[This is being posted to Mac, Windows and app forums as it relates to both - apologies for the duplication]
Hi,
When Corel announced that CorelDRAW was returning to macOS, I was personally super-excited to see this for several key reasons (which I wrote about in this article: CorelDRAW is gracing macOS again - and why this is important).
This is not an advert, but I feel it's an important brief background. Astute Graphics is known in the Adobe Illustrator world, since 2006, as developers of plugins for professional users. Many of the world's largest brands rely on us as well as many, many freelance designers and everyone inbetween. We serve varied sectors including branding, architecture, fashion, sign making, gaming and more.
The tools we currently produce for Adobe Illustrator allow users to gain very high-level control of Bezier profile (drawing and editing), positioning, effects, stroke variable widths and more.
Some of this functionality will already be in CorelDRAW. But what core drawing and editing functionality are Corel customers seeking that they feel would be suitable via a 3rd party option. And yes, I acknowledge everything should be there natively in the single purchased core product, but reality doesn't always allow this.
Finally, in Astui, we now also have the building blocks that allow us to produce much more advanced tools and functions. These include Boolean (add, subtract, divide vector shapes), Offset Paths, Variable Stroke Widths and many more. Even though well-developed technologies such as Boolean and Offset are within Corel - hence it being the key competitor to Illustrator - it's essential to have full access to these underlying technologies in order to build exciting tools such as Long Shadow, Path Reshape and more.
Excitingly, Astui can be deployed as a web API allowing online tools such as CorelDRAW.app to benefit. Equally, having this toolbox allows Astute Graphics to build new tools quicker and based on 7+ years of technical development.
So - are extensions applicable to a wide range of users welcome to Corel users as they are in Adobe's world?
I'd love to understand what you think,
Nick
astutegraphics The problem or problems depend on your level of output quality, the best easiest solution for the user is built in features or great plugins for CorelDRAW.
I use PaintShop Pro to augment Photo-PAINT and it's a decent example but not nearly as bad as Affinity to augment Draw in a large scale environment. PSP simply has amateur color management, the display for the image is not quite the quality of Photo-PAINT, the tools are not only different they are not as refined so unless you really need the feature best to not use PSP. That's the short story.
Affinity to augment CorelDRAW. First high quality work in large physical file sizes, color management issues, file compatibility, device N color transparency support. The short end of the story using Affinity in the high end wide and grand format sign world it's like taking a new Army recruit and having them go up against a Navy Seal!
I'm currently active professionally in a regional area in the North East U.S. covering about 4 States and have been for well over 40 years and I've never seen an Affinity file or a PDF published by Affinity sent for output. Using Affinity to augment CorelDRAW in large scale work is too far to reach in a fast paced multi-user production environment.
Affinity to augment CorelDRAW. With smaller physical document sizes, web work CMYK and digital work there are fewer issues. Mostly color management and interfacing transparency and importation. However these issue are easier to overcome until you hit the device N color issue in print. If it's all digital print and web it works much better to augment CorelDRAW.
Affinity has core technology issues, I tested it and dropped it from consideration and will most likely test it again some time later this year. I did the same thing with PaintShop Pro about 4 or 5 years ago and adapted it to augment Photo-PAINT and removed Photoshop from my work flow.
After over 2 decades of working in graphics my suggestion is a one suite process with Macros, or plugins is the best environment.
Thanks again David Milisock for your responses. All being considered.
In reality, whereas we cater for pre-press users in Illustrator (live swap ink channels, overprint preview, ink coverage warnings, full artwork separations, etc.), it's not a market we actively persue anymore. We tend to cater for much wider workflows in the vector creation and editing stages. This often benefits pre-press but it also benefits many other sectors with the same solutions.
Pre-press is certanly a mature and reduced market, CorelDRAW is in reality the only competitor for Adobe in that arena.
Eastern Europe, Asia, (not sure if China has a higher percentage than India or not, based on my client calls I would say probably), South America and Central America have a higher percentage of CorelDRAW being used in print than the United States. However that is changing slowly in a positive way for CorelDRAW as the print market reshuffles.
One thing for sure is that there is a plethora of plugin business opportunities if you start supporting CorelDRAW both on the MAC and PC side. Mainly because Corel has been very slow on the uptake.
Hello, Astute Graphics!
I know your page and your effects, since a long time ago. Very impressive, by the way!
Some effects like DynamicSketch and MirrorMe already exist in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite (and some under CorelDRAW Technical Suite) but there are many others that would be welcome. Or really, I should say: they are necessary. Some are even essential
For example, VectorHalftones, Duotone, etc.will be a big improvement and many CorelDRAW users asked for years. I'm sure that there's a lot users that want those effects.
Some of your effects are very nice, simple but very useful
I want to say it clearly: of course we users are interested. And I'm sure there is a good market potentially. There're million of CorelDRAW users around the world, so if you can promote those powerful tools, I'm sure it could be a success.
But I want to stop in one in particular and it is the possibility of doing a preflight.
astutegraphics.com/.../
Of course, already exist otrher products, such as
graphics-unleashed.com/.../
www.advancedtshirts.com/.../
steveyatesgraphics.com/.../
and several more.
The possibility of previewing the color separations on the screen, with overprints included, and eventually modify or replace colors is a very powerful tool.
First of all i'm really happy that you might be interested in creating tools for Corel Draw. I'd love to see your Stipplism being introduced to Draw. I use it a lot in Illustrator however I prefer Draw over illustrator so i'm basically creating artwork in Corel, then copy it to Ai, use stipplism, and then import back to Corel. Having it natively in Corel would be perfect for me. I believe that Corel users would much appreciate other vector effects, sort of ones you can achieve via Vectoraster (unfortunatelly Mac only software). Of course there is Pointilizer within Draw but it's a child's toy when compared to possibilities of Vectoraster.