Some Adobe CS5 features that I'd love to see in a future Xara

**JokeArtist** · 11 July 2010, 09:42 PM

some photoshop features ... lol .. how about some Illustrator CS5 features ... man I'm also school with my vector love for Xara and it's not long relevant. It's not where the money is, is it?

**StevenWWinters** · 12 July 2010, 12:34 AM

Originally Posted by Soquili

Steven is there some secret that is required to follow the source forge links in your linked post?

Your linked post is nearing an age of 5 years. Many things seem to have changed since then.

No magic Bill. The original sourceforge links appear to be long gone. As well, the linux version for XTreme is dead.

However the pertinent comments by Charles Moir regarding the merging of vector and bitmap functionality are still there as originally quoted. The point being that as long as 5 years ago, as you point out, that was the direction that Xara intended to go in. And recent versions from Xara seem to bear out the fact that it hasn't changed...

**behzad** · 12 July 2010, 01:22 AM

My answer would be, I wish illustrator would have some features from xara

**pauland** · 12 July 2010, 02:24 AM

Originally Posted by behzad

My answer would be, I wish illustrator would have some features from xara

Like, the lower price?
..and speed
..and responsiveness
..and

;-)

**alanti** · 12 July 2010, 09:15 AM

Actually, Corel Xara which I bought in 1995, had some very impressive bitmap handling features for a vector program back in those days. Anybody else remember the demo of the girl being given cats eyes

**tellurian** · 12 July 2010, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by pauland

Probably better tell Xara what you need in Photoshop that Xara doesn't do.

It doesn't have a real Clone/Stamp tool for example - the one in D6 is pretty useless as a general Clone tool, IMO.

**steve.ledger** · 12 July 2010, 10:41 PM

...only until you learn to use it

IMHO, it's a superior way to work.
The new clone tool is not so new - I was manually using the same method before the tool was simplified for DP6.

**Nostaw** · 13 July 2010, 02:38 AM

For cloning, I'm still using a similar method as Sledger's, including resizing and rotating different parts. Ultimately, a bitmap program does a better job. The new heal tool in CS5 is simply amazing.

**highfrontier** · 13 July 2010, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by tellurian

It doesn't have a real Clone/Stamp tool for example - the one in D6 is pretty useless as a general Clone tool, IMO.

If you've got a single area that needs cloning, then it's great.. and editable, but it's not as intuitive, fast or art-like as the clone tool in photoshop. If you have more than one area cloned in Xara, the image gets obscured by the little 'marching ants'. I'm often making dozens if not hundreds of clone operations per image, making slight changes to brush size and opacity along the way.

The same is true for the other bitmap editing tools - the approach is a vector one with too much emphasis on precise definition rather than fast, roll-up-your-sleeves pixel pushing. Both approaches have their place and the Xara workflow is spot on for vector but not bitmap painting operations.

If it's possible to have a pixel editing mode, with clone, heal, magic wand, brush, etc. that would make it less necessary to go into Photoshop. Alternatively, and a bit out of leftfield - I wonder if it's possible to embed the photoshop UI in context inside Xara.. Assuming you've got PS.