Category Archives: Sneaks

Sneak Peek: Gradient strokes in Illustrator CS6

From the simple (e.g. adding a sheen to the edge of an iOS button) to the ambitious (check out that motorcycle!), gradients in paths can be amazingly useful:

I’ve been (im)patiently awaiting this one for years. Combining transparency with gradients, plus reshaping strokes via the Width tool (introduced in CS5) and Pencil is incredibly powerful. You can create some amazingly subtle shaded regions using just vectors.
I think gradient strokes will go a long way to democratizing the power that’s lingered in AI’s potent but often inscrutable Gradient Mesh tool, and I can’t wait to see & show more.

Photoshop.next sneak: Iris Blur

Hardware-accelerated selective blurs with direct manipulation? Yes please.

For your convenience I’ve grouped these sneak-peek videos in a single category.
Side note–and I debate whether to mention this: there’s no real need to comment (as someone does on every sneak), “What, that’s all there is…?”–because no, that’s not all there is. A peek is, by definition, “a quick and typically furtive look.” It’s just meant to pique your interest, not to show a whole product release (or even a whole feature).