Xara Xtreme’s right-hand man the Xara Picture Editor—or XPE for short—gives you Xtreme control over bitmap handling in and out of Xara Xtreme

This month for Xara Day we will take a look at Xara’s Picture Editor, a nice little bitmap editor that works with Xara Xtreme to give you more control over bitmap images than you thought possible with a vector program. The Xara Picture Editor (hereafter known as the XPE) lets you edit any bitmap with all of the most commonly used bitmap editing tools. It has a one-click auto enhancement tool, redeye removal, crop and rotate tools, and exposure and color correction tools. It also uses Live Effects.

The XPE is intended to be an enhancement (and replacement) of the Windows Picture Viewer, so they have made it look very similar to the viewer. At present it is only available as part of Xara Xtreme. It has its own [1] web page at Xara where you will find examples and lots of information on the features.

Opening the XPE

You can invoke the XPE several ways:

1. When the program was installed, a shortcut was placed on your desktop. Double click the shortcut and a browse box will open allowing you to choose a photo to edit. Double click on the file you wish to edit and the XPE will open.

2. From the Start Menu choose All Programs > Xara > XPE. A browse box will open allowing you to choose a photo to edit. Double click on the file you want to edit and the XPE will open.

3. Double clicking on a bitmap that is already open in Xtreme also opens the XPE.

4. With a bitmap image selected on the page, go to Utilities > Xara Picture Editor.

5. You can add the XPE to your Start menu. On the desktop, right click on the XPE icon and choose Pin to Start Menu. Now you can reach it quickly from the Start Menu.

Editing Features of the XPE

Open the XPE by any of the methods described above. The image is in the window, and there is a toolbar below the image. What you see on the tool bar depends on how you opened the image. The XPE in this screenshot was opened from the desktop icon.

The Xara Picture Editor

As you mouseover the icons in the tool bars, the active icon expands and is in color. These are the tools you will see when you open an image by any method other than opening it from within Xtreme, either by double clicking the bitmap on the page or by using the Utilities menu, in which case you have an “Accept changes and return to Xtreme” button instead of an “Open Image” button. There will not be any scroll through images buttons either since you can only have one image open in the XPE from within Xtreme at a time.

The XPE Tool Bar

Most of these tools are fairly self-explanatory; you can:

• Open another file for editing. If you have opened the XPE outside of Xtreme, you can have multiple images open at the same time, but you have to open them separately so you will have more than one XPE open.
• Save the edits you have made
• Scroll though other images open in other instances of the XPE
• Fit the image to the XPE window size
• View at 100% size
• Zoom
• Rotate 90° counter-clockwise, rotate with the rotate dialog where you can use the slider or type in an angle, or rotate 90° clockwise
• Use the image enhancing tools
• Apply Photoshop plugins
• Crop
• Fix redeye
• Add a 3D bump map
• Delete (send the image to the recycle bin, but don’t worry, it will ask you first)
• Go to windows picture viewer
• Open XPE Help

When XPE is opened from within Xtreme

One of the things you should take note of is that if you open the XPE by double clicking on a bitmap that’s open in Xtreme or by using the Utilities menu, you will have a different icon on the toolbar than opening the XPE by the other methods. The first icon on the left if you open the XPE from within Xtreme will be a checkmark. After you make your edits, clicking this checkmark accepts the changes and closes the XPE, and sends your image back to Xtreme so you can continue working. There are no scroll through open images buttons, either, because you can only have one image open in the XPE from within Xtreme at a time. Other than that, the tool bar and using the tools is the same.

The XPE

Editing Images Using the XPE

Cropping

Cropping deserves a special mention. When you activate the crop tool, you will be able to crop by the numbers or drag out a Rule-of-Thirds cropping grid. This aids in composition of the image. When you are satisfied, click the Crop button. Close the Crop dialog by clicking the small X on the dialog title bar.

Cropping an Image

Enhance

Enhance contains the usual suspects of image editing tools. Use the sliders, or type in values. You can use Auto Enhance and let the XPE decide how the image should be improved, or you can use the sliders or data entry boxes to change the settings manually.

The XPE Enhance Dialog

Try the Auto Enhance button. You can continue to make manual adjustments even after using the Auto Enhance feature, and you click the Compare button to toggle back to the original and back to the enhanced version so you can see the difference. If you want to start over, reset the enhance effects by hovering over the center indicator on the sliders until you see the double arrows, then click to reset.

Reset the Enhance Dialog

Applying Live Effects

Click the PS Plugins button and apply any of the Live Effects that are included with Xtreme, or any Photoshop compatible filters you have added to Xtreme. When you are finished adding the effect, click OK in the filter dialog to return to the XPE and continue editing the photo.

Using Live Effects

The Edits Button

One of the great things about working in the XPE is you can remove edits you have made. Click the Edits button to open the Edits list. Listed here are all of the changes made to the image since it has been open in the XPE.

The Edits Dialog

The edits are listed in the order in which they were applied. If you highlight one, you can choose to remove it, or to edit it by pressing the appropriate button at the bottom of the window. You can any of the effects without disturbing the others; I can remove the Crop without losing the Enhance or the Page Curl plug-in.

When you’re happy with the results click the Save button to save the image or the accept checkmark to return to Xtreme. The XPE is versatile and fast!

Xara Day is a regular feature on Designorati:Illustration. Watch for a new Xara Xtreme tutorial on the fourth Thursday of every month.