Xara Xtreme Pro
If you don't want to hear about my problems, you might want to skip to the second paragraph, because I am about to explain why it has taken me quite a while to get round to writing this review. When I first installed the program, I virtually lost the use of my PC. At first I put this down to problems with the software, but then I found that the system crashes I was having - and believe me they were serious system crashes - were not specific to Xara Xtreme Pro, they were caused by a cranky driver. Eventually I got round to using the program, fooling around with it as much as I could and I even got as far as liking it, and what should happen when I booted up my PC to sit down and write my review? I was told to run Windows setup! Having sorted that one out - by moving my ram modules for which I certainly can't blame Xara - I was then presented with a CMOS checksum error. As you might perceive, I sorted that out too. All of which I share with you only so that you know it is not all fun and frolics being a software reviewer. There is a lot of heartache. And joy of course.
Which is what Xara Xtreme Pro is, once you get the hang of it. Because whatever they may say about its intuitive interface and how easy to use it is - the hang of it takes a while to get. If you don't use Photoshop you will stare at the screen in bewilderment, and if you do you will wonder why your usual shortcuts don't work. But stop doing things automatically, give it time and practice and above all use the wealth of information on the CD and online, and a whole new world of creativity will be opened up to you. You can even modify the keyboard shortcuts!
The simple picture editor bundled with XXP performs well. Double-click on a photo opened in the program and you can easily carry out tasks such as cropping, enhancement, level adjustment and red-eye reduction. And you don't have to worry about changing your original picture because XXP doesn't mess around with that at all. This leads to other benefits apart from avoiding the risk of losing cherished digital heirlooms. Because XXP embeds your original jpeg and holds on to it, you don't lose any image quality with repeated resolution changes, and the eventual file, even though it might contain numerous copies of the original, is far smaller than you get with most similar programs.
XXP itself enables you to create anything from web buttons and logos to multi-page newsletters. It has the Pantone and colour separation support that you would expect in professional print-related software, as well as being able to import and export pdf and Photoshop files. And you can create and export Flash animation.
A highlight of XXP is real-time adjustment - or Live Preview as Xara calls it. The tasks you can carry out on drawings, such as transparency, blending or bevels, are all carried out on the main screen, which changes depending on what you are doing, so there are no preview windows or fiddly pallettes to contend with. So for example you see your selected object change colour as you drag the colour-fill pipette over the document. And of course because XXP uses vector graphics rather than bitmaps you get no loss of definition as you increase in size.
To test Xara Xtreme Pro in not exactly laboratory conditions I tried my hand at various different uses, including animation, some photo-manipulation and a collage: in each case to see what I could do with a spare half hour or so. The animation in fact I did in 12 minutes. You can see the results here. In each case what you see is the result of very quick work - imagine what I could have achieved if I had taken a bit more time and therefore a bit more care.
But the real beauty of Xara Xtreme Pro is I guess the price. For a family or a small business that needs a drawing program with bitmap capabilities, in other words for anyone with a website, it's a must-have.
Xara Xtreme Pro costs US$199 - order it from the Xara website and they will bill you the equivalent - approximately £100 in the UK. And don't forget to check out the tutorials, tips and artwork in the Xara Xone. Bytes: Rebooted score - 9/10.
Which is what Xara Xtreme Pro is, once you get the hang of it. Because whatever they may say about its intuitive interface and how easy to use it is - the hang of it takes a while to get. If you don't use Photoshop you will stare at the screen in bewilderment, and if you do you will wonder why your usual shortcuts don't work. But stop doing things automatically, give it time and practice and above all use the wealth of information on the CD and online, and a whole new world of creativity will be opened up to you. You can even modify the keyboard shortcuts!
The simple picture editor bundled with XXP performs well. Double-click on a photo opened in the program and you can easily carry out tasks such as cropping, enhancement, level adjustment and red-eye reduction. And you don't have to worry about changing your original picture because XXP doesn't mess around with that at all. This leads to other benefits apart from avoiding the risk of losing cherished digital heirlooms. Because XXP embeds your original jpeg and holds on to it, you don't lose any image quality with repeated resolution changes, and the eventual file, even though it might contain numerous copies of the original, is far smaller than you get with most similar programs.
XXP itself enables you to create anything from web buttons and logos to multi-page newsletters. It has the Pantone and colour separation support that you would expect in professional print-related software, as well as being able to import and export pdf and Photoshop files. And you can create and export Flash animation.
A highlight of XXP is real-time adjustment - or Live Preview as Xara calls it. The tasks you can carry out on drawings, such as transparency, blending or bevels, are all carried out on the main screen, which changes depending on what you are doing, so there are no preview windows or fiddly pallettes to contend with. So for example you see your selected object change colour as you drag the colour-fill pipette over the document. And of course because XXP uses vector graphics rather than bitmaps you get no loss of definition as you increase in size.
To test Xara Xtreme Pro in not exactly laboratory conditions I tried my hand at various different uses, including animation, some photo-manipulation and a collage: in each case to see what I could do with a spare half hour or so. The animation in fact I did in 12 minutes. You can see the results here. In each case what you see is the result of very quick work - imagine what I could have achieved if I had taken a bit more time and therefore a bit more care.
But the real beauty of Xara Xtreme Pro is I guess the price. For a family or a small business that needs a drawing program with bitmap capabilities, in other words for anyone with a website, it's a must-have.
Xara Xtreme Pro costs US$199 - order it from the Xara website and they will bill you the equivalent - approximately £100 in the UK. And don't forget to check out the tutorials, tips and artwork in the Xara Xone. Bytes: Rebooted score - 9/10.
posted by Graham at 8:48 pm
1 Comments:
Good words.
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