Missing Features from Review?

The review on Xara Xone of Photo & Graphic Designer 9 (located here) mentions Background Erase.

I am currently trying out Photo & Graphic Designer 9 (using the trial download). However, it only has the Color Select/Erase tool that the review describes as being "similar to Designer Pro X’s Color Select/Erase. With one major exception, Backagound Erase is 10 times better." Is the trial version of P&GD9 different from the full version? If it's not, them I am at a loss as to why the Background Erase does not even exist in the help documentation that I installed with the trial.

Moreover, Designer Pro X9's advanced feature list includes Link Copies. It doesn't exist in the P&GD9 trial either. Is that feature specific to DPX9, found in a different Xara product, or also missing from my trial?

Thank you :)

Background erase certainly does exist in PGD9 (trial) as explained by Gary in the article. Additionally it is explained in the Help file.

Attachment 97287


Yes, linked copies is a Pro feature only.
The Pro version has many features not available in the much cheaper (PGD9) version.

Hello Austin Welcome to Talkgraphics :)

First the background erase works like this: first use the photo mask painter to show the areas that you want to keep. the mask Painter is on the new flyout bar with the regoin painter and all the masking tools. Then select the eraser tool and use that to erase bits of the back ground this tells the program what you want to remove. Depending on your photo you may have to zoom in and get in close in areas where the background doesn't have a lot of contrast with the foreground object you want to mask out.

When you are done click the background eraser button on the eraser tool info bar and let Xara do it's magic :)

I assume when you say linked copies you mean Live copies and yes that's a Designer Pro only feature.

Thank you!

It never occurred to me that the Background Erase was a subset of the erase tool, blinded by my own preconception.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angelize

I assume when you say linked copies you mean Live copies and yes that's a Designer Pro only feature.

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I sure did.
That feature is very nice. I looked around on forums, and people thought that the Xara products had no such feature at all. Xara should not tuck it into the advanced features list. It is a huge time saver for certain projects.

Thank you. I'm that much closer to finding a Xara product to add to my workflow.
I have questions about advanced functionality of Page & Layout Designer 9. What topic would I post that in?

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Originally Posted by sledger

Yes, linked copies is a Pro feature only.
The Pro version has many features not available in the much cheaper (PGD9) version.

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Do you know where I could get a list of the extra features (I'm presuming features not included in the other two applications either)?
It's a shame that it is advertised as though it is just a combination of the other applications.

Thank you

Designer Pro X is the flagship application which has all the features of the much cheaper but more targetted applications for specific uses.

Xara Xtreme is now known as Photo & Graphic Designer
Xara Xtreme Pro is now the Designer Pro X

Web Designer is a web centric version of the Designer family
Page and Layer Designer is a text/document layout focussed version of the designer family

You can see the comparisons at
► http://www.xara.com/designer-pro/compare/

In short, Designer Pro X is the flagship product which the others are subsets of.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by =Austin=

I have questions about advanced functionality of Page & Layout Designer 9. What topic would I post that in?

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Xara Graphics Chat

I've also just posted a video demonstration of the background erase feature in action in that forum.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sledger

Designer Pro X is the flagship application which has all the features of the much cheaper but more targetted applications for specific uses.

Xara Xtreme is now known as Photo & Graphic Designer
Xara Xtreme Pro is now the Designer Pro X

Web Designer is a web centric version of the Designer family
Page and Layer Designer is a text/document layout focussed version of the designer family

You can see the comparisons at
► http://www.xara.com/designer-pro/compare/

In short, Designer Pro X is the flagship product which the others are subsets of.

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That is quite impressive. :)
Thank you for the info.

The live copies and multi-core support especially make the Pro version stand out to me. That's considerably more money to spend for those features alone, though. Do you know how Page & Layout Designer/DPX9 compares to Adobe InDesign for typesetting? PGD9's text editing appears fairly standard, which wouldn't be ideal for typesetting articles and the backs of book covers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by angelize

Xara Graphics Chat

I've also just posted a video demonstration of the background erase feature in action in that forum.

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Thank you. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by =Austin=

Do you know how Page & Layout Designer/DPX9 compares to Adobe InDesign for typesetting?

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I don't think it's any where near a competing product, yet. But you can try it for free for thirty days, then tell me :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sledger

I don't think it's any where near a competing product, yet. But you can try it for free for thirty days, then tell me :D

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Xara cannot/will not ever compete with ID, QXP, PagePlus, etc. I seriously doubt it will ever compete with a competent word processor in the area of text handling, tables, columns, page/section numbering, headers/footers, footnotes/endnotes, etc., etc., etc.

What would be more apt to compare the direction of Xara would be Illustrator amongst the Adobe products. In this regard, it also falls short of the text handling at this stage of Xara's enhanced text features.

Mike

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mwenz

Xara cannot/will not ever compete with ID, QXP, PagePlus, etc. I seriously doubt it will ever compete with a competent word processor in the area of text handling, tables, columns, page/section numbering, headers/footers, footnotes/endnotes, etc., etc., etc.

What would be more apt to compare the direction of Xara would be Illustrator amongst the Adobe products. In this regard, it also falls short of the text handling at this stage of Xara's enhanced text features.

Mike

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After downloading it and playing with it for a while, it is even behind Word at typesetting. It isn't too far behind Illustrator at text, but it's stretching to call it a page and layout design program. If it was closer to a typesetting program like ID with more advanced word processing comparable to Word, it would be extremely valuable by itself. It currently doesn't seem different enough from PGD.

Hi Austin and welcome to TalkGraphics.

This discussion might prove more informational and straightforward if you accept a different paradigm for Xara's flagship product, Designer Pro, and consider that all the other products are subsets of the flagship.

The "cheap" versions are intended to address specific needs for the individual artist or designer; the price is right, and I'm quite impressed that The Xara Group chose to put as much of the flagship product into the others.

What this does, marketing-wise, is that for just about everyone except the hardcore DTP professional, is it provides a very reasonably priced product that runs several times faster than the competition.

I'd prefer to think of Xara Designer Pro as a vector program that is so much more than a vector drawing program instead of concluding that it alone doesn't compete with InDesign or Photoshop.

Sort of in the same way you could call a mobile device a poor substitute for a desktop computer, or "so much more than a telephone".

It's a matter of perspective, largely. I know that this iteration of the product has features that keep me in the program instead of obliging me to step out to program X or Y. As a standalone, it does its job as a drawing program, and also has more basic non-vector creative features than any other standalone I can think of, offhand.

My Best,

Gary