Cartoonist requesting help and Xara veterans' insight.

[TDolce]

Hello,

It's been awhile for me since my last post, but I'm returning to the pursuit of my cartoon dreams.(Finally after a 5 year hiatus)

As I have completed most of my character development for my forthcoming comic strip and cartoon, I have noticed something quite frustrating that I'm sure many of you may already be familiar with as veteran Xara users.
I have a few big issues with Xara that are killing me at the time because other than this, I absolutely LOVE this gem of a program! I use it for ALL of my cartooning and want it to be my app of choice for this series, but these issues are killing me.

They are:
The colors are not WYSIWYG!!! I have the colors exactly as I want them on my monitor, but when I print, (oh boy, when I print) the results are colors that are not as they appear on my screen. What can be done and do I need to go with PMS numbers and ignore the visual aspect? Of course then they will look like garbage on my screen. Has anyone else had this issue? Is there a certain color scheme or menu I can choose from in Xara that prints more accurately to what is on the workspace?

Issue 2: Printing from a native XARA format (for me) is like driving through a blinding snow storm with an eye patch over one eye. It requires luck, patience, persistance and a whole lot of prayer to get the results you're expecting. I almost never get it positioned right and if I have shadows, the odds steadily stack up against me. Anyone else have this problem?

Issue 3: If Xara has one other flaw, it has to be it's export function. If I'm wrong,..please educate me on this. Because of the color issue above, I decided to export my files to other formats to see how they would print from other apps like my Photoshop and Corel Draw. It seems that when I use a few layers and/or shadows, the exported files take anything white in the character and turn it to a bland grey. I noticed this moreso in .tiff format. Again,..any ideas would be appreciated.

As a closer, I have heard somewhere that Xara X may actually have an upgrade forthcoming. As I love Xara as it is and pray that it doesn't get altered into something unfamiliar, I do wish that that they would address the issues mentioned above as for me, these are the only things that stand in the way of Xara X being the best program available today!

Thanks in advance,

Todd

[Squeaky]

What Ho Todd:
Cartoonist answering!
Xara is my weapon of choice for my published illustrations and i my opinion it's colour handling is very good indeed. What I do is work with the CMYK preview option turned on. I keep it turned on when I export as a png into photoshop and when I do the actual CMYK translation there I get very little colour shift. Contrary to what you hear colour is never wysiwyg. There are just too many variables! After years of seeing my work printed on cheap paper I am starting to relax a bit about it.

I can't help with the printing issues as I don't use it much, neither can I help with the grayness (Haven't seen it) But I can confirm that Xara seem to be working on a new version and that it will have a new shadow icon http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Home sweet home:
Http://www.squeakypics.co.uk
http://www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/dc3/index.htm
http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/gallery/

[TDolce]

Dave,

You're the guy who led me to Xara X awhile back! That probably was one of the single most biggest and brightest moves I did in 2003 (following your lead and downloading the trial)!

Hey, not to sound any more moronic than I can be, when you say CMYK preview option turned on, are you simply referring to the Color editor and having CMYK selected?

Or are you referring to the window menu up top and having printer colors checked?

Or both? Or neither?

I fixed the gray issue finally, but still Xara does not print very consistently straight out of Xara X. This still could be a printer driver issue moreso than a Xara issue, but I will continue to explore this issue at home.

The color management thing will have to be explored deeper because if you're doing it,...then by golly I should hope to be able to get it to work too. I too use Photoshop 7 and 8, but have been exporting out of Xara as .tiffs rather than .pngs. I like .pngs a bunch as I use that format for work alot.

Off the record Dave,...when you say that you don't print much, I assume that your clients handle that end of it on their own. What format do you save and send your work as for your clients? Png, psd, tga, tiff?

td

[This message was edited by Todd P. Dolce on February 25, 2004 at 13:46.]

[jclements]

Todd,

Try this ... printing as a bitmap directly to your printer.

[raynerj]

Hello Todd,

I have had some luck saving the files as a illustrator file and then using illustrator to convert the collors to cmyk. It does a pretty good job.

http://www.draginet.com/dragon.gif
John/DOT

[TDolce]

Thanks guys!

I'm getting closer now! Prints are looking better. I'll keep playing with this. As long as I can get a nice and accurate color print in some fashion, I'll be happy. Pretty weird though that when I select "show printer colors" from the Window menu everything on the workspace gets desaturated and looks very dark and dull. Hmmm.

Oh well,...I'll keep pluggin! I'm creating a model sheet for my sculptor so that he can create a maquette statue for me. A great model reference. $1500.00 bucks though!! That's a whole lotta change!!!!

td

[Squeaky]

Todd:
Glad you are back. I am constantly suprised how few of us Cartoony types seem to use Xara.

I deliver my work as CMYK tiffs or photoshop files if I am feeling well disposed to the client (and they need transparency.) They then generally shoe horn them into Quark express and then have them printed in some out of the way country where print is cheap. In these cases monkeying around with the Epson is pointless as the final result will never look anything like it's output.

The CMYK of which I speak is under the 'window' tab and is actually called 'show printer colours' (Sorry about the confusion) I believe that to get the best from this your colours should be mixed using CMYK method.
I vaguely remember someone posting a template file for CMYK colours on the Xara Xone ages ago. It might come in handy if it is still there.

Hope this helps.

Home sweet home:
Http://www.squeakypics.co.uk
http://www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/dc3/index.htm
http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/gallery/