New feature in CS5 could have been in Xara 5

**sgiff** · 12 April 2010, 06:51 PM

Yes, I knew someone would post the "but it's easy to do in Xara" and yet look how many steps it took to do that. That is exactly why I said this is a workflow enhancement. There are always workarounds for most things but ease of use and intuitive workflow is what designers that have deadlines look for. Hence I am not looking for responses to workarounds as I'm sure there are many. The point was that this feature is much simpler and faster to achieve. Actually there are not many, look how uneven your attempt at shading turned out in this example. I know that yes you could have done a better job if you had put more time into it but even so. With an airbrush tool that was bitmap based and a tablet. One swipe and you would have been done. That's a half second to do where as your explanation took a minute or more.

**Giovanni** · 12 April 2010, 08:15 PM

Often many little things make a big difference at the end of the day.
Actually appereance panel and brushes sold me to Illustrator: the time saved with those tools make Illustrator as fast as Xara albeit being slower at screen rendering.

**zaphodeist** · 12 April 2010, 08:46 PM

A program has something a Xara program doesn't have. Got it. Brushes need renovation, agreed. Frances was showing how to do something in Xtreme and is consistently helpful on here. No need to be so dismissive sgiff. If your thread is not asking for suggestions how to do this in Xara Xtreme and is just about what AI has shouldn't it be an Off Topic thread, especially as you knew somebody would post something helpful here?

**handrawn** · 12 April 2010, 09:21 PM

Hi John

Trouble is - for those of us that draw with brushes [as you would with a real brush or pen or pencil ] xtreme brushes are unworkable - but they were never designed for this, fair enough as far as it goes

I have Illustrator/Photoshop CS4

Quite a while back a member here told me off for moaning about brushes and said I should go forth and use the right program

Well I have, and now only 40 % of my coloring is done in xtreme as a result, because it is not worth chopping and changing for the small stuff.

The more I get into CS4 the more I find it is well fast enough - not talking here about 'this operation is faster than that' - I am talking about looking at the whole project from start to finish...

In xtreme I love the soft groups, because I still 'paste up' comic pages in xtreme and soft groups makes that a lot easier - but pasting up comic pages is not the major part of my work...

@FRANCES [angelize] If I was one who appeared dismissive I am sorry - but it was not of you, who as John says are most helpful

Its just that the program and I have diverged these last 2 years; I still enthuse the things I love about it, but....

**zaphodeist** · 12 April 2010, 09:39 PM

Hi Steve. It wasn't you who I thought was being dismissive

I can see the problems with brushes right enough [especially for artists like yourself] - rarely experimented with them as a result - and I think you should moan more often ... they'll take notice of you one day with a bit of luck

No, it's the point and positioning of this thread I can't fathom. Feature could have been in Xtreme ... but it isn't ... errrmm ...

**handrawn** · 12 April 2010, 09:52 PM

yep agree - well I, for one, have given up both the bitching and the requesting too

I can do the comics in inkscape and xtreme, and [most of] the other stuff in CS4 [maybe 5 we shall see

]

xtreme is going to make a damn fine web oriented program I think, and believe personally that this was always the intention - its a great market to be in

I understand full well what John [covoxer] said elsewhere: xtreme cannot compete with Adobe Illustrator, it has to do its own thing

**zaphodeist** · 12 April 2010, 10:14 PM

Exactly! Xtreme is Xtreme, AI is AI.

**sgiff** · 12 April 2010, 10:22 PM

Yes well I suppose I could have been a little less dismissive of Angel Eyes however I did state in my initial "post" that "sure you can go through the painstaking process of a work-a-round" which clearly means I am not looking for a "work-a-round" yet he/she quickly posted a work-a-round which is their right I suppose.

Anyway, I apologize if I offended. I suppose I'm more upset about the direction of Xara and it's becoming bloatware and ignoring the vector tools for so long that I come off as someone with a chip on my shoulder but I have been a customer for longer then most of the people on this forum, so I guess I feel that I have a right to bitch now and then but others may disagree. Next time I'll move it to off topic as suggested and people can flame me from there.

s.g.