Missing ???

[tad]

Hello,

What happened to Color Depth ??

Wondering,
tad

[tad]

Hello,

What happened to Color Depth ??

Wondering,
tad

[raynerj]

???

[gwpriester]

It's gone.

I was not real happy about that one because I often used the messotint effect (black and white dithering) or the 16 color diffusion dithering option.

The other thing that is gone is the Image Size which was very useful.

I frequently receive images from people that show up on my monitor at weird sizes and knowiing the exact size the image was created helped to get the image back to its exported size.

I hope some of this finds its way into the release version of XPE when it comes out.

Gary

[tad]

Perhaps ...

Since Xara has already written the code, perhaps they could offer it as a "plug in" to XPE.

I'd pay $ to have these features back.

tad

[RAMWolff44]

I agree Gary, I really miss both those features!! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Charles Moir]

Assuming you're referring to the old bitmap effects for color depth and image resize, these features were removed because there are other ways the program can achieve these effects, with better UI and far more control. Secondly the whole bitmap effects thing is being moved into the XPE.

To alter the color depth of a bitmap, place it on the page at the size you require. Select Arrange -> Create Bitmap Copy (or Ctrl+Shift+C) and there you can alter any aspect of the color depth, down to the precise number of colors, whether it's transparent or not, the dithering, the palette being used and more. This UI is considerably better than the old color depth control. And yes you can even create mezzo tint effect B&W dithering as well (select 2 color form the drop-down, diffused dither, and make sure the transparency icon is off).

If you want a bitmap with a very specific number of colors such as 18, select the 256 colors from the drop-down and enter the precise number of colors you want in the palette in the Max Colors field. Click Preview to see the result. The actual palette of colors used in the bitmap is shown on the right.

To alter the size of a bitmap you do the exact same thing - but just make sure you scale the bitmap to the correct size on the page first (although you can alter it and the dpi in the dialog if you really want).

When the new bitmap is created this way it uses maximum quality bicubic sampling and so it's technically better than the old way as well.

[RAMWolff44]

A question for you Charles, while your here. Why is it when I import bitmaps into Xara X(1) they are resized?? Say I have a bitmap 450 X 650 pixels and I import it into Xara X(1) it's dimentions are now changed. Most of the time it's imported smaller, so then I have to resize it back to it's original dimentions to keep it from looking a little off. Is there a way in future to make sure that Xara X1 retains the proper size of an imported bitmap??

Ahhh, perfect example. I JUST imported a bitmap. Original size is 436 X 650. Imported into Xara X1 it is now resized to 581.3 X 866.7. It looks really aweful now as the pixels are stretched to far out. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Thanks Charles! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Happy Sunday to you.

[raynerj]

Hmmm... Richard,

Import seems to be functioning just fine for me. Size the same as before. Are you, by chance, using scaleing?

[Egg Bramhill]

Richard
I don't know why this happens either. I only notice it if I copy and paste an image into XaraX. As a work round I delete the imported image, open the Bitmap gallery, and drag it onto to the screen. It then has the correct dimensions.

I notice that in the Edit Menu the bitmap is 192dpi ???
Egg