[Review] Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9
MAGIX is back again to help users do what they want, for a fraction of the competition’s price. This time, it’s with Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9 (PGD9), a program that claims to be “much faster than many competitor’s products and produces files that can be 10x or more smaller,“ as well as “The Best Photo Software For The Best Price.”
PGD9 offers a host of features, including numerous help files and wizards to save users time, the ability to create slideshows, and being entirely object oriented. This means that editing uses a fraction of the memory needed by the competition’s products, and it can handle multiple high resolution images with ease, even on a less-than-great PC like mine.
PGD9’s interface should look relatively familiar to anyone who’s used other software like Paint.Net, GIMP, and Adobe Photoshop. At the very top, you have the usual File, Edit and so on, which function as you’d expect. Directly under that, you have all the adjustments that you can make to your objects, including resizing, rotating and skewing. To the left, you have the tools (Selection, text, draw, eraser, etc). These work the way we’re all used to, for the most part. For example, if you accidentally select something that you didn’t want to select, you can select it again to deselect just that. On the far right, you have your Page & Layer, and numerous other galleries such as fonts, design and colors. In the middle, you have your workspace.
You can make anything you want in PGD9, whether it be a logo, slideshow, animation, or what have you. To use the aforementioned galleries, you click on the folder icons next to the names, and click-and-drag the object you want into the workspace. In my honest opinion, the galleries are the only downside to PGD9, but not for the reason you’d think. The galleries aren’t bad quality, far from it. However, the problem is that the galleries are so vast that they’re almost overwhelming in size. At first, I had absolutely no idea where to start. I began to get used to it as the hours passed.
Would I recommend Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9? Yes, but only if you’re the creative type or in the graphic design field. As of this writing, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9 sells for $89.99 USD. However, there are also free trials on MAGIX’s official site. It’s not bad for the price, but if you’re just starting to dabble in graphic design, then I’d suggest sticking with free solutions (Paint.Net, GIMP, etc.), until you become more serious.
Software Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Accessibility Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Xara is a UK-based software company founded in 1981, which was acquired by MAGIX AG in 2007. MAGIX has been providing high-quality multimedia software to millions of homes & offices around the world, enabling the creative integration of music, photos and videos into everyday lives, for nearly 2 decades. They graciously gave me a copy of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9 for review, and I would like to thank them for doing so.
