Photo & Graphic Designer 10 Released

[angelize]

I wondered about the photo looks, because it seemed similar to Perfect Effects by onOne. I got perfect effects a few months ago on a special promotion and I use it as an external editor with DP9. There are a few things like needing to make a bitmap copy to get the photo to load into PE but it makes quick work of a lot of complicated tasks and has masking tools. I think that I might be sticking with PE but we'll see once Designer Pro 10 comes out.

[handrawn]

I see there's a kind of "transform along path" in the smart shapes arrows, hope to see this feature working with any shape.

sadly no as far as I can see - it's just carefully positioned preset gradients

I did like the one about full PSD support. I hope that's the case. I have a PSD I can guarantee will fail sitting on my desktop. Well, at least it does in XDP X9...

it does not have 'full PSD support, including layers' - [how the heck could it have full PSD support, other than including layers I ask myself] - for a start clipping layers do not come in clipped, so 'full support' is just advertising crap

....

so what do I think...

colour select: it's mimicking what can be done, often better, elsewhere - but I guess if you only have the one program, useful

smart shapes: has potential, but needs more; for example unless I missed it there is no option to vary a line width non-uniformally and save as a stroke shape, that would have been cool

font awesome: pretty run-of-the-mill stuff

nothing here for me really so:



maybe the pro version will be better.....


PS: I did not notice any problems with my wacom bamboo pressure sensitivity - [I do have the wacom software installed] - but yes the fast drawing is same as ever, because of the time taken to recalculate the screen I understand; an example of vector being slower than raster...

[gwpriester]

The PhotoLooks presets have some similarities, actually a lot of similarities, but what is useful and offers a lot of potential is that each effect has several controls that allow you to either modify (improve?) upon the effect, or create your own effects using the extended photo editing tools.

At any rate, you can apply different effects until you find one that works well with a specific photo.

[mwenz]

...it does not have 'full PSD support, including layers' - [how the heck could it have full PSD support, other than including layers I ask myself] - for a start clipping layers do not come in clipped, so 'full support' is just advertising crap...

Photo & Graphic Designer has full support for importing and exporting Adobe Photoshop® PSD files including layer support.

Yeah, I knew it was marketing hype...which at its over the top nature just leads to frustration for people who are not smart enough to try before they buy.

...the claimed PDF improvements.

I looked and the only blurb I saw was about improved importing. Which is always a welcome thing in my book.

Is it [PDF export I am assuming] better... ready for prime time with both printers and Adobe software usage?

Not certain what to say here. I have had few issues exporting to PDF the type of assets I use in ID, QXP or PP. Much of the time I will actually export to EPS and use that in the mentioned applications which, in theory, ought to be more difficult to get right for those applications. I have had issues with some TG members' work produced as PDF in trying to help them. And there are absolutely some things that need fixed (like print on all plates), larger document size, etc, which would make XDP more useful to me. Oh, and PDF/x-4 (which likely will never happen).

But I mainly make assets for these other applications and the web. In that regard, CMYK and RGB output, whether as an illustration, ad, or web asset has always been the colors as designed, placable, and gone through those applications PDF routines just fine.

And DP 10 will probably have much more new stuff, right? Hopefully, a way to publish to Apple iBook format, or to .Epub? Needs to have something compelling to get users away fro Adobe software, like the $10 Photoshop they are selling for tablets...

Now that was funny. Not that you intended it to be so, Jon.

Now that ePub3 is becoming more used, an application like XDP for the creation of fixed ePubs would seem to be a no brainer...though I likely would still use Jutoh now that it is up to their 2.x release, it works great for them.

After seeing what is in P&GD 10's release, I have fairly low expectations over the forthcoming XDP release. I hope I am not disappointed.

[gracehjs]

I was interested in this. I just tried a PDF I had played with before. Before most words came in separately, now it has paragraphs that are much easier to edit. I will look more closely later.

I didn't read that Xara improved the PDF exporting in the blurbs. I didn't spend much time on their web site, though.

I did like the one about full PSD support. I hope that's the case. I have a PSD I can guarantee will fail sitting on my desktop. Well, at least it does in XDP X9...

[gpholman]

Anyone know if Xara intend to extend their Page and Layout Designer functionality? I'm thinking of a TOC ability mainly.

[Grenou]

I wrote a First Look review here http://xaraxone.magix.net/PGD10/

I think there is a lot of cool new stuff, especially some of the new photo filters. Have a look.

I never know what's better, the program or your description of it :-)

Six of each and half a dozen of the other methinks.

Thanks for First Look, it makes a person very eager to try all the new goodies.
Have downloaded it as I write :-)

Grenou

[jon404]

@ Mike W -- another Jutoh user! Made my day.

[luciandesign]

Can we create our own custom Smart Shapes?
This it would be a great feature!

[mwenz]

@ Mike W -- another Jutoh user! Made my day.

Best ePub creator there is on the PC. Especially for its price, I don't know why it isn't used in place of ID/QXP/PP by anyone on a PC...but it has always been in active development and it simply works. If you don't have version 2.x and still are making ePubs, I believe it is a free upgrade.

Mike