Tracing with the magnetic lasso tool

[angelize]

I have found that the magnetic lasso is a wonderful tool for tracing. When you use the lasso to trace an object in a photo you are creating a vector shape on a mask layer. Now remember that ctrl +C and Ctrl+V can be used to cut out a piece of your photo? That piece is a duplicate photo clipped inside a vector shape so if you just change the fill of that piece to flat you have a completely vector shape.

There are also two more very handy shortcuts for the lasso tool that are really helpful
1. T toggles the magnetic lasso on and off just like the button on the info bar so you can easily switch to quick freehand tracing of areas that are difficult for the lasso tool.
2.like many other of Xara's drawing tools holding down the Alt key constrains the lasso tool to straight lines.

Attached is a WIP (it still needs shading and textures) I imported a photo of an orchid from pixabay and set up my document so the nudge size matches the width of the photo. The rest of my workflow for tracing is something like this:

trace the shapes with the lasso tool toggling the tool on and off as needed
ctrl+c to copy
ctrl+shift+v to paste in place
right arrow to nudge
change the fill to flat and set the colour