabytes of disk space. This discovery often leads to two questions:

1. What are all those directories and files?
2. Can I delete them to save space?

Let's answer that second question first: NO! Here's Microsoft's verbatim warning: "Deleting files from the WinSxS folder or deleting the entire WinSxS folder may severely damage your system so that your PC might not boot and make it impossible to update."

Despite the warning, it is possible to clean up the directory and sometimes to save a lot of disk space. It's essential to proceed with caution.

Doubling back to the first question, WinSxS means "Windows Side by Side" and the directory (or folder) keeps track of packages used to install, manage, and uninstall Windows updates. The Component Store is what allows users to enable or disable Windows features and to update from one version of Windows to the next.

Right-clicking the WinSxS directory and selecting Properties from the context menu will show how many files are present and how much space is consumed. On my primary computer, it's a little less than eight gigabytes in 28,052 folders that contain 65,566 files.

The numbers are fraudulent, though, and many of the files aren't really there. Instead, you're seeing links to files that are stored elsewhere on the computer. The files are shown in both locations even though they consume space in only one.

To dig a bit deeper, open the Command Line as an Administrator and type:
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore

You probably recognize DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) because it's used to fix some problems and it's been a topic here previously. Running this command displays a value for the size of files "shared with Windows". These are files that are stored elsewhere. On my computer, that's 5.75GB of the total 8.74GB. You'll also see a line that shows how much space is used by "backups and disabled features" (2.98GB for me) and "cache and temporary data" (0 bytes on my machine).

The process also shows how many "reclaimable packages" exist (5 for me) and information about whether Windows recommends performing a Component Store Cleanup.

The cleanup was recommended when I ran the command so the next step involved choosing an option. Three exist:

• DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
  This is the least aggressive option. It uninstalls all previous versions of components without waiting for a scheduled task's 30-day grace period. (More about that in a bit.)
• DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /SPSuperseded
  This command removes files needed to uninstall service packs so after running this command you won't be able to uninstall any currently installed service packs. Make sure that any recent service packs are working properly before using this command.
• DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
  This is the most aggressive option, and it removes every old version of each component. After running this command, you will not be able to uninstall any installed service packs or updates.

Although these commands affect previously installed updates and service packs, they have no effect on future updates.

Unless disk space is critically low on the computer, it's safer to allow the operating system to manage these files. The Task Scheduler runs "StartComponentCleanup" and that process uninstalls the components needed to roll back an update 30 days after the update has been installed and that is the safest option.

Spare Parts

Avoid Coronavirus Scams

Scammers follow the headlines and they're out in force now. The precautions needed to avoid being scammed are the same now as they always have been, but here's a quick look at some of the current cons.

• The web, and Facebook in particular, are full of lies, conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation. The lies and panic are more serious than the virus.
• Scammers hacked into computers at the Department of Health and Human Services. The hackers started sending out messages about a national lock-down. The National Security Council says "Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lock-down."
• You'll find lots of scam messages with links that they encourage you to click. DON'T! Also, be sure not to reveal personal or financial information in an email, or respond to requests for it.
• Scammers claim to offer maps showing the spread of the virus. Ignore them. The best source of information will always be legitimate news organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Crooks are sending malware-laden messages that claim to contain information on how to protect yourself from the spread of the disease. One message that claims to be from a virologist says "Go through the attached document on safety measures regarding the spreading of corona virus. This little measure can save you." Instead, the message will compromise your computer.

Now is not the time for irrational acts and panic. Now is the time for caution and reason. Don't become part of the problem.

Bringing More Technology to Health Care

Covid-19 is likely to have some long-term effects on health care, including the use of more consultations provided by phone or using internet resources. Telemedicine has been around for a while and is often used to allow specialists in large cities to assist physicians in small towns. There's been a trend to more mainstream use and that's likely to continue.

An email from my primary care physician's office this week listed the symptoms of Covid-19 (essentially identical to influenza) and tells patients "If you have mild symptoms of the flu, we will treat you remotely instead of an in-person visit for your safety and the safety of others." The message continues: "My greatest concern is for all my patients 60 and older or anyone with lung disease, heart failure, active cancers and diabetes. It is very important that you limit your potential for exposure to the Coronavirus which is most certainly present in our community. If you have a routine office visit scheduled in the next few weeks, please contact my office to decide if the appointment is essential and how we can provide you the care you need in another manner."

In an effort to prevent the spread of disease, my physician's office is working to offer telemedicine visits instead of in person visits for certain situations. Patients can participate in telemedicine visits if they have portal access and have a smart phone or computer with a camera. This is likely a look at the future of routine medical care.

Twenty Years Ago: Intel Envisions 2020

In 2000, Intel was talking about what computing would be like in 2020. At the time I compared this to Christopher Columbus trying to envision what afternoon traffic would be like in Columbus, Ohio, in 2000. So what did Intel predict?

• More computers. Intel said computers would be everywhere. They got that right. In addition to the computers on our desks, there are computers in our phones, our cars, and our watches. Some home appliances have computers.
• Information technology will place fewer demands on people. Well, maybe. Certainly the stuff is a lot easier to use than it was 20 years ago, but it's ubiquitous and easy to use so many people are connected to their computers 24 hours a day.
• Software will allow computers to organize themselves, configure themselves, and largely be invisible to users. Intel got this mostly right, too. Operating systems download an install updates automatically. So do a lot of applications. This automation makes some people very angry.

So Intel gets at least a B+ for fortune telling, and maybe an A-.