Instrument cover

[d-sine]

This is a final version (not actual size though obviously!) of a cover for a music catalogue i have to produce every six months or so.
A rough draft was created in Xara X due to its superb speed allowing me to try things out and also ditch them quick! The final layout was produced in Photoshop, ready for the printer to perform their magic act on it.
How many other people find Xara is great for pre-press layouts (if just for brain-storming) as well as illustration etc?

d-sine

:: d-sine :: www.d-sine.org

[d-sine]

This is a final version (not actual size though obviously!) of a cover for a music catalogue i have to produce every six months or so.
A rough draft was created in Xara X due to its superb speed allowing me to try things out and also ditch them quick! The final layout was produced in Photoshop, ready for the printer to perform their magic act on it.
How many other people find Xara is great for pre-press layouts (if just for brain-storming) as well as illustration etc?

d-sine

:: d-sine :: www.d-sine.org

[Mike Bailey]

KEWL cover man, I dont Have X,X But C,X is my vector tool of choice for all things vector except for text.

[randyrives]

d-sine - Nice looking cover.


Mike - What do you use for text?


--Randy R

[Mike Bailey]

Randy, I use Corel Draw 7.

[Ross Macintosh]

Appealing design! I wonder if you could please post the xara version that you used as the basis of your finished Photoshop work? I'd be interested to see how far you took it in xara. I too find xara great for developing ideas - but since it is the main program I use I tend not to switch to some other.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[d-sine]

Thanks all for your kind words, I have included the xar file here (i hope) as you requested Ross.

I've had to resample the bitmaps down to 72dpi as otherwise i think i'd have got into "hot water" uploading the original as it had 150-300dpi tiffs in, and the file was a tad "large"..

This sort of "quickie" layout is nice and easy for when i'm at work as we use extensis portfolio to look after our image-store and that allows me to just drag-and-drop images into Xara, cut the white borders out, and arrange them around the page. If only everything in life was so simple.. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

The only thing i wish is that Xara X could handle clipping paths in tiffs and jpegs, this would be a great bonus. Is it possible?

thanks again,

d-sine.

:: d-sine :: www.d-sine.org

[Ross Macintosh]

without Xara, here's a jpg of what d-sine did in xara.

D-sine - I'm sorry I can't answer your question about "clipping paths". Not being a user of any programs that use them I have only a murky idea of what you are refering to. It certainly looks to me like you could have completed the illustration in Xara if you had been so inclined.

Here's a little Xara trick for you. You know how you brought into xara the equip. images with the white backgrounds? Well you don't actually have to trim them out to get the white to disappear. They can be given a "stained glass" transparency (with the transparency shape set to 'none' and the slider at 0.0%). That will make everyting white in them transparent. Of course anything white in the particular image will go transparent too. To correct that simply & quickly create an object that masks out any areas that are transparent that you wish not to be. Fill that shape white and put it behind. It can be grouped with its corresponding object. For some images this trick is far easier that trying to trim away the background. The grouped pair can be repositioned anywhere.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[d-sine]

many thanks for the tip Ross, i shall be trying that trick over the next week or so as i've another catalogue to prepare for printing at the end of august. as regards the clipping paths, thay won't matter now you've told me how to remove those "annoying white areas" as that's something the clipping paths allow you to do.

as far as finishing the image in Xara is concerned, I think it's more down to my lack of "Xarability" than inclination, I don't know my way around X that well I freely admit, I am a novice among masters here on TG. That combined with very little free-time due to pressures of work means that something people on here can do in a few hours, takes me a few weeks, and it still doesn't look as good! ah well, as they say.. "practice makes perfect.."

many thanks for your help once again Ross, much appreciated.

Richard.

:: d-sine :: www.d-sine.org

[s.winders]

Nice design [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]



Stu.