New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
Weve just released a new version of Photo & Graphic Designer. As always you can find an overview of whats new on our website @ http://www.xara.com/photo-graphic-designer/whats-new/ and detailed information in the Release Notes @ http://releasenotes.xara.hosting/pgd365/ but here are some of the highlights:
Paint on photo effects with the new Photo Effect painter
25+ photo filter presets in the Online Content Catalog
Magnetic Lasso for quick and easy cut-outs
New XProcess option in the photo enhance tool
New color dodge & burn transparency blend modes
Google Material Design icons added to the symbol library
New SmartShapes such as charts, text panels, photo grids and a new spiral
Enhanced Content Catalog with search and an integrated stock photo library
Improved Word, PDF, RTF and PSD support
Like Web Designer it benefits from the Update Guarantee, you can find out more about that on http://www.xara.com/update-guarantee/
We hope you enjoy the new version!
Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
From my first look there are some very nice improvements. And the Stock Photos Collection (Content Catalog) is worth the price of the program alone. Note to users who don't see any photos in the Content Catalog, enter a keyword or two in the new Search box and it shall be revealed.
The paint on photo effects give you more control over editing just a portion of a photo.
The new intuitive controls for editing photos (rotate, resize, round corners, etc.) are going to be a real time saver and the similar new controls on smart shapes are something to check out.
Dodge and Burn blend options are a welcome edition to the transparency filters.
Nicely done.
Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
I'm waiting for Designer Pro so I am hoping these may still be coming, but the lack of any more improvements on the brushes is disappointing. I'm not sure about the photo presets I can see them being useful if you could save your own and adjust the intensity or opacity of the preset as a whole. Maybe when DP is out and I've had a chance to try them.
The stock photos from Pixabay sound really good, I've used pixabay before and already have an account with them so will be looking forward to seeing how that works. If there will be access to the whole pixabay library from within Xara that will be wonderful, there are photos, vector artwork and videos on pixabay as well.
Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
Would have upgraded anyway, but now I am really looking forward to the release of the new version of Designer Pro.
Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
Gah, I feel like I just upgraded from 10. :\
But I do like that new photo process brush. I was just thinking about that being a real photo editing weakness today and next thing I know, it's in there....
can't upgrade till next paycheck, but this looks like a much better upgrade than 11 was from 10.
Also, can anyone report if the effect brush works on non-photo shapes?
Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
What's more important is the way the software is delivered. Xara sell's a license to use the software and in return for your money you also get a year free of updates. From the website: "For the 365 days from purchase you’ll get access to new feature, updates and content. At the end of the 365 days you can choose to upgrade again, or not. If you choose not to, then the online services (the online Content Catalog) will be removed or restricted (these are online services anyway that would typically be part of a subscription"
That is an interesting construction and though I'm really sympathetic towards Computer Concepts and the idea of selling this way of delivering software renders some questions. Are you entitled to upgrades when the product fails (i.e. you discover a bug after more then one year)? And what to do with a leap year?
And where is the Magix moniker?
Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Michael
...If you choose not to, then the online services (the online Content Catalog) will be removed or restricted (these are online services anyway that would typically be part of a subscription"
In XP Pro 11, every time I use the line gallery for the first time, it seems to download the corresponding files from the web when the gallery first opens up. If I update, will I lose the lines and arrowheads after a year? (I'm really not impressed by the current implementation of these 'protection' features, and if that is the way Xara is continuing in, is not something I will continue supporting.)
David
Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
David - Xara retarded the loading of the brushes until the user selects something from the Line Gallery. Loading the brushes was really increasing the time it took Designer to open. I am not sure if they download or just load on demand. I just tried this in Photo & Graphic Designer and it does the same thing but really fast.
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Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
Is anybody else seeing this? When I open Photo & Graphic Designer 365 I am getting some kind of white rectangle in the top left portion of the screen.
Re: New Version of Photo & Graphic Designer
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gwpriester
Is anybody else seeing this? When I open Photo & Graphic Designer 365 I am getting some kind of white rectangle in the top left portion of the screen.
I actually had weird graphic anomolies with Photo and Graphic similar to this. White boxes would appear overlayed on entire windows system and wouldn't go away until xara was closed. It happened again and again until I restared my computer. I couldn't recreate it, I'm guessing it was a graphic card memory leak.