Having reviewed Adobe Illustrator a few times over the last ten years I barely nodded acknowledgement when a copy of the latest version, CS3, landed on my desk. Ho hum, I thought, another version of Ilustrator and then it occurred to me that it's actually been three years since the last one, so I perked up a little and started to load the software.

The first thing I noticed on loading the program was the speed. Any regular user of earlier versions of Illustrator will know that loading the program was a lengthy business but CS3 takes seconds rather than minutes and I was most impressed. And, I guess, I felt it was about time they speeded things up a bit.

At this point I visited the Adobe site to read through their "What's New" section and found a few things:

• Live paint enhancements
  The live paint tool is now easier to use to color individual pieces of a drawing because it closes any gaps that exist. And, working with Live Color allows the rapid choosing and application of other colours.
• Live color enhancements
  On experimenting with the enhanced Live Color I decided this feature was possibly the best of the bunch as the ability to set up complimentary colours is now very easy via the Colour Guide palette and applying the colours to objects is a breeze as well.
• Improved performance on Apple x86 machines
  What's interesting about this enhancement is that Mac users have been overlooked with Illustrator and Photoshop for a while now ... so the fact that this is included makes me wonder if the war is waning.
• New eraser and crop tools
  Finally! The eraser tool which appeared in CS2 has been enhanced to reflect Photoshops eraser tool. And, as an added bonus there is now a crop tool which allows the creation of the crop area for print.
• Flash and Fireworks integration
  Adobe have been big on this integration factor since the Macromedia takeover (ahem Merger) and it is great to be able to open AI files in both Flash and Fireworks but it's a little superficial as that's all the depth there is to the integration.

On the interface front, Illustrator has the same minimalist appearance as the other members of Creative Suite 3. And, like Photoshop, Flash and Fireworks, Illustrator's icon is a simple square with "Ai" on it. This element of the design has come up for a lot of criticism but I'm with Adobe all the way on this one ... I love the squareness of everything ... it's way cool! For those who just want their old Illustrator back, the workspace can be modified to reflect CS2, so don't panic. However, I would say that I took to the new docked palettes like a duck to water and haven't looked back since loading the program.

In conclusion, the new features in Illustrator CS3 are aimed at professional graphic designers who use the product on a daily basis. For them, the upgrade would be well worth it, Live Color and the updated Eraser tool alone would warrant the money in my opinion. But, what about other users? To be honest I'm not sure there are any casual users of Illustrator ... unlike Photoshop which attracts millions of newbies and enthusiasts in the graphic modification area ... Illustrator is a serious tool for serious people ... so, on that basis I'd suggest this upgrade is well worth the price and could even be called an essential upgrade.