Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 11 review

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer has been a firm favourite for many years. Despite having access to both CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator, it’s usually Xara we turn to whenever we need to design an invitation or logo, draw a diagram, create graphics for a video project, edit a PDF or figure out whether furniture will fit in a room. It’s missing a few advanced features compared to its pricier rivals, but it’s the shallow learning curve and the speed at which it handles core graphic design tasks that keeps you coming back.

The relative simplicity means there’s plenty of scope for valuable new features, and that’s certainly the case in this update. The Shape Painter Tool was introduced in version 9 as a way to generate vector shapes using brush strokes. In version 11 it’s joined by a suite of tools for warping vector shapes by pushing them around the screen. It’s similar to Photoshop’s Liquify editor but for vectors rather than bitmaps, with a choice of Warp, Bloat, Pucker and Twirl brushes that move, enlarge, shrink and twist shapes. It’s also similar to CorelDraw’s Smear tool, but whereas CorelDraw shows the outline of shapes while they’re being edited and only updates the full-colour preview after the mouse button is released, Xara constantly updates the preview as edits are being made. This is true of virtually any edit in Xara, and it’s this constant feedback that makes it so rewarding and quick to use. It’s a superb addition to the line-up of vector editing tools, and worth the £35 upgrade on its own.

^ A few of the brushes available in Photo & Graphic Designer 11

Xara’s brushes were previously limited to dashed patterns and a handful of basic natural media brushes and novelty effects such as airbrush, chalk and footprints. This time around there are far more options, and generally of a higher quality. They’re grouped into categories such as Acrylic, Hair & Fur, Lines & Hatchings and Watercolour. Unlike natural media painting effects in bitmap editors and dedicated software such as Corel Painter, these brush strokes are still accessible as vectors, which makes it easy to alter their shape. However, each brush preset is largely fixed, and multiple strokes of the same type look very similar. As before, it’s also possible to take any vector object and turn it into the basis of a brush – great for adding a sprinkling of stars or bubbles.

^ The Warp Brush is ideal for rearranging the shape of text or other vector graphics. Meanwhile, the new blend modes combine colours in complex ways

Blend modes are a common feature in image-editing software, mixing colours in overlapping objects in complex ways. Xara’s blend modes now use the same names and processes widely available elsewhere, such as multiply, screen, overlay, soft light and luminosity. The results are better than the slightly crude blend modes available in previous versions. Even so, it’s good to see that projects created in version 10 loaded correctly – the old blend modes are hidden but still available.

There’s a long list of minor new features, such as the ability to generate spirals and ready-made boxes for dropping in a photo and caption. These can be customised using simple handles rather than having to grapple with the underlying vector tools. Text can be given a background colour – ideal for highlighting a passage. PDFs with embedded fonts can be imported when the font isn’t installed locally, and fonts can be replaced en masse throughout the document via a right-click option.

^ Picture boxes complete with caption are created with just a couple of clicks, and are easy to resize while keeping their structure intact

The name of the software suggests that it’s as much about photos as vector graphics. This isn’t a true bitmap editor with the ability to open, edit and save photos at their native resolution – instead you have to go via the Export menu and choose suitable settings to maintain quality. Even so, there’s a lot that can be done with photos, whether they’re on their own or part of a larger graphic design project. The highlight is the bundled copy of Magic Bullet PhotoLooks 2, which made its first appearance in version 10 and provides a suite of sophisticated photo filters. These are all about evoking a mood and bringing out colours and detail, and there are some stylish presets plus meticulous control over settings.

Back in the main interface, there are options to colour-correct, clone, heal, stitch panoramas and change the aspect ratio of photos without distorting the main subject. There’s also a selection of more conventional filters such as blur, warp and pencil sketch. Unlike in conventional bitmap editors, these filters are applied non-destructively so it’s always possible to go back and amend or remove these effects.

Conclusion

As a serious graphic design and desktop publishing tool, Photo & Graphic Designer is slightly limited by its lack of CMYK support, page-numbering and advanced text-formatting tools. For these features, Xara Designer Pro X11 is a better option, although at £220 it’s a lot more expensive. Photo & Graphic Designer also lacks RAW-processing and conventional layer-based bitmap editing tools, so most people will also need an image editor such as Photoshop Elements 13. However, Xara takes a wide range of other graphic design tasks in its stride. It’s competitively priced, and it’s great to see it going from strength to strength.