New Xara Desktop Application Features

Dear Xara...

Matt Bolton, your CEO, stated in his Open Letter, "Xara Online will work seamlessly with Xara Desktop files which allows Desktop customers to reap the benefits of these complementary features."

The Premium Xara Cloud now boasts:

• "Photo AI to create a color [sic] scheme from any image". This is extended in the Team, to be released, "Photo AI with auto brand".
• "Import & export fully editable .pdf & .ppt documents"
• "Direct access to multiple free photo libraries"

I look forward to seeing these deployed into the Desktop applications.

Acorn

+1

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Matt Bolton, your CEO, stated in his Open Letter, "Xara Online will work seamlessly with Xara Desktop files which allows Desktop customers to reap the benefits of these complementary features."

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Seriously? Xara Online can't even handle layers. Don't even get me started!

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Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

Seriously? Xara Online can't even handle layers. Don't even get me started!

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But Egg, if Xara asserts that it can handle editable PDFs and PDF support layers therefore Xara Cloud...

Where has my syllogism gone wrong?

Acorn

Acorn, you use words I often have no understanding of and often have to Google. Syllogism is an example, but loved this explanation:

here's a quote from the xara designer pro features page:

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Xara Designer Pro has full support for importing and exporting Adobe Photoshop® PSD files including layer support.

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maybe someone from xara can explain why, if there is full support... including layer support... clip layers and effect layers are not supported... in what way do these not come under the heading of full ?

not supporting effect layers I can understand from a technical point of view, but not clip - even a program developed by just one person, paintool sai, can manage clip layer support, how come xara cannot?

either way, the use of full in your marketing is at best mis-leading and at worst disingenuous untruth

Let's be honest, here, Clip layers and Effects layers only exist because Photoshop is such a rubbish tool and that was the only way they could make that functionality work. OTOH, Xara allows you to apply all your effects non-destructively in the first place, no need to keep them on a separate layer, and it allows clip objects/groups. So the functionality is not only there but it is implemented in a far better way. You just need to adapt your workflow to take full advantage of it, rather than expect Xara to change to fit in with you.

you know Bones, some of us get fed up with the non-destructive way of doing things, for bitmaps at least, after the 100th time of having to make a bitmap copy to enable a feature to be applied to the current object's state [and not the underlying source object - bitmap tracer for example]

explain to me how I can paint inside a clipview object in xara without having to edit inside which then loses sight of the rest of the workspace and therefore the clipviewed object's context

Photoshop clip layers are excellent for this purpose...

Hey Bones! How long has it been?

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for bitmaps at least, after the 100th time of having to make a bitmap copy to enable a feature to be applied to the current object's state

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See attached.

yes and that is an additional step right...

since I dont need non distructive [because, dare I say it, I know what I am doing, and where I am going long term] it is yet another example of how the so called 'fast' progam is actually a drag

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Originally Posted by handrawn

you know Bones, some of us get fed up with the non-destructive way of doing things

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That's gold! I'm printing that out and putting it on the noticeboard at work where all my colleagues can laugh their arses off over it. Being able to edit bitmaps non-destructively is the most amazing thing in the history of graphic design. It's what makes Photoshop "rubbish".

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after the 100th time of having to make a bitmap copy to enable a feature to be applied to the current object's state [and not the underlying source object - bitmap tracer for example]

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Can you explain in a little more detail, please, because I've never had any problems even remotely like that. I gave up on bitmap tracing decades ago - it never works in any application. And isn't it more than somewhat disingenuous to be using the nickname "handrawn" if you are using bitmap tracers? (Yes, I am having a bit of fun at your expense, don't take it personally, I do it to people all the time.)

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explain to me how I can paint inside a clipview object in xara without having to edit inside which then loses sight of the rest of the workspace and therefore the clipviewed object's context

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Window | Arrange Views or Window | Cascade both allow you to see multiple files at once, so you can still see "the rest of the workspace" while you work "inside". Mind you, I think the ability to work inside groups and clipviews is one of the best features ever added to Xara. It makes life so much easier. Anything else I can help you with?

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Photoshop clip layers are excellent for this purpose...

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Possibly but not worth the nightmare of everything else. Much easier to work in After Effects or Combustion, both of which have been built from the ground up to be completely non-destructive and have workflows an order of magnitude better than Photoshop.

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Originally Posted by handrawn

yes and that is an additional step right...

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Which would still be half as many steps in total as you'd have to do from start to finish in Photoshop.

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since I dont need non distructive [because, dare I say it, I know what I am doing, and where I am going long term] it is yet another example of how the so called 'fast' progam is actually a drag

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So it's just a toy to you? Because I have a job and clients and I don't know what a client is likely to want until I show them something. If they take a look and say "that background is a bit too blurry", it's kind of nice to be able to say "no problem, I'll just wind it back a tad... how's that?", instead of "oh, can you come back after lunch, when I've had a chance to re-do it from scratch?"

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Window | Arrange Views or Window | Cascade both allow you to see multiple files at once, so you can still see "the rest of the workspace" while you work "inside". Mind you, I think the ability to work inside groups and clipviews is one of the best features ever added to Xara. It makes life so much easier. Anything else I can help you with?

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yes - you can explain to me how this lets you see what you are doing in real time, because unless i am doing it wrong, the 'new view' does not update until after you have finished your current stroke - not helpful to me ;)

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Can you explain in a little more detail, please, because I've never had any problems even remotely like that. I gave up on bitmap tracing decades ago - it never works in any application. And isn't it more than somewhat disingenuous to be using the nickname "handrawn" if you are using bitmap tracers? (Yes, I am having a bit of fun at your expense, don't take it personally, I do it to people all the time.)

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no problems with the fun - you can say what you like [and you just did in another thread when I was pulling your leg :D]

handrawn because my preference for cartoon line art is still to ink with a dip pen... Perry #27 EF are nice for example, if sometimes hard to find these days...

scanning that art in I can 'convert luminence to opacity' [technobabble for removing the background white in one go] and colour in a raster program... or.... I can trace the line art to vector and use break shapes to make shapes for colouring [not good if there is a lot of gaps in the lineart] - both methods have their benefits and drawbacks

a lot of my work now is for Harmony animation, and so it is pure digital if only because trying to do that by hand would take like forever... but I still do the handrawn stuff.... and anyway philosophically speaking, drawing with a mouse or a cintiq pen is still drawing with the hand... [I suppose I could stick the pen in my mouth....;))]

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

See attached

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Originally Posted by handrawn

yes and that is an additional step right...

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.

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and it [flatten photo group] does not work on clipped photograph does it.. so again no use to me unless I use photo groups which I hardly ever do