Page 402 - Xara Designer Pro X17

402 The Photo Tools

Add a new Effect
List of effects applied, in order
Edit the selected effect
Live effect resolution
Delete current effect
Lock/unlock all effects
Delete all effects
Configure to find plug-ins

Applying a Live Effect
To apply a Live Effect:

1. Select the object or objects in the usual way.
2. Select the LIVE EFFECTS Tool.
3. Click the NEW button on the left side of the InfoBar. This displays a partitioned list of
available effects in a menu. The first set of effects listed in the menu are PICTURE
EDITOR effects. The second set are effects provided by the built in Xara Designer
Pro X FEATHER (ON PAGE 91) and SHADOW (on page 309) Tools. The third set of
effects are "New-style" Photoshop plug-in effects and the final set are "Old-style"
Photoshop plug-in effects (see below for an explanation of these diFFERENT TYPES).
4. Select the effect you want to apply from the list.
5. This will display a dialog or tool that belongs to the effect. You can adjust the
various controls and you usually get a small preview of the effect in the dialog.

Click OK when you're done to return to Xara Designer Pro X.
Editing shapes

If you apply a Live Effect to a shape or text, the object remains fully editable. Each time
you edit it in any way, the Live Effect is automatically re-applied to the object. For locked
effects this is not possible, and you must remove the effect using the DELETE button on
the Live Effect InfoBar, edit the shape, and then re-apply the effect.

Locking effects
When you resize or rotate an object which has a Live Effect applied, Designer Pro takes
this to be an edit and re-generates the effect. This may not be what you want, so it's
useful sometimes to be able to lock an effect.

Old-style Photoshop plug-ins are LOCKED as soon as you apply them. This means the
underlying shape can't be edited. You can also lock a Live Effect and then when you
resize or rotate the object the effect remains fixed, as if you were resizing/rotating a
bitmap.
As an example of this, imagine a plug-in that always applies horizontal ripples (the
"Television" Live Effect shown does something similar). Apply this effect to a shape, and