Image and text skewing / distorting megathread

[Rob-Xar]

Do you have any Xar files showing this? What angelize did with text in the example xar file she sent was absolutely perfect.

Thanks

[robisindy]

Hi all,

Apologies for my absence lately, holidays and sickness's have been straining support lately and keeping me busy. I'll try to poke into the forums some more in the coming days.

I understand there has been a bit a explosion of disagreement over the latest change to prevent the squashing and distortion of text. Truthfully this change is new to me also, and I believe the decision was made with the intention of preventing users (especially new users) from accidentally distorting their images and text. With text especially for websites, this would get exported as 100% aspect ratio so the changes wouldn't be seen.

As a work around, you could use the mould tool (Shift + F6), or alternatively select the image with the fill tool, hold Ctrl + Shift and drag one of the handles. This will stretch the image, and to uncrop it you can select the photo enhance tool, then click the photo and drag the side handles as normal. This will only work for images, for text I'm afraid you would still have to use the mould tool.

It's also been requested of me to gather some examples of text and image distortion for those higher up so I can show them the usefulness of it to them. If you guys can send me some examples that would be fantastic and I can send it onto them.

I know emotions are running high at the moment but please keep it civil and on-topic. If I can get back to management with some constructive comments and examples, we can make this work for you If you have anything else you want me to look into, please either PM me or start a new thread, let's keep this to text and image distortion issues.

Many thanks
Rob

I know I'm late to the party here, but I just upgraded to the latest version and I cannot believe this change. Very, very frustrating.

I do advertising layouts, and at times I have to recreate someone's logo. Often they have a logo which uses text that has been distorted by the original designer, and they do not have vectorized artwork even though in many cases they've been using the logo for many years. And now this change has made that a much more time-consuming and challenging process.

I also layout a monthly newspaper that utilizes a graphic with information that is updated each month. The process in the past to place this graphic in the layout each month was very simple: import a screenshot of a page from a spreadsheet, crop the edges, and then set the size to fit the dimensions of the space that the graphic fits in. This requires some distortion of the image, but it still looks fine. Now I can no longer even do this in Xara. I have to open the screenshot in the old version that I fortunately still have on another computer, set the size on there, export a new image to my network drive, and then import it into the new program. Ridiculous!

The lack of thought that must have gone into this bizarre choice amazes me, and I am disgusted to see that a promised fix is now months overdue. This definitely makes me rethink recommending Xara to others.

[cmpan1]

I have to say that I DO agree that the method of stretching images and text has changed and there's a small learning curve for it, I don't find it all that disconcerting...

Maybe I'm wrong or missing something. So straighten me out if this is so.

This, to me, is still a simple matter. Here's what I've been doing.

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Put an image on the page... Put a text line on the page.... then simple

1. disable the aspect ratio box
2. select the image or text
3. hold down the shift and pull, push and stretch a handle to your hearts content

shift will adjust 2 sides at once
and alt will do 1 sides

oh... yes... for pics, you DO have to activate the mold tool.... but not use it to reshape.... yes, that's a slight pain... LOL

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And for those who say it's too many steps... to click the aspect box and hold shift, well, I don't get it. It's not like this action is a common one that's done very often in the creation of a page or whatever....

Am I wrong?

Cliff

[ss-kalm]

I'm sorry Cliff, but it's not that simple. Using the IMAGE RESOURCES > PHOTO CLIPART > DICE, and following your instructions to squash it, it goes from this:



to this:



or this:



since Xara has now taken control and decided that it has to do an intelligent resize which is a): Clearly not correct, and b): Not what the designer wanted.

I'm beginning to hate software that thinks it knows better than I do, what "I" want to do!

and what is intuitive about having to NOW ALSO use the MOULD tool. I find the Mould tool a pain in the arse to control at the best of times. With it you have to control the corners and CAN"T possibly move them all exactly horizontal or exactly vertical. It always distorts somewhere, and that's what Xara were trying to avoid by changing the behaviour.

And don't get me started about where has all the clipart gone ...

No sorry, the old way was simple and intuitive. Why does it now have to be complicated.

[handrawn]

It's not like this action is a common one that's done very often in the creation of a page or whatever....

Am I wrong?

Cliff

well in my case yes you are wrong... but also right...

wrong because when I did this in Xara Designer I did it a lot

right because I now do it a lot in Affinity/Illustrator

I'm beginning to hate software that thinks it knows better than I do, what "I" want to do!

I know what you mean Keith... but playing the devil's advocate, Xara are doing what they think will make them money, that's what business does; it can be very frustrating....

I don't make 'pages' I don't make websites - There are no strings that keep me tied to 'Store Xara' - 'Store Adobe' will give me Illustrator for £240 a year, not upgrading Xara pays for a sizeable chunk of that... for me that is a commercial decision, just like the ones Xara, Adobe, etc make...

[iamtheblues]

¿Snark? ~ ¿Moi?
Bob.

[handrawn]

far be it from me to cause you agony in 8 fits