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1. Comment - Microsoft: Expression Not an Adobe Competitor

   (May 9, 2007 - 10:28 AM)

   I've used Expression v1 from Fractal Design and v3 from Creature House as well as the free download from Microsoft. I'm trying out the new v4 (so far, I don't see many changes in the feature set)
   
   "Did Creature House's Expression come from the old Metacreations's Expression which directly competed with Illustrator and Freehand? That was one cool-ass app at the time that I never got to try."
   
   Metacreations, and Fractal Design before them, licensed the program from the developers at Creature House in Hong Kong. Microsoft bought Creature House, IP and personnel.
   
   "It wasn't a competitor to Illustrator and FreeHand, since it didn't didn't try to offer a complete range of vector tools--it just offered a way to recreate natural media strokes with vectors. Sort of a vector version of Painter."
   
   Hmm. Yes, you could and can put natural-media strokes on your lines and define your own strokes, either vector or bitmap, but you still have freehand, pen, and Bezier lines for open and closed strokes. You have basic shapes. You have node, line, shape, and group editing tools (warp group is fun). Expression supported transparency effects from version 1, and you can set the transparency on stroke and fill separately. Fills can be solid, gradient, vector, or bitmap. You can define blending modes on shapes.
   
   It isn't an Illustrator or Freehand clone, no. But it has some wonderful stuff in it.