COMPANY: Xara Group Limited | URL: (See Buy link below) | TYPE: Standalone | PLATFORM: Windows | PRICE: $89/249 (Pro)
				Xara Xtreme is simply the best graphics software for all your drawing and photo design needs, ideal for both print and the web. If you're looking for drawing software then Xtreme is a perfect solution for everything from simple logos to astonishingly detailed illustrations. If you're working with photos then Xtreme will match your ambitions from simple one click auto-enhance of your photo through to awesome photo compositions. If you are looking for software for creating web graphics then Xtreme can help you produce all the graphics you'll need for your site, from smart buttons to eye catching Flash animations and even complete HTML web pages. Whatever graphics you need and whatever your skill level, the famously friendly user interface and fast processing of Xara Xtreme will make it an absolute pleasure to be creative. And at a price that won't break the bank! Speed Xara Xtreme has the world's most sophisticated, highest performance vector rendering engine. For the user this speed means less wait, and a more satisfying working environment. It also means more productivity and the ability to create more complex drawings, in less time. Many graphics packages will keep you waiting a few seconds while objects are drawn on the screen. In a complex document that can mean you waste a significant amount of time. With Xara Xtreme, when you create an image it appears instantly on the screen. Speed isn't just restricted to creating and moving objects though - any time you manipulate an object by using one of the Direct Action Tools or the Color Editor for example, any changes you make also appear instantly. This constant live-preview of all actions contrasts dramatically with other programs where you typically have a "try it–wait–try it again until you get it right" approach. Import and export Xara Xtreme supports all the common graphics formats, including bitmap types like GIF, JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF and PSD, and the import of photos as RAW or the new Photo HD (Xtreme Pro only). Plus it supports the key vector types like PDF and AI (Adobe Illustrator)/EPS, EMF (extended metafile) and WMF (Windows metafile), SVG (export only);early versions of CorelDRAW CDR and CMX and many others that are not so well known. For text Xara Xtreme supports RTF (Rich Text Format). You can import and export text in RTF format so it includes style information such as font, font size, color, margins, special and foreign characters (Unicode supported). If you're working on the web, then Xara Xtreme also offers integration with Adobe's Dreamweaver and can export Flash, Animated GIF and HTML pages. Plus there's clipboard compatibility with the common Microsoft applications such as Outlook and Word. Photo handling overview Xara Xtreme photo and bitmap handling is faster and more powerful than you'll find in other graphics programs. Xara Xtreme uses compression techniques that means that Xara files including photos can be up to ten times smaller than equivalent images in other drawing programs, with enormous benefits for speed and usability. Plus Xara's unique non-destructive editing maintains the high quality of your original photo, however many times you edit it, and gives you the ability to undo any edits you've made to your photo, even after saving and reloading. As a result many people use Xara Xtreme as their primary, general purpose image composition tool. Almost anything you can do to vector drawings you can also do to photos/bitmaps in Xtreme. For example, you can edit the shape, alter the transparency, including graduated transparency, use bitmaps as fills on any shape, add a drop shadow, feather the edges and a lot more - all in real-time. Xara Xtreme supports all the common bitmap formats, for both import and export. Add to this the ability to handle multi-layer 32-bit alpha channel (semi-transparent) bitmaps and Xara Xtreme is a supreme image composition tool. Xara Xtreme also includes an integrated photo editing tool. We don't pretend this makes it either a painting program or pixel editor but it does provide the most common photo editing features such as cropping, rotating, enhancing, sharpening, red-eye removal etc with a fast, interactive, live-preview of all edits. Plus the new version 4 includes an effective photo panorama creator. The photo tool will continue to grow in capabilities with future releases of Xara Xtreme. Finally, Xtreme includes a collection of professionally designed, fully editable templates that include photo frames and photo album layouts. 3D extrude The new extrusion tool in Xara Xtreme uses the 3D rendering technology developed for Xara's popular Xara3D tool, to bring high quality 3D extrusion capabilities to Xara Xtreme. It provides a fast, easy way of creating simple 3D shapes from any 2D shape or outline, rendered with high quality shading and light reflections. Creating 3D images couldn't be simpler: on screen dragging allows real time 3D object rotation, dragging of the extrusion depth, and adjustment of the lights in 3D space around the object. HTML export With Xara Xtreme you can now easily create web pages, and even multi-page websites, with full WYSIWYG using the HTML export option. The advantage of using Xtreme to create web pages is that you get almost complete freedom to position items anywhere on the page, to include as many graphics as you like (even semi-transparent graphics) with text–even rotated text–wherever you like! And Xara Xtreme will create all the HTML for you. Xtreme can create multi-page websites using the multi-page document feature. The Xtreme CD also includes a selection of professionally designed HTML website templates.
							Xara Xtreme includes a fast bitmap tracer to help convert bitmaps to vector shapes. It also supports third party plug-ins such as Adobe Photoshop plug-ins to expand the range of available effects that you can apply to your photos.