• In-panel appearance editing — now gives you the ability to edit characteristics directly in the Appearance panel. This eliminates the need to open fill, stroke, or effects panels. You can now work with shared attributes and control display for faster rendering.
• Separations preview — will help you avoid color output surprises such as unexpected spot colors, unwanted overprinting, overprints that don't overprint correctly, white overprinting, and CMYK blacks in text and placed files.
• Transparency in Gradients — this lets you get more creative with layered gradients that include transparent colors. No longer do you have to use the Gradient panel to apply and edit gradient fills. Now you can see exactly what is happing on your object as you add colors, change angles, and make other adjustments.
• Refined graphic styles — now has added new thumbnail previews and expanded library of pre-built styles. You can combine styles for unique effects and increased efficiency, and apply styles without disturbing an object's existing appearance.
• Clipping masks — will now let you work with masks more easily by viewing only the clipped area of your objects during editing. You can take advantage of Isolation Mode, and use Edit Clipping Path for even more control
The artboard feature is something that has been needed for a long time in Illustrator. This makes it much easier to work with multiple documents, and having them on one artboard makes it really nice. Add to that the fact that it has been such a glaring omission; this is the one that will have many upgrading for sure.
The Blob brush really makes it easy to draw filled paths and works really well with using a Wacom tablet. Then there is the Gradients tool and panel. This takes the guesswork out of getting gradients just right. These, along with all of the other enhancements really make Illustrator CS4 a must-have upgrade.
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