Do you find the Live Effects Tool in Xtreme useful?

I thought Level Control ws a very useful addition. I look at my AutoFX plugins and try to duplicate the effect in XXP. Those plugins don't run in XXP.

So Saturation painting was a method to locally increase saturation. I thought the rainbow worked well, too.

I like Super Blade Pro for texturizing my textures, and XXP in general for blending and creating textures.

Mezzoforce Ice is good for creating a textural overlay.

Akvis Sketch work nicely. I don't see a progress bar in V3 from XXP or XPEP. I see a bar in Photoshop.

White and black elimators are useful. Although XXP bitmap transparency works.

I use some color adjustment plugins.

I use AutoFX Gel for making Reflection maps in conjunction with Xara.

Rich

Like i stated in the thread of Ivan about the erasertool.

I like to use deeppaint 2.0 as (semi) live effect tool to do some paint and erase work and applying psplugins that only work with a selection.
also i use classic eraser by mehdi,pagecurl,knoll lightfactory and optikverve labs(Virtual Photographer) for creating similarfeel to pictures.


Gr,Hans

I find them extremely useful but I think they should be better known. Specially for their ability to add a more natural look or simulate natural media.
Perhaps more tutorials should be written specifically for them. I would have more time. For example I think that the benefits of using Bitmap feathering instead of ordinary feathering in some cases are invaluable.

kindly,
ivan

I use it very, very sparingly. For most of what I do, I don't need it. Additionally it adds a lot to the file size which I don't care for either. But, once in a while it's fun to play with.
I could get by without it.
ron

I would encourage to use them ! They are really easy to use and with some experiment one can obtain amazing effects.

Here are some single lines with effects applied and below a combination using Genuine Eraser, a free Mehdi plugin found on their site.

A PS plugin Artistic/Poster Edges was applied to the whole thing afterwards.

kindly,
ivan

I need them, I am addicted to them, I need more. ;)

But I lately start to discover that i can do some effects
without using a plugin, Who knows, maybe I slowly
will come away from my addiction, but certainly not
cold turkey.

I use filters a lot but not that many that are live effects specific
but I just know that if it were to disappear from xara the tables would turn instantly
tis the law of s[murphy]od

Personnally I think that pixel displacements effects have a great future for the treatment of lines or edges of flat color surfaces before using other effects. I often use the "jiggle" from Eye Candy. This is a whole new domain of investigation. This kind of displacement could be also based on a bitmap mask, or it could use fractal algorithms. Perhaps they could develop their own at Xara ?

Now tracing the effects obtained is also very interesting, but for pure black and white lines I prefer Inkscape tracer.

kindly,
ivan

I dont use them now, but I think they have great potential.
Probably most of old Xara users need some time to fully realize that potential.

P.S. I think few general bitmap abilities should become more interactive.
For example, Levels. I want to see changes in bitmap directly on Xara canvas, not in XPE window. Assume I use blending mode for bitmap, so I first need to set levels and accept changes. Only then I will see result.

I suggest to add separate tool for bitmap adjustment.

I think live effects are great:D
They save me a lot of time!