Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 365

by Tony Thomas

Every year about this time I get a chance to take a look at the new version of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer. It's like opening up a present and seeing what's inside. I think that's been 20 years since I started using the program and each version gets better and better.

One thing that I should share with you immediately is that, when you buy the latest version (now called 365), you will receive any new features and content that is developed for 365 days after you purchase and register the program. You no longer have to wait a full year to access new features. That, in itself, is awesome for a program that you can actually buy and not just rent!

Even though, when I open up the program, I see the same interface that I have come to know and love for quite a while, I know that there is some brand-new goodness baked inside. Some of the new features include:

Easy Move, Rotate and Scale: New handles are available when in photo mode so that you can quickly and easily manipulate your photo.

Cross Process Photo Effect: This one allows you to dramatically color-shift your photo by manipulating the RGB channels in real time.

Smart Shapes: Allows for quick creation and editing of some of the most common shapes. Examples include bar charts, pie charts and percentage rings.

Online Content Catalog: This is free for one year and allows you to access over 500,000 royalty free photos. Keyword searching is available for rapid access.

Symbols and Icons: Over 1500 fully-editable vector symbols are now available. 

Photo Filter Presets: These presets can be quickly applied to your photos and can be very useful when experimenting during editing.

New Blend Modes: Dodge and burn effects are now available for darkroom-style control of your images.

Photo Grids: These make it easy to display a collection of photos in a single, compact grid.

Although Xara started out as a vector drawing program, it has really morphed into a full-function graphic design tool with a strong set of photo editing capabilities. It continues to be an amazing value for the price!

http://www.xara.com/us/photo-graphic-designer/

Full Disclosure: In compliance with FTC 16 CFR Part 255, I hereby disclose that the manufacturer or retailer mentioned in this article provided the product for review purposes with the knowledge that I would provide a full, unbiased and impartial review.

Xara Designer Pro 11

by Tony Thomas

Xara Designer Pro 11 combines all the features of its other design programs into one, easy-to-use package for the professional graphics designer.  

It is one program that can really do it all including page layout and design, photo editing, website design, and vector-based graphics illustration.  Its simple WYSIWYG interface makes it easy for you to turn your ideas into beautiful graphics in just a few minutes.

Taking a look around the program, I found that it has a full range of features to accomplish almost any graphics or web-design task.  It has an impressive array of import and export options as well as full print support including the ability to do four-color separations.  
If you have ever used any Xara product before, you will have no problem getting around its interface.  It is a beautifully designed and very easy to navigate.

New features include:

• Functionality that allows you  to stretch the background to fill the entire web page, either horizontally or vertically.
• The ability to sync documents with Dropbox or Google Drive.
• New brush options including "art brushes" and "scatter brushes".
• "Sticky objects" that remain in place while the page scrolls underneath.
• A variety of new text enhancements including a background color option, font replacement throughout a document, "an update style to match" function, a hyphenation tool, auto-correct/abbreviation expansion, updated Google fonts, and more.
• New animation options that allow you to animate on mouse over, on click and the ability to slide or fade objects as you scroll down a page.
• New Blend modes and transparency types.
• Liquify shape editing tools.
• Secure FTP publishing options with support for both SFTP and FTPS.

As someone who has depended Xara tools for almost 20 years, I can tell you that they offer some of the most powerful graphic tools you can find at a reasonable cost.  Xara Designer Pro 11 is no exception.  If you are a graphic design professional, it may be the only tool that you ever need.  Take it for a test drive!

For more information:

http://www.xara.com/us/designer-pro/

http://www.xara.com/us/designer-pro/download/


Thanks to Xara for providing a review copy of this program.

Xara Photo and Graphic Designer 9

I have been using Xara for almost two decades. Not only is it a great drawing tool, but I have also found it useful for general design work, photo editing and compositing. Xara has been able to replace several other tools in my arsenal.

The latest incarnation, Xara Photo and Graphic Designer 9, does not disappoint.  It provides even more powerful photo editing, vector drawing and compositing tools at a rock-bottom price.

New features include:

- A “photo healing”  tool that allows you to remove blemishes and other defects quickly and easily.

- A “background erase” tool that makes it easy to perform tasks that generally require expensive photo editing software.

- New masking tools for complex photo and vector editing tasks.

- A “shape painter” tool that allows to to draw shapes using vector art.

- Google Font support as well as support for multi-weight fonts, graphical bullets and numbers.

- Faster recoloring of grouped items.

- New photo FX plug ins for adding a creative touch.

In using version 9, I found that there are a number of new flyouts in the toolbar interface making it easy to find just the tool you need without any fuss.  There are also a number of new and updated templates that make it easy to get your project started.  I had a lot of fun playing with the new filters and the shape painter and I know that these features will be useful in future projects.

All in all, Xara Photo and Graphic Designer 9 is a strong offering that builds on the solid foundation of the Xara engine.  There is nothing like it for the price!

www.xara.com