now that effect brushes are real...

I've been waiting for this forever it seems (maybe not as long as others) but it's a really quick timesaver touch up and edit photos within xara itself...but let's go and round up all the standard fatures in there too...

Here's some ideas:

Blur Brush - creates solid shape that applies the 'blur/focus' effect within the standard photo settings.
Smear Brush - smears pixels of the image in the direction of the brush stroke (with adjustable strength).
Sharpen Brush - same as blur brush, but sharpens the underlying portion of the image instead of blur it.

I know guassian blur is a bit processor instensive, but we're coming up in the era of plenty in terms of excessive graphical power... :)

I think in conversations I get into with people about the software I use when they ask, these are probably the main things I bring up in terms of 'weakness' in Xara, and that's intuitive and quick photo touch ups. It's possible now, but it's on Xara's terms and not in terms of 'expectations based on incoming bias' (read: someone is only used to pixel editors).

Just my 2 cents.