Wish List for V12

[Gare]

Allow an option to "RESCALE IMAGES TO MATCH PREFERRED DPI" or "FAKE IMAGE DPI SIZE ON EXPORT".

I haven't heard the term "rescale" before. Do you mean "resample", alternatively "resize"? Which is quite different than resizing, which requires a unit of physical measurement to be possible...such as inches.

I don't care for the (occasionally involuntary) resampling the Make a Bitmap Copy and File>Export makes in Xara. Example=I assume (wrongly) that most of the images I import are 96ppi, but W3 has decided that 72ppi is the proper image resolution, especially considering all the HD mobile devices these days.

We need a standard, and this is a two-part request to address Matrix29Bear's and my request:

• Offer 72 ppi as an option in the Export box. Right now you have 96, which is great for Windows, which was a standard Microsoft came up with years ago, and 75 ppi, which I don't konw of anyone who'd use. Offer 72ppi, please?

• Use a better resizing algorithm than blurring and bilinear interpolation. The results are sub-par when compared to PhotoZoom, which offers a lot of fine tuning options ((free to Chrome users for Facebook, starts at $79 for plug-in) or Photoshop, which uses weighted bicubic interpolation as an option. I think this might what Matrix29Bear is called "fake resolution".

We really need advanced sharpening and softening features when resizing bitmaps, especially for the Web, where 1 to 1 is the true test of the fidelity of an image. Please consider using more advanced resizing algorithms, Dear Xara. It's important for not just for artists and picky-people. A good image is sometimes the only impression on the Web that visitors make about the quality of work people post.

I can compare a Xara resized image to one cranked out any day from PhotoZoom, and I think anyone with a good eye will see that PhotoZoom producxes a better resized image.

Respectfully, and offering suggestions to elevate an already great product,

Gary

[pauland]

Ahh PPI.

72 PPI sounds great for perhaps ten years ago ( says he typing on a machine with a 255 PPI screen).

The majority of screen displays today are using PPI densities way above 96 PPI let alone 72 PPI!

http://dpi.lv/

[Gare]

Another request:

Can the scale box also report the scaling done on a selected imported image? A lot of times the reported ppi of a scaled image in Xara is not enough to discern the original size, and I don't quite understand why the scale boxes on the Infobar snap back to 100% regardless of whether a shape is selected...or not.

My Best,

-g

[Gare]

Ahh PPI.

72 PPI sounds great for perhaps ten years ago ( says he typing on a machine with a 255 PPI screen).

The majority of screen displays today are using PPI densities way above 96 PPI let alone 72 PPI!

http://dpi.lv/

I did not mean to sound Retro, Paul; merely to set and stick to a standard. 75ppi, admittedly low, is a preset option I cannot think anyone would use. 72ppi, as a legacy preset (okay? ) makes more sense to me, because you're going to hit 72ppi sites all the time.

But I'm definitely with you on HD imagery on the web, Paul.

Creative Market assembled this for me. All I did (?!) was follow the specs.

My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

Can we have a toggle for the Guides layer, that if the layer is locked, (naturally) we cannot move a selected shpae to it by pressing Ctrl+Shift+U.

But right now, even if Guides is unlocked you can't move an object top the layer above or below by keyboarding Ctrl+Shift+U, or CTRL-Shift+D.

Why not? It could speed up the workflow and not really prone to error.

I need it to fix fonts.

TIA,

Gary

P.S.-And why does a font character you convert to editable shapes have so many control points around the path? Surely, Xara could recognize a Type 1 encoded OTF glyph, and put down control points exactly where they were encoded, without superfluous stuff. Reducing Control points using the slider is imprecise for this sort of sport!

[pauland]

Gary, hope the riches roll in on Creative Market!

I think it's a tough gig to make much money from there.

[Gare]

Gary, hope the riches roll in on Creative Market!

I think it's a tough gig to make much money from there.

...agreed. But then, once the stuff is posted, I don't have much to do except auto-announce it on the social groups. Thanks for the kind thoughts.

But this is way O/T, sorry! I just meant to show an example of HD online, and I have not done HD on any of our websites (yet).

And pixels (or samples, or...dots) per inch does indeed come into play when sizing up the resolution of a graphic. And this is why resampling in Xara needs to be more aesthetic.

-g

[mwenz]

DPI means nothing on the web. The field in the header for DPI is used only as a mathematical operator in applications. Resampling (which is not what matrix29bear is referring to I think) does not necessarily depend upon that field for anything other than a shortcut to the math. But it is wholly unnecessary for resampling.

Not to say that Xara products do not need a better algorithm for resampling images. It does. For image work, it should have the control over the degree of sharpening, unsharp mask, softening, etc. At least for "pure" image work. But I wouldn't want it to necessarily kick in just because I am sizing an image on the page. And personally believe there are far more important image use considerations that should take precedent over such a change.

Mike

[pauland]

DPI means nothing on the web.

I agree - people get hung up on this weird number, that means nothing to a webpage: size is everything, not the DPI/PPI setting.

That said it's important to realise that with high density displays, higher resolution images are needed to show images in the best quality. On my system and many other systems, the displays operate at a higher-density than the pixel resolution used by a browser. In my case the browser/display pixel ratio is 1:2, so a web page showing an image of 100x100 needs a 200x200 image to show it in the best light. On an iPhone 6 plus that image needs to be 250x250 to get the sharpest image. There's not one-size-fits-all but showing images where a browser pixel = an image pixel will result in fuzzy images on high density displays.

So DPI is irrelevant to the web browser, but understanding how pixel density relates to a display is essential.

[Gare]

When one measures in only pixels ("pixel count"), yes, Mike, the measure of dimension is not relevant. However, you start in Xara, let's say, with a 600px by 600px canvas. You design, and it's export time.

What resolution? Does one expect someone less experienced here to know to type 600 in the export, Bitmap Size box?

A greater challenge still, is opening a new document whose dimensions is measured in inches or cm.

No, an image on the web can be expressed only in pixels because we assume we know the resolution of our display.

Or do we?

My point was that the process of creating a web graphic is indeed a resolution-based process. You cannot get around it, not as long as you need to translate page dimensions to image resolution: Output (in pixels)=page dimensions × target image resolution.






i think we're probably in 100% agreement. We're just coming from different backgrounds professionally, Mike

My Best,

-g