San Francisco, California-based Macromedia Inc protests that it is not taking Adobe Systems Inc head on with the launch of its high resolution editing, painting, and compositing software tool xRes 2.0. Rather the company says that Adobe PhotoShop users will be able to use xRes 2.0 as a complementary tool that will deliver greater speed for large files at high resolutions. xRes was initially developed by Fauve Software Inc, bought by digital arts, multimedia and Web publishing company Macromedia in August last year (CI No 2,740). XRes 2.0, enhanced in conjunction with Macromedia, offers high-speed, high-resolution image editing, and also incorporates all the features of Fauve’s Matisse painting software with a full suite of artistic brushes and textures. In fact, xRes 2.0 not only incorporates most of the features of Adobe’s PhotoShop, it also looks and feels so similar that Macromedia claims a PhotoShop user could learn to use it in about 15 minutes. The software offers integrated support for saving files in World Wide Web formats, including PNG, transparent GIF and progressive JPEG. It provides optimum speed for editing large files, typically from 20Mb up to 500Mb, without requiring large amounts of memory. It also enables lengthier tasks, such as rendering the image, to run as batch processes. There is a multiple undo facility, and text is stored as a floating object, enabling easy alteration. Macromedia is targeting xRes 2.0 at graphic designers, Web page designers, photo-illustrators, desktop publishers and multimedia producers and of course anyone currently using PhotoShop. The Macintosh version was due to ship on February 5, the Windows version in early March, at a cost of #550, although PhotoShop users can get it for #160 and xRes 1.0 users for #80. For multimedia beginners, xRes 2.0 will also be available as part of the Director multimedia suite, which also includes Fontographer 5.5 and Extreme 3D and is #750.
