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when a correct route has been found. Then continue and trace mode will find more routes between the
last commit point and the mouse pointer.
Commit points are automatically added for you every 50 screen pixels, because you don't normally want
to re-route the line more than that distance from where you are currently drawing.
Erasing
As mentioned above, whether tracing is on or off you can erase the last part of the line you've drawn by
holding down the Shift key and moving the mouse pointer back to an earlier part of the line. The line is
erased from that point to the end of the line.
Complex images
Few real world photos have objects with obvious unambiguous edges that can easily be followed by
trace mode. There is often texture in the objects themselves or in the background which mean that trace
mode will find many different candidate edges. Zoom into difficult parts of photos to get more control
over the trace and use the space bar to enter manual commit points more often, the more complex the
image. And press T to turn tracing on and off as you move between parts of an image that are easy to
trace and parts that are not.
Cutting out objects from photos
To cut out part of a photo you can either draw an ordinary shape over the top of the photo and then use
the combine shapes operations in the Arrange menu to cut the photo with the shape (see the Shape
Handling chapter
for details).
Or you can go into mask mode, draw a mask shape over the photo and
then use cut, copy and paste (or the combine shapes operations) to cut
or copy the part of the photo you've indicated with the mask.
See the Photo Handling chapter
for more information on using mask mode.
Once you've cut out a piece of a photo, it's often a good idea to apply a small amount of feather to blur
the edge slightly.
Non-destructive editing
Unlike most photo tools which permanently edit the pixels of the photo when you cut objects out like
this, Xara Web Designer 7 Premium is non-destructive. The outline remains an editable vector outline
that you can edit just like any other vector shape, using the Freehand tool or Shape editor. Use the shape
editor to manually clean up your outline, revealing more or less of the image as you edit the edges.
Brush styles
The Freehand & Brush Tool
can also be used to apply different brush stroke styles along the path of the line. Instead of being a solid,
fixed-width line, you can change it to be a variable-width line, or one of a near-infinite range of fancy
brush styles, like airbrush, felt tip marker, and many more.
It's important to understand that the line remains fully editable so, unlike most painting or photo
re-touching programs, you can select and later adjust the line shape and the brush stroke.
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