Page 367 - Xara Web Designer Premium

Photo Handling 367

It's important to understand how this differs from other graphics tools, both vector
drawing software and photo editing programs. Other products will typically un-compress
the image and store the un-compressed "raw" image in memory and the native file when
you save to disc. What's more each copy you make is typically a complete copy of the
original raw image, as mentioned above. Make four copies of your photo and save your
file - it will be four times larger. In Xara Web Designer Premium the file is no larger, no
matter how many copies you make.

So by embedding the JPEG file instead of saving the un-compressed image, that's a file
size saving of more than 7:1 compared to other graphics editors. The fact that there are
four complete copies of the image means that in this particular case the memory used is
more like 30 times less. So this represents a huge file size (and time) saving over other
graphics tools*.

*This is easy to test. Import a JPEG into your favourite graphics editor, make four copies,
perhaps change each one slightly, to be colored or blurred or rotated. Then save the native file
and compare it against the original JPEG size, and the equivalent .Xar file. A .Xar native file is
about the size of the original JPEG, no matter how many copies of the image are made.
Extracting the original JPEG

Right click on any image in the BITMAP GALLERY and select the SAVE menu option to save
the original JPEG back to your file system.

Photo display quality

Xara Web Designer Premium can display photos in one of five useful quality levels. The
top two settings smooth the screen pixels so avoiding visible pixels or rough sections
along the edges (anti-aliasing). Change the quality level using the QUALITY entry in the
WINDOW menu.