Designer Pro X pastes images as jpeg?

Hi!
I'm a long time user (probably about 20 years now!) and advocate of Xara Designer, but it's been the first time in many years I've actually had a question about it...

I've noticed recently that when I copy and paste an image from Windows' snipping tool into Xara, it's started to import them as JPEGs not as bitmaps as I would expect it to.
Does anyone know where the option is to set this behaviour?
I've tried changing the settings under Options -> View tab -> Bitmaps, but it doesn't seem to apply to images imported from the clipboard.

Any ideas?

Thanks :D

-Soen

JPEG is a bitmap.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by soeno

Hi!
I'm a long time user (probably about 20 years now!) and advocate of Xara Designer, but it's been the first time in many years I've actually had a question about it...

I've noticed recently that when I copy and paste an image from Windows' snipping tool into Xara, it's started to import them as JPEGs not as bitmaps as I would expect it to.
Does anyone know where the option is to set this behaviour?
I've tried changing the settings under Options -> View tab -> Bitmaps, but it doesn't seem to apply to images imported from the clipboard.

Any ideas?
Thanks :D
-Soen

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Soen, I have just tried a free-form snip and save as PNG.

It does not appear to have an alpha channel (no transparency).

Xara would never have imported an image as a "bitmap" (.BMP); the Bitmap gallery is a store of images awaiting your decision on how they are to be displayed (JPG, PNG).

If you want a PNG of the image on your design page, use Web Properties > Image > Web image types, set to PNG.
Even if you place a transparent PNG on your design page, Xara will render it as a JPG with the background bordering the PNG included.
Only when you declare it to be PNG, does it remain so.

Acorn

when you paste from snip [ at least when I do in ver 15.1] it shows as 'bitmap' in the design gallery and on the status bar - this may have changed to jepg in ver 16, I don't know - if I save it from the gallery xara chooses jepg as default format so it may always have been a jepg bitmap in the first place from snip ? ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

when you paste from snip [ at least when I do in ver 15.1] it shows as 'bitmap' in the design gallery and on the status bar - this may have changed to jepg in ver 16, I don't know - if I save it from the gallery xara chooses jepg as default format so it may always have been a jepg bitmap in the first place from snip ? ...

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Apologies to Soeno!

I have just done the same with v11 and the import is a PNG with transparency.
The Snipping tool export as PNG does not include transparency though.

Could a kind Mod move this Thread to Dear Xara forum as it is another unresolved bug?
It fails in v16.
It fails in v15.
It fails in v12.
It works in v11.
No wonder I keep all the version available to get through this morass.

Acorn

right I can cross check that in ver 11 - sure you will be right though ;)

PS the windows snip is due to be repaced by 'snip and sketch' currently that new feature/app does not have free-form [mode] snip afaik

Thread moved to Dear Xara and flagged as a bug.

thanks gary

acorn - confirmed, alpha in ver 11 but not in ver 15.1

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Thread moved to Dear Xara and flagged as a bug.

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Thank you Gary.

Acorn

Hi Soeno

I believe this was an intended change made in version 12 and can be controlled by the following registry key

key name: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Xara\XtremePro x64\16\Options\Filters ( alter the version number to match your version)
Value name: OptimiseJpegFromPng

With the program closes, right click on the value name and select modify. Change the value data from 1 to 0 and click on OK.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bb2

Hi Soeno

I believe this was an intended change made in version 12 and can be controlled by the following registry key

key name: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Xara\XtremePro x64\16\Options\Filters ( alter the version number to match your version)
Value name: OptimiseJpegFromPng

With the program closes, right click on the value name and select modify. Change the value data from 1 to 0 and click on OK.

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Bhavesh, just tried the Registry change - no difference to v16 action, still a rectangular blob with no transparency.

Why ever "optimise" a PNG that may have transparency into a JPEG with none?

Acorn

that rings a bell -I am sure the key is actually Clipboard/PasteAlpha

in ver 11 if set to 1 it pastes with alpha, if set to 0 it pastes without

but in ver 15.1 it makes no difference both settings paste without alpha

and interestingly if you save as PNG from the snip tool it has no alpha [even though it pastes with alpha into xara ver 11] it does not paste into affinity photo or photoshop with alpha ....

... for the record it does not appear to work in ver 12 either

of course, if the MS changes to snip tool [and clipboard?] mean that only rectangular snips are available in the new tool, then alpha will not be an option anyways....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by handrawn

... for the record it does not appear to work in ver 12 either
of course, if the MS changes to snip tool [and clipboard?] mean that only rectangular snips are available in the new tool, then alpha will not be an option anyways....

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Thanks, reset my Registry back and tried Clipboard/PasteAlpha in v16 - no change!

Acorn

Neither work for me too.

The strangest thing is that if you set the external editor in utilities>options>photo editing to paint.net or even affinity photo,the transparency is honored.
Nowadays I set paint.net to my photo editor for ps-plugins(as some don't work great in xara) and copy paste selections back and forth to xara and affinity.

I agree with Acorn. If that was an intended change, can someone explain the rationalization behind it? It really seems like a backward step to me. If we want a png, we generally do so specifically for the transparency.

Yes, this seems like odd behavior - I *think* if my memory serves correctly, native windows bitmaps don't support alpha transparency on the clipboard, but the PNG format does (and of course the windows clipboard can hold multiple formats of the data at the same time). So I'm not too bothered by the lack of alpha; it's more a problem that I screenshot CSS changes on websites to build side-by-side comparison boards, but unfortunately the jpeg compression causes artefacts; not that it stops me using it like that, it's just that the end result isn't as high quality as I would like (or I expect, tbh, Xara has always been excellent at producing great looking graphics).

you can save it from the snip tool as a PNG and then import it into xara - that will not have alpha but it might help with the artifacts, although that depends on what is causing them..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by soeno

Yes, this seems like odd behavior - I *think* if my memory serves correctly, native windows bitmaps don't support alpha transparency on the clipboard, but the PNG format does (and of course the windows clipboard can hold multiple formats of the data at the same time). So I'm not too bothered by the lack of alpha; it's more a problem that I screenshot CSS changes on websites to build side-by-side comparison boards, but unfortunately the jpeg compression causes artefacts; not that it stops me using it like that, it's just that the end result isn't as high quality as I would like (or I expect, tbh, Xara has always been excellent at producing great looking graphics).

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I successfully can alpha-snip through the Clipboard directly into XWDPv11 - Attachment 123191.

Acorn

I basically think Xara is picking up the 24bit bitmap from the Snipping Tool and for some reason it converting it to jpeg for some reason; of course alpha-transparent snips (which would be 32bit on the clipboard) will be detected as a different clipboard data type (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/win...pboard-formats) and therefore remains uncompressed/converted to PNG. Seems a weird assumption to think that any 24bit bitmap pastes into Xara should ever be converted to jpeg, but it's likely just to be silly bug; I'm guessing the import from file and import from clipboard go through a unified function and someone's just overlooked the latter workflow.

maybe - but does anyone know of any other program where free-form snip pastes in with alpha - it does not appeare to work for me with affinity photo, photoshop, sai, corel painter or inkscape even...

BTW - when i paste into xara ver 15.1 the bitmap gallery still declares it as a 'bitmap' not a 'jpeg' - I'm not totally clear where the idea that it pastes in as a jpeg comes from....

Just tried it here. It's doing something "clever" and slightly unpredictable... It pastes an uncompressed bitmap sometimes, and JPEG other times. I can't quite figure out the pattern here. It appears to be doing some content-aware detection to see whether the content has a lot of "detail" and then compresses it if it is very detailed. And all of these captures came from the windows snapshot tool.

Attachment 123194

- The last two screenshots are the most interesting because this is the same chrome tab/process. I should try with another screenshot tool to see if I get the same results. Weird!

(Edit: This is Xara Designer Pro X v15.1.0.53605 May 3rd 2018)

ok from xara help: [ver 15.1]

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Automatic conversion to JPEG

The JPEG image format is usually the best choice for photo images, because it maintains high quality with smaller file sizes. So when you import non-JPEG photo files, Xara Designer Pro X will examine the image to see if it would be more appropriate as a JPEG. If so, a prompt is shown giving you the option to convert it to JPEG on import. This reduces the size of your document files and reduces memory usage when editing.

When pasting in images from the clipboard, the same analysis is done and the image is imported as JPEG if that's appropriate. This is done silently with no prompts. This is particularly useful when copying and pasting in images from web browsers because although the images are often JPEGs in the web page, some browsers don't communicate this to the clipboard.

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note the second paragraph - you appear not to be given a choice - xara yet again thinks it knows best.. stupid, stupid, stupid

In other words it isn't a bug but a deliberate choice.
So if it was in one of the previous versions why can't they put back in?
They can't say the base code is that different because the desktop didn't get that much overhaul,now did it.

because they try to make it 'simple' for their target users at the expense of others?

'often JPEG' is the phrase note... so you have to ask who are they aimimg at

if you want alpha regardless you have to download, not copy paste; if you can't [easily] download I guess maybe the argument is you should not be doing it

what irritates me is that the program automatically assumes it knows what should be optimised to JPEG.. no no no

Yeah, as a UX Developer I'm a little taken aback by this decision. Again, Xara Designer is a professional level program, it shouldn't try to be clever as it's used by people who tend to be experts; it should be, in the very least, an option if not a dialog prompt with an option to save the setting.

Yes,bury options because the users we aim at are just plain stupid and can't decide how to work with transparency and don't know what a png is.