If you find yourself spending valuable time bouncing back and forth between an image editing application and QuarkXPress, these hot new XTensions are for you.
Image Software's Image XTensions are easily accessed through a single menu command added to the standard XPress menu bar. From the menu commands, you can access tool palettes and dialog boxes to apply edits and special effects to your images. The collection of new XTensions includes ImageEditor, ImageEfxts, and ImageBalance. Each XTension is a powerful addition for users, and they can be combined to provide unbelievable image control and mastery for even a novice user.
ImageEditor is accessed from a floating tool palette featuring popular painting, editing, and masking tools. Apply changes to your images and immediately view the overall effect of the image with your other XPress page elements. IMAGEeditor adds commands to the XPress Edit menu, giving you more power over pasted images. You can change the opacity of your image and even apply a feather to the edges. From Mode commands, you can choose to convert your image from RGB to CMYK colour, or to BiLevel or Grayscale. The Color Info window displays the current Color Swatch, which works as the foreground colour used with the editing tools.
The Eyedropper tool provided in IMAGEeditor lets you pick up a colour directly from your image and save it to the XPress colour palette. Colors can also be chosen via the Quark colour picker (this includes Pantone PMS colours), or the Quark Color palette. Use these "custom colours" with the Paint Brush, Air Brush, and Pencil tools to apply edits to areas of your image. A Smudge Brush tool helps you effectively integrate colour in your image or create special smearing effects. All 20 preset brush shapes and sizes can be controlled to make pixel by pixel edits or to apply paint in larger quantities.
Masking tools on the same palette allow you to isolate edits to a certain area of your image. Masking tools include a Rectangle and Ellipse for more commonly shaped masks, and Lasso and Magic Wand for creating more freehand shapes.
When exiting IMAGEeditor, you have the option of saving your changes to the original image file, or saving changes in a separate file.
ImageEfxts includes sophisticated image enhancement tools provided via easy-to-use dialog boxes and commands. You can access a multitude of commands to apply special effect filters to control tonal values in your images. Choose from eleven special effects filters including Smoothing, Sharpening, Emboss, Mosaic, Noise, Cartoon and many more. Other effects include Lighten, Darken, Remap..., Threshold and Histogram. And the power doesn't stop there. You can also use your favorite Photoshop Plug-ins. Simply drop them in your XPress folder and use them as you would in Photoshop from inside QuarkXPress.
With ImageBalance you can alter the individual levels of colour in your image. You can interactively adjust the amount of Hue, Saturation Color, Highlights and Shadows, or work with Brightness and Darkness. The interface provides slider controls for Color Balance, Color Adjust and Tone Control.
Image XTensions are designed to help you create a continuity and balance between all page elements; text, XPress-generated objects and images. Image XTensions are not image editing applications, so don't throw away your full blown image editing application just yet. Use that application to do the bulk of your image preparation, and use Image XTensions to tweak your images on the page. Image XTensions are powerful production tools designed to let you streamline your workflow, and avoid the necessity of leaving the XPress design environment.
Call XChange today to order your Image Editing Bundle.
