The August Tutorial discussion

[Gare]

Hi Frank—

I'm sorry I threw a chapter on fractal math at you yesterday, when a paragraph on Fractal Plasma would have done.

I agree that Xara Designer has room for improvement with its implementation of fills. And drawing tools, and other features.

First, it was the "Shades of Grey" I was getting at. Your comment, "... in my opinion its a pointless bitmap tile fill", was painting the feature "black", so to speak. It has some use, but not enough to fill your needs as an artist.

And finally (I can hear the applause from everyone!)—as the person responsible for moderating this area, there are to date over 2,000 visitor incidents (readers of this thread) while there are only 20 posts and most of them are from the same 5 members. In theory, this could mean that for every post, there are 100 people reading the post.

I have some sort of ethical responsibility to post a reply to a post that presents an opinion that paints something black, or white, Frank. Because The Xara Group, Ltd. foots the bill for this forum, and because a post that impacts on a reader in a way that they might choose not to even try the product...doesn't serve the folks who would like some revenue as an indirect result of hosting a largely uncensored forum.

I hope that doesn't come across as too much of a suck-up. I've never been an evangelist for a product, nor a brand loyalist. My "religion" is Art; I see absolutely no reason to cripple one's self in the Art field for the sake of getting a pat on the head from a software corporation.

I try to field possibilities here, ones that contribute to a reader's ambitions. I want aspiring artists to get happy with Xara Designer if they bought it, by showing some creative examples. If they haven't bought the program, I feel it's my responsibility to show the program off a little. And if an outside party such as Image Skills offers something that can't natively be done in Xara, I try to be one of the first to point this out.

I'm not attempting to nurture an argument here when none truly exists. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, Frank: I have plenty of better places to do that, where I draw more attention.

Short version:
• Fractal Fills in Xara need work, the deployment is on the wimpy side=agreed.
• Fractal Fills in Xara are a a pointless bitmap fill= disagree.

My Best,

Gary

[Big Frank]

no worries
i agree that no argument exists
until xara do something imaginative with fractals its nothing more than a sideshow feature used by some, not by me
xara has more pressing things to deal with

[Gare]

I know for a fact that the Dear Xara thread gets read by TPTB, so if and when people feel a strong need for something not yet implemented in Xara Designer, this is the forum for discussion, pardon the pun.

Griping right here on the Xara Xone serves a purpose, too. Because when I'm alerted to a shortcoming, when the opportunity presents itself, I take it as high on the chain of command that I can. Whether I myself feel it's important or not.

I promise you, not a lot of software companies work this way. There's A dopey company who bothers to hold pre-release forums, but have decided in advance what features will be implemented and which will be blown off.

My Best,

Gary

[Big Frank]

a certain xara never holds prerelease anythings, maybe the two could learn from one another

[angelize]

What I would like to see in future and I think this is what you mean Gary is to have more types of fractals and have the ability to set them via a button on the info bar (or as an option in the drop down) as terminating or non terminating.

[Gare]

Given the interest so far, I'm going to pass along this request for more types and the option to terminate (say at 512 pixels and then repeat) or to keep branching indefinitely.

And I'll put it with some explanation on "Dear Xara".

-g

[angelize]

Sounds great

[angelize]

Getting back to photo editing here is a portrait I retouched using the clone + magic erase combo to remove some stray hairs from this fellow's eye!

[Big Frank]

cute doggie

[Gare]

Nice work, good photograph, Frances.

As far as image retouching goes, do we all feel that the topic is a little played out for now?

I'm asking for input.

I could go on, in September, to do a plug-ins "round-up", or do something else.

I'm leaning toward a series of short coverages on control points: beginners have a hard time intellectually embracing the difference between vector tools and art, and bitmap photos. At least that's what my private email is telling me.

So I thought an explanation, video style, of what the difference between a smooth and cusp connection is, keeping the fulcrum of a control point close to the control point to make steering a curve easier, the big differences between the Editor tool and the Pen tool, and so on.

I fear I might be doing too many intermediate/advanced things with not enough introductory coverage.

Image editing? Intro on control points? Something else entirely?

I have about a week before I need to start creating something.

TIA,

Gary