Page 347 - Xara Designer Pro X17

Photo Handling 347

The same is true if you replace an existing photo with a stock photo from the Online
Content Catalog - right click on your photo and select "REPLACE PHOTO" > "WITH STOCK
PHOTO".

This makes it very easy to replace photos on templates. You can use the photo
adjustment handles to quickly adjust the scale, rotation, and position of the photo inside
its outline, as well as being able to resize, rotate and even add rounded corners to the
frame itself. This is not true for photo documents (on page 377), where dropping a photo
on the page will always import it as a new photo document.

When replacing a photo or bitmap this way, it is sized to best fit in the existing picture
outline.If you hold "Shift" when replacing a photo, the new one will inherit the same scale
and rotation as the old photo, instead of being ‘best fitted’. This is useful where you've
manually adjusted the scale or rotation of a fill and then want to replace the image with
another which has the same aspect ratio.

When you drop a new photo onto a Photo Group (on page 341), the entire Photo Group
is replaced, leaving you with a photo object showing the new image.
Using photos as fills
You can also use any bitmap as a fill style for any drawn shape. Simply drag the file over
the shape (which can be from your file system, or from the Bitmap or Fill galleries), and
hold the "Shift" key down before you drop. This will replace the existing color fill with a
bitmap, fitted to the object. Again you can use the smartphoto adjustment handles to
change the scale, angle, position etc.

Optimization on import
When importing high resolution photos (anything above 1920 pixels either wide or high)
into a web document, Xara Designer Pro X automatically resizes the photo down to HD
screen size without asking you if you want to import a lower resolution version. For a web
document, even at the reduced size, there should be more than enough resolution in
your photos for high quality results on your website, so it’s rarely necessary to import
digital camera images at full resolution for web use.

However, if you are importing a large photo into a print or animation document, Xara
Designer Pro X asks you if you want to import a lower resolution version of your photos.
If your document is to include many photos, you may want to choose this reduced
resolution option. Otherwise with large photos you may find that your saved design file is
much bigger than it needs to be (because it contains a copy of each of your photos) and
you may not have enough memory in your computer to load, edit and export your
documents.

Automatic conversion to JPEG
The JPEG image format is usually the best choice for photo images, because it
maintains high quality with smaller file sizes. So when you import non-JPEG photo files,
Xara Designer Pro X will examine the image to see if it would be more appropriate as a
JPEG. If so, a prompt is shown giving you the option to convert it to JPEG on import.
This reduces the size of your document files and reduces memory usage when editing.