In both looks and power, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 2013 is much like its bulkier (and more expensive at $300) sister . Both have a UI that's easy to navigate, and tools that--for the most part--do exactly what you need them to.

For example, Xara's quickshapes will help you draw vector polygons, ellipses, stars, and curves in any variety; the text tool can be used to add text to your design or drawing (much like Adobe Illustrator) or used to flow paragraphs onto pages (à la Adobe InDesign); the Shadow Tool will add a dropshadow to anything; and the Extrude Tool creates a 3D image from your original as you drag. All of this, plus page layout, non-destructive image editing, and Web publishing integrated into one $90 program makes me wonder why anyone would ever use anything other than Xara Photo & Graphic Designer for image editing and vector graphics.

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 2013 (or version 8) incorporates a few new features, although it will still feel familiar to users of . The most notable new feature is the Color Erase/Select tool. This new feature allows you to make a mask selection based on color, which you then may use Xara's other tools to manipulate. It's an interesting addition, and results vary from brilliant to so-so depending on how distinct your selected color is within your image.

This version of Xara Photo & Graphic designer also includes MAGIX's new Media Exchange system, which allows you to easily share media across all of MAGIX's software that includes the MX title, such as or .

Unfortunately, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer doesn't include the cool Shape Editor Tool that's been added to the updated version of sister product, Xara Designer Pro X. However, the Eraser is included, which makes it easy to delete pixels and reshape vector objects. Other features that are not available in the slimmer (but not emaciated by any means) Xara Photo & Graphic Designer are listed in MAGIX's .