Vikki Olds
November 2005
The new Xara Xtreme is just as its name implies...XTREME! First for some really big news. Xara is planning make Xtreme Open Source and to port Xtreme to Linux and Mac! A good thing just got Xtremely better! Then add to all that Xara Xtreme is just $79.00 and you have the most powerful software at your fingertips at an affordable price. Even if you don't do graphics for a living you can't really pass up this great deal!
Xara Xtreme is easy to use and allows you to create stunningly effective images quickly and easily.
In the interest of saving time I've included some of the screenshots from Xara of the user interface. Mostly what I want you to see is the images that are being created with Xara. So, below are quite a few screenshots and after that more about Xtreme.
It seems that whatever you need to do with images can be done with Xara and to me it seems done better. Whether it's creating graphics for the web, computer, print or working with photos Xtreme covers it all xtremely well.
FEATURES
- XPE Photo Editor
- Single click auto-enhance
- Crop & Rotate
- Red Eye Removal
- Maintain photo quality
- Magic undo
- Third party plug-ins
- Photo Compression
- Advanced photo work
- Drawing tools
- Transparency
- Blending
- Feathering
- Contours
- Bevels
- Fills
- Shadows
- Brushes
- Molds / envelopes
- Text handling
- ClipView
- Pressure sensitivity
- Live Effects
- Navigation buttons
- Flash export (.swf)
- Animation
- Dreamweaver integration
- Hexadecimal RGB web color
- Image slicing
- Image maps
- Exporting and optimizing
- Linked stretching
- Speed
- Compatibility
- Direct Action Tools
- Drag & drop
- Solid object dragging
- Undo / redo
- Zoom
- Anti-aliasing
- Color support
- Printing
- PDF Export
- Clipart Gallery
- Bitmap Tracer
- Profiles
- Name gallery
- Templates
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CD Contents
Xara Xtreme software
More than 80 intro and demo movies
Full HTML Help
3000+ images including clipart, templates and examples of Xara Xtreme artwork by Xara experts
200 photos
500 textures
250 free fonts in TrueType and Postscript format
Printed Quick Reference Card
Bonus Xara Xara Xone CD containing PDF manual, more than 90 HTML tutorials featuring step by step creation of images, Hints and Tips
Free Technical support
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What's New in Xtreme
Live Effects tool - allows photoshop and xara plug in effect to be applied to photos and vector graphics.
Faster Rendering
Import/Export Plug in system
PDF export
Improved Illustrator compatibility
Improved Xara Picture Editor
Works Standalone or integrated as part of Xara Xtreme
New Tools - red eye removal, bump map, edits lists
Supports majority of third party photoshop plug ins
Dockable galleries
Group Transparency - when applying transparency to grouped objects, the whole object is treated as one
Improved photoshop plug in support
Compatibility with Xara3D for 3d effects - copy vector graphics into xara3d to create 3d effects and then past the result back into Xtreme
The Live Effects tool is really cool and it allows you to apply effects to both vector graphics and photos which is something I've wanted to see for a long time.
If you use the PDF feature you really have to see the results. Xara started vector transparency for PDF and the results will amaze you. This transparency helps to make PDF files smaller than they used to be. Take a look at the two images below:
Old PDF 221k
New PDF 111k
Now vector artwork including gradients and transparency can be opened in Illustrator version 9 and above.
Go here to see all the plug-ins that come with Xara Xtreme.
Xara Xtreme is a top of the line vector drawing program that allows co-mingling of vector and bitmap images. No matter who you are and what you use now for your graphics and drawing you should give Xara Xtreme a try. Once you've tried it you might just not open your other image editing and drawing software. The power of Xtreme combined with it's price makes it soar to the top of the "Which software should I use for graphics?" answers. It's fast, it's clean, it's packed with tools and it's intuitive. Go back up and take a look at the artwork that is being created with Xtreme. Just those images alone should show you some of the power of Xtreme.
Download the trial version today and see just how powerful Xara Xtreme is.
Pricing: $79.00
Company Website or URL: (www.xara.com )
Requirements:
Windows
Copyright (c) 2005, Vikki Olds, All Rights Reserved