What is Fauve xRes 1.2.1?

Fauve Software's xRes is a cross between HSC Software’s Live Picture and Adobe Photoshop — but slightly less expensive and less reliable. Like Live Picture, xRes speeds up image editing by applying edits and effects to just the visible portion of the composition. When you complete the project, you can render the final composition to a separate image. Like Photoshop, xRes lets you paint and edit the contents of layers directly (as opposed to having to create additional cloning and effects layers, a la Live Picture). And, like Fractal Design Painter, xRes has naturalmedia brushes and paper textures.

Resolution Technology

Both xRes and Live Picture are designed for creating large compositions full of high-resolution images. You start out by converting an image to a proprietary format — LRG in xRes, IVUE for Live Picture — that stores an image several times, in progressively smaller resolutions. (You don’t have to convert an xRes image to the LRG format, but the program’s performance suffers if you don’t.) As you edit, the software grabs chunks of the image and uses them as hill-screen proxies to display the results. The programs store edits in a separate composition file — XRS for xRes, FITS for Live Picture — thus preventing permanent damage to the original image. Finally, after you’ve edited the composition, you can render it out to a separate image file.

But beyond these similarities, xRes and Live Picture go their separate ways. For example. Live Picture’s brushstrokes are independent mathematical objects, with no inherent resolution. By contrast, when you paint or clone in xRes, the brushstroke has the same resolution as the image on which you paint. The brushstroke even adopts the resolution of the base image on a new layer. This makes cloning in xRes more flexible, but makes rendering the final image less flexible.

Both xRes and Live Picture are faster than Photoshop at opening optimized files and applying brushstrokes. But Live Picture outpaces xRes in other common operations. For example, on my Power Mac 7100/66 with a 21-inch monitor, a typical transformation took 5 to 10 seconds in xRes versus less than a second in Live Picture. (I used a 52MB file, but file size has almost no bearing on performance.) xRes applies filters more slowly, but it offers precise numerical options, while Live Picture limits you to vague brush-on effects. Zooming and scrolling are nearly instantaneous in both programs. However, Live Picture redraws the new screen pixels automatically; in xRes you manually initiate the redraw, which can take as long as 30 seconds, during which time you can’t switch apps.

Good Ideas Gone South

To its credit, xRes supports more file formats than Live Picture. But while it can open PICT files, for example, xRes is incapable of decoding QuickTime JPEG compression, nor can it preview images inside die Open dialog box. The program also opens Photo CD files but doesn’t dim the option for 496-by-644-pixel Pro Photo CD resolution when perusing a list of standard Photo CD scans. If you try to open a regular Photo CD image at Pro resolution, xRes delivers a series of empty alert boxes. You can plod through these invisible error messages by pressing the return key 10 or 20 times, but your reward is a 72MB window full of black.

A theoretical advantage xRes has over Live Picture is multiple undos. On the plus side, xRes can undo up to ten operations per layer, and you can change the number of undos without quitting the program. You have complete control over undo intervals, so you can make a series of brushstrokes equal to one undoable operation. There’s also an undo eraser for making partial reversions. But you cannot countermand the movement or transformation of a layer, the cropping of a composition, or the deletion of an image. To make matters more confusing, the Undo command never lists the operation it’s prepared to rescind. And, guess what — there’s no Revert command.

Version 1.11’s text tool lets you enter text into a dialog box much like the one in Photoshop. But the dialog box presents you with conflicting signals. For example, when the dialog box first opens, the contents of one option box are highlighted, while an insertion marker blinks in another. Characters entered from the keyboard appear in the latter option box, even though the former continues to be highlighted. Meanwhile, you have no control over leading or letterspacing, and the program doesn’t automatically kern. However, xRes does redraw text at a higher resolution after you enlarge it.

The Last Word

xRes includes a wealth of prepress-quality CMYK-conversion controls. (Note, however, that as with Live Picture, you can’t print from the program.) Its solid masking functions and brush modifiers go beyond what you find in Photoshop. It includes a host of useful filters, though the previewing functions need fleshing out. It supports Photoshop-compatible scanner-acquire modules, it supplies lots of customizable (though quirky) gradient options, and it runs in only 16MB of RAM, all advantages over Live Picture.

But sadly, the program’s oddities are enough to give the most patient user pause. Cursors don’t always correspond to the current action and can even carry over into other programs. You can’t simply drag a selection to move it; you have to first float it onto its own layer. When transforming a layer, you have to position a tiny cross on the cursor exactly over a corner handle or xRes ignores you. The image window lacks a zoom box, so you can’t snap the window to the visible image size. You can’t delete a layer by simply pressing the delete key; you have to choose a command and endure an alert message. If fate deals you an 8-bit monitor for a day or two, you’ll find that xRes can neither dither nor optimize the color lookup table. For a program geared specifically toward imaging professionals, xRes is unacceptably slipshod, despite its potential.

McClelland, Deke. (July 1995). xRes 1.11. Macworld. (pg. 60).

Download Fauve xRes 1.2.1 for Mac

Architecture

68K + PPC (FAT)

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II