Missing ???

[tad]

Hello,

What happened to Color Depth ??

Wondering,
tad

[Charles Moir]

To answer the question of the bitmaps sizes. It's all to do with the dpi of the imported bitmap. Most bitmaps import with a dpi setting of 96dpi which is the same as the default screen resolution and so you'll get get a 1:1 match. However if it's a saved with a different dpi or different dimensions (in inches) we'll show it on the page at a different size. The actual bitmap is not changed - you can see in the bitmap gallery the real pixel dimensions of any bitmap.

So if you've imported a bitmap that is 450 pixels wide and it appears to be larger on screen it's because the dpi or inch measurements (which not all bitmap formats support) is different. But if it's 450 pixels and you want it shown at exactly 1:1 at 100% then just set the width back to 450 pixels using the Selector tool and the usual size controls.

To see the dpi of any bitmap in Xara X1 just look on the status line. If it's showing 96dpi it will be showing it at 1:1 screen pixels to actual pixels, at 100%.

[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.

[covoxer]

It's not the case, Luciano.
Try to do this:
http://covoxer.nm.ru/dither.jpg

[covoxer]

Hi Charles!
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Charles Moir:
Just can't do it Tad. Or rather I'm not putting back features that don't absolutely merit the UI space. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Then why don't you remove 'Wizard Properties' from XaraX1???
It's definately useless and undocumented.
No one uses it, no one knows how and what for.
Besides it's seems to be broken in XaraX...

And you think that wizard merits UI space more than widely used 'ColorDepth' effect?
I just don't understand it...

[Egg Bramhill]

Yes Tad,
Here's the link

[Charles Moir]

Just can't do it Tad. Or rather I'm not putting back features that don't absolutely merit the UI space. The method I describe above is a better, more consistent, more powerful and yet a simpler way (because it's using UI that already exits allowing us to cut out a whole level of menu options). So I can't justify adding menu options back that add next to nothing to the product. Yes the diffusion algorithms are very, very subtly different, but in 9 out of 10 tests the new ones are better, usually dramatically better. The 1 out of 10 where it's not (some B&W cases) are so rare that less than 1% of users would ever need it.

The best I can do is suggest that we might be able to release the code so someone else can do an XPE plug-in that uses the old colour reduction algorithms, so you'd get it back that way. Our first step is to get an XPE out there than can take add-ons, which we're working on.

[raynerj]

???

[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.

[Luciano]

I took some minutes to test the option " create bitmap copy" as suggested by Charles and a I believe it can be a good alternative, both in dithering and enlarging bitmap sizes, remember that the old method was limited to 2000 or 2500 pixels per side.

Luciano