Tutorial on using guides and snapping

[Burpee]

Watched Gary's video on creating seamless tiles but it raised a couple of questions. He does not mention snapping to a grid so that his tile will be whole pixels. It's all and good to make the nudge the same size as your rectangle/square, I get that, but how does he know that he won't have any semi-transparent (or whitish if bitmapped) pixels since he places the original square anywhere on the workspace.

The other issue is that he makes a bitmap copy. Whenever I have tried to use the bitmap copy function I get a pixelated bmp. I didn't used to get pixelated bitmap copies but one day they just started coming up all pixelated. I asked here about it and no one had an answer so I always export as PNG now. That was XX5Pro. I'll have to try it in P&GD7 and see if it's better.

Now to follow through Gary Priester's Xzone tut. Looks like that covers more of the snapping.

[ad1066]

If you get a pixelated image when creating a bitmap copy, try upping the dpi. It's always better to start with a high dpi image and export it to something lower afterward.

-- Ben

[Burpee]

Thanks Ben. I was getting the pixelation when converting my finished vectors with the bitmap tool. I will investigate again.

I just finished watching Angelize's two tutorials on using Xara and Filter Forge to make a pumpkin. Very nice tut. What I found the most exciting though is to see that Xara now has an eraser and a shape builder tool. I want those. For years I heard people asking for an eraser. Didn't think it was possible. Very cool.

[angelize]

I know we are getting off topic here but the eraser and shapebuilder are very cool I use them a lot. They are in the latest versions of Designer Pro and photo and graphic designer but if you want the shapebuilder you will have to upgrade to designer Pro X. I recommend that as they work together and having both makes the work flow better.

[handrawn]

Nancy - look at the view tab in options and make sure that 'never smooth' is not ticked - also if you use live effects make sure the default resolutions on the effects and plugins tab are set high enough

Egg - not so far behind you

[Burpee]

Good suggestions handrwn. I didn't think about those settings. It's possible that I changed something by mistake as I'm sure that I used to not have issues with bitmap copies.