What is a 'professional' tool?

[Josie]

I think that you are in some mistake Josie.... Now Corel isnt that it was.

Yes, it is, Minimiro. Even in the latest X3 version. Buggy and slow.

[David O'Neil]

I know here I am stating the obvious, but "tools used by professionals".

Exactly. If you are a professional circle maker, it is a tool that allows you to make circles. At one time, this was a string with a tack (or your thumb) on one end and a writing implement on the other.

[steve.ledger]

I've seen plenty of amature Web designers use Dreamweaver where professionals use Notepad.

In my universe, a professional is a person who is skilled at their work and likely derives their primary income from that work.
The tools they choose to carry out their work has very little to do with it.


I'm with Albacore too.

[Nostaw]

Theory:

A professional tool allows you to "create" in a easy way (lessest mouse clicks possible) a specifc result and to reuse its data (by exporting) it for further processing in todays modern formats to be compatible within a workchain.

Today's tools are not designed to solve solutions in one program only - therefore - input and output options must be given to import and export data to communicate and be compatible with other modern/todays programs for further editing and modification.

[haakoo]

Hi,

A proffesional tool is what men use to reach the endgoal
It could therefor be anything you want.

If i would hang a painting on the wall,a proffesional would put a nail in with a hammer
But if you only have a screw and no screwdriver what then?
U still can put the screw in the wall by using your shoe.

So in the end the tools you use don't matter just your imagination

Hans

[pauland]

Today's tools are not designed to solve solutions in one program only - therefore - input and output options must be given to import and export data to communicate and be compatible with other modern/todays programs for further editing and modification.

This is a really important point. Xara needs to integrate into a professional workflow seamlessly. Whatever anyone thinks about Adobe, it is the de-facto industry standard toolset and Xara needs to bring in and export content from modern versions of these products to be able to establish itself in commercial pipelines. It's not really satisfactory to only support very old versions of Adobe software.

[minimiro]

....

Nope I cant agree with that
X3 is a biggest positive step created once from Corel or someone other in this business.
I cant remember where I read some statistics, but if I remember well it was word about 100 000 adobe fans transformed to Corel X3 users
Believe, this is not small pain to adobe

If we talk about speed.... if you can say that X3 is slow I cant imagine how you would name Illustrator

Here I have one friend and colegue pre-presser which is one of the biggest hard-liners of Illustrator, so with him we always have dispute which is better corel or Illustrator.... believe me he still cant believe that corel X3 work without any problems with transperency over pantone, alpha transperency tif with dropshadow over pantones, photoshop PSD with pantone channels imported (imported not linked!) direct in X3 and etc etc.... and everything this work just perfect.

Like was said in one review in inet, Corel again notify that they are still one of the biggest players in graphics professional business...

I have dream that someday Xara can be 3th player...

[w00dy]

I'd go along with Sledger's definition of a professional... golf pro's don't give lessons for free and and most everywhere else but Talkgraphics, people don't give their trade secrets away!

Professional... sometimes read "overkill", the majority of the time these so-called professional apps are used at a very low level of expertise. OK, top-notchers will extend Illustrator, Corel or Xara but most end-users only scratch the surface. What really does me in is when somebody is spouting that they use Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and I know full well that it's a hooky copy off the net. I use Xara because I can afford it, it's licensed and it's mine... as I would suspect is the case with the majority of Xara users.

[raynerj1]

I've seen plenty of amature Web designers use Dreamweaver where professionals use Notepad.

I couldn't agree more!

I remember a story from way, way back when I was a kid. this nobleman wanted to have a portrait done and he gathered together all the great artists and had them each submit a sample picture for him. The artist who won just walked in with no painting and when asked to submit a picture he took out his brush and drew a perfect circle freehand.

It is not the tool but the skill of the artist that truely matters. If the tool mattered, then velvet Elvis paintings would be fine art...

[gwpriester]

I consider myself a design professional. I attended and graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles with a Bachelor's Degree in Advertising. From 1967 to 1986 I earned my living as a print and TV art director, and since 1986 as a graphic designer and a website designer.

I use Xara Xtreme Pro for about 99% of my work. I used CorelDRAW for a while because it had multi-page support and PDF support. And CorelDRAW was more well suited for handling and formatting text. I used Illustrator for a while to filter my Xara projects into what would appear to a printing professional as an Illustrator file.

Today, I use Xtreme Pro almost exclusively with a small amount of work done in Photoshop.

You can argue up one side and down the other about what is a professional design tool. All I know is Xara lets me do what I do to earn my living. So for me, it's a professional design tool.

I review graphics software for Communication Arts Magazine and so I get free copies of all the latest software software. And it is all installed on my computer. But in all honesty, I hardly ever have occasion to use it.

Gary