Another new feature used extensively throughout Xara X is the Profile dialog. Many functions have one or two profile dialogs. Profiles modify the selected tool or effect as we shall see in a moment. Each profile dialog has a set of drop down presets shown on the left side of the dialog. In addition there are sliders for fine tuning. It's kind of hard to describe how these work in a few sentences but below I'll show you how they work with Xara X's Fractal Clouds fill, which we will be using to create a cloudy sky backdrop for our pretzel.

I applied a deep blue and white Fractal Clouds fill to these five panels and then clicked the Profile arrow on the Infobar to open the Profile dialog. The diagonal profile icon is the default. The upward arc maximizes the blue while the downward arc maximizes the white. The next squiggly line makes everything very soft and the last sqiggly line makes everything more distinct. The best way to see what these settings do is to experiment as I have done here.