Xara Photo & Graphic Designer is an excellent illustrator, one that certainly deserves the title of TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award winner in drawing software. Honestly, Photo & Graphic Designer has all the expert tools and features to compete with professional, premium illustrator software, but it is accessible to amateur and freelance artists because of its reasonable price. Photo & Graphic Designer is an all-in-one application, meaning it edits photos and puts pages into layouts in addition to being a fully functional drawing program. Because of its impressive value, Photo & Graphic Designer is ideal for both the home and the office.
Professionals and home users alike can use this drawing software and not feel that they are being sold short. Photo & Graphic Designer contains a full range of illustration features. In fact, Xara was the creator of many of the traditional features included in drawing software, including anti-aliasing and transparency. Xara also boasts that their drawing software is the fastest on the market.
One feature in Designer that we particularly enjoyed was the 3D Extrude Tool. Just by clicking a button on the tool bar and dragging the mouse on a 2D object, Photo & Graphic Designer will create realistic 3D objects with the snazziest effects we’ve seen thus far in drawing software. You can twirl and rotate the 3D objects so you can see every plane and angle of the objects. What makes this so impressive is that the light source, or the shading on each side of the object, changes as you rotate the object. This makes the 3D effect look extremely convincing. You can also adjust the widths and height of the 3D objects with the Extrude Tool.
The latest version of this product offers some new and expanded capabilities that users will especially enjoy, including a new erase tool that makes it really easy to remove objects from photos. We mean any objects, and they are gone without a trace. You just have to draw around the object and then click on Magic Erase.
A new photo clipart category in the Designs Gallery will be a hit with many users, especially anyone that needs help designing packaging, posters or brochures.
You will also be able to access some helpful page layout tools, namely one-click anchoring of objects and an easy text repel feature. You can also easily edit grouped objects and add objects to an existing group.
There are new page management features in the latest Xara Photo & Graphic Designer too. The new Page & Layer Gallery pages mode offers a list of page thumbnails for quick access.
A few new snapping features – non-axis-aligned snapping and "magic" magnetic object snapping – are also pretty cool. As you drag an object it snaps to points and lines of interest in the vicinity.
Other new design features include tabbed document windows, exportation of animation documents as AVI files, new paste functions and quick alignment of selected objects.
Web publishing features have been pumped up considerably in the latest version of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer. You can now make intelligent repeating headers, footers and watermarks because the program automatically updates all occurrences of a repeating object any time you edit it. Previewing your site in a variety of browsers is also very easy and the preview window now includes navigation buttons.
We still love many features from previous versions of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, like the contour and bevel functions, which are not included in all drawing software. These are tools that give objects the appearance of 3D objects, without actually making them 3D. For example, a beveled edge makes an object look like it is slightly raised up from the rest of the objects. A contour gives an object one or several outlines. These simple tools are included in all professional illustrating software, but not in all drawing software applications. Because these features are included in Photo & Graphic Designer, they further suggest that Xara’s drawing software is able to compete with professional graphic design software.
Photo & Graphic Designer has many unique features that are not included in other drawing software, and this application also has many of the same features as other software with one notable difference – the features are often easier to use in Photo & Graphic Designer than in other drawing applications. The gradient tool is a good example of how simple yet powerful Designer’s tools are. With the gradient tool, you can create a gradient line that you can easily adjust all aspects of a gradient. You can move the line to adjust the start of the gradient and how gradually or suddenly the colors blend into each other. You can also drag colors onto the gradient line to adjust the colors in the gradient fill. Many other drawing applications do not have gradients that are as simple to use as Xara’s drawing software; many of Photo & Graphic Designer’s tools are superior because of their simplicity.
Another plus of using Photo & Graphic Designer is the attractive and creative brush strokes. Designer has easily adjustable brushes that mimic the texture of marker, crayon, felt tip, airbrush, chalk and other natural drawing utensils. These brushstrokes allow you to produce unique and professional-looking results.
This drawing software can import and export a wide range of files types, so you don’t have to struggle to work with the files. Potential buyers should be aware that Xara Photo & Graphic Designer does not support AutoCAD files. The drawing software also does not export RAW or import SVG file formats. Besides these shortcomings, Xara supports most file formats.
Photo & Graphic Designer is extremely easy to use. Most drawing software has a sharp learning curve, so it may take months for users to have full command of their software, but not Xara. This drawing software is intuitive to use from the start.
The developers at Xara specifically integrated many functions that would make the interface easy to navigate. One of these features is the ability to drag and drop colors onto objects and lines. If that’s too easy for you, you can always right click to change a fill color or left click to change the stroke color of a shape.
Another command that is extremely helpful is the unlimited undoes. Normally when you are working on a project and you want to undo the changes you have made, there is a limited number of changes the drawing software can undo. Because you cannot undo your changes anymore, they have become permanent and you have to spend time reconstructing what you had already done. If this has ever happened to you, you will appreciate the unlimited undo function on Photo & Graphic Designer.
The direct action tools are another great feature that makes this drawing software easy to use. Direct action tools allow you to see the changes you are making to an object as you make them. For example, users can open the color dialog box to adjust the color of an object. As you change the color, you will immediately see the color on the object and have the ability to make the exact changes you want. Without direct action tools, you have to agree to make a change and continually return to an appearance panel or color editor until you get it right. The direct action tools take the guesswork out of your work.
One of the great advantages of using Xara Photo & Graphic Designer is the abundance of video tutorials that are available to help new users learn to use this drawing software. On Xara’s website, there are 18 categories of video tutorials, with each topic containing 3-15 videos. These tutorials are succinct and precise, teaching users exactly what they need to know to navigate and use.
The Photo & Graphic Designer CD also comes with over 90 video tutorials. With all these resources, Xara makes it easy for you to gain a full understanding of the power and range of features in Photo & Graphic Designer.
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer also features a tip of the day that teaches you a new trick every day to familiarize you with the drawing software. In addition to the video tutorials and the tip of the day, Xara also provides links to the Xara support site where they’ll find learning resources and an online forum.
Xara provides further technical support through FAQs, email support, online forums and digital manuals.
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer deserves TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award in every aspect. This drawing software has superior features that are comparable to features included in the software used by professionals, and it also has traditional features that are easier to use than the features of other drawing applications. Xara provides excellent support and learning resources to help you understand their software. Photo & Graphic Designer also has excellent file compatibility that allows you to import and export most file formats. Overall, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer has all the benefits of a professional illustrator, but you don’t have to be a professional to enjoy this excellent software.
