Page 380 - Xara Web Designer Premium

380 Photo Handling

Or you can use the "UTILITIES" > "OPTIMIZE ALL IMAGES" facility to optimize all the bitmap
images in your document in one operation.

The optimization process will convert large non-JPEG images to smaller JPEG images if
it decides that the image can be stored and exported as a JPEG without an unacceptable
loss in quality.

Note that after optimizing the original unoptimized and now unreferenced photo remains
in the BITMAP GALLERY (ON PAGE 364). This means it is still in memory and so the memory
requirements of your design will not have been reduced. Simply save your design and
reload after optimizing, to eliminate the original large images.

Converting objects or drawings to bitmaps

You can easily create a bitmap from any object, or part of your drawing, including from
other bitmaps. The bitmaps can be any size or resolution and can contain transparency.
You can also create bitmaps with reduced numbers of colors which can be useful for web
use.
To create a bitmap from objects:

1. Select the object/s on the page.
2. Right click and choose CREATE BITMAP COPY or choose CREATE BITMAP COPY from
the ARRANGE menu ("Ctrl + Shift + C").
3. In the dialog box, select the color depth, the size and other options.

For maximum quality select a color depth of true color, or if you want transparency to be
included select "true color + alpha" (alpha transparency is the technical term). You can
create bitmaps with fewer colors by selecting a color depth of 256 colors or less. This
also provides control over the dithering and palette options. These options are described
in the section on exporting bitmaps (on page 483).

Note this always creates PNG images, which are the highest quality image type.
However for full color photo purposes, these require a lot of memory and file space. Use
the optimize photo option to convert PNG images into embedded JPEG images to
reduce the file size.

Photo Documents

Sometimes it's useful to work on one photo alone, rather than as "objects on a page".
This is called a photo document or "photo mode" in Web Designer Premium, and it
behaves more like a traditional photo editor. You can create a photo document in a
number of ways:

• Drag a photo file from your file explorer onto the title bar or toolbar of Web Designer
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