I am doing work on an embedded system that has a 16 bit interface for it's display. therefore, when the great graphics are made in xara and exported, it exports as 24 bit pngs. Things like gradients create banding effects that I would rather they not do.

questions:
1. is there a way to tell xara to only use RBG565 (MSB of each color?)
2. is there a way to create a 16 bit palette and have xara only use those colors for gradients etc?
3. are there any other programs that could work?

So far, I have only found cinepaint with the 16 bit create function, but it is more difficult to use to create nice 3dish graphics.

Thanks for your help and responses.