1) Xara for Ad Design ? 2) Magic Wand ??

[RTW1]

Corel Paint? Do you mean Corel Painter IX.5 or Corel Paint Shop Pro?

I think he means Corel Photo Paint, thats included with Corel Draw.

[aridzone]

I am still using Corel Photo-Paint 8
And have always loved the magic wand.
Not to mention the script recorder.

[sallybode]

It isn't the program .psd is exported from, it is that the new Xara can import mulit-layer .psd files. You could write them in Corel PhotoPaint or from Painter or Photoshop itself or PaintShopPro or Ulead PhotoImpact. It is the .psd format it is importing. Save the .psd as a layered file. And import away.

BTW, KnockOut does work in Xara. It is more refined a program than Mehdi eraser for getting rid of complex backgrounds involving hair. With hard edge extraction, the Mehdi filter works wonders.

Room for both. When you want to invest in something for which Xara has saved you money, in comparison to Photoshop and Creative Suite, you could buy a ton of stuff. But a top notch drawing tablet is a start and whatever plugins you might want after that. Serif Page Plus, want to try that one.

[Rastarr]

As far as Ad design goes, one thing you need to watch for is the Flash files that XXPro produces.

I just found out that due to XXPro lacking basic Actionscript in it's exported Flash, this doesn't allow Ad Management software to import XXPro Flash files properly i.e. this software alters the Flash files so it can properly track ad clicks and the like using some Actionscript amendments. Typically Flash ads are produced and given to a client who then has them displayed on a variety of different websites. Aprt from the click-thru tracking, usually these Ad Management portals also alter the destination URL as well.

Something to keep in mind anyway.
Martin

[Egg Bramhill]

Martin,

I've never used it but there's an option named clickTags in XXPro. It's in the help file under Flash Animation/WebAddressOverview & clickTags.

Here's what it says:-

clickTAG

clickTAGs are often used by advertising networks. Rather than hard-coding a URL into a Flash animation (Xtreme Pro only), the clickTAG allows an organization to insert their own URL into the animation—which is particulary useful for tracking advertising clicks.

If you need to use this feature, just type clickTAG instead of a URL.

Tip: if you wish to make your whole banner clickable, simply ensure that you have a background rectangle that has the URL on and that this appear on all frames. You would typically have such a thing anyway if you were using ClipView – just set the ClipView rectangle to have the URL. Or you could use the B Frame option.

I don't know if this is of any help to you.

[Rastarr]

I've never used it but there's an option named clickTags in XXPro. It's in the help file under Flash Animation/WebAddressOverview & clickTags.

Thanks for the reply, Egg.

I'd actually tried clickTAG when I was first checking out XXPro. I just now looked at it again but from a fresh perspective and found it does work as expected. I think initially I applied clickTAG to multiple objects that must bugger everything up in these Ad Servers.

So the moral of the story is to apply clickTAG (or your web address) to the clipview on the first frame and use 'copy frame' from there on in and things will be sweet.