Couldn't wait for The Official Guide - Completed Bonus Chapter 14

[HayTay]

Gary (Gare),

After reading Chapter 1: Up and Running with Xara Xtreme and Bonus Chapter 14: Photographic Retouching, I'm certain that your Xara Xtreme 5: The Official Guide is going to be an invaluable resource for Xara Xtreme users of all levels. Whether someone is starting out with Xara Xtreme for the first time or they're needing to delve into the finer points of some of the tools they're already familiar with, I predict that this is the book everyone will be looking for.

Needless to say, I couldn't wait for my copy of the book. I had to jump in and complete the Bonus Chapter 14 Photographic Retouching exercise available from TheBoutons.com - Xara Xtreme 5 Bonus Chapter. In case anyone else is interested, the Xara Xtreme 5 Tutorial and Example Files that accompany XX5: The Official Guide are also available for download from the same TheBoutons.com web page.

Just to show my appreciation for all of your hard work, Gary, and to let everyone else know that it really can be done, here's the results of my working through the Photographic Retouching tutorial. While I stuck to the directions for the most part I took the liberty of doing a few things a bit differently. Voilà! No more migraine medicine bottle is there spoiling the fine still life photograph.

Maybe we can get a few others here on TalkGraphics to give the bonus chapter to your book a try while they're waiting for their Official Guide to arrive.

A fantastic resource, Gary, and thank you,
Harry

.

[Gare]

Hiya HayTay—

Wow! I had to check our little basket of tangerines on the kitchen counter after looking at your finished example! I'd love to see the XAR file if you'd be kind enough to pass me it; it would teach me a thing or two about growing additional fruit!

I'm very happy with what you did, not just technically (which is superb)—you took the example file to a new and personal level...you didn't stop at just following the steps, you made it your own, you applied your own imagination. That's the point of the book: to grow your visions through understanding the power of Xara Xtreme.

You inspired me to create an additional tutorial: If you go to the download page at TheBoutons.com now and scroll down, there's a Bonus, Bonus file of this beautiful classic 1958 Cadillac photograph. We didn't have permission to remove the fence for the photo, but I'd say it takes about 1/2 an hour to retouch it out with Xara. In the Xara file, I've included my finished retouching on a hidden layer. It's an exercise and really nothing additional to demonstrate beyond the steps for removing the pill bottle, so there are no written steps or anything.

In the interest of Full Disclosure:

1. That's not a migraine medicine bottle in the tangerines photo. It's cholesterol medication, but that doesn't sound as funny in the book.

2. I "pre-touched" the photo to avoid legal hassles with two of the items in the photo, again, using Xara Xtreme. The "Green Polygon" bag of nuts is obviously Blue Diamond, and the generic cookies at left is a package of Arnott's chocolate biscuits a business partner and friend in New South Wales mailed me.

My Best,

Gare

[masque]

Chihuahuas get everywhere. Behind the skirting boads, in your fruit basket, no wonder you need headache pills.

[Gare]

Too much, Masque!

Folks, just go to town with the photos once you understand how to do some of the basic retouching techniques in the Bonus Chapter.

Do the unobvious!

-g-

[HayTay]

Wow! I'd love to see the XAR file if you'd be kind enough to pass me it; it would teach me a thing or two about growing additional fruit!

Gary,

Thanks for the encouragement. Judging by what you did on the two bags in the photo I doubt if I'd teach you a thing or two! I'll be more than happy to pass on the XAR file, though, if you'll be kind enough to let me know the best way to send it to you.

I'm off to work on your double-bonus Cadillac photo now...

Cheers,
Harry

[Soquili]

Finally took some time to follow the extra chapter's tutorial.

I think there must have been eggs kept in that basket at one time.

[InfoCentral]

Will the book be usable for those of us who are still using Xara Pro 4?

[HayTay]

InfoCentral,

I don't recall anything I did in completing this tutorial that couldn't have been done in XXP4. You won't be able to complete Chapter 11 - Building Interactive Web Pages with Xtreme 4 or Xtreme Pro 4, though. If you've got Xara Web Designer you should be able to Chapter 11 using it instead. There may be a few other items that you'll have to put in some extra effort for but, on the whole, I think you'll do alright.

Oh, one other thing that's in the bonus chapter that you won't be able to do is the 'content-aware photo resizing'. That wasn't available until XX5.

IHTH,
Harry

[Gare]

Will the book be usable for those of us who are still using Xara Pro 4?

Hi InfoCentral—

I see you've already ordered your copy, which might make the following point moot to you:

If you subtract most of the content from pages 240-272—covering how to design multi-page HTML websites, there are perhaps a few more things the Xara Xtreme version 4 user might not benefit from:

• The Object gallery replaces the Layer gallery in V5, so references to it won't reflect your version. The Object gallery can change the way you work with the organization of shapes, layers, and pages. The workaround for v4 users with the book is to remember the Ctrl+Shift U and D keyboard shortcuts for moving shapes among layers.

• The Transparency tool now supports multiple stops; I think I demonstrate this but perhaps use it in a tutorial only once.

• There are two new options when you use the Align box for scattering and aligning selected shapes.

I think readers will discover it's an omnibus book, good to learn from using several versions of Xara. Heck, I wrote a fair percentage of the book using version 4 until I was provided with beta builds of 5!

There are very few tutorial files you download that contain version 5-specific properties, except of course Chapter 11's website files that probably won't open in version 4. Chapter 10 on creating GIF and Flash animations will indeed work in version 4, I can say.

If you just download all the chapter files, some might not work for you, but more than 90% will, and this is a reflection of the new version's features. You'll notice some "toys" I've included, above and beyond the tutorial files. There are two new typefaces I created for the book—one is a "Jiffy Logo Kit", a font containing many generi-graphics in case you need a client's logo done five minutes ago. Plus Nick Curtis—a world-class typographer—generously created 5 reworks of some of his classic typefaces especially for The Official Guide. I believe if you hit the pipe key, the Xara logo is coded in.

There are also textures and environments for mapping to extruded text and custom, named color palettes you can put on the color line.

The download files are not in a restricted area at TheBoutons.com. We don't do retinal scans or cavity searches at the door to make sure you bought the book.

My Best,

Gary

[Soquili]

It may interest people that there is a Gallery on theBoutons where you can also display your work.

Direct link to the Member Showcase