corel draw x4

How to convert shadows to spot ink colors and set shadow resolution

2009-01-13T20:59:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

One of the most popular effects in CorelDRAW's tool arsenal is the Interactive Drop Shadow Tool. It enables designers and illustrators to instantly apply the attractive soft, beautiful shadow effects seen in today's professional-quality layouts and drawings. Drop shadow effects are based on bitmap characteristics, which presents two questions many users often end up asking themselves: What color model is my shadow based on? and; What is the resolution of the bitmap representing my shadow effect?

When it comes to applying drop shadow color interactively, you may choose any color you wish, the default color applied to all shadows is based on four color CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) inks used in process color printing. If the drawing you're preparing is comprised of spot colors though, and you wish your drop shadow to print only in a specific spot color ink, there is a quick solution. The shadow bitmap can be separated and converted using a simple technique.

To convert the drop shadow to a fixed-palette ink color, follow these brief steps:

If you haven't already done so, finish applying your drop shadow effect using the Interactive Drop Shadow Tool and ensure the shadow is just the way you need it to appear before proceeding.
With your drop shadow effect in place, right-click the shadow portion itself and choose the Break Drop Shadow Group Apart command from the popup menu. Doing this will break the dynamic link between your original object and the shadow effect.
Using the Pick Tool, click to select only the shadow bitmap and choose Bitmaps, Mode, Duotone (8-bit). A message "Bitmap Has Color Mask" may appear warning you that are about to eliminate a transparency mask which may be applied to the shadow. If so, click OK to proceed.
The Duotone dialog will open with the Curves tab in view, indicating the color type and any currently selected inks. If it isn't already selected, choose Monotone in the Curves tab (shown next).
To change from the current color, double-click the ink color name to open the Select Color dialog. In the Color Select dialog, choose the ink color you would like to use—such as a spot color of ink from one of CorelDRAW 11's Fixed Palette collections. To access these colors, click the Fixed Palette tab in the dialog (as shown next). Click OK to close the dialog and accept your color ink choice.
After choosing your ink color, you'll be returned to the Duotone dialog. Notice your chosen color is now listed. Click OK to close this dialog and the new spot ink color is applied. Notice your Status Bar now indicates the selected bitmap is a Duotone (as shown next).

The solution to controlling your shadow's bitmap resolution is even quicker than spot ink conversions. By default, all drop shadows are rendered using a resolution setting of 300 dpi (dots per inch), but if you require you may change this value anywhere within a range between 72 and 1,000 dpi using settings in the Options dialog by choosing the Workspace, General page. To access this option, open the Options dialog by choosing Tools, Options (Ctrl+J), click General under the Workspace heading on the left side of the dialog, and change the value in the Resolution box (shown next).

There's something else to keep in mind when changing resolution settings for effects. Changing effects resolution only apply to shadow effects created after the fact, meaning the effects will only apply following changes to the drop shadow resolution. Any shadows already created will remain applied with the previous setting, as shown next) in this magnified view.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and author of nearly a dozen books including CorelDRAW The Official Guide.

Creating GEL Text

2009-01-13T20:56:00.000-08:00

By Gary W. Priester

The Mac® OS X GEL look is still hot even though it was introduced quite some time ago. Creating GEL buttons has already been covered here and covered very well so I thought it would be fun to see if we could create the GEL look in text. Before we get started, however, we need to set a few common parameters. I will be using CorelDRAW® 11 and so some features may be different or may have migrated to different menus, as they often do between versions of CorelDRAW.

As I am creating this tutorial to be seen on the Web, I am going to use Corel's RGB palette, which many of you will remember was the default palette before version 7. The colors are brighter and will produce a better looking effect.

(Figure 1) In the Tools drop down menu, select Color Management… From the Style drop down list, select Optimized for the Web. This sets the color space to RGB.

(Figure 2) From the Layout menu, select Page Setup… In the Page Setup dialog, change the Resolution to 96 dpi (Windows®) or 72 dpi (Macintosh®). These two settings are screen resolution and are the proper 1:1 resolution for viewing on the Web. Even if you plan to output your image for commercial printing, use these two settings to avoid confusion. You can change the resolution before you output your files.

For this tutorial we shall create a GEL symbol for the at character (@). As CorelDRAWing this symbol is a lot harder than it looks, we'll use an Avant Garde @ symbol for a guide.

(Figure 3) Using the Text Tool, click on the page and key in @ in Avant Garde (the CorelDRAW default font). On the Property Bar, change the size to 130 and press Enter to apply the change.

(Figure 4) Press and hold the Freehand Tool to open the Curve Flyout menu. Select the Pen Tool (the fourth from the right). Click and add a series of connected lines as shown here in red. The idea is to place each anchor point in-between the outlines of the @ and to place the control points on logical points from which to create curved line segments. When you have clicked the last control point, double click to let CorelDRAW know you are finished.

(Figure 5) Select the Shape Tool. Click on the outline to select it. Marquee select all the control points by dragging a rectangle around all the points with the Shape Tool. On the Property Bar (the context-sensitive menu at the top of the screen) press the Convert Line to Curve icon. Drag a line segment and pull it like a rubber band until it more or less conforms to the shape of the @ symbol.

(Figure 6) Continue until all the line segments are now gently curves and more or less follow the shape of the @.

(Figure 7) We can fine tune the control points by adjusting the Bezier control handles. Select the outline with the Shape Tool. Click on a control point. Note that two lines with small boxes on the ends appear coming out of each side of the point. These are Bezier control handles with which we can adjust the segments of the outline. You can drag these in or out to make the curve segment longer or shorter and you can rotate them to adjust the angle of the curve segment. Experiment until you get the curve as smooth as possible. The smoothest curves will have both Bezier handles in a straight line. The angle of the handles will also be more or less parallel to the curve.

TIP: Moving the handles can be tricky and inexact if you are not real comfortable using the mouse. Zoom in close. Select a point and then use the arrow keys on your key pad to move the handles. You may also need to set the nudge amount on the Property Bar to 1px. (CorelDRAW's default idea of a nudge is sometimes closer to a shove)!

(Figure 8) You might need an extra control point at the top of the "a" shape. Double click with the Shape Tool to add the point. Continue to fine tune the shape until you have gotten it as close to the shape of the @ symbol as possible. Name and save your CorelDRAWing and take a short eye break.

(Figure 9) Delete the Avant Garde @ symbol. Select the outline. Click and hold on the Outline Tool to open the Outline Flyout. Select the Outline Pen options (the first icon). Change the line width to 16 points. Click the two middle Corner and Line Caps radio buttons to round the ends and the corners. Press OK.

With the outline still selected, select Convert Outline to Object from the Arrange menu.

(Figure 10). From the View menu, select Wireframe or Simple Wireframe. You will notice the original outline has been left behind. As we don't need it anymore, delete it. Return to the View menu and select Enhanced to return to the anti-aliased display mode.

(Figure 11) Select the Interactive Fill Tool icon. From the drop down list of Fill Types on the Property Bar, select Conical. The Interactive Conical Fill controls will appear on the screen. You can drag the ends of the fill path to rotate the fill. You can also double click on the circular portion of the fill path to add more colors. For what we are going to do, just leave everything as is. Click the white box at the end of the fill path, then click the red color on the screen palette. Repeat this for the other end so you now have a red to red conical fill. To the left of the Fill Type drop down list is the Edit Fill icon. Click it to open the Fountain Fill dialog. Select the counter clockwise fill option (indicated with the red ellipse) and press OK to apply the change.

(Figure 12) Make two copies of the rainbow filled shape and set them to one side. We'll need them later on. Change the fill of the original @ to black by selecting the shape then pressing the black color on the screen palette. You can also drag and drop colors from the screen palette onto the object.

Press and hold the Interactive Tool icon to open the Interactive Tools Flyout menu. Select the Contour Tool (the nested squares). If the shape is not selected, select it with the Contour Tool. On the Property Bar press the To Center icon. Change the Contour Offset amount to 1pix.

NOTE: Your shape may have an unfortunate wedge going though it. Mine did. If yours does not then skip this part. Select the shape and from the Arrange menu, select Break Curve Apart. Now marquee select the entire shape. The status bar at the bottom of the screen will tell you how many shapes are selected. You should only have 2. If it shows more, cut the counter (the inside of the "a" shape) to the clipboard (Edit > Cut). Marquee select most of but not all of the shape. If you see a small portion selected, delete it. Paste the shape from the clipboard back onto the shape, select both and from the Arrange menu, select Combine. Your contour should now be successful.

(Figure 13) Select the contour with the Pick Tool (the arrow). Open the Bitmaps menu and select Convert to Bitmap. Use the settings shown above. Press OK to create the bitmap.

(Figure 14) Center the bitmap over the rainbow-filled @ shape. Open the Interactive Tools Flyout menu and select the Transparency Tool (the wineglass icon). From the Property Bar, select Uniform (the default) and from the Transparency Operation drop down list, select Subtract. Change the slider setting to 30%.

(Figure 15) Select both the rainbow-filled shape and the transparent bitmap. Convert these two items to bitmap (Bitmaps menu) using the settings shown).

(Figure 16) Locate one of the duplicate @ shapes which I asked you to set aside. Change the fill to white and apply a black outline. Apply a 1-step, To Inside contour with a 4pix offset amount.

From the Arrange menu, select Break Contour Group Apart. Open the Arrange menu again and select Ungroup. Delete the wider shape (shown in dashed blue line).

(Figure 17) With the shape selected, press the + key to make an in-place duplicate. Move the duplicate 12 pixels to the right and 12 pixels down.

TIP: With nothing selected, change the Nudge amount on the Property bar to 1px. Now use the arrow keys on your computer keypad to move the duplicate shape the precise amount. (You could also set the nudge amount to 12px. Just remember to set it back to a lower amount when you are done).

(Figure 18) Select both shapes and then press the Trim icon on the Property Bar. The cutter shape remains and while nothing seems to have changed, if you drag the underneath shape away, you'll see the top shape has been trimmed out of the bottom shape as shown in blue.

(Figure 19) Duplicate the whole shape by pressing the + key. Move the duplicate shape up and to the left 12 pixels in each direction.

(Figure 20) Select the trimmed out shape and cut it to the clipboard (Edit > Cut). Select the two shapes. On the Property Bar, press Back Minus Front. This is a new path command that does the same function as Trim except it removes the top, or trimmer shape. Paste the shape we just cut to the clipboard back onto the page (Edit > Paste). Save your work and take a short eye break.

(Figure 21) Position the two cutout shapes as shown. Select the top shape and then select the Interactive Fill Tool. From the drop down menu on the Property Bar, select Conical. Make the starting and ending colors Baby Blue. Click the Edit Fill icon which is just to the left of the drop down list of Fill Types, to open the Fountain Fill dialog. Click the Clockwise Fill icon and press OK to close the dialog.

TIP: If you let the cursor rest for a moment over the color squares on the screen palette (or any of the buttons and icons), the color name, or tool or button name, will appear in a balloon under the cursor.

Select the bottom shape and repeat this step except use Spring Green for the start and end colors. The idea here is to create two rainbow gradients, one lighter and one slightly darker which we will use for highlights and reflections.

(Figure 22) Position the top highlight shape over the bitmap as shown. With the highlight shape selected, select Break Curve Apart from the Arrange menu. You will now have a series of separate shapes.

(Figure 23) Using the Freehand or the Pen Tool, CorelDRAW a single diagonal line through the bitmap image as shown. Select the top left most shape. Select the Interactive Transparency Tool and from the drop down list of Transparency Types, pick Circular. Select Add from the Transparency Operations drop down list. Drag the dashed arrow portion of the fill until the center of the circle is over the area where the diagonal line passes though the top of the @ shape. Click on the outside color, which is now white and change this to black by clicking the black square on the screen palette. Click on the inside color square and change the black to white. We have just made the center opaque and the outside transparent which is the opposite of the default setting.

NOTE: Black represents 100% transparency and white represents 0% or no transparency. You can also click the start or ending square and move the slider on the Property Bar to adjust the amount of transparency. Shades of gray represent various amounts of transparency.

(Figure 24) Select the next shape (directly over the "a"). From the Effects menu, select Copy Effect… Lens From… A large black arrow cursor will appear. Click the first highlight shape to which you applied transparency. Adjust the transparency so the lightest portion is centered on the red diagonal line and the diameter is similar in size to the first circular transparency.

(Figure 25) Repeat this last step and copy the lens effect to the other shapes. When you are finished, select all the highlight elements and group them.

(Figure 26) Position the bottom shape, which we will call the reflection, as shown. Break the Curve Apart. Apply a Circular, Multiply transparency reversing the starting and ending transparency percentages and centering the darkest portion of the circular transparency on the red diagonal line.

(Figure 27) Copy the lens effect to the other shapes and adjust the center and diameter of the transparency. Group all the reflection elements. Save your work and take a short eye break. We're almost done.

(Figure 28) Locate the other duplicate you made of the vector @ shape. CorelDRAW a rectangle around the @ to the size shown. Set the fill and outline to none.

Select both the rectangle and the rainbow-filled @. Convert these to Bitmap but do not select the Transparent Background option.

(Figure 29) With the bitmap selected, select Bitmaps > Blur > Gaussian. Apply a 7 pixel Gaussian Blur.

(Figure 30) Position the blurred bitmap over the other elements. Apply a Uniform, Subtract 50% Transparency. Move the blurred bitmap until the shape appears to the right and down from the shapes beneath it.

If the @ were indeed filled with rainbow-colored GEL and we placed the @ on a white sheet of paper and let light shine though it, we would get the same diffused color effect as we have achieved by placing the transparent blurred bitmap on top.

And that's all there is too it. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to drop me a line at Gary W. Priester

Blossoming Ideas for Cool Distortion Effects

2009-01-13T20:55:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

CorelDRAW 11's distortion effects are superb for applying controlled changes to an objects' shape-all the while allowing the object to remain in the vector world. There are several different types of distortion effects you can apply in CorelDRAW 11 - ranging from subtle to downright vicious - thanks to the complex mathematical algorithms on which each type of distortion is based.

Understanding Distortion Effects
Before we get too far along, let's gain an understanding of how these effects work with a little background information. As with other effects in CorelDRAW 11, distortions are applied using the Interactive Distortion Tool. You'll find it in the Toolbox grouped with other interactive tools. The effects you apply using this tool are dynamic, so they can be applied without losing the original object properties and may be edited at any time, saved as custom distortion presets, copied between objects, or cleared altogether.

A few other facts will help you in your distortion adventures. First, you may apply multiple distortion effects to a single object, meaning each distortion builds on the last. Once a distortion exists on your page, you may clear it in incremental steps, or copy it between objects. The condition of the object path - including the number of nodes it's comprised of - determines the basic shape of the resulting distortion. Also, there are three basic modes of distortion you can choose from using Property Bar options, each of which features overlapping variables.

The sheer number of variables and the wild results they create can make distortion effects tricky to use. In fact, you can easily while away more than a few hours creating practical drawing applications. To experience the power of this undervalued effect, let's explore a few relatively simple projects you can try to create some of the objects in this project.

Distortions Naturally
The Interactive Distortion Tool is great for quickly emulating natural or organic-style path effects which would otherwise be next to impossible to create manually, making it perfect for the objects shown next.

Let's start by creating the flower objects to represent, and follow up with variations of the same idea.

Begin by drawing a circular ellipse roughly three inches in diameter using the Ellipse Tool. Holding your Ctrl key as you draw will constrain its shape. With the circle complete and still selected, press the Convert to Curves button in the Property Bar to delete the ellipse properties. Drag a copy of this object aside by right-clicking as you drag it using the Pick Tool. The copy will serve as a template for a later step.
Apply color to your original circle using a customized Radial Fountain Fill. You could use the Interactive Fill Tool, but to do it quickly and precisely, press F11 to open the Fountain Fill dialog. Choose Radial as the type, and click Custom under Color Blend. Using the Custom Fountain options, set the position 0 color marker to white and the position 100 marker to 100 percent magenta. Add a new position marker at 65 and color it 100 percent magenta also (as shown next). Remove any outline properties.
Choose the Interactive Distortion Tool. Using Property Bar options choose Zipper as the distortion mode. Enter 17 as the Amplitude, 4 as the Frequency, click the Smooth button and press Enter to apply the effect. This will add a slight wave to the circle path (shown next).
For the concentric flower petals, create copies of the object in a centered arrangement. To create the first copy quickly, choose the Pick Tool, hold Shift while dragging any corner object handle slightly toward the center of the object, and click your right mouse button to make the copy. Repeat this action to create enough copies to nearly fill the area (roughly 13 in our example). Then randomly rotate each of the object copies slightly to offset them (as shown next with black outlines). To quickly rotate any object using the Pick Tool, you can click any selected object a second time to enter rotation/skew mode and drag any of the corner rotation handles.
Next, we'll apply a series of distortions in sequence to the template circle created earlier. Using the Interactive Distortion Tool, choose Zipper mode, click the Random button and enter an Amplitude value of 30 and a Frequency value of 5 and press Enter. Then, choose Push and Pull mode, enter 20 as the Amplitude value and press Enter to complete the distortion. Your template circle now has the distortion you need (shown next).
Switch to the Pick Tool momentarily and marquee-select all the objects in your flower petal arrangement. Choose the Interactive Distortion Tool again, click the Copy Distortion Properties button and click your circle copy after the targeting cursor appears. The distortion is copied to your petal objects (as shown next) and your arrangement is now a flowering shape.

Impressive Variations
By varying the distortion values in your arrangement of objects, you can quickly create a wide variety of flower styles. Follow this next example using the same objects to create a dramatically intricate effect and experience the real power of this effect.

Using the Interactive Distortion Tool, choose your template circle and clear the current distortion effects by clicking the Clear Distortion button two times. Apply a Push and Pull mode distortion with an Amplitude of 5. Then apply a Zipper distortion with the Random and Smooth buttons clicked, set the Amplitude to 100, and the Frequency to 20. Your template circle now features a slightly wavier path (as shown next).
Use the Pick Tool to marquee-select all flower petal objects. Press F11 to open the Fountain Fill dialog and change the custom fountain fill options as follows: Position 0=Red, position 40=Yellow, position 100=Yellow and click OK to close the dialog (shown next).
With the objects still selected, choose the Interactive Distortion Tool. Click the Clear Distortion button once to return the flower petals to their earlier wavy path shape. Use the Copy Distortion Properties button and target your template circle. This time a warning dialog (shown next) will appear to let you know the effect you are applying is complex-click OK to proceed.
Remove any outline properties applied to your objects and the effect is complete. In the example shown next, the distortion is applied and resembles a flower with intricately spiked petals and a complex path structure.

Combining Distortions with Blends
You can create yet another variation on the flower illustration by combining a distortion effect with a blend effect. The steps may be shorter, but the effect is no less impressive. The procedure involves first distorting an ellipse and blending with a scaled copy. Here's how it's done:

Start by drawing a circle roughly 3 inches in diameter using the Ellipse Tool (hold Ctrl to constrain its shape). Using the Pick Tool, convert the circle to curves (Ctrl+Q). Choose the Shape Tool and hold Shift+Ctrl while clicking any of the four path nodes to select all the nodes. Then, press the "+" key on your numeric key pad two times to automatically add 12 more evenly spaced nodes to the path (as shown next).
Choose the Interactive Distortion Tool and choose Push and Pull mode and apply an Amplitude to -50 (a negative value). Fill the object with 100 percent Yellow. Using the Pick Tool, create a centered copy roughly 10 percent of the original by dragging any corner handle inwards while holding the Shift key and clicking your right mouse button. Fill the copy with Red (as shown next).
Switch to the Interactive Blend Tool and drag between the two objects to create a default blend effect. Using Property Bar options, set the Blend Steps to 20, click the Apply button, and the effect is complete as shown next.

Creating Mixed Greens
What would a flower garden be without some greenery? The intricate detail on leaves is another ideal candidate for CorelDRAW's distortion effect. To simulate the serrated edges found on leaf shapes, follow these quick steps:

Using the Ellipse Tool, create a tall, thin ellipse roughly 3 inches tall and half an inch wide and convert it to curves (Ctrl+Q). Using the Shape Tool, change the top two curves to straight lines by clicking each line and clicking the Convert Curve to Line button in the Property Bar. The result will be a teardrop-shaped object (as shown next).
With the object still selected, fill the object with a dark green color. Then, choose the Interactive Fill Tool and drag upwards from bottom to top to apply a default Linear fountain fill. Click to select the top fill marker and apply a light green color. Remove any outline colors applied to the shape.
Choose the Interactive Distortion Tool and choose Zipper mode. Apply an Amplitude of 50 and a Frequency of 30 to create the initial distortion. To control the direction of the serrated edges, drag the diamond-shaped interactive marker to the top of the object. Notice the serrated points are now angled upwards (shown next).

These steps will create one variation on the leaf shape. But, you can quickly create more by varying the Amplitude and Frequency values as well as adjusting the width or height of the object (as shown next).

As a finishing touch, stems are easily created using a series of blended paths. To do this, create a path and apply a thick line width (such as 8 points) colored dark green. Press the "+" key on your numeric key pad to create a copy and change this path's outline to a thin width (such as hairline) colored light green. Using the Pick Tool, select both paths and open the Blend docker (choose Window, Dockers, Blend). Enter 5 as the Number of Steps and click Apply to create the blend effect (as shown next).

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and author of nearly a dozen books including CorelDRAW The Official Guide.

Snap to It with CorelDRAW® 12!

2009-01-13T20:53:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

If you've ever fumbled around trying to align your cursor to something, you can bid this frustrating task farewell. CorelDRAW® 12 object snapping has been re-designed with nine new modes to give you maximum snapping control that works together with the program's new Dynamic Guides.

Now you can instantly snap to text baselines, object nodes, edges, midpoints, centers and ellipse quadrants; or snap to ellipse tangents, perpendicular angles or angles specified as Dynamic Guide paths. For example, you can snap the baseline of a text object to a rectangle, like this:

You can also quickly draw a line between precise points on two separate objects, like this:

For the record, the effect of snapping is like holding a magnet near metal. As the magnet draws closer, it's drawn toward the metal and the attraction becomes stronger until the magnet eventually "snaps" to it.

When using CorelDRAW 12, two things can serve as magnets: the point at which you grab an object or your current drawing tool cursor. The "metal" that these points are drawn toward can be a guideline, a grid line, a new Dynamic Guide path or a specific point on another object.

Object snapping saves considerable time when moving or transforming shapes, or when creating lines or curves. It enables you to control how and where the snapping action occurs and eliminates the aggravation of fumbling with alignments, or guessing at angles and distances. If you've already used grids or guidelines to snap to, you'll appreciate the productivity boost this gives you.

Welcome to Snapping
CorelDRAW 12 delivers a mix of reliable existing and brand new snap features. If you're new to CorelDRAW, it may help you to know a bit about some of the existing snap actions you can activate and how to use them.

Snap to Grid – To have your drawing shapes and tool cursors snap and align to your document grid, choose View/Snap to Grid; press Ctrl+Y to toggle the feature on and off; or click the Snap to Grid button on the Property Bar (shown next). When objects snap to a grid, they snap to the grid lines as well as the grid line intersection points.

Snap to Guidelines – To activate guideline snapping, choose View/Snap to Guidelines or click the Snap to Guidelines button on the Property Bar (shown next). Guidelines are created by dragging from your vertical or horizontal rulers (they can also be slanted), or by using Presets with automated scripts in the Guidelines Presets page of the Options dialog box.

Snap to Objects – To have your objects or cursors snap to and align with other objects, choose View/Snap to Objects; press Alt+Z; or click the Snap to Objects button on the Property Bar (shown next). You can set snap points using new snap modes option in the Snap to Objects page of the Options dialog box.

Dynamic Guides – This new feature uses the selected snap modes that we'll explore next. Press the Dynamic Guides button in the Property Bar (shown next) or choose View/Dynamic Guides (Alt+Shift+D) to toggle Dynamic Guides on or off.

Maximum Object Snapping Power
Here's where object snapping really takes a new turn. The new snap modes enable you to snap to more points on your objects, and offer live feedback by showing onscreen symbols and screen tips.

While object snapping is turned on, your objects and cursors use snap modes to determine where to snap. You can customize these using options in the Snap to Objects pane of the Options dialog box (shown next), accessed by choosing View/Snap to Objects Setup.

For object snapping to happen, two steps are involved: your cursor must be dragging or drawing something, and it must be at or near snap points on another object. (This also includes an object being dragged from its original position to a new position.) When your cursor connects with snapping points on the other object, the snapping action occurs. As you get accustomed to using this feature, you'll wonder how you ever did without it.

Custom-select options in the Snap to Objects dialog box to set your snap behavior exactly how you need it. Here's how each of the options control snapping:

Snap to Objects On – Click this to turn Snap to Objects on or off.

Snapping Threshold – This menu enables you to set the snapping sensitivity, based on pixel proximity to snap points. Choose Medium (the default), Low or High, where Low reduces the snapping distance and High increases it, like this:

Show Snap Location Marks – This toggles the display of the icon markers identifying each snap point type on various objects. This is great to use for identifying specific snap points in a crowded clusters of objects, like this:

Screen Tip – While the Show Snap Locations Marks option is selected, use Screen Tip to control whether or not the text label that identifies the current snap point is displayed.

Customize Where Objects Snap
The mode list (shown next) in the Snap to Objects dialog box includes nine specialized object snap modes. They can be toggled on or off individually when you want to quickly snap to certain object points but ignore others. The icon list beside each of the modes acts as a symbol legend to show how each snap point is indicated on your screen when using the Show Snap Location Marks option. You can also use buttons in this dialog box to quickly activate or deactivate all the options in the list at once.

Each of the modes causes object or cursor snapping in the following ways:

Nodes – Use this mode to snap an object or your cursor where nodes exist (shown as square markers) on any object type or any open or closed path.

Intersection – Use this mode to activate snapping where the outline paths of two objects intersect (shown as a diamond marker) or where the guide paths of two object snap points cross, like this:

Midpoint – Use this mode to snap to the point at the exact center between any two nodes (shown using a triangular marker) on an object or path.

Quadrant – This mode activates snapping to the precise left, right, top or bottom edge point of an ellipse object (shown as a stylized circle symbol), or the visible quadrants on an ellipse set to the Pie or Arc state.

Edge – Choose this mode to snap to anywhere on the outline path of an object (shown as a stylized square symbol).

Center – This mode activates snapping to the dead center origin of closed-path objects (indicated as a target dot symbol) based on their width and height.

Text Baseline – The baseline of text is the imaginary line on which each character appears to rest. If you create text and image layouts, this invaluable mode will activate snapping to anywhere on text baselines (shown as a stylized solid diamond symbol). Both Artistic and Paragraph text objects are valid objects even if the text is formatted in multiple lines, as shown here:

On a slightly higher object snapping level for geometry lovers, the next two modes add tangent and perpendicular actions to the mix. Both help when drawing with line tools to define node positions. Here's how they work:

Tangent – A tangent is a straight line that only touches to align with the edge of a curve. You can use this mode to snap your drawing tool cursor to a point on a tangent (shown as a circle-and-line symbol) from a curve or ellipse, like this:

Perpendicular – A perpendicular line creates a right angle (90 degrees) from another line or curve plane. Choose this mode to snap your drawing tool cursor to a point perpendicular from a point on an existing line or curve (shown as a typical right-angle symbol), or to a point on the guide path aligning with open or closed lines and curves, ellipse objects, or ellipses set to Pie or Arc, as shown here:

The ideal way to familiarize yourself with what each mode does is to activate an object (Alt+Z), and practice by selecting only one active mode at a time. When you do, be sure to turn off all other snapping (Ctrl+Y) as well as Dynamic Guides (Alt+Shift+D). That way, you'll get a clear view of the real snapping power you have at your fingertips with this new feature.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and author of nearly a dozen books including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

A Clever New CorelDRAW® 12 Drawing Tool

2009-01-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

Has anyone ever known you well enough to finish your sentences? Well, that's how the powerful new drawing tool in CorelDRAW® 12 works. The new Smart Drawing tool gives freehand sketching the benefit of a kind of artificial intelligence. You can sketch a shape freehand-style on screen and end up with a precise vector object as a curve, native object or Perfect Shape. You'll find the new Smart Drawing tool (shown next) located in the toolbox between the curve tools and the rectangle tools—or you can press the S hotkey for speedy selection.

You can use the Smart Drawing tool with a stylus and drawing tablet, but good mouse skills work just as well. When sketching curves, this tool is capable of automatically recognizing a number of geometric characteristics. For example, two lines sketched side by side can be recognized as parallel straight lines. Sketching rough shapes that have right angle corners can produce precise 90-degree angles, like this:

When drawing native geometric shapes, sketched boxes and squares translate into true rectangles, complete with rounded corner properties that you can apply. Sketched ovals and circles are recognized as true ellipses that you can fashion into arcs or pie shapes, if you desire. You can also sketch other complex geometric shapes such as arrows, equilateral and isosceles triangles, diamonds, trapezoids, parallelograms and so on, which translate into Perfect Shapes™, like these:

While the Smart Drawing tool is selected, you can take as long as you need to complete your sketched shapes. But after you're done, CorelDRAW 12 takes a short time to translate your sketches. To do this, two key options control how accurately shapes are recognized and smoothed. You'll find these options in the Property Bar (shown next). Setting these interconnected options enables you to control how closely your sketched shapes are translated.

Here's how the Smart Drawing tool options provide control over recognition and smoothing:

Shape Recognition
This option sets how precisely your sketched shape is matched to a recognizable shape and can be set to one of five levels ranging from Lowest (sketched shapes are not easily recognized) to Highest (sketched shapes are easily recognized), with Medium as the default and None turning the feature off completely.

Smart Smoothing
After your sketched shape is complete, a level of node smoothing is applied in order to make object recognition precise. This option enables you to set that smoothing action, much the same as applying smoothing to a typical path. Choose from one of five options ranging from Lowest (less smoothing applied) to Highest (more smoothing applied), with Medium as the default and None turning the feature off.

These two options work together, enabling CorelDRAW 12 to do its recognition magic. Technically speaking, here's what the Smart Drawing tool is capable of recognizing using default recognition and smoothing options:

Ovals and Circles – translate as native ellipse objects
Boxes and Squares – translate as native rectangle objects
Lines – translate as curve objects (either straight or curved depending on how they are sketched)
Triangles – translate as curved objects or as perfect triangle shapes (either isosceles or equilateral)
Diamond – a sketched shape resembling a skewed square will translate into a perfect diamond shape
Parallelogram – a roughly sketched four-sided shape whose opposite sides are parallel and equal will translate into a perfect parallelogram shape
Trapezoid – a roughly sketched four-sided shape that has two parallel sides and two non-parallel sides will translate into a perfect trapezoid shape
Arrows – two roughly sketched open paths that resemble an arrow pointing will translate into a Perfect Shape arrow, like this:

To experience the drawing power of the new Smart Drawing tool, try these quick steps:

Choose the Smart Drawing tool (or press the S hotkey) and use a click-drag action to sketch a square or rectangle. Aim to keep the sides of the shape vertical and horizontal as you draw. After releasing your mouse button, CorelDRAW 12 automatically translates your sketch into a rectangle shape, like this:
Choose the Pick tool and check your Status Bar display. The shape you sketched is specified as a Rectangle, and the Property Bar features options associated with shapes created using the Rectangle tool, including the rounded corner options.
Choose the Smart Drawing tool again and sketch an oval or circle. Aim to keep the shape oriented either vertically or horizontally. When releasing the mouse button, CorelDRAW 12 translates your sketched shape into an ellipse, like this:
Choose the Pick tool and check your Status Bar. The shape you sketched is specified as an Ellipse and the Property Bar features options associated with shapes created using the Ellipse tool, including Ellipse, Arc and Pie states.

Perfect Shapes and Glyph Nodes
Since certain shapes you sketch can be recognized as Perfect Shapes (such as triangles, trapezoids and parallelograms), it may help to know a little about these specialized objects.

Sketched shapes that are recognized as Perfect Shapes are the same as the ones you would typically draw using the Perfect Shape tool. But these Perfect Shapes each feature unique "glyph" nodes that can be manipulated to change their proportions while preserving certain aspects of their shape. For example, the shape representing a triangle features a single glyph node that enables you to set one of the angles but keep the overall symmetry of the shape.

You can edit glyph nodes similar to the way you alter the control points on a polygon. As they're moved, glyph nodes have the effect of resizing, changing proportion or dynamically moving a certain aspect of the shape.

For some hands-on experience creating a Perfect Shape with the Smart Drawing tool, try these steps:

Using the Smart Drawing tool(s), sketch the shape of an isosceles triangle (a three-sided shape with two equal angles). On releasing the mouse button, CorelDRAW 12 translates your sketch into a Perfect Shape, complete with a glyph node, like this:
Choose the Pick tool and check your Status Bar. The shape is identified as a Perfect Shape. Use the Shape tool next to click and drag the glyph node (the red marker) to alter your shape's proportions. The triangle changes shape with the two angles constrained to equal measures, as shown here:

You can edit glyph nodes interactively using the Shape tool (F10), but you can also edit them using the Object Properties docker for a selected Perfect Shape. To quickly access these options, press Alt+Enter to open the Object Properties docker and click the Perfect Shape tab, shown here:

Smarter Drawing Tool Functions
There are two other aspects of the Smart Drawing tool that you may find useful. The first involves controlling the delay time interval between the moment you finishing sketching a shape and the moment CorelDRAW 12 determines a recognizable shape. By reducing this delay time, you can sketch several separate lines or shapes in succession and CorelDRAW 12 will recognize them as a single compound path. For example, if you finish sketching a complete shape, then begin sketching a second shape within the time delay interval, the two shapes will be recognized as a single object.

Access the option that controls time delay by double-clicking the Smart Drawing tool button in the toolbox to open the Options dialog box. The Drawing Assistance Delay slider (shown next) can be set between 0 and 2 seconds. The higher you set the delay time, the more time you'll have to keep drawing. If you're accustomed to quick sketching, a lower delay time will make your sketching sessions more productive.

While using the Smart Drawing tool, you can also correct your sketched shapes on the fly to improve the accuracy of your drawing. As you sketch your shape, temporarily hold Shift as the modifier key to interactively erase your drawing path in reverse. As you hold the Shift key, the Smart Drawing tool cursor will invert interactively to erase your sketched lines (shown next). Releasing the Shift key enables you to resume your sketching operation.

The new Smart Drawing tool is one of those truly innovative tools that pop up every so often. If you work in a creative field such as design or illustration, or a planning industry such as industrial design, engineering or architecture, the Smart Drawing tool enables you to harness the power of this new software intelligence. You may just find yourself reaching for it the next time you start a new CorelDRAW drawing project.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and author of nearly a dozen books including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

Using Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12 to Enhance Your Digital Photography

2009-01-13T20:50:00.000-08:00

by Tony Celeste

In this article, you'll learn how to use Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12 with your digital camera. I'll go over the entire process: downloading your photos from your camera to Corel PHOTO-PAINT, accomplishing brightness and contrast adjustments, performing point and click color correction, touching up with blurring and sharpening, and cleaning up problem areas with the Clone Tool.

Downloading from Your Digital Camera
There are several different methods for downloading photos from your camera's memory to your computer. For example, some computers have interfaces that allow you to remove the memory chip from the camera and plug it directly into the computer. Also, some high-end cameras write directly to mini CDs, which can then be placed in your CD drive and read like any other disk. There are also various methods for downloading from your digital camera using your computer's USB port. All of these methods vary among different digital camera manufacturers and different operating systems.

None of the methods is necessarily easier or better than any other, it's just a matter of personal preference. In this article, I'll demonstrate how to download your photos using your digital camera's USB "twain driver", since this method can be used on all operating systems that support Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12, and since the process differs very little among the various camera manufacturers.

To begin, open Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12, click File | Acquire Image | Select Source, and select your digital camera from the list of USB imaging devices attached to your computer (as with printers and scanners, your camera will need a driver to allow it connect to your computer; so if your camera isn't listed, make sure that you installed the driver).

Your digital camera is now set up as the default USB graphics device connected to Corel PHOTO-PAINT (of course, this can be changed at any time). Next, click File | Acquire Image | Acquire. An interface will open inside Corel PHOTO-PAINT enabling you to select the photo or photos that you would like to download (the interface for your digital camera may look slightly different from the one below).

You can download a single image by double-clicking it. To select multiple images, hold down the CTRL key while clicking. To select a series of consecutive images, click on the first image, hold down the SHIFT key, and then click on the last image. Click File | Acquire to download your images to Corel PHOTO-PAINT. Note that these are general instructions, there will be slight variations among different manufacturers. For example, your interface may use File | Open instead of File | Acquire, or may replace menu commands with a Download button or an OK button.

Just about every digital photo you take will require some type of editing before it's ready to be printed or published to the Web. Most editing will involve minor corrections such as brightness and contrast, color enhancement, and blurring or sharpening. I'll use the photo below to explain these concepts. This photo was taken at Fort Lauderdale Beach, in April, 2004, at about 6 pm. The shadows caused by taking a picture on the east side of the beach, when the sun was setting in the west, created a brightness issue; so I'll start out with that.

Brightness and Contrast
Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12 provides several tools in the Image | Adjust submenu that can be used to adjust brightness and contrast. I've found that the most convenient tool to work with is the Tone Color tool (located near the bottom of the Adjust submenu).

All Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12 Adjust and Effect filters enable "before" and "after" previews, as shown above. If you're not seeing any preview windows, click the first small button in the upper left corner of the filter's window (under the words "Color Tone") to enable before and after previews. If you're only seeing one large preview window (this is an "after" preview) click the second of the two buttons in the upper left. You can zoom in to the preview windows by placing your cursor over the "before" window and clicking your left mouse button, and you can zoom out by placing your cursor over the "before" window and clicking your right mouse button.

The Color Tone window can be used to adjust brightness, saturation, and contrast, all from within the same interface. The Color Tone filter also provides thumbnails that show how each adjustment will affect your image, which helps you decide which adjustment to apply. You can apply an adjustment more than once, and provide any combination of adjustments that you desire. The Step control, located near the middle right of the window, controls how much each adjustment changes your image. I set the Step control to 25 in the above screen shot, so that you could get an idea of how the available adjustments work, by looking at the thumbnails. However, you'll probably find the default Step setting of 10 to be much more practical.

With the Step setting set to 10, I clicked the Lighter thumbnail twice to brighten this image. Since brightness changes also cause contrast changes, after you adjust brightness, it's always a good idea to examine your image's contrast to see if it needs adjusting. In this case, the added brightness caused a somewhat "washed out" appearance, so I increased contrast by clicking once on the contrast thumbnail. At this point, the sand still had a washed out, off-white color to it, so I clicked the Saturate thumbnail once to restore the sand to its normal light brown color.

Color Correction
As with the brightness and contrast adjustments, Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12 provides many tools for working with color. In this example, I'll use the Color Hue filter. To access the Color Hue filter, click Image | Adjust | Color Hue.

The Color Hue filter uses thumbnails that are similar to those found in the Color Tone filter. As with the Color Tone filter, I increased the Step value so that you could get a better idea of how each thumbnail works. In practice, you'll likely find that the default value of 10, or even a value of 5, is more appropriate.

The Color Hue filter works on the concept that red and cyan are "opposites" on the color wheel (see below), as are green and magenta, and yellow and blue. This is reflected in the filter's thumbnails: if you click More red, and then click More cyan, you'll end up with the exact same image that you started out with, since the two changes cancel each other out. Think of it as being at a set point on the color wheel, and moving 20 pixels away from red and toward cyan. If you then move 20 pixels in the opposite direction, away from cyan and toward red, you'll end up at exactly the same point as where you started.

The Color Wheel is used to represent the complete spectrum of colors. Note that certain colors, such as red and cyan, are opposite each other in the color wheel. You can drag and drop this color wheel into Corel PHOTO-PAINT, and using the Eyedropper Tool, obtain the color values for any of the True colors, or any of the colors anywhere on the wheel.

You'll likely find the best color correction for your image by experimenting with various thumbnail adjustments. Note that you can also disable adjustment to your image's highlights, midtones, and/or shadows, and you can disable luminance (overall image brightness) by un-checking the appropriate boxes. For this particular image, I felt that the sand had a very mild reddish hue to it, and that the sky had a little too much blue. I adjusted the image's color by setting the Step slider to 5 and clicking More cyan one time.

Blurring and Sharpening
Most images that are brought into your computer from a scanner or a digital camera will need either a blur or a sharpen adjustment (I've noticed that digital camera images are likely to need sharpening more often than they need blurring). With this image, I felt that the edges of the sand and waves were a little dull, so I decided to apply a slight sharpen effect. Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12 makes available 10 blur filters, which are accessed by clicking Effects | Blur; and 5 sharpen filters, which are accessed by clicking Effects | Sharpen. There are also Tune Blur and Tune Sharpen filters available that are similar to the Color Tone and Color Hue filters, they display thumbnails that preview image correction. The Tune Blur filter is located in the Blur submenu (Effects | Blur), and the Tune Sharpen filter is accessed by clicking Image | Correction | Tune Sharpen.

When it comes to blurring and sharpening, you'll usually know in advance what type of effect you want to apply, so you may find it more convenient to use a specific filter instead of Tune Blur or Tune Sharpen. For sharpening, I most often use the Unsharp Mask filter for close up images (such as a model's face) and the Sharpen filter for more widely focused images (such as the sample image here).

The Threshold slider works in the reverse of what you might expect: instead of increasing sharpening as you increase the level, it lowers sharpening as you increase the level. For most images, you'll find a Threshold of 1 - 10 to be best, I usually start at 5 and then adjust the Edge level. Increasing the Edge level increases the sharpening effect. For most images, a value between 1 and 25 will be appropriate. Very high Edge level settings will remove almost all detail from your image, so they're not suitable for most photos, but they can be used to create a sketch pad special effect, in which your image looks like it was sketched using colored pencils.

A Quick Look at Environmental Cleanup
There's just one last bit of fine tuning that this image needs: There are three pieces of debris (a rag, a plastic bag, and a styrofoam cup) on the sand (see right). Fortunately, each of these can be removed with a single brush stroke of the Clone Tool. The Clone Tool copies an area of the image, and essentially creates a paint brush using the area's shape and colors. You can then use this brush to to paint over problem areas in the image.

To access the Clone Tool, press the letter C (Corel PHOTO-PAINT must be in front of all other open programs on your screen for keyboard shortcuts such as this to work). In the Property Bar (located near the top of the screen), click the Shape drop-down box and select 40 (see below). Set the size to 25, the transparency to 0, make sure the antialiasing button is pressed, and set the feathering to 100 (as shown below).

To set the area to clone, right-click to the right of a piece of debris (see right). Next, center the round cursor directly over the nearby piece of debris, and then left-click directly over the debris. Repeat this procedure for the remaining pieces of debris. The Clone Tool will replace the debris with sand colors that blend in perfectly with the surrounding image.

Why not use the new Touchup tool to remove the debris? Or maybe, mention the Touchup tool as an alternative way of completing the task?

Editing Complete
Here's a look at this image when it was first downloaded from the digital camera, and after all of the above enhancements. Click on the thumbnails for a look at the full-size images.

I hope you've found this article helpful and informative. It's been a long time since I've written for Designer.com and Corel.com, I've definitely enjoyed doing so again. - Tony Celeste

Anthony L. Celeste is a Technical Writer, Multimedia Designer, and Windows Programmer living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. You may contact him at aceleste@comcast.net.

Creating Web Pages In Corel R.A.V.E.™ 3.0

2009-01-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

by Tony Celeste

One of the most common challenges in Web design is creating content that maintains a consistent look and feel regardless of the display settings used by visitors to your site. It's not an issue in traditional print media—an 8 x 11 print is an 8 x 11 print, regardless of who is looking at it. However, on the Web, things aren't quite that simple. You have no idea what resolution visitors to your site will be using. If you design for 800 x 600, those using 640 x 480 displays will have to scroll from left to right to read each line of your Web page, and those using 1024 x 768 displays will have a large area of whitespace where there should be content (see below).

View larger image	View larger image	View larger image
A Web page created at 800 x 600 resolution will look too large when viewed at 640 x 480 resolution (left), normal when viewed at 800 x 600 resolution (center), and too small when viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution (right)

Web designers have traditionally dealt with this in two ways: (1) by choosing a popular resolution, such as 800 x 600, and hoping it displays well on as many visitors' displays as possible, or (2) by making separate Web pages for all commonly used resolutions, and using JavaScript® programming to direct each user to a page designed specifically for their resolution. Obviously, neither solution is ideal. In this article, I'll explain a third option: creating entire Web pages inside Corel R.A.V.E..

When you create a Web page in Corel R.A.V.E., the page automatically resizes itself to fit your viewer's display settings, regardless of whether those settings are the same as, smaller than, or larger than your settings. Also, because you're creating vector graphics instead of bitmap graphics, the page will retain its original quality, even when displayed on much smaller or much larger displays. This is possible because of the powerful, vector based Flash file format used by R.A.V.E.. Flash Web pages are becoming more and more common, they're seen in several mainstream sites, including NFL Films and Pepsi, and seem most popular among those in the graphics design and motion picture businesses.

This tutorial will teach you how to create entire Web pages from within the comfortable Corel R.A.V.E. interface. And, at the same time, you'll learn the basics involved in using Corel R.A.V.E..

A Quick Flash / R.A.V.E. FAQ

If you've never used Flash or Corel R.A.V.E., you may be unfamiliar with some of the essential concepts, so here's a quick mini FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions):

Getting Started

The Corel R.A.V.E. interface and tools are very similar to those of CorelDRAW®. To get started:

1. Click the New File icon (which is located on far left side of the Standard Toolbar, just beneath the main Menu Bar).

2. Set the Width and Height for your Web page (these controls are on the far left side of the Properties Bar).

Note: The width and height of your Flash page will be adjusted by your viewer's browser to fit their display. The purpose of these numbers is to simply give you an approximate idea of what your viewers will be seeing. I usually use a width of 760 pixels and height of 420 pixels, since this will fit well in an 800 x 600 browser display. It's a good "middle of the road" setting that will provide a general sense of what visitors with both smaller and larger displays will see.

3. To make it easier to work with your Web page's background, increase the Zoom to about 150% to 175% (the Zoom control is located near the center of the standard toolbar).

4. Set the Background Color for your Web page.

Note: The default Background Color is white. To change the background color, click Tools > Options. In the Options dialog box, double-click Document > Movie Setup > Background. To choose a color, click the Color Selector next to the Solid option. Although you can use a bitmap background, doing so will increase the size of your Web page, and may also make the page difficult to read.

Creating a Text Graphic

Many Web pages start out with a text graphic at the top, which is what you'll create in this example. Corel R.A.V.E. provides both Artistic and Paragraph Text. Artistic Text is designed for creating graphics, Paragraph Text is better suited for blocks of text. To create a text graphic:

1. Click the Text Tool (located near the middle of the vertical Toolbox Bar on the far left of the interface).

2. Select font type and size in the Properties Bar.

Note: It's best to use fonts that are likely to be installed on most computers. If your font is not available on a viewer's computer, it will be substituted with a similar font. Fonts available on most computers include Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Times New Roman, Courier New, and Brush Script.

3. Click an area near the upper left of your blank page in R.A.V.E..

A flashing cursor appears where your text will be placed. Type in any text and, if needed, adjust the font and font size. At this point, you don't have to be concerned with exact placement of the text because you can move it at any time. You can also change the text color from its default setting (Black) by using the Fill tab of the Object Properties Docker (below).

To create a more eye-catching text graphic, you may want to use a Fountain Fill (also called a gradient fill) instead of a solid color. This is where Corel's interface truly excels over the Macromedia Flash™ interface. In Macromedia Flash, the process involves creating the text, converting it to a mask, creating a new layer, placing a gradient rectangle on the new layer, and then using the text mask to essentially copy a gradient color pattern from the rectangle.

Fortunately, Corel R.A.V.E. makes the process much easier. In the Fill tab of the Object Properties Docker (below), click the Fountain Fill button. A two color gradient is immediately available, and you can change the colors to any that you desire. If you'd like to create a more advanced gradient (with more than 2 colors), just click on the Advanced button (near the bottom of the docker).

View larger image

When designing Web pages, it's wise to avoid excessively large file sizes. The choice of Fill types you use can help reduce file size. Solid Fills and Fountain Fills will create significantly smaller file sizes than most Pattern Fills and Texture Fills. This is because you can save Solid and Fountain Fills as vector data inside Flash files, but Pattern and Texture fills are usually saved as bitmap data inside Flash files. So, whenever possible, I recommend using Solid or Fountain Fills for your Flash graphics.

Adding a Navigation Bar

To facilitate navigation, horizontal bars are frequently used near the top of Web pages. To add a navigation bar, click on the Rectangle Tool (located near the middle of the Corel R.A.V.E. Toolbox), and draw a rectangle under the text graphic.

View larger image

Adding a Fountain Fill can give the navigation bar an attractive look and feel. In this example, I'm going to use a 3-color Linear Fountain Fill.

1. Choose Windows > Dockers > Properties and, on the Object Properties Docker, click the Fountain Fill button, then the Linear Fountain button, and then the Advanced button. The advanced Fountain Fill dialog box opens:

View larger image

2. Click "Custom" (in the "Color Blend" section of the dialog box).

3. Note the small boxes located immediately above the Color Band. You can use these to set the main colors for your Fountain Fill. From the Color Presets, select a medium to dark color. In this example, I choose the shade of gray named "60% Black" (hover your cursor over any of the preset colors to see its name).

4. Click the Position Indicator just above the upper right corner of the Color Band. Select the same color as you chose previously. At this point, the color band will show a solid color bar.

5. Double-click somewhere near the middle of the Color Band . A new Color Indicator will appear immediately above the Color Band with an arrow shaped indicator. Look in the position box just above the Color Indicators, and if necessary, use the up and down arrows to set the position to "50". Select a light color. In this example, I used the shade of light gray named "10% Black".

6. Use the Angle box to the left of the Preview Window (click and drag in the Preview Window) to set the gradient to a 90 degree angle.

7. Click OK. The advanced gradient that you just created will fill the rectangle.

8. You can now add text hyperlinks to the navigation bar. To add text, click the Text Tool and then click on the navigation bar.

9. Once the text is added, you'll use the Internet Toolbar to link the text to a URL. Right click any toolbar and click "Internet" to open the Internet Toolbar:

10. To activate the Internet toolbar, click the first button on the left. Click the arrow on the first drop down box and select "DOWN". In the second drop down box, select "URL". In the third Drop Down box, type in the URL that you wantto link to the text. This process will tell Flash to open the URL you selected when your visitor's mouse is clicked (when their left mouse button is in the down position).

11. Click the button on the far right side of the Internet Toolbar, select "Bounding Box" and uncheck crosshatch.

Repeat the above procedure for any additional hyperlinks that you'd like to add to the menu bar.

Additional Navigation

Although it's not essential, some sites (such as www.corel.com/support) use a navigation bar at the top of the page, and add additional navigation on the left side of the page. Now that you have the skills to use the Rectangle Tool, Text Tool, Fountain Fills, and Internet Toolbar, it's a snap to add navigation bullets and text to the left side of your page.

1. Select the Ellipse Tool and draw an ellipse on your Web page (the ellipse tool works in the same way as the Rectangle Tool, and it lets you create a perfect circle by holding down the Control key as you click and drag).

2. Change the Fountain Fill type from Linear to Radial and fill the ellipse with a two color Fountain Fill.

3. To position the lightest part of the fill near the upper left of the window, click and drag in the Fountain Fill preview window. This will create a bullet that appears to have a slightly raised or "beveled" effect.

4. Add text beside each bullet.

5. Use the Internet Tab of the Object Properties Docker to assign URLs to the bullets and text.

Normally, in a bitmap program such as Adobe® Photoshop® or Corel PHOTO-PAINT®, you'd use a 3D Filter or Lighting Filter to create a beveled effect. Knowing how to do this in Corel R.A.V.E.lets you create a vector bevel effect, which will almost always be significantly smaller than the equivalent bitmap effect.

Adding Paragraph Text

This is perhaps the most important and, also, the easiest part. Using the Text Tool, draw a rectangle around the area where you'd like your text to appear. On the Text Properties Bar, click the Edit Text icon (the last icon on the right). Type your text in the edit box, make any formatting changes you desire, and your Web page will be complete.

Saving and Exporting

Make sure that you choose File > Save As, and save your file in the Corel R.A.V.E. .CLK file format. This will enable you to make changes to the file in the future.

To export your Web page to the Flash format, click File > Publish To The Web. Choose a file name, and click Export. Accept the default options, and click the Issues tab to review any issues. When you're finished, click OK. The Flash file will be saved to your hard drive, along with a small HTML file that loads the Flash file into Web browsers.

The HTML File

To ensure your Flash Web page fits perfectly in any browser that it's displayed in, you'll need to make some very minor changes to the HTML file. Open the HTML file in any text editor (such as Windows Notepad). Change the background color from "#FFFFFF" (the HTML code for white) to "Black" (you can just type in the word "Black", the HTML code is not needed). Also, search for the words "Width" and "Height" (both words will appear twice) and change all four of these values to "100%". Click save, and you are done.

If you'd like, you can review my sample Corel R.A.V.E. .CLK file (which will open in R.A.V.E.), sample HTML code (which will open in your text editor and display the text edits described above), and sample Flash Web page.

Your Web page, which consists of the HTML file and the Flash file, is now ready for uploading to your Web site. To see how well Flash adjusts for changing display dimensions, try maximizing and changing the size of your browser window. You'll notice that no matter the dimensions you choose, the Flash file will fit perfectly.

Anthony L. Celeste is a Technical Writer, Multimedia Designer, and Windows Programmer living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. You may contact him at aceleste@comcast.net.

Tile Printing From CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite 12

2009-01-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

If the documents that you create with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 don't match the material size to which you're printing, you can print the document in sections, or tiles. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 provides a tile printing operation that lets you print any sized document to any sized print material. Using this technique, you can print a postage stamp design onto playing-field size material (or vice versa).

As a typical scenario, we have a drawing—the map shown below—that needs to be dramatically enlarged and printed onto letter-sized sheets. In this case, the map has been prepared on a page size of 9 inches by 8 inches, but final print reproduction size needs to fit a space 63 inches by 57 inches.

Step 1: Set the Print Material Size
Accessed by choosing File > Print Preview, tile-printing is controlled using the Print Preview command. Since we're scaling up the document (enlarging a small document), we'll need to first select our printer and specify the print material size (in this case, Letter). To do this, choose Settings > General, and click the General tab of the Print Options dialog. To access print driver options, choose a printer and click the Properties button (shown below). Then choose your paper size, and click OK.

Step 2: Determine the Final Printed Size
With the material size selected, click the Layout tab, locate the specific page (if you're using CorelDRAW), and click the Print Tiled Pages option (as shown below). Type a corresponding print size in one of the Size boxes, and press Enter. To avoid distorting your output, ensure the Maintain Aspect Ratio option is enabled. Notice that the # of Tiles boxes now show the number of sheets your output will need—for our example, enter a 63-inch width by 57 inch depth, which will require 56 tiles in total (7 horizontally x 8 vertically).

Step 3: Use Tile Overlap and Tile Marks
If your printer can't print to the edges of the sheet, there's something else you'll need to do. Most composite printers leave a 5 percent blank strip at the edge of each printed page. To compensate for this, specifying a Tile Overlap amount (shown below) lets you add a uniform image portion to each tile section. If you're unsure of the amount to use, print a full-page test sheet set with a background color.

If the blank margins around the edges are uneven, enter the largest value in the Tile Overlap box. To add trim marks to which to align the printed sheets when assembling the final product after printing, enable the Tiling Marks option. When the document prints, the tile marks will indicate both the edges of the tiles, and the overlap margins. After setting any other required options for printing, close the Print Options dialog box to return to the Print Preview window.

Step 4: Preview the Tiles and Options
In the Print Preview window, you'll see your tile seams indicated as dotted lines, black tile marks matching your printing material size and orientation, as well as the overlap portion you've specified. At this point, confirm your settings and you're ready to print the tiles. Choosing File > Print starts the printing process immediately. If you'd like to print a specific tile without reprinting the entire collection, right-click any of the tile sections in the Print Preview window, and choose Print This Sheet Now from the pop-up menu (shown below). Only the tile you right-clicked will be printed at the current Print Options settings.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and author of nearly a dozen books including CorelDRAW The Official Guide.

Demystifying the CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite 12 PostScript Options

2009-01-13T20:46:00.001-08:00

bBy Steve Bain

As anyone new to printing from a graphics application can tell you, print errors can sometimes be a scary and costly experience. Confusion is often amplified if you're faced with choosing PostScript printing options that you have limited experience with. If you don't know what PostScript printing options are, you certainly won't know which to use and which to avoid. Since the terminology seems foreign to many, I'll try to demystify the PostScript language so that it's more easily understood.

When you print from CorelDRAW® 12, you're actually using the print engine to send commands to your printer. Print options use information gleaned from your print driver to enable you to control how various object types are reproduced on the printed page.

It is useful to know that the PostScript tab (shown below) appears only when you have selected a PostScript printer. When the CorelDRAW 12 print engine prepares a document for printing, these options enable you to control how the PostScript page description language is prepared for your printer.

Is Your Printer Compatible?
The question of printer compatibility is based on whether or not your selected printer is of the PostScript variety. Designed to make printing more efficient, PostScript printers use specific page description language to reproduce certain aspects of text and objects. Essentially, non-PostScript printer drivers convert the entire contents of your document into a bitmapped image based on your drawing size and the material size onto which you're printing. If you're unsure of your printer's compatibility, check either with your manufacturer or the documentation included with your printer. Generally, deskjet, bubblejet, and inkjet printers are non-PostScript while imagesetters are exclusively PostScript.

Ordinarily, selecting a printer and its device driver—and perhaps even the PostScript Printer Driver (PPD) file—will automatically set the Compatibility option (shown below). Compatibility will depend on how recent your printer's PostScript technology is. Along with everything else in the computer industry, PostScript technology has evolved over the years. Older printers may be limited to Level 1, whereas newer printers may be compatible with Level 2, or PostScript 3.

If you're sending your print job through a high-end PostScript "postprocessor" that requires Document Structuring Conventions (DSC), choose the Conform to DSC option. Postprocessors can perform complex prepress functions, such as color trapping, page shuffling, and complex signature structures.

Total Power Over Printing Bitmap Images
If your PostScript printer is compatible with Level 2 or PostScript 3 standards, and either of these is selected from the Compatibility drop-down menu, the Use JPEG Compression option (shown below) becomes available. By using compression, you can decrease the size—and consequently the time—it takes to send bitmapped images to your printer, especially if they are rather large.

With compression enabled, the Quality Factor slider becomes available (as shown below). Since JPEG is a "lossy" compression standard, you can use this to adjust the output quality of the printed bitmapped images. To speed up printing, you can control the print file size by altering quality, which affects compression.

Connecting to Externally-Linked Files
The two linking options (shown below) provide control over how your PostScript printer will handle externally-linked files in your CorelDRAW 12 document. The two varieties—Open Prepress Interface (OPI) and Desktop Color Separation (DCS)—refer to unique printing strategies often used by high-end printers.

Maintaining OPI Links
While this option is enabled (the default state), the print engine will automatically maintain external links to bitmap images imported using OPI. If you're using OPI, you can store high-resolution bitmapped images in your printer's internal memory and use low-resolution placeholders in your document. During printing, the high-resolution images replace the lower-resolution placeholders.

Resolve DCS Links
In a printing strategy similar to OPI, DCS technology enables you to import into your CorelDRAW 12 document low-resolution placeholder images that contain embedded links to digitally-separated images for use in process, or multi-ink, printing. While Resolve DCS Links is enabled (the default state), the high-resolution images automatically replace the placeholder images. If you deactivate Resolve DCS Links, a prompt will appear just before printing occurs, enabling you to resolve the links manually.

Choosing a Screen Frequency
When it comes to printing separations, controlling Screen Frequency is a function unique to PostScript, essentially controlling the spacing of the screen dots which compose tints and halftones. The screen frequency value (shown below) determines the number of lines per inch (LPI) for the entire print operation and is typically used when separating color plates to an imagesetter or a platesetter.

The Default setting leaves the frequency function in the hands of the raster image processor (RIP) to which you're printing. Changing to a specific setting enables you to override the RIP settings. It's is useful to know that, when separations are selected, it automatically changes the default frequency settings from the Separations tab (shown below).

You can also customize screen frequency directly from the Separations tab, or in the Advanced Separations dialog (shown below), which you can access by clicking the Advanced button from the Separations tab.

Power Over Font Handling
CorelDRAW 12's print engine provides two options (shown below) for controlling specific font handling during printing. By default, both options are selected. To speed printing, the Download Type 1 Fonts option tells the print engine to send Adobe Type 1 fonts to your printer's internal memory before printing. Since Adobe Type 1 fonts are often preferred over TrueType fonts, the Convert True Type To Type 1 option tells your PostScript printer to replace any True Type fonts with available Adobe Type 1 equivalents. If no equivalents exist, the TrueType font is used.

Managing PDF Options
If your document is being output as a PDF (Portable Document Format), and you're printing a composite, the PDF Marks options (shown below) become available. From the On Start drop-down list, you can specify how your PDF initially displays. You can choose from Page Only, Full Screen, or Thumbnail views. You can also choose whether to Include Hyperlinks or to Include bookmarks in the resulting PDF file.

Controlling Curve Printing
For highly-complex drawings, the print engine's power over vector paths provides very specific control with three options for setting curve printing.

Maximum Points Per Curve Limit
If necessary, you can choose this option to limit the maximum number of points on a printed path. By default, when sending path descriptions to your printer, CorelDRAW 12 automatically uses a Maximum Points Per Curve setting of 10,000 nodes per curve. If the limit is exceeded, path descriptions are simply clipped, usually without altering their appearance. The default limit is usually more than enough for printing typical object paths, but you can set this value anywhere between 20 and 20,000 nodes per curve. Be warned though—increasing the limit may overwhelm your printer's memory.

Curve Flatness
The often misunderstood term "flatness" refers to the number of straight vector paths used to describe a curved path. The more straight vectors in a curve, the less complex the path will be to print—and vice versa. Increasing the flatness setting causes less smooth printing of curves, but also speeds the printing process. The Set Flatness To option enables you to set the flatness limit to a value between 0.20 and 100.0.

Bump Up Flatness Automatically
For objects that exceed the flatness setting by two, the Auto Flatness option automatically increases the flatness setting until the object prints.

Control Over Fountain Fill Printing
If you've used fountain fills in your CorelDRAW 12 document and you need more control over how they print, there are two available options that will help.

To avoid undesirable "banding", the Auto Increase Fountain Steps option tells the print engine to examine your document for opportunities to increase the number of fountain steps toward improving their appearance.

Banding becomes visible when the number of steps in a fountain fill is too low to simulate a smooth color transition (shown below). Increasing the number of steps that describe a fountain fill increases the printing time but achieves better printed results. Up-to-date PostScript printers can often handle higher step values than the default 256 for all fountain fills in your drawing. If this is the case, you can leave this option selected (the default state).

The Optimize Fountain Fills option works in reverse of the Auto Increase Fountain Steps by allowing the print engine to decrease the number of fountain steps for objects in your document to the maximum number of steps your printer is capable of reproducing, the Optimize Fountain Fills.

As with any print operation, be sure to scrutinize your document closely before finalizing your options. Give careful consideration to how you'd like the document to print and the capabilities of your selected PostScript printer. Once you've selected the perfect setup, you can avoid the tedium of choosing options repeatedly for a specific printing operation by saving the entire setup as a unique Print Style (accessed from the General tab of the Print dialog box). Using a Print Style, you can include your PostScript printer selection and all of the PostScript-specific options you've selected for instant reuse.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and author of nearly a dozen books including CorelDRAW The Official Guide.

Demystifying the CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite 12 PostScript Options

2009-01-13T20:46:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

As anyone new to printing from a graphics application can tell you, print errors can sometimes be a scary and costly experience. Confusion is often amplified if you're faced with choosing PostScript printing options that you have limited experience with. If you don't know what PostScript printing options are, you certainly won't know which to use and which to avoid. Since the terminology seems foreign to many, I'll try to demystify the PostScript language so that it's more easily understood.

When you print from CorelDRAW® 12, you're actually using the print engine to send commands to your printer. Print options use information gleaned from your print driver to enable you to control how various object types are reproduced on the printed page.

It is useful to know that the PostScript tab (shown below) appears only when you have selected a PostScript printer. When the CorelDRAW 12 print engine prepares a document for printing, these options enable you to control how the PostScript page description language is prepared for your printer.

Is Your Printer Compatible?
The question of printer compatibility is based on whether or not your selected printer is of the PostScript variety. Designed to make printing more efficient, PostScript printers use specific page description language to reproduce certain aspects of text and objects. Essentially, non-PostScript printer drivers convert the entire contents of your document into a bitmapped image based on your drawing size and the material size onto which you're printing. If you're unsure of your printer's compatibility, check either with your manufacturer or the documentation included with your printer. Generally, deskjet, bubblejet, and inkjet printers are non-PostScript while imagesetters are exclusively PostScript.

Ordinarily, selecting a printer and its device driver—and perhaps even the PostScript Printer Driver (PPD) file—will automatically set the Compatibility option (shown below). Compatibility will depend on how recent your printer's PostScript technology is. Along with everything else in the computer industry, PostScript technology has evolved over the years. Older printers may be limited to Level 1, whereas newer printers may be compatible with Level 2, or PostScript 3.

If you're sending your print job through a high-end PostScript "postprocessor" that requires Document Structuring Conventions (DSC), choose the Conform to DSC option. Postprocessors can perform complex prepress functions, such as color trapping, page shuffling, and complex signature structures.

Total Power Over Printing Bitmap Images
If your PostScript printer is compatible with Level 2 or PostScript 3 standards, and either of these is selected from the Compatibility drop-down menu, the Use JPEG Compression option (shown below) becomes available. By using compression, you can decrease the size—and consequently the time—it takes to send bitmapped images to your printer, especially if they are rather large.

With compression enabled, the Quality Factor slider becomes available (as shown below). Since JPEG is a "lossy" compression standard, you can use this to adjust the output quality of the printed bitmapped images. To speed up printing, you can control the print file size by altering quality, which affects compression.

Connecting to Externally-Linked Files
The two linking options (shown below) provide control over how your PostScript printer will handle externally-linked files in your CorelDRAW 12 document. The two varieties—Open Prepress Interface (OPI) and Desktop Color Separation (DCS)—refer to unique printing strategies often used by high-end printers.

Maintaining OPI Links
While this option is enabled (the default state), the print engine will automatically maintain external links to bitmap images imported using OPI. If you're using OPI, you can store high-resolution bitmapped images in your printer's internal memory and use low-resolution placeholders in your document. During printing, the high-resolution images replace the lower-resolution placeholders.

Resolve DCS Links
In a printing strategy similar to OPI, DCS technology enables you to import into your CorelDRAW 12 document low-resolution placeholder images that contain embedded links to digitally-separated images for use in process, or multi-ink, printing. While Resolve DCS Links is enabled (the default state), the high-resolution images automatically replace the placeholder images. If you deactivate Resolve DCS Links, a prompt will appear just before printing occurs, enabling you to resolve the links manually.

Maximum Points Per Curve Limit
If necessary, you can choose this option to limit the maximum number of points on a printed path. By default, when sending path descriptions to your printer, CorelDRAW 12 automatically uses a Maximum Points Per Curve setting of 10,000 nodes per curve. If the limit is exceeded, path descriptions are simply clipped, usually without altering their appearance. The default limit is usually more than enough for printing typical object paths, but you can set this value anywhere between 20 and 20,000 nodes per curve. Be warned though—increasing the limit may overwhelm your printer's memory.

Curve Flatness
The often misunderstood term "flatness" refers to the number of straight vector paths used to describe a curved path. The more straight vectors in a curve, the less complex the path will be to print—and vice versa. Increasing the flatness setting causes less smooth printing of curves, but also speeds the printing process. The Set Flatness To option enables you to set the flatness limit to a value between 0.20 and 100.0.

Bump Up Flatness Automatically
For objects that exceed the flatness setting by two, the Auto Flatness option automatically increases the flatness setting until the object prints.

New Dynamic Guides Will Change the Way You Draw

2009-01-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

Once in a while, a new drawing feature comes along that's so innovative, it has the potential to completely change the way you draw. New Dynamic Guides in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite 12 will do just that. In fact, after using them for a while, you'll wonder how you ever did without them. Let's explore just how great these fancy new guides really are.

A Boon for Drawing and Positioning Lines and Objects
Unlike typical guidelines that physically occupy a point on your document page, Dynamic Guides appear only momentarily right where you need them. As you're drawing a line or dragging an object, they come to life to show information about your cursor's position relative to points on surrounding objects.

As your cursor comes within a certain distance of an object snap point, a Dynamic Guide path magically appears right where you need it. The guide path itself is "sticky", meaning your cursor easily aligns to it. When drawing or positioning objects, the screen tips you see provide angle and distance measurements from your cursor or grab point to nearby snap points, like this:

If you've never used Dynamic Guides before, try these steps and you'll see just how powerful this feature is:

To view only the feedback provided by Dynamic Guides, turn off the CorelDRAW 12 Snap to Objects feature. To do this, choose View/Snap to Objects Setup to open the Options dialog box for the Snap to Objects pane. Click to turn off both the Snap to Objects On and Show Snap Location Marks options, and click OK to close the dialog box.
Next, let's make sure Dynamic Guides are active. If they aren't already showing, activate your Dynamic Guide display by pressing Alt+Shift+D. Choose View/Dynamic Guides Setup to open the Options dialog box for the Dynamic Guides pane. Make sure the Angle and Distance Screen Tip options are selected and click OK.
Now that you're all set up, start your exploration with a single object. For example, draw a simple rectangle with the Rectangle tool (F6).
Choose the Pick tool, then grab the lower-left corner node of the rectangle and drag it in a circular motion around its original position. Notice as you do this that guide paths, and angle and distance values appear around the rectangle.
Continue dragging, but this time, drag your grab point close to a nearby snap point and slowly drag it along the guide path that appears. Notice how your cursor "sticks" to it, and the difference in angle and distance from your grab point to the current snap point is updated as you drag. What you see on your screen will look something like this:
Create a second object (such as an ellipse) and add it to the mix. Drag your rectangle from the same corner beside the right side of the ellipse and notice another guide path appear at angles between your grab point and the ellipse snap points, like this:

Even if you're just creating lines or curves, you'll see Dynamic Guides feedback that displays the angle and distance from the last node position relative to the snap points of other objects. If you've ever fumbled trying to draw three nodes in perfect alignment at a non-typical angle, you'll certainly appreciate how useful this can be.

To see how easily you can add a perfect angled extension to a straight line, try these steps:

Use the same setup as in earlier steps. Start by creating a straight line at a non-typical angle (an angle that is anything but the standard 15-degree constrain interval). To create the line, choose the Freehand tool (F5).
Click any two points on your page to define the beginning and end points of the line. After clicking the second point, your straight line becomes a completed object, but remains selected.
Still using the Freehand tool, hold your cursor over the second point you clicked. Notice that the cursor features an end node symbol. Click your cursor on the node once to begin drawing another line segment. Move your cursor slowly away to extend the line and notice a Dynamic Guide appears at the exact angle of the existing line, like this:
Move your cursor along the guide and click a point anywhere on it. Another node position is defined and your line segment is now a straight path composed of three nodes.

Customizing Dynamic Guides
There are plenty of ways you can control what you're seeing on screen. You can toggle Dynamic Guides on and off a number of ways: by using the Alt+Shift+D shortcut, by choosing View/ Dynamic Guides from the command menus, or by clicking the Dynamic Guides button in the Property Bar (shown next) while the Pick or Shape tools (and no objects) are selected.

Dynamic Guides have a unique set of options that enable you to control their behavior. You can customize how the guides appear by choosing behavior options such as angle and distance tips, and tick snapping, and select which guide angles appear. To access these options (shown next), choose View/Dynamic Guides Setup to open the Options dialog box for the Dynamic Guides pane shown here:

Here's how each option will affect the way Dynamic Guides are displayed:

Dynamic Guides – Select this check box to toggle Dynamic Guides on or off.
Angle Screen Tip – When drawing with line tools, use Angle Screen Tip to show an angle value from the tip of your grab point relative to other object snap points, when positioning objects or placing nodes.
Distance Screen Tip – When drawing with line tools, choose Distance Screen Tip to show the distance between your cursor position on a guide and the current snap point, when positioning objects or placing nodes. The unit measure you'll see is based on your currently selected drawing units. (You can set this in the Pick tool Property Bar while no objects are selected.)
Snap to Ticks – Use Snap to Ticks to toggle tick snapping along the guide paths in customizable increments. This enables you to move your cursor along the guide and snap to tick points according to the current Tick Spacing value.
Guides – Use this area to select which angles you want your Dynamic Guides to indicate on screen. Check boxes enable you to toggle the angles on or off in the list. As you select each one, its apparent angle is displayed in the Guides Preview window on the right of the dialog box. To add your own custom angles, just enter a value in the degree box above the list and click the Add button, as shown next. Custom guide angles are automatically added to the guides list, so you have the option of toggling them on or off. You can also interactively select and manage the guides via list selection or just by clicking the apparent angles shown in the Preview window.
Extend Along Segment – When drawing using any line tool, use this option to easily add straight portions to an existing angled line segment. A Dynamic Guide will automatically show you where to place your new node so it's in perfect alignment with the existing straight line.

The Dynamic Duo
It may also help you to know that Dynamic Guides work together with the new Snap Modes feature in CorelDRAW 12. The guides appear whenever your grab point or line tool cursor comes within a certain threshold of an active snap point on your original object, or on a different object, like this:

You can set up to nine object snap points to include in the process by choosing View/Snap to Objects Setup to open the Options dialog box for the Snap to Object pane, shown next.

If you're already using CorelDRAW 12 but haven't yet explored what Dynamic Guides can do, the steps we've covered here should get you on your way. Although this only scratches the surface, you've just turned a corner to a novel new way of drawing.

Steven Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and author of nearly a dozen books including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

How to create a newsletter with CorelDRAW 12

2009-01-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

A major challenge of newsletter design is achieving a balance between text and imagery. Too much text can discourage a reader from pursuing content. By offering visually appealing graphic content to offset small groups of text, designers can increase readability.

Newsletter design incorporates a wide spectrum of graphic design techniques, and CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 gives you the tools to enhance your talent and complete your vision.

What you will learn
This tutorial shows you effective newsletter design techniques using CorelDRAW 12 and is geared towards people who already have a basic knowledge of CorelDRAW. The tutorial is broken down into five fundamental steps:

Step 1: Setting the page layout
Step 2: Creating graphic objects
Step 3: Adding and importing text
Step 4: Importing and editing images
Step 5: Output and publishing

Step 1 - Setting the page layout
Before you start any graphic design process, you need to consider the overall appearance of your final work. The first decision to make is page size. In CorelDRAW 12, you can choose from many preset page sizes, ranging from legal-size paper and envelopes to posters and Web pages. If a preset page size does not meet your needs, you can create a custom page size by specifying the dimensions and orientation of the page.

Page setup
For this tutorial, we'll use A4 size paper.

Start a new document, and choose A4 from the Paper Type/Size list box on the property bar.
Ensure that the Portrait button on the property bar is enabled.
From the property bar, choose millimeters from the Units list box.
Click Layout menu > Insert Page.
In the Insert Page dialogue box, choose 1 from the Insert pages list box.
Enable the After option, and click OK to add Page 2.
Click the Page 1 tab at the bottom of the document window to return to the first page.

Showing the printing area
The printable area is determined by the current printer on your system. This is a valuable setting in that it can ensure that you place objects in an area on the page that your printer can print. It is also useful for turning on the guides for the page border and bleed area.

Click Layout menu > Page Setup.
In the Options dialogue box, choose Page from the Options list.
Enable the Show printable area check box.
Enable the Show page border check box.
Enable the Show bleed area check box.
From the Options list, choose Size, type 10.0<>

Setting guidelines
To assist with positioning objects accurately and precisely, it is advisable to use guidelines - lines that you can place anywhere in the drawing window. There are three types of guidelines: horizontal, vertical, and slanted. You can add a guideline wherever you need one; however, you can also choose to add preset guidelines.

For our purposes, we'll use guidelines that display at one-inch margins, and at newsletter column borders. After you add a guideline, you can select it, move it, rotate it, lock it in place, or delete it. You can also have objects snap to the guidelines so that when an object is moved near a guideline, it will either be centered on the guideline or lined up on either side of the guideline.

We will also add vertical guidelines to create six columns to guide the placement of text and text boxes on the page.

In the drawing window, right-click the Ruler, and choose Guidelines Setup from the pop-up menu.
Enable the Show Guidelines check box.
Enable the Snap to Guidelines check box.
In the Options list, click Presets.
Enable the check boxes for One Centimeter Margins, Bleed Area, Page Borders, and Printable Area.
In the Options list, click Vertical.
In the Vertical box, type 39.125, and click Add.
Repeat this process to add vertical guidelines at 72.062, 104.314, 138.624, and 169.493.
Click OK.

Step 2 - Creating graphic objects

Creating a newsletter logo
First, we'll add a newsletter logo. The Object Properties docker in CorelDRAW makes it easy to adjust object settings.

From the Window menu, choose Dockers > Properties (shortcut: Alt + Enter) to display the Object Properties docker.
From the toolbox, select the Rectangle tool (shortcut: F6), and create a 110-mm x 100-mm (width x height) rectangle. You can use the Status Bar to view Object Details such as width, height, and position on the page.
From the property bar, choose Hairline from the Outline Width list box.
From the Object Properties docker, click the Fill tab and then the Uniform Fill button, and choose White from the Colors palette.
With the Rectangle tool selected, create a second rectangle that is 110 mm x 45 mm (width x height).
From the Object Properties docker, click the Fill tab, the Fountain Fill button, and then the Advanced button.
In the Fountain Fill dialogue box, choose Radial from the Type list box.
In the Center Offset area, type 2 in the Horizontal box and 39 in the Vertical box.
In the Color Blend area, enable the Two color option.
Click the From list box, choose Other, enter CMYK values of C:70, M:0, Y:10, and K:0, and click OK.
Click the To list box, choose White, and click OK.

Positioning the rectangles
Next, we'll eliminate the outline on the smaller rectangle and position it within the first rectangle.

Using the Pick tool, select the smaller rectangle, click the Outline tab on the Object Properties docker, and choose None from the Width pop-up menu.
Select the upper-left corner of the blue rectangle, and snap it to the upper-left corner of the first rectangle.

Creating another rectangle
We'll use another rectangle to create a middle banner for our newsletter logo.

From the toolbox, select the Rectangle tool, and create a 110-mm x 5-mm (width x height) rectangle.
From the Object Properties docker, click the Fill tab and then the Uniform Fill button.
Click the Advanced button, enter CMYK values of C:64, M:94, Y:85, and K:24, and click OK.
From the property bar, choose None from the Outline Width list box.
Position the rectangle below the second rectangle to create a middle banner.

Creating logo graphics
Next, we'll create several small curved objects to give the appearance of hilly plains to the newsletter logo.

From the toolbox, click the Curve flyout, and select the 3 Point Curve tool.
Click and drag a straight line of approximately 30 mm in length (the guidelines are about 30mm apart, so they make an easy reference point for the line length). Release the mouse button.
Move the mouse upwards to create a curve (approximately 15 mm), and click the mouse to set the curve.
From the property bar, type 1.058 mm in the Outline Width list box.
From the Curve flyout, select the Polyline tool.
Click and release the mouse button on the left-hand node of the open curve, and then double-click the right-hand node to set the line.
From the Object Properties docker, click the Fill tab, the Uniform Fill button, and then the Advanced button.
Enter CMYK values of C:33, M:11, Y:90, and K:0, and click OK.
From the Object Properties docker, click the Outline tab, and choose White from the Color list box.

Duplicating and adjusting objects
To create additional curved objects, we'll simply duplicate the original and use the sizing handles to adjust sizes. We'll need eight curved objects to create the appearance of hilly plains.

Using the Pick tool, select the original curved object, and press Ctrl + D.
A new curved object appears on top of the original.
Move the new curved object, and use the sizing arrows to adjust its size.
You can quickly move the objects to the top or bottom of the layer order by pressing Shift + PgUp or Shift + PgDn.
When you have created eight curved objects, marquee select all the shapes, and press Ctrl + G to group them.
Select the group of hills, and position it along the brown center banner.
Select the brown center banner and move it to the top layer.

Tip: You can also use the Object Manager docker to change the layer order.

Adding text to the logo
Now, we'll add text to complete the newsletter logo.

From the toolbox, select the Text tool, and click in the white space below the brown rectangle.
From the property bar, choose NevisonCasDEE, or any other font you would like to use, from the Font list.
From the Object Properties docker, click the Fill tab and then the Uniform Fill button.
Click the Advanced button, and enter CMYK values of C:64, M:94, Y:85, and K:24.
From the property bar, type 60.5 in the Font Size list box.
Type Rolling Hills.
Marquee select the entire logo, and press Ctrl + G.
Use the sizing arrows or type values in the Object size boxes on the property bar to resize the logo to 56.753 mm x 50.586 mm (width x height).
Position the logo in the upper-left corner of the page at approximately x:35 mm, y:267 mm.

Creating the newsletter flag
The banner across the top of the newsletter, also known as the flag, is designed to enhance the display of the title. The nevisonCasDee font provides a strong horizontal cursive face with a hand-scripted look, which lets us add contrast by using a strong colour against our background.

From the toolbox, click the Rectangle flyout, choose the Rectangle tool, and drag in the drawing window until the rectangle is approximately 216 mm x 58 mm.
Position the rectangle at approximately x:105 mm, y:271 mm, so that it bleeds off the page.
From the Object Properties docker, click the Fill tab and then the Uniform Fill button.
Click the Advanced button, and enter CMYK values of C:64, M:94, Y:85, and K:24.
The earthy theme provides contrast to the logo.
Select the flag, and choose Arrange menu > Order > To Back (or Shift + PgDn).

Adding clipart
To save time, we'll use clipart from the 10,000 clipart images that ship with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12.

Insert the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite CD2 into your CD drive.
In Windows Explorer, choose Clipart > Food > Fruited, and double-click to open the G0907375.cdr file.
Marquee select the image, and choose Ungroup from the Arrange menu.
On the Standard toolbar, choose 400% from the Zoom Levels list box.
Select and delete the Black outline, and all other objects until you are left with just the grapes, the vine, and the leaf.
Marquee select the grapes, the vine, and the leaf, and press Ctrl + G.

Copying the grapevine into the newsletter
Now, we'll copy the grapevine into the newsletter and create the effect of a vine growing up the page by rotating, duplicating, and flipping the image.

Press Ctrl + C, and switch back to the newsletter file.
Press Ctrl + V.
To duplicate the image, press Ctrl + D.
From the property bar, click the Horizontal Mirror button (top Mirror button), and position the new image so the vines appear attached.
Repeat the process until you have a string of six.
When you are satisfied with the appearance of the images, marquee select them and press Ctrl + G.
Position the string of vines at approximately x:5 mm, y:127 mm so they fit vertically down the first column of the page and bleed off the edge.

Adding a finishing touch
To complete our layout we'll add a solid, colour-filled rectangle at the base of the page to complement the flag at the top of the page.

From the Rectangle flyout, choose the Rectangle tool.
Click and drag in the drawing window until the rectangle is 216.0 mm x 22.138 mm, and position it at approximately x:105mm, y:5.7 mm.
From the Object Properties docker, click the Fill tab, the Uniform Fill button, the Advanced button and enter CMYK values of C:70, M:0, Y:10, and K:0.

Step 3 - Adding and importing Text
Next, we'll add text. CorelDRAW 12 provides two options for text: artistic text and paragraph text. Artistic text is used primarily for short lines of text to which you can apply a wide range of effects, such as drop shadows. Paragraph text is used for larger bodies of text that have greater formatting requirements.

Adding artistic text for the newsletter title

From the toolbox, select the Text tool.
Click to place the cursor at the right edge of the 3rd column, at approximately x:60 mm, so the text will stretch across the last four columns.
From the property bar, choose nevisonCasDee from the Font list box.
From the property bar, choose 72 from the Font Size list box.
On the Fill tab of the Object Properties docker, click the Uniform Fill button, click Advanced, and enter CMYK values of C:70, M:0, Y:10, K:0.
Type Vineyard News.
Click to place the cursor below the N of News.
From the property bar, choose Gill Sans MT or a font of your choice from the Font list box.
From the property bar, choose 24 from the Font Size list box.
Repeat step 5 to set the font colour.
Type May 2004.

Adding headings
By using contrast to emphasize headings, the reader can easily scan through the newsletter. Try using more space above headings and subheadings, and less space below to follow the rule of proximity: the headings should be closer to the paragraph to which it belongs and farther away from the paragraph above it.

With the Text tool, click to place the cursor at the edge of the first column, approximately 225 mm down the page.
From the property bar, choose the nevisonCasDee font from the Font List.
Choose 36 from the Font Size list box.
Type Wine Festival '04.
Directly underneath, at approximately 215 mm down the page, type May 13th - 15th.
Using the Text tool, select the text by dragging across it to highlight it, and apply the nevisionCasDee font, size 24.
Directly underneath, at approximately 185 mm down the page, type Wine of the Month.
Select the text, and apply the nevisionCasDee font, size 36.
Directly underneath, at approximately 85 mm down the page, type Vineyard Report, and apply the same properties.

Tip: To copy all your font properties, you can use the Eyedropper tool in the toolbox to sample the properties, according the settings you choose on the property bar, and apply the properties to other text objects using the Paintbucket tool in the toolbox.

Importing paragraph text
To add paragraph text, you must first create a text frame. By default, paragraph text frames remain the same size regardless of how much text they contain. Any text that continues past the lower-right border of the text frame is hidden until you either enlarge the text frame or link it to another text frame.

You can fit text to a frame, which automatically adjusts the point size of the text so that it fits perfectly in the frame. You can also have paragraph text frames automatically expand and shrink as you type, so the text fits in the frame.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 supports more than 100 text import and export filters. To save time, we'll import text from the NewsletterPara*.WPD supporting files (.zip, 14 KB).

Importing the first paragraph

From the toolbox, choose the Text tool.
Starting from the left side, click and drag to form a rectangular text frame across the second to fifth columns below the artistic text heading May 13th - 15th.
From the File menu, choose Import, select SMB Newsletter Content Para1.wpd, and click Import.
In the Importing / Pasting Text dialogue box, enable Discard Fonts and Formatting, and click OK.
If necessary, resize the length of the text frame.

Importing the second paragraph

Choose the Text tool.
Starting from the left side, click and drag to form a second rectangular text frame across the second to fifth columns below the artistic text heading "Wine of the Month".
From the File menu, choose Import, select SMB Newsletter Content Para2.wpd, and click Import.
In the Importing / Pasting Text dialogue box, enable Discard Fonts and Formatting, and click OK.
If necessary, resize the length of the text frame.

Importing the third paragraph

Choose the Text tool.
Starting from the left, click and drag to create a third paragraph across the second column, about 60 mm long.
From the File menu, choose Import, select SMB Newsletter Content Para3.wpd, and click Import.
In the Importing / Pasting Text dialogue box, enable Discard Fonts and Formatting, and click OK.
If necessary, resize the length of the text frame.

Importing the fourth paragraph

Choose the Text tool.
Starting from the left side, click and drag to create a fourth paragraph across the third and fourth columns, parallel to the third paragraph, and about 60 mm long.
From the File menu, choose Import, select SMB Newsletter Content Para4.wpd, and click Import.
In the Importing / Pasting Text dialogue box, enable Discard Fonts and Formatting, and click OK.
If necessary, resize the length of the text frame.

Importing the fifth paragraph

Choose the Text tool.
Starting from the left side, click and drag to create a fifth paragraph across the second to fifth columns and below the artistic text heading "Vineyard Report".
From the File menu, choose Import, select SMB Newsletter Content Para5.wpd, and click Import.
In the Importing / Pasting Text dialogue box, enable Discard Fonts and Formatting, and click OK.
If necessary, resize the length of the text frame.

Creating, applying, and editing text styles
For text-intensive projects, such as newsletters, magazines, and newspapers, CorelDRAW offers various paragraph text formatting options. You can create columns of equal or varying widths and gutters. You can also apply drop caps to paragraphs to enlarge the initial letter. In addition, you can use bulleted lists to format information. You can make text wrap around bullets, or you can offset a bullet from text to create a hanging indent.

Styles can save considerable time if you are applying the same formatting to several objects. Just like styles within word processing applications, a text style encompasses a group of settings, such as font type and size. Text styles can also include fill and outline attributes. For example, you can create a style that applies a 72 point AvantGarde font with a texture fill.

From the Tools menu, choose Graphic and Text Styles (shortcut: Ctrl + F5).
In the Graphic and Text Styles docker, click the Options flyout button (arrow button near the upper-right corner of the docker), and choose New > Paragraph Text Style from the pop-up menu.
In the Graphic and Text Styles docker, right-click New Paragraph Text, and choose Rename from the pop-up menu.
Type Wine, and press Enter.
Click the Options flyout button, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
In the Options dialogue box, beside the listed Text Fonts, click Edit.
In the Format Text dialogue box, choose Arial from the Font list box, and choose 9 pt from the Size list box.
Ensure that Normal is set in the Style list box, and Latin in the Script list box.
Click the Paragraph tab, and choose Left from the Alignment list box.
Click the Effects tab, choose Drop Cap from the Effect Type list box, choose 3 from the Dropped Lines list box, enable Dropped in the Indents area, and click OK.
In the Options dialogue box, click OK.

Tip: Applying drop caps to paragraphs enlarges the initial letter and insets it into the body of text. You can customize a drop cap by changing its settings in the Format Text dialogue box. For example, you can change the distance between the drop cap and the body of text, or specify the number of lines of text you want to appear beside the drop cap. You can also remove an individual drop cap at any point, without deleting the letter.

Applying the Wine style

From the toolbox, choose the Text tool, and select the text in the first paragraph.
In the Graphic and Text Styles docker, double-click the Wine style to apply it to the paragraph.
Repeat this process to apply the Wine style to the second and fifth paragraphs.

Creating a second style
For our second style, we are going to use bulleted lists to format information. It is possible either to make text wrap around bullets or to offset a bullet from text to create a hanging indent. CorelDRAW lets you customize bullets by changing their size, position, and distance from text. After you add a bullet, you can remove it without deleting the text.

In the Graphic and Text Styles docker, click the Options flyout button, and choose New > Paragraph Text Style from the drop-down list.
Right-click New Paragraph Text, and choose Rename from the drop-down list.
Type Wine2, and hit Enter.
Click the Options flyout button, and choose Properties from the drop-down list.
In the Options dialogue box, beside the listed Text Fonts, click Edit.
In the Format Text dialogue box, choose Arial from the Font list box, and choose 9 pt from the Size list box.
Ensure that Normal is set in the Style list box, and Latin in the Script list box.
Click the Paragraph tab, and choose Left from the Alignment list box.
Click the Effects tab, choose Bullet from the Effect Type list box, choose a font such as CommonBullets or Wingdings from the Font list box, choose 11 from the Size list box, and enable the Bulleted button.
If you're using CommonBullets, type 76 in the Symbol # box. If you're using Wingdings, choose a bullet symbol from the Symbol list box.
In the Position box, type 0.353.
Click OK to close each of the dialogue boxes.

Applying the Wine2 style

From the toolbox, choose the Text tool, and select the text in the third paragraph.
In the Graphic and Text Styles docker, double-click the Wine2 style to apply it to the paragraph.
Repeat this process to apply the Wine2 style to the fourth paragraph.

Creating a flag for Page 2
Now we'll start working on Page 2 of the newsletter. Click the Page 2 tab at the bottom of the document window to view Page 2.

Copy the grape illustration from Page 1 and rotate it to fit across the top of Page 2 at x:90.448 mm, y:289.211 mm.
Use Ctrl + D to duplicate the illustration, ungroup this second iteration (Ctrl + U), and delete the last three sections, so that you are just left with three sections.
Regroup these sections, and rotate them 90 degrees. Move to coordinates x:8.163 mm, y:233.379 mm so that they align with the left edge of the page.

Creating new headlines

Using the Text tool, click the edge of the 1st column at about 245mm down the page and type "Cellar notes".
For the second headline, place the cursor at the edge of the first column at about 125 mm down the page, and type 2004 Events.
Select the headlines, one at a time, and choose the nevisonCasDee font, size 36.
Change the colour of these and all other headline text on Page 1 and Page 2 to C:80, M:71, Y:0, and K:0.

Using the overflow feature with paragraph text

Choose the Text tool from the toolbox and drag to form a rectangle text frame across the second to fifth columns below the artistic text Cellar Notes.
Import SMB Newsletter Content Para6.wpd file. Enable the Discard Fonts and Formatting option, as we will create and use styles within CorelDRAW.
Create another text frame below the first frame.
Using the Pick tool, select the first frame.
Click the Text flow tab at the lower-center edge of the text frame.
When the pointer changes to a Link to pointer, click the frame into which you want the text to flow. In this case , click the text frame directly under the first text frame. Don't worry about overlapping the second heading, the text frames can be resized after the new text styles are applied.
Apply the Wine style to both text frames.
Wait until you have completed the next procedure, "Adding columns to text", before you resize the text frames or edit the text.

Adding columns to text
Columns are ideal for laying out text-intensive projects such as newsletters, magazines, and newspapers. It is possible to create columns of equal or varying widths and gutters.

Select a paragraph text frame.
Click Text menu > Format text.
Click the Columns tab.
Type 2 in the Number of columns box, enable the Equal column width check box, and click OK.
Resize both text frames so the amount of text is balanced between the two and remove additional drop caps.

Step 4 – Editing and importing images
Now we'll use Corel PHOTO-PAINT to edit a photo that we want to use in the newsletter. Corel PHOTO-PAINT has a wide range of image-editing tools. We'll use the Clone tool and the Cutout feature to remove unwanted areas of the photo before we import the image into our CorelDRAW newsletter document. We'll complete the newsletter by adding some additional text and a band of colour at the base of the page.

Opening and saving an image in Corel PHOTO-PAINT

Insert the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite CD3 into your CD drive and browse to Photos > Food_Dri and select 853077.jp2.
Open the file in Corel PHOTO-PAINT.
Click File menu > Save As, and from the Save as type list box, choose CPT-Corel PHOTO-PAINT Image.
Click Save.

Cloning to remove details
The wineglass image has a reflection of a flag along the glass. To remove the flag, we'll use the Clone tool. The Clone tool lets you copy pixels from one image area to another in order to cover damaged or unwanted elements in an image. For example, you can fix a tear or remove a person from an image by applying cloned pixels over the area you want to remove. When you clone, two brushes display in the image window: a source point brush and a clone brush that applies the copied pixels from the source point. A cross-hair displays in the source point brush to distinguish it from the clone brush. The source point brush moves relative to the clone brush as you drag across the image.

Open the Touch-up flyout, and click the Clone tool.
On the property bar, open the Clone picker, and click Custom Clone.
Change the brush size to 19.
Click the image to set a source point for the clone. (Choose the reflected area of the glass just next to the flag.)
If you want to reset the source point, right-click the area you want to clone.
Drag the Clone brush in the image window downwards to apply the pixels from the source point and repeat until the flag has been cloned out.

Cutting out the background
Within Corel PHOTO-PAINT, it is possible to use a variety of different methods to extract image areas by removing the surrounding background. For the purpose of our newsletter image, we'll use Corel PHOTO-PAINT's Cutout feature to remove the shape of the glass, the wine, and the bottle from the black background. The Cutout feature lets you isolate even the most detailed image areas while preserving edge detail, such as hair or blurred edges. The cut-out image area becomes an object that you can place against any background.

To cut out an image area, you begin by drawing a highlight over its edges. Then, you apply a fill to define the inside of the area. You can preview the cut-out image with the background removed, and you can switch between the cut-out and original views of the image to evaluate the results. If necessary, you can erase and redo sections of the highlighted area.

Click Image menu > Cutout.
In the Cutout dialogue box, click the Highlighter tool.
In the preview window draw a line along the edges of the glass, wine, and bottle that you want to cut out. The line should slightly overlap the surrounding background.
To help you view the edges you need to highlight, you can press F2 to zoom in and F3 to zoom out.
Click the Inside fill tool, and click inside the image area.
Click Preview.
>If you want to switch between the original and cut-out view of an image, choose a view from the View list box.
Click OK when you are happy with the result (this may take a couple of attempts to perfect).
Save the image (remember to save it as a Corel PHOTO-PAINT file).

Importing a photo into CorelDRAW
The next step is to import some additional graphics along the top of this newsletter. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 supports more than 100 different file formats for its import/export filters, which facilitates a seamless graphics creation workflow by supporting file formats such as Adobe Illustrator, SAG, PDF, PNG, and Photoshop.

Click File menu > Import and choose your cut-out image from the previous step. As we can see the sizing information beside the cursor, we know that it is best to marquee size the image first.
Move the cursor to about x:145 mm, y:-25 mm, and drag to x:0 mm, y:115 mm.

Wrapping text around an object
To quickly create the effect of text wrapping around the shape of the glass, we need to create a freehand shape that traces the contour of the glass.

From the Curve flyout, click the Freehand tool (F5).
Click where you want to start the curve (the upper-right corner of the glass), and drag to draw the line around the glass. You must enclose the glass with a closed shape in order to apply text wrapping.
Import SMB Newsletter Content Para7.wpd, following the same instructions as before, and place this paragraph over the picture and our outline.
Choose Wine2 as the style in order to add the bullet points.
Select the freehand outline we created, and right-click to show the properties (if the Object Properties docker is already open, then select the freehand object and click on the properties docker).
Select the General tab, change the paragraph wrap to Contour Flows Right, and change the text wrap to about 2.54 mm.
Click Apply.
You may need to move the text frame around a little manually and play with the positioning of the text. When you are satisfied with the appearance, change the outline style to None from the property bar so that this object remains hidden.

Adding a border to a text frame
The final text frame includes contact information. Adding a coloured border to the text frame helps the reader find the contact information quickly.

From the toolbox, select the Rectangle tool (F6), create a rectangle measuring 36.258 mm x 55.008 mm with an outline of 8 pt, and change the outline colour to C:70, M:0, Y:10, and K:0. And no fill.
Move the rectangle to coordinates x:153.945 mm, y:70.226 mm.
Select the Text tool and marquee drag to create a text frame within the newly created rectangle.
Add the text opposite and apply the Wine style.

Sampling a colour for the final page
To complete our initial layout, we will add a solid rectangle of colour at the base of the page that will complement our flag at the top of the page. To stick with the same sky theme as our logo, we'll choose the fill colour of C:70, M:0, Y:10, and K:0.

Open the Rectangle flyout, and click the Rectangle tool.
Drag in the drawing window until the rectangle is the size you want (216.0 mm x 22.138 mm) and position it to the coordinates x:105.00 mm, y:5.681 mm, so that the bleed is off the page.
In the toolbox, open the Eyedropper flyout, and click the Eyedropper tool.
Choose Sample colour from the list box on the property bar.
Click the border around the Contact Information text frame.
The CMYK values display in the bottom right corner of the status bar, beside the Fill Colour icon.
Open the Eyedropper flyout, and click the Paintbucket tool.
Click inside the rectangle we created at the bottom of the page to apply the fill.

Step 5 - Output and publishing
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 provides numerous options for outputting your graphics projects.

Export for Office
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 offers the new feature of Export For Office, allowing you to quickly optimize the export of a graphic for use within productivity tools such as Microsoft® Office or WordPerfect Office.

Publish to PDF
Now that you have completed the newsletter, it's time to prepare it for output. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 supports professional colour management and contains wizards to help develop content for a Service Bureau. In addition, CorelDRAW supports publishing to PDF so that you can generate PDF files without requiring additional third-party software. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 includes many prepress options and a preflight engine to warn of any potential problems.

From the File menu, choose Publish to PDF.
In the Save As PDF dialogue box, click Settings to view the preflight information and change the default settings.
If there are no issues, the Preflight tab displays the words No Issues. If there are issues, the Preflight tab displays the number of issues beside a yellow warning triangle. Click the tab to view the issues and determine if they apply to your output.

Print, prepress, and preflight
Before you output your final content, it is important that you identify any potential issues. Preflight checks the status of your file before you output it. A summary of issues and potential problems, with suggestions for solving the problems, is provided. You can specify the issues that you want Preflight to check. You can also customize and save Preflight settings.

The Open Prepress Interface (OPI) in CorelDRAW lets you use low-resolution images as placeholders for the high-resolution images that appear in your final work. When a service bureau receives your file, the OPI server substitutes the low-resolution images for the high-resolution images.

You can preserve document settings to maintain the look of a PDF file. You can also preserve document overprints, halftone screen information, and spot colours. In addition, you can place printers' marks to provide information to the service bureau about how the work should be printed. The available printers' marks are as follows:

Crop marks - represent the size of the paper and appear at the corners of the page
Registration marks - line up the film, analog proofs, or print plates on a colour press, and print on each sheet of a colour separation
Densitometer scale - consists of a series of gray boxes, ranging from light to dark, for testing the density of halftone images

Service bureaus and colour management
Colour management is the process of matching colours between devices, such as scanners, digital cameras, printers, and monitors. Accurate, reliable colour management is the cornerstone of any creative design process. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 makes colour management more intuitive by combining all the essential colour management options in one dialogue box.

CorelDRAW features colour management controls designed to help you achieve the best possible colour matches. You can also remove the guesswork by taking advantage of three predefined colour management styles (for the Web, for desktop printing, and for professional output), or you can enjoy the flexibility of creating and saving your own profiles.

From here...
This tutorial provides instructions for using CorelDRAW 12 to develop a newsletter. We hope that you continue to explore the many exciting creative possibilities of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12.

For more information about the topics and tools presented in this tutorial, please refer to the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 User Guide.

Stepping into Color Management with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12

2009-01-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

by Steve Bain

Trying to achieve consistent color across multiple devices connected to your computer can still generate its share of head-scratching, hair-pulling, and, yes, even the odd expletive. The truth is, a completely flawless method of desktop color management doesn't yet exist, although some systems come close. If you're a CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 user tackling color management for the first time, or just curious about how it's supposed to work, you've come to the right place.

Why Should You Use Color Management?
To illustrate why color management is important to anyone working in color, let's look at a typical scenario that you may have encountered. You scan an image or take a digital picture, open it on your computer, and then print it from your desktop printer. At each step in the process, you notice slight differences in color. This means that the colors in your final printed output may not exactly match the original you scanned. Now that we've nailed the problem, how do you solve it?

The reason for the color difference is that each color-capable device connected to your computer has its own special way of recording, displaying, or reproducing the same color values. The colors your eyes see may not match those that your scanner or digital camera can capture, nor will they perfectly match what your monitor or desktop printer can reproduce.

Will you ever be able to match the original scanned image exactly? Unfortunately, the answer is a qualified "no." What you can do, though, is to try to achieve a reasonably close display facsimile. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 lets you do just that.

Color management enables you to match colors between devices that use color profiles - descriptions that conform to standards set out by the International Color Consortium (ICC). The profiles are compared according to the internal RGB color space shared by CorelDRAW 12 and Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12, and the corrections that are fed back to your monitor are based on each device's capabilities. When you print an image, your monitor's profile is compared with the printer profile, and your monitor's colors are corrected to reflect what the printer will actually print. If the colors aren't right, your monitor will tell you.

These days, color profiles are often readily available. Newer color devices automatically copy profiles to your system during installation. Others are supplied on disc by the device manufacturer. Often, you can install color profiles automatically through your operating system, using Plug and Play technology, or you can obtain them online. If you need a specific ICC profile, the best place to look is the support area of the manufacturer's Web site. Here are a few popular sources:

Of all the color devices connected to your system, your monitor is by far the most important, so you need to be confident that what you're seeing is accurate. You'll get the best results by using a model capable of rendering precise, consistent, and accurate color. You'll also want to ensure that the ICC profile assigned to your monitor is accurately indicating the colors you assign. Without ensuring this accuracy, there's no guarantee that other devices will reproduce the colors you want. Also, the age of a monitor can significantly affect the color it shows. Monitor quality can degrade over time - especially if the monitor is of the cathode ray tube (CRT) variety. If your monitor has seen better days, the need for effective color management provides the perfect excuse for upgrading to a fresh model.

A Step-by-Step Approach for the Wary
The Color Management feature of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 is much easier to use than in past versions, but it's still a full-featured tool. The main dialog serves two functions: it graphically illustrates the current color management setup, and it provides control over all options in a central location. You can access these options (shown below) from within either CorelDRAW 12 or Corel Photo-PAINT 12 by choosing Tools > Color Management.

Each of the graphic icons represents the color devices you can control. Click the profile type selectors below each graphic icon (shown below) to assign your device profiles. Click the arrows between the icons to control how display color is corrected. To access advanced options, click directly on the icons themselves.

Although the options might seem a little overwhelming when you first work with them, creating your own color management setup is relatively straightforward if you approach it one step at a time. The following provides a quick walk-through.

Step 1: Assign Your Device Profiles
Choosing a profile to a color device is a simple step, provided that your hardware appears in the selector list. If you don't see it listed, you can load a profile from disc or connect to Corel's server, which provides a list of profiles to download (as shown below). If the profile for a connected device isn't available, leave the selection set to its generic profile (the default) until you can obtain one. Just remember that choosing the correct monitor profile is the most critical step in the process.

Step 2: Turn Color Management On or Off
Turn color management on or off by clicking the arrows between the graphic icons for your color devices and your internal RGB color space. In the illustration below, each device is set to the active state. Turning the active state of a device off essentially disables its profile so that no color correction is applied. The arrow pointing to the Internal RGB profile from the Import/Export icon controls whether correction is applied to imported documents that have embedded ICC profiles. The arrow pointing in the opposite direction controls whether your current ICC profile is included with exported images - which is often the best route.

Step 3: Choose the Color Correction Method for Your Monitor
With your profiles assigned, you can choose which printer's capabilities your monitor will emulate by clicking the arrows that point from the printer icons to the monitor icon (shown below). Ideally, you'll choose the device that you will use to print the final result. Clicking either of the arrows automatically activates that printer's color profile. Only one printer's capabilities can be simulated at a time, so activating one printer's color profile turns off the other printer's color profile.

If the document you're proofing on your monitor is destined for final output to a separations printer, you can also set your selected composite printer to simulate the final color results. To activate this feature, click the arrow that sweeps along the bottom of the dialog and points from the separations printer icon on the right side to the composite printer icon on the left side.

Step 4: Save Your Settings
After you've gone through the effort of assigning profiles and setting preferences, it's worthwhile to save your setup using the color management Styles options. To save the entire arrangement, click the "+" button, and name your new style in the Save Color Management Style dialog (shown below).

By saving your setup, you can retrieve it from the styles list later and use it with other drawings. You can also use preset styles included with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12, which are optimized for certain operations, or you can quickly reset all profiles to defaults. Once a style is saved, it is embedded with your drawing. If you move a document between computers and open it in either CorelDRAW or Corel PHOTO-PAINT, you can extract the embedded styles by selecting the Extract Embedded ICC Profile option in the Open dialog (shown below).

Before the document is opened, the Save As ICC Profile File dialog opens, which lets you extract and store the file. By default, all profiles are stored in your .../Application Data/Corel/Graphics 12/User Color folder.

Tackling More Advanced Options Besides being able to set profiles and choose correction preferences, you can also use the Color Management dialog to choose more advanced settings for certain devices and operations. These settings are perhaps the most complex and critical of all the options you need to choose. To access them from the Color Management dialog, click directly on a specific graphic icon (Import/Export, Printer, Monitor, or Internal RGB). In the dialog that opens, you can set the following advanced options.

Advanced Import/Export Settings. Clicking directly on the Import/Export icon opens the dialog shown below. Here, you can specify whether you want to use the embedded ICC profiles contained in imported images, or whether your current profile is embedded into images you're exporting from your document. In either case, you can override the profiles converted or embedded by choosing to use your current Internal RGB profile or the profile for a specific device.

Advanced Printer Settings. Clicking the icon for either the composite printer or the separations printer opens the dialog shown below. You'll see a list of the currently installed printer drivers with options for overriding the profiles assigned in the color management setup.

Advanced Display Settings. Clicking the monitor icon opens the dialog shown below, which lets you control complex color correction properties of your monitor. While a printer simulation is selected, you can view colors that fall outside your printer's gamut, which is the range of colors your printer can reproduce.

Enabling the Highlight Display Colors Out of Printer Gamut option causes an alarm color to appear in the areas when a certain color specified in your document can be accurately reproduced by the selected printer (based on its color profile). The illustration below shows the effect of an out-of-gamut display, with green used as the alarm color.

You can click the Warning Color button to choose the alarm color, and you can use the Transparency slider to control how opaque the alarm color appears on-screen. For example, if your printer simulation is set to a CMYK separations printer, the gamut alarm will highlight any RGB colors.

Advanced Internal RGB Settings. Clicking the Internal RGB icon opens a settings dialog that lets you choose from a collection of rendering intent types (shown below). This dialog also lets you change color engines from the default Kodak Digital Science color-management module if an alternate is available. The rendering intent method you choose controls how your internal color space converts and displays out-of-gamut colors on your monitor.

Although the science behind color management may seem a little intimidating at first, the following explanations may help you decipher what is produced by each of the five types of rendering intents:

Absolute Colorimetric. This method is useful if the gamut of the color proofing printer you're using is larger than the gamut of the final output printer you're attempting to simulate. It essentially preserves all in-gamut color, including the white point, which affects image highlights and contrast. This method maps out-of-gamut colors to the next closest hue by altering their saturation and lightness when displayed.
Relative Colorimetric. If your drawing consists mostly of color vector objects, you might prefer this method. It's similar to the Absolute Colorimetric method, but it also alters the white point of the image, which can potentially change highlights and contrast. If you're proofing to an inkjet printer, this method is your best bet for displaying an accurate screen image.
Perceptual. You might prefer this method for documents with vivid color, such as scanned photographs or digital camera captures. The Perceptual method compresses a larger gamut of colors to fit a smaller one by desaturating all colors.
Saturation. This less complex method maps colors between devices directly, regardless of the differences in lightness, saturation, or hue. It's suitable if only solid colors are involved and if color accuracy and consistency are not required.
Automatic. This method is the default and perhaps the best choice for general use. With Automatic selected, vector object colors are mapped with the Saturation method, and bitmap colors are mapped with the Perceptual method.

Keep in mind that different rendering intents give preference to how certain colors for different object types are corrected and displayed. The method you choose will depend on whether your CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 document consists of vector objects or bitmap objects, or both, and on the color range of your devices.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and the author of nearly a dozen books, including CorelDRAW 12: The Official Guide

Is It Time for a Pen Tablet?

2009-01-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

by Steve Bain

If you're one of the millions of professional illustrators, designers, or layout artists who use CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite, you're already familiar with how versatile the tools are in CorelDRAW® and Corel PHOTO-PAINT®. But if you're still trying to produce artistic strokes with a standard mouse, you've probably had your share of frustrating drawing sessions, and the sore wrist to go with it. After all, your typical mouse has all the drawing grace of a brick. Let's take a look at a not-so-new - but much smarter - alternative that will enable you to extend your drawing abilities and produce a better result.

Pen Tablets Offer Elegant Drawing Action
If you're looking for a better way to draw, you owe it to yourself to test-drive a pen and pen tablet. The pen-shaped pointing devices are infinitely easier to handle than a mouse and have much better ergonomics. If you've ever had the opportunity to experiment with one, you already know what a huge difference it makes. It enables you to easily mimic the physical hand-drawing actions of a pencil, pen, or brush. Creative operations such as sketching, cartooning, airbrushing, painting, erasing, or even just applying interactive line effects are much more productive, and the results are more rewarding.

Like most computer-related products, pen tablet technology has become more sophisticated and less costly. Typically, models are cordless and battery-free, and the pen, or "stylus," often includes clickable function buttons and other nifty drawing novelties. Most pens feature specialized tips, enabling you to activate the options of pressure-sensitive tools like those found in CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

Higher-end pen tablets even feature customizable function buttons and are supported by software options to control a gamut of custom tablet setups and pen behaviors. Certain models of pen tablets are also compatible with advanced accessories, such as ergonomically enhanced grip pens or special-function pens (see below).

For dedicated professionals, fancier, more expensive tablet lines even use touch-sensitive monitors that enable you to track stylus movement by pointing directly on-screen (see below).

The pen tablet's usefulness isn't restricted to just illustration or design sleight-of-hand actions, though. Tasks requiring precision drawing, such as mapping or diagramming, are also more efficient. By placing an original hard copy directly on the tablet surface, you can quickly and accurately "trace" its points directly onto your CorelDRAW page and create vector shapes. The example below shows a map-tracing project in progress. In this instance, the Freehand Tool is used to trace the land contours into a CorelDRAW drawing from a scanned hard copy.

Harness the Pen Tablet Power of CorelDRAW® 12
The unique features of a pen tablet can improve your use of typical line-drawing tools in CorelDRAW, including the Artistic Media, Smart Drawing, Freehand, Polyline, Eraser, and Pen tools. If you already own a pen tablet, you can enjoy the extended options it makes available to you. But you can also reap the benefits of stylus-enabled tools, like the Smudge Brush and Roughen Brush, when you use a pen tablet to apply line effects in CorelDRAW.

Specifically, while the Smudge Brush is selected, you can use Property Bar options (see below) to activate the Pressure, Tilt, and Bearing settings on your stylus (if your stylus supports these options).

Stylus options provide control over your smudging operations in various ways. While the Stylus Pressure option is activated, the Smudge Brush uses your stylus pressure to apply varying degrees of Dryout to your strokes. Dryout is a setting that enables diminishing or expanding nib width based on stylus pressure.

When you apply smudging with the Stylus Tilt setting activated, the angle of your stylus relative to the tablet surface sets the elliptical shape of the Smudge Brush nib. Using the Stylus Bearing option, you can control the angle of the elliptical nib shape by rotating the stylus in relation to the tablet surface. In the example below, the Smudge Brush was used to apply distortions to an outline path to emulate the appearance of tall grass.

The Roughen Brush has similar options for controlling line roughening. This tool enables you to create specialized line effects by applying jagged edges or spiked lines to the outline path of an object.

Options on the Roughen Brush Property Bar (see below) enable you to control the Frequency, Tilt, and Bearing of your roughening effects. While the Stylus Pressure option is selected, your stylus pressure increases or decreases the frequency of the applied spike effect. With Stylus Tilt selected, the angle of your stylus controls the angle of the individual spikes. Choosing Stylus Setting from the Spike Direction drop-down list enables your stylus movements to set the direction of the roughened spikes.

Roughening applied to an outline path (see below) creates an alternate effect on our tall grass illustration.

Shop for a Pen Tablet
If you're in the market for a pen tablet, you'll find that the clear leader is Wacom Technology Corporation (www.wacom.com), based in Vancouver, Washington. The company has been developing reliable pen tablets since the 1980s and claims a customer base of more than two million users. Wacom offers a variety of product lines ranging from entry-level models to top-of-the-line professional standards. All use either USB or serial port connections (some use both) and come with the latest supporting drivers and software.

The popular professional line of Wacom® Intuos® 2 products (see below) is of particular interest to graphic illustrators and designers who use CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. Intuos 2 products support the tilt, pressure, and bearing needed to produce the best results from the line-drawing tools and interactively applied line effects, such as smudging and roughening, in CorelDRAW 12.

Wacom's Intuos 2 line of pen tablets supports pen tip and eraser pressure, as well as tilt and bearing settings, and includes five different models, ranging from a small 4 x 5-inch tablet size to a large 12 x 18-inch size and priced at roughly US$200 to US$750 including a lifetime warranty. A two-dimensional or four-dimensional (2D or 4D) mouse is also included with specific models. Another bonus is the fact that Intuos 2 products are compatible with several optional accessories, the most intriguing of which is a digital airbrush pen equipped with a flow regulator fingerwheel (roughly US$100).

All Intuos 2 models feature supporting software (both Windows and Macintosh versions are available), enabling you to control and adjust pen behavior, customize the Grip Pen stylus function buttons such as pen tip and eraser pressure, and set your own click-force values (see below). The easy-to-use software also enables you to set pen-to-tablet mapping and speed, change tablet orientation from tall to wide, and program your own custom tablet menu strip functions. You can also set advanced tablet configurations for specific tools and applications.

Which Pen Tablet Should You Be Using?
If you decide to make the investment, you should give careful consideration to the model you choose. If your drawing projects consist mainly of nonartistic tasks, investing in a pen tablet might be a wasted effort. But - and this is a big but - keep in mind that a pen tablet can be used to replace your mouse or pointing device for any application on your system (including the operating system), making it a versatile tool that you can use for virtually any computing operation.

Generally speaking, larger tablets offer a higher degree of drawing precision and accuracy than smaller models. The more tablet space available for you to sketch onto, the more detail your pen strokes will produce. For hard-copy tracing operations, look for a model that is large enough to accommodate your hard-copy sizes and that has a translucent tablet film. If your primary work is using the tools in Corel PHOTO-PAINT to manipulate pixels, you might consider investing in a pen tablet compatible with an airbrush accessory, or a pen model that includes a built-in pressure eraser. Weighing these options against what your budget allows should help you decide which model to choose.

In case you missed it, Corel offers discount prices to its customers on several of Wacom's pen tablets, including the Intuos 2 6 x 8-inch and 9 x 12-inch models. Both are well suited for use with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite.

Check out Corel's great deals on Wacom's Pen Tablets!

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and the author of nearly a dozen books, including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

CorelDRAW® 12 Node Tracking: Friend or Foe?

2009-01-13T20:39:00.000-08:00

by Steve Bain

With the introduction of powerful new drawing aids in CorelDRAW® 12, the Corel engineering team needed to change a key feature of the Pick Tool. If you haven't yet noticed, the optional node-tracking abilities of the Pick Tool are now turned off by default, which represents a slight change from previous versions.

If the Pick Tool's node-tracking feature is a favorite of yours, you can easily reactivate it. Before you do, though, it might help to know the method behind the madness. Let's examine the need for the change and how reversing it might affect your work habits.

Maximize Object-Snapping Actions
The behavior of the default Pick Tool in CorelDRAW 12 was changed to allow smoother operation of the new dynamic guides and object snapping features. If you haven't already experienced these timesaving aids to drawing, you've been missing out on a good thing.

Dynamic guides largely eliminate the guesswork involved in precision drawing. As you move objects or draw new ones, dynamic guides appear on-screen temporarily between your cursor and the active-object snap points on nearby objects. Your cursor magnetically follows the path of any guide that appears. Distances, angles, and alignments with other snap points make precise cursor placement quite literally a snap.

You can customize guide behavior by using the Dynamic Guides pane of the Options dialog (see below), which you can access by choosing View > Dynamic Guides Setup. As you work, you can toggle the dynamic guides on and off with the Alt+Shift+D shortcut.

The new object-snapping options in CorelDRAW 12 work in tandem with the new dynamic guides and enable you to involve up to nine different snap points in the action. The Snap To Objects pane of the Options dialog (see below) enables you to choose exactly which snap points to use. You can access these settings by choosing View > Snap To Objects Setup. As you work, you can toggle the object snapping on and off by using the Alt+Z shortcut.

A Lesson in Nodes
Whether you're a new CorelDRAW user or an expert, a little refresher on nodes, node tracking, and the tools involved will help you grasp the issue more completely.

Let's start with nodes. Although different programs use different names for nodes (Adobe® Illustrator® refers to them as "anchor points"), the concept remains the same. Whenever you draw a shape or line, nodes are defined either automatically or manually. Typically, nodes are the small outlined points between the curved or straight segments of any open or closed path (see below). They control the size and shape of any vector object that you can create in CorelDRAW.

Shapes created with object-creation tools - such as the Ellipse, Rectangle, Polygon, and Perfect Shapes tools - also include specialized nodes that enable you to control unique object characteristics (see below). You can quickly reshape ellipses into pies or arcs, interactively round the corners of rectangles, distort polygon points, and customize the glyph nodes on certain shapes drawn with a Perfect Shapes Tool.

With Bézier lines (open or closed paths), nodes control the shape or direction, or both, of the path a line follows (see below).

What Is Node Tracking?
Next, let's look at the Pick Tool and node tracking. The Pick Tool's primary function is to enable you to select, move, transform, or rotate one or more objects. Although the Pick Tool is now disabled by default, its node-tracking abilities enable it to mimic the Shape Tool in limited ways. When you enable node tracking, the Pick Tool cursor changes to the Shape Tool as you hold it over a node (see below). This cursor action (referred to as "tracking") provides a convenient way for you to select and move any kind of node on an object without changing tools.

Of course, the Shape Tool's unique primary function is to enable you to select and edit multiple nodes as well as the segments between the nodes (see below). Because node tracking is disabled by default in CorelDRAW 12, the Shape Tool replaces the Pick Tool for all editing of nodes and line segments.

The Conundrum for Users
You can easily reactivate node tracking, but there's a downside to consider. While enabled, node tracking is sometimes more hindrance than help - particularly if you plan to take full advantage of the new dynamic guides and object snapping in CorelDRAW 12. Here's what it boils down to. For many users, object nodes often serve as the grab point for moving and snapping one object to the nodes on another object. When object nodes are tracked by the Pick Tool cursor, you cannot move an object by using the nodes themselves. The tracking action essentially prevents you from selecting and moving the entire object (see below).

The upside to the equation is that you can control the Pick Tool's node-tracking behavior in CorelDRAW by using the Options dialog. You can activate it if and when you need to. Now that you know the issues, though, you can make an informed decision on whether to enable the feature based on how you work.

Elegant Solutions
If you're a devotee of node tracking, here are two solutions you can use.

Solution 1: If you really love the Pick Tool's node-tracking capabilities and want to reactivate them by using the Options dialog, follow these steps:

Choose Tools > Options (or use the Ctrl+J shortcut) to open the Options dialog.
Click Display in the tree directory and click Enable Node Tracking to reactivate the option (see below).
Click OK to apply the change and close the dialog.
Keep in mind that you can always open the dialog again and disable node tracking if it is interfering with your object-snapping actions, or if you find that the display of the dynamic guides isn't as smooth as it could be.

Solution 2: If you find yourself visiting the Options dialog more often than is practical, you can use a customization trick that makes it easier to enable node tracking. You can add the Enable Node Tracking option to the Pick Tool's Property Bar - right where you need it to be - by doing the following:

Start by selecting the Pick Tool from the Toolbox.
Choose Tools > Customization to open the Options dialog to the Customization pane. Expand the directory tree under Customization in the list, and click Commands. The right side of the dialog shows a variety of options (see below).
Choose Edit from the list box in the upper left of the Commands pane. Scroll roughly halfway down the list directly below the list box, and locate Tracking (see below).
Drag the Tracking option button directly from the list onto the property bar. When you reach the Property Bar, an I-beam cursor appears, indicating the button's new position. When you release the mouse button, the option button appears (see below).
Click OK to apply the changes and close the dialog. The customization operation provides a quick way to toggle node tracking on or off as needed. After you've weighed the pros and cons of node tracking, you can choose the ideal way to accomplish your drawing tasks.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and the author of nearly a dozen books, including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

Design Your Own Picture Frames in Corel PHOTO-PAINT

2009-01-13T20:38:00.000-08:00

by Steve Bain

Whether you use the majority of your digital photos for personal albums or professional layouts, you can add interest and creative flair by applying frames. You can do this quickly and easily in Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12 (or any recent version) by using a simple filter effect. To demonstrate the effect, I've used the prime photo album candidate shown below.

In Corel PHOTO-PAINT, open a digital photo that is ready for framing. Choose Effects > Creative > Frame to open the Frame dialog (see below). You'll see two tabbed areas and a collection of options and tools for selecting and modifying your new frame.
Start by clicking a frame entry in the Select Frame column. Choose a frame style by clicking the selector button to browse the previews and then clicking to select a style. The frame path is added to the list. In the View column, the eye symbol indicates that the frame style is currently in use (see below).
With the frame style still selected, click the Modify tab (see below). Choose a solid frame color by clicking the Color selector button to make a selection from the palette list or by choosing the Eyedropper tool and clicking a source color directly from your digital photo.
Use the Opacity slider to control the degree of transparency for your frame style, and use the Blur/Feather slider to soften the edges of the frame pattern (see below). Depending on your preview method, the effects of the current settings are displayed either in the dialog or directly in your open image window.
If you like, you can also set the merge mode of your frame transparency by choosing the Add or Multiply option from the Blend drop-down list. Merge modes control how the color of your frame reacts with the colors in your digital photo (as shown below).
To control the size of the frame, use the Horizontal slider or Vertical slider, or both, and use the Rotate option to rotate the frame pattern 360 degrees. To center the frame pattern on a specified point, click the Align button, and click a point on your photo. Use the vertical or horizontal Flip button to change frame orientation, or unlock the Maintain Aspect Ratio lock between the sliders to produce a nonproportional shape, as shown in the example below.
When your frame style modifications are just the way you like them, you can use the Presets options to save all your current settings. Click the Add (+) button to add the current frame and settings to the Presets list, or click the Delete (-) button to remove a selected preset from the list. 8. With your frame modifications complete, click OK to apply the frame to your digital photo. By mixing and matching frame styles and modification settings, you'll have no shortage of creative avenues to explore for stirring your creative juices. As you do, you'll discover that the shape and color of the frame are the key ingredients. Dark-colored frames often work best on light-colored photos (see below), and vice versa.

You can create a balanced effect by using the Eyedropper tool to match the frame color to a visual element in your photo. Softening the frame edges by using a subtle blur/feathering value can also improve the look. The examples shown below are a small sampling of the frames that you can quickly create by using this creative filter.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and the author of nearly a dozen books, including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

Office Suite Exporting Made Easy with CorelDRAW 12

2009-01-13T20:36:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

If you use CorelDRAW 12 for preparing graphics destined for either a presentation or a desktop document, you'll be pleased to know that the process has been vastly streamlined. You can now use the Export For Office dialog (see below) to prepare your exported files automatically, based on your intended use.

Browsing the Tools
The Export For Office dialog features several standard conveniences for previewing your CorelDRAW graphic before exporting it (see below). You can click the Zoom In or Zoom Out tool buttons to interactively change the view, or you can click the Hand Tool button to pan through a zoomed-in view.

You'll also notice three drop-down menus at the top of the dialog. The first drop-down menu enables you to specify the destination application for your exported drawing; the second and third drop-down menus provide further options. Below the preview window, CorelDRAW estimates the size of the file you're about to export, based on your menu selections. Weighing the Options

Depending on which options you choose, the graphic you export can be prepared in different ways, meaning that it can be saved in one of several file formats. The main question you need to answer is whether you plan to import the drawing into WordPerfect Office or into one of the Microsoft Office suite applications - such as Word, Access, Publisher, or PowerPoint.

If you choose WordPerfect Office, you'll ultimately be setting WPG (WordPerfect Graphic) as the format for your graphic file, which makes it fully compatible and editable in WordPerfect after it has been imported. If your graphic is destined for a Microsoft Office application, however, you'll have a few more options to ponder.

At this point, you need to choose between one of two conditions for your graphic from the second menu: Compatibility or Editing (see below). This rather pivotal fork in the road helps you determine whether the exported file will become a bitmap image, in which case the individual objects cannot be edited, or a collection of vector objects, which for the most part can be altered with the basic editing and drawing tools in Microsoft Office applications.

Choosing Compatibility sets the final format to PNG (Portable Network Graphics), whereas choosing the Editing option sets the final format to EMF (Extended Windows Metafile). You'll next discover why these two specific file formats are best suited to their respective graphic types.

Evaluating the Graphic Formats
To import a picture into a Microsoft Office application, you just choose the Insert > Picture > From File command from within the application (or click the Insert Picture button on the Picture toolbar) and browse to the PNG or EMF graphic you created. In case you're wondering which file format you should be using, let's take a walk through the finer points on how these two graphic file formats differ.

Let's start with the PNG format, which is what you get if you choose Compatibility as your export preference. Often pronounced as "ping," this special bitmap file format features a wide range of capabilities, but its real strength is lossless compression, meaning that the PNG format can store a high degree of detail and color without compromising picture quality or inflating file size. The PNG format is also capable of storing other properties, like alpha channel masks and objects with varying degrees of transparency. Because it supports a color depth of up to 16.7 million colors, it is superior to other lossless-compression formats, such as the popular GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), which is used for many Web graphics.

If you choose the Compatibility option as your export priority, you also need to specify a destination option for the PNG file you're about to create. The Optimized For menu contains three options: Presentation, Desktop Printing, and Commercial Printing. Choosing one of these options (see below) sets the resolution of the file to a specific number of dots per inch (dpi). Resolution essentially determines the amount of pixel detail in a bitmap. Although screen image requires a relatively low resolution, higher resolutions are needed for various levels of print reproduction quality.

Choosing the Presentation option produces a PNG graphic with a resolution of 72 dpi, which is ideal for PowerPoint users. If you choose either Desktop Printing or Commercial Printing, the PNG graphic features a resolution of 150 or 300 dpi, respectively. All files are exported using RGB (red, green, blue) colors, and anti-aliasing is automatically applied to smooth the appearance of object and text edges.

If you choose Editing as your export priority, you'll be exporting an EMF file. Unlike the PNG bitmap format, EMF files are device independent, meaning that they can include vector objects as well as bitmaps. Objects you export are preserved after they reach the Microsoft Office application. To begin editing your picture, right-click it and choose Edit Picture. In the most recent Microsoft Office suite, a prompt appears. For example, if you're using PowerPoint, you'll be asked to confirm the operation by clicking Yes in this dialog:

To edit the individual picture elements, right-click the picture group and choose Grouping > Ungroup. From there, you'll be able to use tools from the Microsoft Office drawing toolbar (see below) to fine-tune your drawing.

As you begin to edit your drawing, you may discover that a few things have been lost during the translation, and certain object types may not be what you'd expect. Here are some of the common pitfalls to avoid if you plan on editing:

Long Text Strings: Text that spans multiple lines in your CorelDRAW document is imported into the Microsoft Office application as separate objects, one for each line of text:

Combined Fills and Outlines: Each object applied with both fill and outline properties is imported as two separate objects, each representing the fill and outline portions.

Outline Styles: The outline styles in CorelDRAW are not compatible with Microsoft Office. For example, each dash in a patterned line is imported as a separate shape:

Special Fill Colors: Fountain fills applied to objects are converted to collections of solid-colored objects. This means that a single object filled with fountain color could potentially result in hundreds of objects on export (like the conical fill shown below). Objects with two-color, full-color, texture, and bitmap fills are each converted to bitmap objects. Here is how a typical object applied with a conical fill appears during editing in PowerPoint:

Complex PostScript Fills: The objects that make up the detail in PostScript pattern fills are each converted to separate objects when exported. The pattern itself can be edited after import only on an object-by-object basis. This complex arrangement was once a Colored Leaves PostScript pattern applied to a rectangle:

CorelDRAW-Specific Effects: The dynamically linked objects created by effects - such as blends, contours, drop shadows, and extrusions - are imported as separate objects, and the dynamic link is eliminated.

Shadows and Transparency: Drop shadows and objects with transparency effects that are applied with the CorelDRAW 12 Interactive Transparency Tool are imported as bitmap objects.

Special Object Types: Rectangles, ellipses, polygons, and objects applied with distortion or envelope effects are imported as ordinary shapes.

In general, the wisest strategy to follow when preparing your CorelDRAW graphics for export and editing in a Microsoft Office application is to keep things relatively simple. For best results, use the features of each program for the tasks in which they're most efficient, and consider following these rules of thumb:

Although small strings of text created in CorelDRAW are easily converted and can be edited or applied with Text Effects after they are imported, it may be more efficient to use the dedicated text tools in the Microsoft Office application to enter text that is longer than a single line.

Use the Microsoft Office Fill Effects dialog tools (see below) to apply gradient color as an alternative to editing the CorelDRAW fountain fills. This is likely the best strategy for applying other special fill types, such as pattern, texture, or bitmap fills, or for applying transparency to objects. Transparency can be applied by using the Fill Effects in the Microsoft Office program.

Use the Microsoft Office program to apply any outline styles, such as dashes or stripes, to your lines after you import them instead of using the outline styles featured in CorelDRAW.

A Few More Tips for Office Exporting
Here are several more points to consider when you export to Microsoft Office applications. If you're exporting from a multipage document, keep in mind that Export For Office exports only one page at a time and only from the current page in view. Moreover, in order for objects to be included in the export, they must be inside the page boundary or at least straddle the edge of the page. Any objects outside the page boundary are left out.

If you'd like to export only a portion of your drawing, just select your specific objects. When you do this, the Export For Office command automatically omits all other objects (provided they are at least partially on the document page). Proceed with caution, though. If you're exporting for compatibility (that is, if you're using a PNG graphic), watch for objects that reach the edge of the exported image. In such cases, it may be wise to create an invisible border around your arrangement of objects to add an artificial boundary.

If your document page has a colored background applied in CorelDRAW, this background is included - regardless of whether specific objects are selected. Vector-based EMF picture files include the background as a separate rectangle, which can be edited or deleted if necessary.

Although the filter types used by the Export For Office command are the same as the filters that are available when you use the main Export command in CorelDRAW 12, the Export for Office dialog dramatically streamlines the decision-making process making the export operation relatively foolproof. Using the tips and tricks covered here, you can optimize your drawings for better results when you import them into your office suite application.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and the author of nearly a dozen books, including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

Fixing Sunny Day Shadows and Color Casts with Corel PHOTO-PAINT®

2009-01-13T20:34:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

Whether you're a professional, a tourist or just a weekend photo hobbyist, there's nothing like taking a few pictures in the great outdoors. Sometimes, though, that sunshine you enjoy can hamper your photographic efforts. The bright light and harsh shadows may hide the person, place, or thing you specifically want to capture.

The problem is often due to incorrect exposure caused by your camera's automated features and extreme light levels entering the lens. The internal light meter averages the values of the light and dark areas you see through the lens, and your camera's internal program uses these values to set the exposure for the complete scene. Sunlight skews the averaging, causing underexposure. You can correct this unwelcome side effect of a sunny day in several ways. Whether you are using a digital camera or scanning your photos, Corel PHOTO-PAINT® allows you to correct lighting problems after your image enters the digital realm.

Because it's often too difficult or time-consuming to restage what you originally photographed, the trick is in knowing how to correct the digital version. Different situations require different correction methods, depending on the intensity of the light source, or sources, in your photo and on the location of shadowed areas. Isolated bright spots can cause overall darkness in an image. On the flip side, a brightly lit scene can include isolated shadows in unfortunate places, such as under the brim of a hat or in the spot where a subject is standing. Corel PHOTO-PAINT offers several methods to coax hidden details from the shadows.

Salvaging Dull Pictures
When bright light reflects off surfaces like snow or water, it can create highlights intense enough to cause the rest of the image to appear dull. One strategy for lightening the image is to use one of the adjustment filters in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. You can control the sliders in the Brightness/Contrast/Intensity dialog (see below), which you open by choosing Image > Adjust > Brightness/Contrast/Intensity, or by using the Ctrl+B shortcut.

The Brightness, Contrast, and Intensity sliders enable you to adjust these properties as percentages of the original values. In the water scene below, light from the bright sparkles created by sunlight reflections has caused underexposure of the main subject. With all three sliders in the dialog set at 40 percent, the areas of shadow in the previously dull image become more detailed, and the overall image is improved.

Depending on the contrast qualities of your image, you can also play with gamma and contrast to reveal shadowy areas. Options in the Contrast Enhancement dialog (see below) enable you to adjust the gamma range of an image while adjusting the input contrast settings. To access this feature, choose Image > Adjust > Contrast Enhancement.

The tools in the dialog enable you to set the input and output ranges for the black and white limits of your image, or adjust the image's gamma range, or both. Slightly reducing the upper limit of the Input Value Clipping range can lighten the overall image, including the shadowy areas. In the example below, light reflections are enough to cause overexposure of the entire image - including the main point of interest. In this case, reducing the input clipping value of 255 (the default) by half was enough to bring the shadowy details into view.

Lightening Shadows with the Effect Tool
If your shadows are simply isolated instances, applying an adjustment filter to the entire image may correct the shadows, but it may ruin the lighting in the rest of the image. Here's where you need a strategy with a little more finesse to correct the image. The Effect Tool in Corel PHOTO-PAINT includes two brushes that are perfect for lightening shadowy areas interactively: Brighten and Dodge/Burn.

To access these effect brushes, choose the Effect Tool (V) from the Toolbox, click the Effect Brush selector in the Property Bar and choose either Brightness or Dodge/Burn (see below).

Brighten Brush
Brighten is the default brush type for the Effect Tool's Brightness brush and enables you to brighten certain areas of an image interactively. You can also choose one of seven other preset brush types that vary in nib shape and size (see below). To correct image shadows, you'll need to use a brush with a soft feathered shape at a size which roughly fits your shadow area. The Shape and Size options offer further control.

To apply the Brighten brush and lighten a shadow, follow these steps:

With the Brighten brush selected, set your nib size and shape options. Large, feathered Brighten brushes are best for subtle corrections. If you find that the effect is too weak or too strong, click the Open Advanced Options button on the Property Bar (see below), and use the Amount and Transparency options to make adjustments. Lower positive Amount values and higher Transparency values apply less brightening. Test your settings before proceeding, and use the Undo command if you need to reverse the action.

To apply the effect, drag over the shadowy area that you want to brighten. You'll find that the effect is cumulative - each time you apply the brush, the shadowy area becomes brighter.
Each stroke you apply with the Brighten brush is a separate command. This means that if you applied the brush strokes in short sessions, you can roll back your brightening effect in steps by using the Undo command. Be sure to avoid brightening your shadows beyond what appears natural to you. When a shadow has been brightened and the changes to the image have been saved, the changes to the image's pixels become permanent.

In the example below, two-thirds of the image shows the shadowy side of a building while the blue sky and other elements are properly exposed. The Brighten brush was applied with a large nib size and a soft feathered nib shape. Amount was set at 5, and Transparency was set at 50.

Dodge/Burn Brush
The Dodge/Burn brush is a shadow-correcting tool that enables you to brighten areas selectively based on their tone. The brush actions are fashioned after the darkroom methods used to expose film negatives onto photographic print paper. When an exposed area is dodged, less of the image is exposed onto the print paper, making the area appear lighter. Burning has the opposite effect: exposing certain areas longer makes them appear darker.

When the Dodge/Burn brush is selected from the Effect Tool selector, you can choose from three Dodge brush types, which enable you to dodge highlight, midtone, or shadow areas (see below). Like the Brighten brush, this brush effect also comes with options to set the nib shape and size, and set specific values for the effect's amount and transparency.

To dodge the shadows by using the Dodge/Burn brush, follow these steps:

With the Dodge/Burn brush selected, pick a shadow area to dodge, and choose a suitable brush type from the selector on the property bar. Because you're correcting shadows, you'll most likely be using the Dodge Midtones or Dodge Shadows brush type. Shadow tones vary according to the brightness, contrast, and intensity of your image. Your brush type selection is limited, so use your best judgment as to which type will work best.
To avoid the effect of hard brushed edges, choose a soft (feathered) nib shape and a size that roughly matches the pixel area you're correcting. A large brush size allows you to apply the effect to the entire shadowy area in the least number of strokes.
Select a shadowy area that is well defined in contrast to the surrounding image elements. Test your settings by dragging over the area to apply the Dodge effect. Adjust the Amount and Transparency values to control the intensity of the dodge effect. Aim for less effect instead of more, and use multiple brush stroke commands to increase the effect in steps.
With your settings adjusted, apply the brush over the shadowy area. The Dodge brush enables you to adjust specific shades of areas, so you can straddle areas where the adjacent colors are in sharp contrast to the area you're dodging.

In the example below, the Dodge/Burn brush was used to lighten the shadows covering more than half of a city street scene. The sunny area of the image was left unchanged, whereas the portion shrouded in shadow was lightened with the Dodge/Burn brush set to the Dodge Midtones brush type. A soft feathered nib shape set to a large size was applied with an Amount value of 50 and a Transparency setting of 20.

Tips for Effect Brushes
The Effect Tool in Corel PHOTO-PAINT can be incredibly handy if you're an experienced user. But if you don't yet have practical experience using them, here are a few tricks you can use to as you perfect your technique.

Use a Pen Tablet - When applying brush strokes, you can maximize your stroke efforts by using a pen tablet. A pen tablet is a much more intuitive device than a mouse and offers you better control over the direction and accuracy of your brush strokes. If you have one, use it. If you don't, then consider purchasing one. Pen tablets have come way down in price, and there has never been a better time to take the plunge.

Limit Your Brush Strokes - Effect brushes apply changes cumulatively, meaning the effect is amplified each time the brush is applied. This means that during a single brush stroke session, the effect is applied uniformly to the brushed area so long as your pointing device button is pressed.

Bigger Is Better - When retouching or correcting shadows, use brush sizes that are as large as possible, so that you can apply the effect to large areas quickly and in a single brush session.

Effects and Files - The Undo (Ctrl+Z) and Redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z) commands are invaluable for reversing the occasional mistake made while using a brush effect. On the other hand, if you want to keep the effects you're applying, be sure to use the Save As command to make your current and corrected image a separate document file.

Positive vs. Negative Values - The property bar includes an Amount control, which enables you to adjust the strength of the effect you're brushing onto your image. When you enter positive Amount values, the effect is applied normally. Just keep in mind that if you enter a negative value, the opposite effect results. In the case of the Brighten or Dodge brushes, negative values would apply darkening and burning effects, respectively.

Correcting Shadow Color Casts
One of the drawbacks of taking photos outdoors is that a color cast often appears throughout your picture. Although color casts come in many different hues and shades, the most common is caused by a clear blue sky. The blue cast this causes alters even the true appearance of other colors in your photo, which makes this side effect particularly nasty.

The Selective Color filter in Corel PHOTO-PAINT can help you solve this problem. Options in this filter dialog (see below) enable you to adjust the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color values of specific colors individually in your image - even if your image is in the RGB (red, green, blue) color space.

A typical blue cast is often composed of various shades of blue. In color terms, sky blue is composed of cyan and magenta. The Selective Color filter enables you to change specific CMYK values of blue or cyan, or both, so these are the two colors you'll need to adjust. The adjustment values are based on percentages ranging from -100 to 100 percent. Negative values decrease a specific color, whereas positive values increase it.

To correct the blue color cast in an image, follow these steps:

With your image open, choose Image > Adjust > Selective Color to open the Selective Color dialog.
In the Color Spectrum area, click the Blues radio button. In the Adjust area, move the Cyan slider to the left until the blue cast begins to fade and the colors appear pinkish. Now, slide the Magenta slider to the left an equal amount (see below), so that the blue fades dramatically.

If the blue cast persists, you may need to reduce the cyan color values also. Click the Cyans radio button in the Color Spectrum area, and move the Cyan slider to the left until the remaining blue cast disappears (see below).

Click OK to apply the change and close the dialog.

Because the Selective Color filter enables you to adjust the color values of specific colors, you have total control in challenges of color correction, such as when you need to remove color casts without affecting other colors. In the example below, the midday blue of the sky has made the wheels of this locomotive turn blue. In the corrected version, the Cyan and Magenta values in the Blues color spectrum are both set to -100, and the Cyan value of the Cyan spectrum are set to -50.

We've covered the various ways you can reveal hidden details from harsh shadows, and we've dabbled a little with correcting color casts. The next time you head out with your camera on a bright sunny day, you can snap with confidence, knowing that Corel PHOTO-PAINT can help you clean the mess the sun left behind.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and the author of nearly a dozen books, including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

Create Classic Masterpieces in Corel PHOTO-PAINT®

2009-01-13T20:30:00.000-08:00

By Steve Bain

Looking to add a little magic to your digital images? For some time now, Corel PHOTO-PAINT® has provided many different ways to apply weird and wonderful creative effects to ordinary digital photos. One effects filter in particular has always stood out as an excellent creative tool. This long-time Corel PHOTO-PAINT feature is named Alchemy, and it enables you to integrate some organic qualities into your images. If you haven't yet explored what this powerful pixel-altering tool can do, keep reading - you're in for a treat. By definition, alchemy is a magical process that changes ordinary metal into gold. With the Alchemy filter, which uses more math than magic, you can convert an ordinary photo into an artistic masterpiece worthy of the living room mantle. This filter enables you to create effects that mimic those achieved with traditional art tools and media. Examples of the classic-looking effects you can create are shown below.

Step 1: Pick a Good Picture and Change Your Zoom View
The Alchemy filter uses the inherent color, contrast, resolution, and size properties of your image to create the brush effects. Therefore, your first step is to choose a suitable image and finalize any needed adjustments. As with any artistic endeavor, consider your image's overall composition, balance, cropping, and so on, and pay close attention to the general level of sharpness and detail. Before starting, be sure to save any adjustments or changes you make. If you intend to preview your filter effects by using the full-screen preview rather than the dialog preview, increase your view magnification so that you can see the results of the effects you apply. More often than not, users abandon an effect because their current view magnification distorts the previewed results.

Step 2: Browse the Maze of Options
When you're ready to enter the world of Alchemy, click Effects menu > Custom > Alchemy to open the Alchemy dialog (see below).

If you click on the tabs in the Alchemy dialog and look around each page, you'll see a complex set of options that enable you to adjust and manipulate all kinds of bells and whistles. In fact, there are so many controls to choose from that just knowing where to start can be a challenge in itself. The quickest, easiest way to grasp what's available is to make sure that the automatic preview is activated (click Preview to toggle it on, if necessary), and test-drive the presets in the Style list.

The Style list (see below) includes more than 70 saved preset styles. Presets are essentially saved collections of filter settings. The main advantage of selecting a preset to start your creative filter process is that many of the settings you need are set automatically, so that you can quickly preview potential effects.

The saved presets include settings that can mimic drawing and painting media - such as oil paint, charcoal, pencil, crayon, pastel, and markers - or imitate the markings of a spatula, sponge, or certain brush type, as shown in the examples below.

Presets can also simulate certain surface effects, such as water, woven paper, or canvas (see below). As you browse the list, note that not all of the abbreviated names precisely describe the effects applied, so it helps to do a little exploring.

Step 3: Adjust the Options
After you browse the presets, choose the one that most closely suits your needs. You'll likely need to customize the options to create the exact effect you're looking for. Although the options are organized into areas by property, choosing suitable settings can be a daunting task. Here's a quick run-through of what you can control through each option area.

Brush Controls
On the Brush page of the dialog, you'll see options to control brush shape, layering, density, and other variables. You'll find that changing the brush selection, changing Layering options, and moving the Density slider provide the most profound control. Use the brush selector to choose from more than 70 different brush varieties, a handful of which are shown below.

Use the Layering options to control how overlapping brush colors are mixed. Use the Density slider to control how closely the vertical and horizontal brush strokes are spaced (see below). The higher the density value, the closer the brush strokes appear. Click the Randomize button to preview random versions of the current settings. The Horizontal and Vertical sliders enable you to apply positional shifts to the center origins of the brush strokes - up, down, left, or right - using pixels as the unit measure.

Color Applications
The two most significant options on the Color page (see below) appear in the Brush Color and Background areas. These options enable you to use either the image colors or any colors you want for the brush and background. You can use the Hue, Saturation, and Brightness sliders to change the brush and background colors.

Size, Angle, and Transparency
Adjusting these next brush properties is where the filter chemistry gets a little stormy, so hang on to your hat. On the Size, Angle, and Transparency pages of the Alchemy dialog, you'll see a set of sliders and menu options that have interconnected functions. The properties of the sliders in the Adjust area change according to the Variation setting in the Control area (see below).

When No Variation is selected on each page of the dialog, you can adjust the settings of the current property by using the single slider named for it. The adjustments you make to each property are applied uniformly across the brush strokes. Here is how each property controls the effect:

Size - The Size slider sets the physical size of your brush pattern based on a percentage of the size of the original brush pattern. The original brush strokes are 128, 64, or 32 pixels square. A Size setting of 100 renders the brush strokes at full size.

Angle - The Angle slider applies circular rotation of 180 degrees (clockwise) and -180 degrees (counterclockwise), with 0 applying no rotation.

Transparency - The Transparency slider sets transparency for your brush between 0 (fully opaque) and 99 (fully transparent), enabling you to control how the brush stroke colors mix and whether the image colors are visible.

Step 4: Apply Variations to the Brush Effect
The variations you can apply to the Size, Angle, and Transparency of your brush stroke give the Alchemy filter effects their organic appeal. Variations can be applied in different ways to the Size, Angle, and Transparency properties. The Variation slider on the Size, Angle, and Transparency pages of the Alchemy dialog applies random variation within a specified range that is higher or lower than the size, angle, or transparency value you've specified. The larger you make this value, the more variety you'll see. The method you choose from the Vary Brush Size list in the Control area (see below) enables you to apply even more variation.

In each of the seven methods, described below, the Variation slider applies random variations to the values set. Below is a rough guide to how each of them works.

Randomly - This control method applies the random variation based on values specified by the two sliders named This and That.

The next three methods use image positions to apply variation, which means you can apply property variations based on the relative position of brush strokes in relation to a specific point. These variations are useful for simulating sketch or stroke angle and direction in natural media.

By Radial Distance - Variation is applied concentrically around a given point. To specify the point manually, click the button to the right of the Style list, and click any point on the image preview (see below). The Center and Edge sliders enable you to set the distance between the center and edge of your image. This control method is useful for creating vignette-shaped effects.

By Vertical Position - Variations are applied according to values specified by the Top and Bottom sliders, which correspond to the top and bottom of your image.
By Horizontal Position - Variations are applied according to values specified by the Left and Right sliders, which correspond to the left and right sides of your image.

The last three methods apply property variation based on the color properties of the image below the brush strokes. You can control variations in brush stroke properties based on the original color of your image. Incorporating color in your brush variation enables you to simulate the hardness and intensity of certain types of drawing tools.

By Hue - Brush strokes are varied according to the hue values set with the Warm and Cool sliders, which correspond to the hue values of your image.
By Saturation - The Saturated and Unsaturated sliders enable you to apply brush property variations based on the saturation properties of your image.
By Brightness - Brush strokes are varied according to the values set with the Dark and Bright sliders, which correspond to the brightness values of your image.

You can easily fritter away hours evaluating the options and variations. The best advice is not to get bogged down if it all seems too complex. Instead, try experimenting until you're familiar with how changes to the options influence the final effect.

Step 5: Save Your Settings as Presets
If you've made the effort to choose the perfect settings for an effect, you'll appreciate that saving your settings is a wise habit to adopt. Using the tools offered by the preset feature, you can instantly name, save and reapply the settings to other images. To name and save your current settings for an effect, follow these steps:

In the Alchemy dialog, click the plus (+) button to the right of the Style list. The Save Preset dialog opens (see below).

Enter a descriptive name for your new preset. The name you choose can be up to 33 characters in length.
Click OK to close the dialog. Your preset is added to the Style list, so that you can instantly apply the settings to other images.

To delete a preset from the Style list, click to select it, click the minus (-) button, and answer Yes to the prompt that appears.

Creating Your Own Brush Stroke Patterns
If none of the brush stroke patterns available in the brush selector quite fit an effect you're creating, you can create your own. You can use nearly any image shape you wish, so long as it's saved in the correct format. To be compatible, your brush must be saved as grayscale (8-bit), at 300 dpi, and as an uncompressed Windows Bitmap (BMP) image. If you're creating a new brush image from scratch, choose File menu > New, and use the settings shown below.

Small and simple brush shapes work best. Feathered white images on a black background often yield the best results when applied with the Alchemy filter. Once your custom brush is finished, save and store it for easy access with the other Alchemy brushes in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. In version 12, the default folder path is \Program Files\Corel\Corel Graphics 12\Custom Data\Brushes.

To apply your new brush to an image, follow these steps:

Open the Alchemy filter dialog to the Brush tab, and click the brush selector.
Click the Other button at the bottom of the selector (see below) to open the Load Brush Files dialog, and browse to the folder in which you saved your new brush.

Click to select the brush file, and click Open. Your new brush is now selected. Apply any other settings, and click OK to apply the effect.

Steve Bain is an award-winning illustrator and designer, and the author of nearly a dozen books, including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

Star Blending 2

2009-01-13T20:29:00.000-08:00


Starblending Gold&Chrome BusinessCard Embossing StarVars DigitizedFlower Snow Bloob SmoothEdge ChristmasBall Glass Marble Next...		After filling in the colour, let's do something quick and easy. Press on Ctrl and D at the same time, you'll find out 1 more duplicate of your pentagon. OK, continue by simply dragging at the points in between the 2 corners of the duplicated STAR. It'll look like this:- Then, arrange them into centre by going to Arrange > Align & Distribution. In there, choose both centres of horizontal and vertical alignments. 1 colour (yellow) is too boring! Let's pratise your outline filling skill again by repeating the step above (Drag & Drop) with Red. EFFECT! Go to the Blending tool (, the first icon), click on the Red star and drag on it towards the Yellow pentagon. Like this:- You'll see something like below one. However, if it weren't like what i show you here, simply referring to the blending parameters above the screen. Normally, you'll have the default for the steps () as 6. So, you're not restricted in CorelDRAW®! Change it to something like 20 or 30, as you are happy with it. The result will be like this:- Voilà! Very amazing right? Not finished yet, let's see. Now, simply click on the STAR in the middle and you can move it lower, higher, left or right, as you want it to be. More! At the parameter bar, click on the Loop Blend icon (which in the red circle), and key in 50° at the left of the Loop icon. You'll have this flying star:-
		1 2

Star Blending 1

2009-01-13T20:16:00.002-08:00

		Star Blending
Starblending Gold&Chrome BusinessCard Embossing StarVars DigitizedFlower Snow Bloob SmoothEdge ChristmasBall Glass Marble Next...		This is the first lesson, so, take it easy and enjoy learning how to create this awesome star! Use the Polygon tool (or simply hit on Y) and draw out a simple pentagon looks like the following:- Now, go to the colour palette normally at your right on the screen. Click on one nice colour (well... yellow) and don't let go, continue clicking on it and drag it to your outline of your pentagon. Just let it go when you see something like below, the yellow-outline thingy:-

Color Trapping in CorelDRAW

2009-01-13T20:16:00.001-08:00

Offset lithography is the most common printing process used today to transfer digital documents to paper in commercial press. This method produces fine print quality, great printing speed and has reasonable cost. However an offset printing press only produces solid colors, not shading and applies only one color of ink to a sheet of paper at a time. In order to print images that contain shading (called continuous-tone images), shading is simulated using tiny solid color dots (halftone images). To overcome the second problem of reproducing multicolor images on printing press, each ink must be applied separately, so the image must be broken down into its component colors by creating color separations.

Each color separation is output to a photographic film that is used to create printing plates. Generally, full color documents (those containing many colors, such as photographs) are separated into four basic process colors - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Thus, this kind of color separation is usually called CMYK separation.

Original

Cyan	Magenta
Yellow	Black

The four separation plates are then printed with its own corresponding ink color:

Cyan	Magenta
Yellow	Black

CMYK separation is great but not so precise in color rendering and has limited color gamut. If you need one or more specific colors, or color that can't be rendered in CMYK, you need to use Spot colors that are separated to additional plates.

After the film is produced, the color sheets must be aligned (registered) precisely. If the colors are not aligned properly on a page, unintentional space appears between adjoining colors. This problem is called misregistration, and no matter how much care is taken, some amount of misregistration will occur. To compensate for misregistration you should overlap colors a little. Overlapping colors is called color trapping.

For example, the cyan circle on magenta background on the picture below will separate into two color plates - Cyan and Magenta (the other two, Yellow and Black, are empty and usually are not printed at all).

Original

Cyan plate

Magenta plate

Note that the Magenta plate contains white hole in the place where the circle are on the Cyan plate. It is said that the Cyan circle knocks out the magenta background. When the color plates are aligned on paper, any misregistration produces small gaps between colors and makes the paper to look through. However, you can increase the size of the circle, remaining the hole the same size. This will overlap colors filling gaps and thus producing color trap.

Knockout

Trap

There are two basic methods of color trapping: Spread and Choke. Spread trapping is created by increasing the size of the overlying object as in the above example. Choke overlaps color in opposite direction - the background hole is reduced while the overlying object remains the same size. Generally, one of there two trapping methods should be chosen according to colors of the overlapping objects. As a rule of thumb, a lighter object should be increased in size. So, if a darker object is on top, then choke should be used. If the background is darker, then you should use spread.

Examples of different trapping methods

Original with lighter object on top	Spread (correct)	Choke (incorrect) Object looks smaller

Original with darker object on top	Spread (incorrect) Object looks larger	Choke (correct)

Spreading dark objects can influence the document look. It is not recommended to apply spread trapping to small text objects. Usually a differential trapping is used. This means that lighter objects are spread more than darker.

There are several techniques to produce traps. CorelDRAW can automatically create spread trapping. When you click Print in CorelDRAW, you have an option of auto trapping found on Separation tab of the dialog. In the Auto Trapping control group check Auto-spreading checkbox and specify the maximum amount of color overlap. As noted above, usually color overlap depends on the color of objects. Lighter objects are spread farther than darker ones.

CorelDRAW creates spreads by adding an outline to the object. The color of the outline is set to that of the object's fill and overprint outline is applied to it. When overprint is applied to an objects, it doesn't knock out the background when printing separations. In fact, knockout is performed by printing the same object filled with white on the plates where the object doesn't contain the corresponding color component. For example, a circle filled with CMYK(100,50,20,0) will be printed as 100% gray (black) on cyan plate, 50% gray on magenta plate, 20% gray on yellow plate and 0% (white) on black plate. If the overprint is specified, objects with 0% gray are just omitted and not printed, therefore failing to knock out the background.

In the above examples with cyan circle over the magenta background if we apply Overprint Fill to the circle, then the circle will be printed as before on the cyan plate (100% black) but will not be printed as 0% on magenta. The magenta plate will be 100% gray as if there were no circle in the document. When the two colors are combined on paper, the circle will appear to have (100,100,0,0) fill. Hence, the overprint can be simulated by applying the mixture of its own and the background color components (you should replace the channels with 0% gray with the corresponding channel values of the background).

Returning to auto-trapping, when CorelDRAW applies an outline to an object and applies Overprint Outline to it, the outline doesn't knock out the background right under it but the object's fill does. Therefore, the colors overlap only under the added outline. The width of the outline determines the spread amount.

There are several limitation for auto-trapping in CorelDRAW. First, it can't spread objects already with outlines. Also, only objects with uniform fills can be spread automatically because the outline added to the object can be colored only with a solid color, not a fountain or bitmap fills. CorelDRAW will not autotrap objects that already have overprint fill to let you control trapping manually.

CorelDRAW's automatic trapping is good but it can't create chokes. That is, it only increases the size of the top object and can't decrease the size of the hole under the object to make the background bleed into the object. However in several cases you can do choke trapping manually by manipulating outlines and overprints.

As in the example above, if you color the outline with magenta rather than cyan and apply Overprint outline to it, then the exterior areas of the overlap will not be affected because the magenta outline on magenta background is not seen. However the interior area of the overlap will mix the cyan fill of the object with the magenta outline producing color overlap. This will look as if the background bleeds inside the object, i.e. the choke trap.

But this method is not acceptable if the top object overlaps two or more background objects with different colors or if the background is something like a bitmap or color blend. In this case you have to create the knockout hole (a white object) with the Contour effect, setting it to one step inside. Then separate the contour, the smaller generated object should be filled with white and placed behind the original object. Then apply overprint fill to the original. The white smaller copy will knock out the background while the original will overlap colors producing the trap. But you must bear in mind that creating contours on a complex object like text will take some time as it is very resource consuming operation and it is not so precise to assure accurate trap area.

And the last note, don't expect that if you set overprint fill to an orange circle (0,60,100,0), it will mix with the magenta background because the orange already has non-zero magenta component (60%). Overprint doesn't actually mix colors. It only omits empty channels when printing separations.

If you worked with CorelDRAW's dropshadows or objects with transparencies you may have probably noticed a problem printing those objects on composite

2009-01-13T19:55:00.002-08:00

If you worked with CorelDRAW's dropshadows or objects with transparencies you may have probably noticed a problem printing those objects on composite printers (such as laser printers, inkjet printers and others). Even if everything looks perfect on the screen, you still can't get your artwork printed correctly:

Original image as seen on screen
in CorelDRAW

The same document printed to
an inkjet printer

Why does this happen and how to cure it? Let's try to find this out.

The way CorelDRAW treats transparencies

In order to reproduce a transparent object CorelDRAW creates a bitmap image from the object and everything that lies directly underneath:

As a result, we see the dropshadow bitmap bordering on the underlying vector object(s).

Color space mapping

Exterior areas of the dropshadow bitmap has exactly the same color values as the vector object beneath it. Why do we see differences on printout, then? The answer to this question is buried deeply into color representation theory.

As we know, different output devices have different color reproduction capabilities. Monitors emit light using three color phosphors - red, green and blue (thus, representing RGB color space). Most of printing devices uses other technologies, such as subtractive color inks (cyan, magenta, yellow, black - CMYK color space) and so on. Obviously, devices built with completely different techniques have different properties and capabilities. Modern RGB color monitor can display wider range of colors than CMYK printers can render. Because of this we are facing a problem of color transfer between different color models.

There are two ways to translate colors from one color space to another:

Replace colors falling behind the output device's capabilities with the closest ones that can be displayed by the device. This method reproduces colors without alterations unless they are out of gamut of output devices.
Scale all colors in the source image to fit the output color range. This changes all colors in image but keeps relative color differences between colors along the whole source color range. The advantage of this method is to keep shades of continuous-tone images such as photographs.

The two color transfer algorithms can be represented by the following charts:

Method 1: Colors are clipped at the end
of color range

Method 2: Colors are mapped along
the whole source color range.

On these drawings: S - source color space, D - destination color space, B - the color range that can be represented by the output device, A and C - the color range falling behind output device capabilities, E - output device color space scaled to the source color space.

When using method 1, colors from region B will be printed without changes. Colors from range A and B will be replaced with the closest match from range B. When method 2 is used, all colors printed look unique even if they are not completely the same as the original image.

The method 1 is best for vector illustrations because usually vector artwork doesn't have much colors and it is not likely that clipping will be visible. On photographs, though, it is possible to see the color distortion like shown on the illustration below:

Original Image	Color histogram of the original image
After applying method 1	Color histogram of result 1
After applying method 2	Color histogram of result 2

On these simulated images, method 1 just clips everything that falls behind the output color space. Both resulting images have the same color range (as seen from the histograms above). The result #2 shows more details even if it differs more in color from the original.

When CorelDRAW prints a document on a composite printer, it applies one of the color mapping algorithm described above. By default, it uses method 1 for vector images and method 2 for bitmaps. And this is the cause for that pale bounding box around the dropshadow.

To remove the halo, you can do one of the following:

Convert the underlying object(s) to bitmap. You can add the dropshadow to that combined bitmap, or print it as separate object - this doesn't matter. The most important thing is not to have vectors and bitmaps of the same color contact each other.
In CorelDRAW, go to Tools>Options>Global>Color Management>General and you will see a drop-down list named "Mapping Mode" (in CorelDRAW 9 it is named "Rendering Intent"). Set it to either "Illustration" or "Photographic" ("Saturation" and "Perceptual" respectably in Draw 9), but make sure it is not "Automatic".

This should fix the problem. Note, that some printer drivers have color correction too. For example, HP DeskJet 850C uses automatic color mapping by default. Make sure you set it to either of the two methods, rather than automatic. HP DeskJet's driver names method 1 as "Vivid colors" and method 2 as "Match colors on screen". Unfortunately not all drivers allow you to turn off its color correction...

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite Tutorials

2009-01-13T19:55:00.001-08:00

Video tutorial: Creating a logo in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4

In this video tutorial you will learn how to use shaping tools and effects to create a logo in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4.

Video tutorial: Creating a report cover in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4

In this video tutorial you will learn to create a cover page for a business report by repurposing existing graphics in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4 and working with effects in PHOTO-PAINT X4.

Video tutorial: Designing a chart in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4

In this video tutorial you will learn how to set up a chart or graph using the vector and text tools in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4.

Creating a flyer in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4 using the Table Tool and Live Text Preview

Learn how to use the new table tool and live text preview in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 to lay out your graphics.

Customizing the user interface in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4

In this tutorial, learn how to add often-used commands as buttons to your workspace and increase your efficiency.

Font identification with CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4

Learn how to use CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 to identify fonts from scanned documents in order to reproduce them.

Corel PHOTO-PAINT X4 Image Adjustment Lab: Working with RAW files and snapshots

In this tutorial, you will learn how to work with RAW camera files and create snapshots of adjusted images in Corel PHOTO-PAINT X4 to identify the best adjustment.

Working with layers in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X4

In this tutorial, you will learn to work with master layers, layers on individual pages and guide layers in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4. This will allow you a high degree of layout flexibility, in particular for multipage layouts.

Creating a marketing brochure in CorelDRAW X3

In this tutorial you will learn how to create an 8 page brochure, from idea to publishing.

Creating graphics for a full screen PDF presentation in CorelDRAW X3

You can create great looking presentation graphics with CorelDRAW X3. Learn how to create master pages, pie charts, flow charts, interactive navigational buttons and publish your presentation as a full screen PDF.

Customize CorelDRAW Graphics Suite to Fit Your Workflow

If you like the convenience of having quick access to just the right tools or commands exactly when and where you want, you'll love having the customization features of CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite right at your fingertips.

Come Up to the Lab: Fix Photos Fast with the New Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3 Image

The new Corel® PHOTO-PAINT X3 Image Adjustment Lab makes trial and error photo correction a thing of the past. Use this one stop shop to test, recall, and compare common color and tone corrections.

Making Image Corrections Quickly and Easily in Corel PHOTO-PAINT® X3

Renowned Corel PHOTO-PAINT® expert Nathan Segal shares valuable image correction tips!

Taking Corel PowerTRACE for a Test Drive

Are you spending hours converting bitmap images into vectors? Powerful improvements to the new built-in Corel® PowerTRACE™ engine in CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X3 turn the most demanding bitmap-to-vector adventures into a sweet ride.

Digital Content in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite Gets Re-energized

In case you missed it, the bonus digital content available with CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X3 has undergone an extreme makeover. It’s a carefully updated collection with a focus on detail and quality.

CorelDRAW X3 Adds Three Powerful New Shaping Commands

Cutting corners doesn't get much easier than this. CorelDRAW X3 sports three new shaping commands that give you the power to instantly apply perfect rounded, reverse-rounded, or beveled corner effects to vector objects.

New high-end color support for interactive blend and contour effects in CorelDRAW X3

If you work with high-end color, you'll be pleased to know that both CorelDRAW® X3 and Corel PHOTO-PAINT® X3 include high-end color features that can help you unleash your wildest design and illustration energy.

New Security Features Offer PDF Password Protection Options

Protect your property! Learn how CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X3 can help shield your PDFs from prying eyes and unauthorized printing. Password security options help control who can and cannot work with your files.

The Interactive Fit Text to Path Tool in CorelDRAW® X3

It's never been easier to attach text to a path with precision — a common effect used in creating signs and logos.

Cropping graphics in CorelDRAW® X3

Whether you are working with a drawing or an imported bitmap, the new Crop tool lets you remove portions of your graphic quickly and easily. You no longer need to ungroup objects, break linked groups apart, or convert objects to curves to remove unwanted areas in a graphic.

Fast ways to copy and position objects

If you want to copy one or more objects within CorelDRAW® X3, you can use a faster method than copying and pasting.

Positioning objects as you draw

Changing tools to position an object you just created in CorelDRAW® can be time-consuming, especially if your drawing contains several objects.

Reducing the number of nodes in curve objects

Did you know that you can automatically reduce the number of nodes in curve objects? Often, complex curve objects contain overlapping or redundant nodes that are not necessary for editing the object.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4

2009-01-13T19:29:00.000-08:00

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 delivers all the essential tools for today's busy designer. Create powerful designs using intuitive vector illustration and page layout tools. Retouch and enhance photos with professional photo-editing software. And easily convert bitmap images to editable and scalable vector files. Whatever your project, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 will streamline your workflow and inspire you with new creative possibilities.

Create illustrations, logos, brochures, newsletters, flyers, signs, Web images and more.

What's Included

CorelDRAW® X4
Vector illustration and page layout
Corel PHOTO-PAINT® X4
Professional photo editing
Corel® PowerTRACE™ X4
Bitmap to vector tracing

Supporting Applications & Services

Corel CAPTURE™
CorelDRAW® ConceptShare™
Bitstream® Font Navigator®
WhatTheFont™
Barcode Wizard
Service Bureau Profiler
Duplexing Wizard

Additional Content*

10,000 high-quality clipart images, individually selected to meet the needs of design professionals and occasional users alike
1,000 high resolution, royalty-free photographs from iStockphoto®
Over 1,000 OpenType and international fonts, including 75 Windows® Glyph List 4 (WGL4) fonts and 10 engraver fonts
80 professionally designed templates

New Video CorelDRAW Training

2009-01-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

This tutorial will show you how to create custom buttons and toolbars in the CorelDRAW X4 work space. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite has powerful customization features that you can use to turn your CorelDRAW work space into a streamlined interface for your work requirements.

CorelDRAW.com Features AdvancedArtist.com Tutorials

2009-01-13T19:24:00.000-08:00

CorelDRAW.com Features AdvancedArtist.com Tutorials

Corel Corporation contracted Advanced Artist to create 3 video tutorials for the Corel Corporate web site. As a leading Corel video training provideer Advanced Artist was asked to deveop 3 new video tutorials demonstrating the versatility and ease of use that is available in the Corel X4 Graphics Suite. You can access these free Corel training videos on the Corel.com web site with the link below.

mono style chrome modern

2009-01-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

This CorelDRAW tutorial will show you how to design with Mono Chrome and Mono Style art files in CorelDRAW. Incredible new design techniques tips and tricks that will show you how to design todays modern fashion designs. Design and apperal layouts are changing and yuo need these techniques to move your business to the next level.

Free donwload corel draw x4

2009-01-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

All trial downloads

Photos

Paint Shop Pro Photo X2
PhotoImpact X3
MediaOne Plus

Illustration & Design

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4
Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4
Painter X (Windows & Macintosh)
Painter Essentials 4 (Windows & Macintosh)

Video & DVD

WinDVD 9
VideoStudio X2
DVD Copy 6
DVD MovieFactory 7

Office & Utilities

WordPerfect Office X4 - Standard Edition
WordPerfect Lightning
WinZip 12

sofware corel draw x4

2009-01-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

The world's most powerful Natural-Media® Software! 10% off only by 1/5

From
US$269.00 incl. VAT

Turn your creative ideas into professional results!
Buy yours today! 10% off only by 1/5

From
US$229.00 incl. VAT

All-in-one solution for HD video and slideshows on disc! 10% off only by 1/5

From
US$59.00 incl. VAT

The easiest way to get professional-looking photos, fast! 10% off only by 1/5

From
US$95.00 incl. VAT

Easy photo editing and amazing digital art! 10% off only by 1/5

From
US$59.00 incl. VAT

With more features, more online tools and more compatibility than ever before! 10% off only by 1/5

From
US$189.00 incl. VAT

All Products

VideoStudio Pro X2 Ultimate

From US$119.00
incl. VAT

VideoStudio Pro X2

From US$69.00
incl. VAT

VideoStudio X2

From US$79.00
incl. VAT

WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray

From US$119.00
incl. VAT

WinDVD 9 Plus

From US$95.00
incl. VAT

DVD MovieFactory Pro 7

From US$59.00
incl. VAT

DVD MovieFactory 7

From US$59.00
incl. VAT

Corel Painter X

From US$269.00
incl. VAT

Corel Painter Essentials 4

From US$59.00
incl. VAT

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4

From US$229.00
incl. VAT

Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4

From US$590.00
incl. VAT

Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate

From US$69.00
incl. VAT

PhotoImpact X3

From US$59.00
incl. VAT

WordPerfect Office X4 Standard

From US$189.00
incl. VAT

Video and DVD: DVD Creation; DVD Copy 6 Plus; DVD MovieFactory 7; DVD MovieFactory Pro 7; Video Editing; VideoStudio Pro X2; VideoStudio Pro X2 Ultimate; VideoStudio X2; DVD and Video Playback; WinDVD 9 Plus; WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray; WinDVD 9 Standard
Office & Utilities: Word Perfect; WordPerfect Office X4 Home & Student Edition; WordPerfect Office X4 Standard; Utilities
Illustration and Design: Technical Illustration; Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4; Digital Painting; Corel Painter Essentials 4; Corel Painter X; Graphics; CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4
Photo and Imaging: Photo Editing; Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate; Paint Shop Pro Photo X2; PhotoImpact X3; MediaOne Plus

FAQ

Welcome to the Corel® Store. Thank you for shopping with us!

We hope you enjoy your shopping experience and that you bookmark us as one of your favorites for future reference. Every effort has been made to make the ordering process as easy to follow and convenient as possible.

You can find a wide variety of products at the Corel Store, from business productivity and graphics applications to products for the Enterprise.

Click here for a complete list of Frequently Asked Questions. Or, to login to view your order status, Click here.

You should know that your privacy and the security of your personal information is very important to us. All transactions are processed using industry-standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol for secure credit card payment. You can rest assured that if your browser supports this protocol, your personal information is secure when shopping at the Corel Store. But if you’d like more information to put your mind at ease, please feel free to review our detailed privacy and security policies.

Your feedback is important to us! We welcome and encourage all of your suggestions. If you’d like to submit a question, comment, suggestion or concern please feel free to contact us.