Avenza Systems, developers of MAPublisher cartographic software for Adobe Illustrator and PDF Maps for Apple iOS, released Geographic Imager 3.4 for Adobe Photoshop. This release is fully compatible with Adobe Photoshop 12.1 in Adobe CS5.5, as well as Adobe Photoshop 12.0.4 in Adobe CS5.

A map of a country in a paper atlas. That’s approximately how the 45+ of us imagine cartography, but in recent years maps have become more like visually rich compasses in a smartphone or a car GPS device. Maps were once designed by graphic designers. Today, they still are, but designers better make themselves familiar with GIS, polygon division, database linking, and other disciplines that have nothing to do with design.

Artlandia is offering SymmetryWorks and SymmetryShop with a 15% discount. We reviewed these Adobe Illustrator plug-ins before and found them to be great value.

The makers of the award-winning Adobe Illustrator plug-in Phantasm CS have come up with a brilliant Illustrator plug-in that simplifies design and saves time. Their new plug-in VectorScribe amazes from start to finish. It not only simplifies and speeds up design but makes executing creative ideas a lot more fun too. After having played with it a couple of days it’s as if Illustrator has become a clumsy program.

Storyboarding is an essential part of storytelling. Even if you’re not going to create a movie or an animation around your story, storyboarding can instantly clarify not only what you’re going to say but also how you’re going to say it. Toon Boom is a company that develops animation software, but their Storyboard range of products is a lot more than the intro to an animation story.

Whenever Corel releases another upgrade of Painter, it’s always interesting to see which new brushes they’ve come up with this time, and above all: how those brushes perform. Right up till version 11 the new brushes were nothing less but awe-inspiring, but they also required a hefty machine to get some performance from them. Much of the joy of painting digitally with those versions was outdone by the slow rendering of paint. With version 12, Corel hasn’t just added brushes and other creative goodies. It has dramatically increased Painter’s speed — so much so that it is a real pleasure to work with any type of brush in this new version. I found it hard to find anything that will not instantly appeal to digital artists in Painter 12.