Xara Xtreme Pro and my wish list :)

[BONES]

but when we talking about PRO level, with correct CMYK preview for offset pres, things are a litle bit different... and etc etc etc

What a load of *****! There are plenty of professionals outside the print industry. In fact I find most printers to be completely unprofessional in their inability to work outside of incredibly narrow parameters. I am a full-time, professional artist and I have never seen a four-colour separation in my life.

You are right but only for your point of view....
Tif is not so pro output but work not bad for you....

TIFF is one of the most useful file formats for print professionals, as Targa is for broadcast/video. It is incredibly flexible - greyscale, RGB, CMYK in anything up to 32bits - all with highly optimised, lossless compression.
It some print-shops that make everything such an ordeal - leave the slightest room for any error and a printer will stuff it up. Give them a giant TIFF of the finished artwork and they virtually can't get it wrong. For my money that is the very essence of a professional file format.

problem come when you need to create something bigger than A5, A4 or A3 size..... you can try it
then we talk about files with really giant sizes.... 100-150-200Mb each... OK
if only your cover is for print then no problem in print house... but believe me, Im senior designer/prepress master in such print house, and when I have to work on some magazine for example your cover with her 150Mb will be the last thing that I want to see.... then maybe you dont have idea wats going on, but I will say you.... then going some optimization... i.e downsampling of monster files...

Try working with 4k film frames at 24 frames-per-second. That's 4096x3112x24 per second. Even at 2k, half-float [16bit], we require a sustained data transfer rate of 850Mb/sec so you'll excuse me if the occasional 400Mb still file is hardly impressive in this day and age, where my new laptop came with 4Gb of RAM as standard.

Every one knows that graphics design work is times more than just illustration work, I mean that illustrations are just part of some design work, and will be better for us and for Xara all this proceses to be started and completed in Xara... is it so hard for understanding

Sure, but its not all about print, either. If Xara has to grow and stretch itself, I'd prefer to see some proper timeline-based animation added. It could be a wonderful paint/roto tool for the visual effects industry and an incredible motion graphics tool for the interweb and broadcast markets. Turning it into a boring old print tool would be such a waste in my view. It also seems to me that it doesn't do print stuff all that well so concentrating on RGBA work seems a natural choice.

[alexbozhenov]

As for me, I'd like to see additional options in the Export Bitmap dialog window -- see attached image.

1. Field for manual typing of Quality %s
(takes ages when working with large files and trying to move slider to set up desired value)

2. Option to Turn OFF auto-refreshing preview window.
(the same -- takes ages when changing settings on different Tabs to re-draw the preview)

I'd better set all settings manually, then, if I need, press Preview button to see changes...

P.S. I put 1. and 2. there on picture just for example...

[steve.ledger]

What kind of sizes are we talking Alex?

Of course I appreciate that there is computer hardware to take into account, but I've exported pretty large JPG's, can't say I've noticed any annoying sluggishness at all?

Though I do think a 'Field for manual typing of Quality %' is a good idea

My main rig (for comparison):

AMD A64 3400+
2GB DDR400
GF6600 128mb
Dell 2405FPW (19200x1200)

[alexbozhenov]

What kind of sizes are we talking Alex?

Of course I appreciate that there is computer hardware to take into account, but I've exported pretty large JPG's, can't say I've noticed any annoying sluggishness at all?

Though I do think a 'Field for manual typing of Quality %' is a good idea

My main rig (for comparison):

AMD A64 3400+
2GB DDR400
GF6600 128mb
Dell 2405FPW (19200x1200)

I have P4 2.8E, 2GB DDR400
GF 6600GT, 320GB SATA-2
Samsung SM 959NF

I'm talking about large size complex drawings with a lot of transparencies with text over etc. and exporting at high resolution. Also, the similar issue at Create Bitmap dialog window just annoying, try to change dpi, then switch to Palette tab and change settings there too...

P.S. Maybe "ages" is too strong word there, actually it takes a few seconds, but "annoying" must be more correct word ))) These two windows (Create Bitmap and Bitmap Export) just don't look very optimized to provide more convenient handling... Especially forced re-freshing when swithing tabs... )

[MarkMyWords]

Hmm... did I upset you in some way minimiro?

If I did, then I apologise, that wasn't my intention. If I didn't then ignore this, I'm just imagining things.

[qmr]

Wonderful that Xara have fixed .swf export into Flash in the latest xtreme so now I can retire old xara X, and at last I can set photoshop as my bitmap editor.

But what I still really really want are two simple things:

#1 is a proper pressure pen - not a 'brush objects' thing just a simple vector pressure pen. Even Freehand's one away back in version 5 from last century would do. Silky smooth in drawing like a virtual sable brush, and in line view it consists of a minimal array of points, only double the number of points in the non-pressure line. That smoooth pressure pen for me was one of the most joyous things I ever saw in a computer drawing app (along with xara's interactive transparency), so much so that it restrained me from jumping up and down on freehand whilst declaiming in tongues more than once and that was an achievement but I digress.

#2 is a simple close-shapes button. It's a pain searching for the unclosed point in a complex shape so I can colour it. Illustrator has it, so does freehand (or did) so why not xara?? *wails*

Q

[amoore]

And what I really, really want is something I've been asking for for years <sigh> — the ability to align to a selected object rather than to the most extreme.

[Egg Bramhill]

Q

#2 is a simple close-shapes button. It's a pain searching for the unclosed point in a complex shape so I can colour it.

Select the line then using the shape editor tool drag-select all the nodes and hit Enter.

[Anders 205]

And what I really, really want is something I've been asking for for years <sigh> — the ability to align to a selected object rather than to the most extreme.

Aaah...! Thank you for stressing this quality facility! The vital quality to be able to lock an object position and quickly align other objects to the locked object's left, right, top, bottom or center position (available and indispensable in Freehand, to mention a reference).

Anders

[minimiro]

Hmm... did I upset you in some way minimiro?

If I did, then I apologise, that wasn't my intention. If I didn't then ignore this, I'm just imagining things.

No, no Dont worry
here just become a place where every one of PROs can give self preferences...
I am in offset print production, you are illustrator, Sledger is in digitall press and cut ploters, etc etc....
Someone in other side of world preffer to print from TIF or JPG files, but here for example we work with PDFs etc etc

This was and my idea... xara have to work and suggest one product but with different usages... and in same time all we have to be pleased
It is hard problem for solving, but this is the winning formula to sell well...

Idea of ElCabron was that is good to didnt find again the wheel or hot water like we here said....
Some usefull options especially in print production line, have to be implemented, this will help not only in us print designers.... especialy correct CMYK print preview will give some "realistic" preview to all us print designers, prepress users, illustrators etc... becouse nevermind what you think and done when finall result are with different and wrong colors outside of your idea, everything is without meaning
that is it

nice day to all