What is a 'professional' tool?

[Xhris]

From the consensus so far (and lack of specific examples as to what a 'professional' tool (i.e. feature) is), it seems that my original question is meaningless; the concept of a 'professional' tool is a fallacy.

[ankhor]

It is not the tool but the skill of the artist that truely matters. If the tool mattered, then velvet Elvis paintings would be fine art...

Come on, both matter, an artist would really like the best tools
for him/her.
I had bad tools and because one of them I busted my back.
So tools are very important and decide a great deal of the work.

[Doug]

Come on, both matter, an artist would really like the best tools
for him/her.
I had bad tools and because one of them I busted my back.
So tools are very important and decide a great deal of the work.

It really is a partnership, isn't it?
(The artist AND their tools)

[pauland]

I think there are two sides to the notion of a professional tool:

1) A tool you can use to make money with professionally,

2) A tool commonly accepted within a profession as part of a pipeline/work practice.

I think that the first isn't a problem for Xara tools at all, while the second is. If I go somewhere to do some Flash work, it's usually assumed that I know how to use Photoshop or Illustrator (and Fireworks, of course).

Paul.

[Squeaky]

Well. I am a professional and I use whatever software it takes to get the job done - whatever its price. Remember. Once upon a time we used to use pencils - Kids use them - Bah!

Seriously though. There is this move by software companies to add a few features, up the price and slap the name 'Pro' on everything. I usually take this to mean that the added features are only really of any use to the professional user.

Much though I love Xtreme to bits I'm not overly impressed with the 'pro' name. I use it mainly for print at the moment and it's print preview feature is pretty basic as it doesn't work with colour profiles (Though you can export profiles with PDF export you can't actually see what they are going to look like. Hmm)

For me that means when an illustration is finished hopping back and forth between Photoshop and tweaking colours. This is very tedious and not at all professional.
Now I think about it the PSD output is pretty lame too. If I work on a doc with print preview on The PSD output ignores it and exports RGB. So if I have multi layer files I have to export them as individual PNG's and re-assemble them in Photoshop. - Yawn
Little things like this mean a lot to pro's as time is money.

That negative aside I'd say Xtreme is the best graphics swiss army knife out there and I use it on just about everything. I just think that calling the 'Pro' version 'Pro' was maybe a little permature.

[gwpriester]

Xhris

You are confusing the idea of a professional tool with what the software industry likes to call "killer features", or the feature that is so desirable a user just has to buy or upgrade to get this capability.

One of the things that makes Xara such an excellent tool is the intelligence that went into the UI of the product. It is not a drop dead gorgeous design, but it does not have to be. It is logical, clean, simple and designed to work intuitively as compared to Illustrator which relies a lot on dialogs to do what you can do on-screen with Xara. The context sensitive Infobar is an excellent example of this which now has even been adopted by Illustrator and the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite. But Xara had it first.

Deneba Canvass probably wins the prize for the greatest number of features, but it is like pulling teeth to use. CorelDRAW is a close second in terms of features. But it is slow and bloated with too many bells and whistles. And they change the way it works with almost every new release.

If you look at the featured artist gallery in the Xara Xone or the Xara Gallery, you will see the answer to your question. Professional work done with a professional design tool.

Gary

[masque]

Xhris
If you look at the featured artist gallery in the Xara Xone or the Xara Gallery, you will see the answer to your question. Professional work done with a professional design tool.
Gary

Or for that matter amateur work done with a professional design tool or professional work done with an amateur design tool (Xtreme as opposed to XtremePro). What does it really matter?
derek

[raynerj1]

AS long as the tool does the job, that it the important thing.

[remi]

I don't know, about what this discussion is really about. In my original post I said, that I would like to see progress with new professional tools within Xara Xtreme. Nobody said a word about beeing a professional or hobbiest. Nobody said, that Xara Xtreme isn't a tool for professionals.

I'm sure, each user would be happy, if Xara Xtreme owns more new or more enhanced tools (no, I'm not talking about the already available and great tools within Xara Xtreme - I'm talking about new tools/functions or enhanced tools, which you'll also find in other vector graphics editors). The progress on this side is slow since years and that means, that you're almost able to find more new/clever/timesaving functions in Open Source vector editors, than in our beloved Xara Xtreme - albeit together with the problem, that Xara Xtreme don't support the SVG format completely to interact with such Open Source programmes in a professional (=timesaving in this meaning) manner.

The problem seems to be, that there are not enough resources available to outcompete the competition. The result is, that some of the more complicated innovations and/or changes cannot be developed (for example nested layers, a own CMYK mode, program automation via scripts,... - you know the list). But on the other side there is enough time to develop/integrate new goodies here and there.

Xhris wanted some examples for new necessary professional tools/functions/enhancements within Xara Xtreme. Unfortunately I don't have the time to repeat all the good and valuable improvement suggestions from TalkGraphics-Members, but I'm sure, the developers keep a complete list.

Regards,
Remi

[Xhris]

Xhris

You are confusing the idea of a professional tool with what the software industry likes to call "killer features", or the feature that is so desirable a user just has to buy or upgrade to get this capability.

One of the things that makes Xara such an excellent tool is the intelligence that went into the UI of the product. It is not a drop dead gorgeous design, but it does not have to be. It is logical, clean, simple and designed to work intuitively as compared to Illustrator which relies a lot on dialogs to do what you can do on-screen with Xara. The context sensitive Infobar is an excellent example of this which now has even been adopted by Illustrator and the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite. But Xara had it first.

Deneba Canvass probably wins the prize for the greatest number of features, but it is like pulling teeth to use. CorelDRAW is a close second in terms of features. But it is slow and bloated with too many bells and whistles. And they change the way it works with almost every new release.

If you look at the featured artist gallery in the Xara Xone or the Xara Gallery, you will see the answer to your question. Professional work done with a professional design tool.

Gary

Hi Gary,

I'm not confusing anything - I set the question. It is everyone else that is confusing things. The original question was what is a professional tool (within Xara), based on a comment that 'more professional tools' are wanted in Xara. So I wanted to know what a 'professional tool' was. But to be honest, I'm not sure it matters much anymore, as I appreciate better the context the original question was asked in. What is 'professional' is subjective. Interesting discussion though above.