Teach Yourself
CorelDRAW 8 in 24 Hours
In this lesson, you learn about masks--a powerful image manipulation feature of PHOTO-PAINT. In conjunction with masks, we need to look more into PHOTO-PAINT objects and what they can do. You also take a peek at some of the Paintbrush tools and some of the Effect tools, such as the Clone tool and the Image Sprayer tool. Remember to experiment with these tools; half the fun is to discover on your own what PHOTO-PAINT is capable of helping you create.
A mask has many different uses, but the fundamental idea behind the mask is to enable you to select a portion of a bitmap image. One way to accomplish this is using a Mask tool, which isolates an area of the bitmap. When you use a Mask tool to select an area, the selected area is modifiable or selected, while a mask covers the rest of the area. This enables you to protect areas of your image from changes when applying effects and when painting. You can also use this selected area (and it need not be a contiguous area--a connected area) to create a floating object, which is what you want to do here.
Open a photographic quality image in PHOTO-PAINT. Choose File | Open and locate any photographic image. Figure 21.01 shows an image that I have selected. It is a painting of a stork that I photographed at the local zoo; then I sketched the stork on paper. I scanned the sketch into PHOTO-PAINT and used PHOTO-PAINT to paint over the sketch using the arsenal of paintbrushes (more on using brushes later in this lesson).
The stork.
When you select the Rectangle mask flyout, the masking tools shown in Figure 21.2 appear.
The Mask flyout tools.
In the next few steps, you create an object from the stork using the Rectangle Mask tool.
Marquee of marching ants surrounding the stork.
Just A Minute: When you find yourself trying to modify an image that you cannot seem to modify, it might be that you have a mask selected. To remove any and all masks from your image choose Mask | Remove.
The selected area is now a transformed object floating over the original stork image.
Painting PHOTO-PAINT shapes is very similar to drawing CorelDRAW shapes. The main difference is that the shapes are bitmaps, and modifications to these shapes might cause unwanted destructive behavior. Here are a few things to note when painting shapes in PHOTO-PAINT:
Just A Minute: If you accidentally paint over a white background, you can choose Edit | Clear and the background will be removed. If your background is an image, it too will be erased, so be careful. Also, make sure that your background is selected when you clear the image (use the Objects Docker to select the background). If an object is selected and Edit | Clear is activated, the object is erased.
Shapes can also include an outline (see Figure 21.5). To add a different colored outline to a shape, choose the paint color (the border color), double-click the Shape tool of choice, and enter a thickness in the Width box. In PHOTO-PAINT, the object is a bitmap and the outline is painted onto the object. That is, the pixels on the border of the object will be modified so that its color reflects the paint color.
Rectangle with an outline.
Select an object and paint a rectangle shape next to it with Render to Object deselected. The object grows to encompass the painted shape. If, however, you choose Lock Transparency, the shape refuses to paint past the edges of the object.
Just A Minute: To create a constrained shape (a square or circle, for example), choose the appropriate Shape tool and press the Control key as you paint your shape.
To get a feel for creating PHOTO-PAINT shapes, the following steps walk through using the Rectangle tool to paint random rectangle shapes.
To paint an ellipse, choose the Ellipse tool, and then select all your desired options: fill, outline, and so on. Then drag the ellipse (or circle if you hold Control while painting the ellipse) to a desired shape and size.
Polygons are shapes with three or more sides. Choose the Polygon tool from the Shape Tools flyout. The last Shape tool you selected is the Ellipse tool. To locate the Polygon tool, press the small black triangle on the Ellipse tool and then select the Polygon tool.
The following steps walk you through creating a polygon (be sure to select the Polygon tool before beginning with Step 1).
The polygon is then complete and PHOTO-PAINT fills it with the currently selected fill and outlines it with the current paint color.
Just A Minute: To constrain the polygon edges to 45-degree increments, hold Control down while moving and pressing the left mouse button.
Polygons can have edges that intersect and be any shape or size and have any number of edges. See Figure 21.6 for an example of a polygon.
Painting polygons.
Painting lines is very similar to painting polygons. The main difference is that the Line tool does not connect the first and last point and use a fill. Moreover, the fill does not determine the color of the line, rather the Paint color determines the color of the line. To stop painting line segments, remember to double-click. The width setting (on the Property bar) determines the width of the line.
Lines have an additional option, called the Shape Joints option, that determines the behavior of lines at the point where two line segments meet. When two lines meet at an angle, PHOTO-PAINT can join the lines in one of four different methods, as shown in Figure 21.7.
The use of different line joint options.
When a shape is painted you can't choose what happens to the shape's color when the paint interacts with the bitmap underneath. This interaction between the color of the shape's paint and the color of the paint of the pixels is the Paint mode when painting shapes and is the Merge mode when working with objects. For examples of these modes, see Figure 21.8.
To modify the Paint mode, choose a new Paint mode in the Property bar or Tool Settings rollup prior to creating your object. To modify the Merge mode for existing floating objects, use the Merge list box in the Object Dockers window, or if this window is not visible, use the Tool Settings rollup when the Object tool is double-clicked.
Different types of Merge modes exist. For example, if you select the Add mode, the colors between the object and the image beneath it are added to make a brighter and usually different color.
Painting rectangles using different Merge modes.
The Fill tool replaces adjoining pixels with another color, Fountain fill, bitmap, or Texture fill. When you click an area of an image with the Fill tool, PHOTO-PAINT uses the color of the pixel that you clicked on to determine the parts of your image to repaint with your fill. Next the fill color (or texture) seeps into your image along interconnected pixels of the same (or similar) color. Figure 21.9 shows an example of using the Fill tool to replace one color with another color. The left rectangle was painted as an object and then duplicated. The duplicate rectangle was then filled using the Fill tool and a blue fill color.
Using fill to replace colors.
The way PHOTO-PAINT decides which pixel colors to replace is based on the Tolerance value. The smaller the tolerance setting, the more precise the fill. That is, the fill affects pixels of colors similar to the one you select. The higher the tolerance, the more pixels fit and more of your image fills.
When you select an object while using the Fill tool, PHOTO-PAINT uses the object as the target of the fill. That is, if you have an object selected and even if you click beside the object with the Fill tool, the object expands to include the fill (see Figure 21.10). To fill parts of another object or the background, select that object prior to using the Fill tool.
Filling beside selected objects. Notice that the background is still there, but underneath the just painted object.
PHOTO-PAINT objects are a powerful feature in PHOTO-PAINT. In this section, you discover there are more things you can do with objects: order objects on top and behind one another, feather an object's edges, add drop shadows to objects, and make objects transparent.
To order an object behind another object, select the object and right-click the object to display a menu near the cursor. Then choose Arrange | Order and select a position option: To Back, To Front, Behind One, or Forward One.
You can also order objects in the Object Docker by selecting the object to order and dragging the object above or below a desired object. The order of objects in the Object Docker reflects the relative position of all the objects above the background.
After you select a number of objects, you can group them just as in CorelDRAW. These grouped objects then behave, in most circumstances, as one object. To group the selected objects, choose Object | Arrange | Group, or type Control+G. To ungroup objects choose Object | Arrange | Ungroup, or type Control+U. You can also group and ungroup objects by right-clicking on the selected object(s) and choosing Arrange | Group (or Ungroup).
When you group objects, they maintain their order relative to each other, but the group takes on the order position of the topmost object in the group. The objects are linked together in the Object Docker window by a solid black line.
Just as in CorelDRAW, you can align PHOTO-PAINT objects relative to each other vertically and horizontally. Moreover, you can make the spacing among objects consistent using the distribute option. To align or distribute objects, select the objects to align and choose Object | Arrange | Align and Distribute.
As you have seen, there are a number of different transformations you can apply to objects in PHOTO-PAINT. These include transformations such as flip, rotate, skew, and scale. You choose these different transformation modes by selecting an object multiple times to display the different object handles used to transform the object.
You can also apply these transformations to objects through the Object menu. Choose Object | Flip, Rotate, or Transform to display dialog boxes that give you the option to transform the object using precise numeric values.
Opacity is a measurement of how transparent an object is. The higher the opacity, the harder it is to see through it. You can find the opacity setting for an object in the Property bar when you select the object using the Pick tool or in the Object Docker window at the bottom of the window. To change the opacity, move the slider to the desired position (see Figure 21.11).
Changing opacity of an object. The rectangle has an opacity setting of 42%.
The opacity changes to objects that have been grouped will affect all the individual objects that make up the group.
The overall opacity of an object can be modified as long as the object remains an object. As soon as the object is combined to another object or the background (see the "Combining Objects" section), the opacity of an object cannot be changed using this method.
You can fade the edges of objects in PHOTO-PAINT to nothing, revealing the background (or other objects beneath) on the edges. This is feathering.
Select an object and choose Object | Feather. In the Feather dialog box, select a width for the Feather option in pixels. With the Preview button selected (in the Feather dialog box, the eye left of the OK button), an increase in the spinner for the feather width displays the new increased feathering immediately on your object (see Figure 21.12).
You can combine objects together or with the background. Do not confuse this with grouping objects. Grouping maintains an object's identity. Combining, not surprisingly, combines objects to create new objects (or modified backgrounds). When you combine objects together or combine objects with the background, the pixels between the two bitmaps combine permanently (only Undo can get you out of a jamb here).
Object feathering.
To combine objects, choose Object | Combine and then select the type of combination you want. You can combine multiple objects together to create a new object, combine the object with the background, or combine all objects in the image with the background.
The Object Transparency tool gives you the ability to add a number of different types of transparent gradients to an object. One problem with the Object Transparency tool is that it is not editable. When you apply another transparency type to an object, it adds it to the already modified object. To apply the current interactive transparency, select another tool or object.
To add a transparent gradient to an object, choose the Object Transparency tool and select the type of transparency to apply to an object.
Just A Minute: For a better interface to the Object Transparency tool settings, double-click the Object Transparency tool to display the Tool Settings rollup. See Figure 21.13 for an example of the use of the Interactive Transparency tool.
To apply Linear transparency, choose the Object Transparency tool, select Linear type, and left-click the part of the object that you want to be the least transparent. Drag the mouse to another portion of the object and release the mouse button to select the most transparent part of the object. You can modify the start and end transparency values by modifying the Node Transparency slider on the Property bar. Select the node to adjust and slide the slider to the desired transparency value.
Interactive transparency.
PHOTO-PAINT has a set of tools that emulate Paintbrush tools. These tools modify pixels of a bitmap image using the selected paint color similar to the way that real paintbrushes modify paint on a canvas. These tools include the Paint tools (see Figure 21.14), Effect tool, Clone tool, and Image Sprayer tool.
Paint tool flyout.
Time Saver: If you plan to use the Paint tools a lot in your work, I would suggest the purchase of a pressure-sensitive tablet. A tablet is a computer-input device that acts very much like a mouse or trackball, but rather than a mouse or trackball, you use a pen to move the cursor.
PHOTO-PAINT has a special rollup for pen settings in which many different functions of the Paint tools can be assigned to the pressure sensitivity of the pen. To view this rollup, choose View | Roll-Ups | Pen Settings.
The Paint tools affect the currently selected object (or background). Note that the object expands to include any painting and or effects past the boundary of an object when the Transparency Lock option is not set (see the Objects Docker).
The Paint tools enable you to add the paint color to your image in a way that depends on the type of paintbrush and paint color you choose. When you select the Paint tool, the Property bar displays some of the modifiable options of the Paint tool. Double-click the Paint tool to display the Tool Settings rollup to access of the Paint tool options.
There are five tabs in the Paint tool Tool Settings rollup: Brush Type, Texture Settings, Dab Attributes, Stroke Attributes, and Orbit Settings (see Figure 21.15). Each of these settings includes a number of options that you can change that affect the Paint tool.
Paint tool Tool Settings rollup.
In the Tool Settings rollup, notice a row of four icons representing different kinds of brushes. Next to these thumbnails is a small down arrow. Toggle this arrow to see a list of different types of predefined brushes; toggle the arrow again to minimize this list. When you choose a brush type, you can also select a subtype from a drop-down list found just beneath the thumbnails of the paintbrush types. See Figure 21.16 for a sample of some of the different brushes.
The Effect tools are similar to the painting tools, but rather than adding color to the image surface, the Effect tools modify the pixels in different ways. Some of the more common effects are Smear, Smudge, and Brightness. The Smear tool, for example, acts like a cotton swab by smearing color underneath it, making it appear as if the paint colors are being moved to the front and sides of the tool (see Figure 21.17).
The Effect tool is in the Paint tool flyout. To view the Tool Settings rollup, double-click on the Effect tool. See Figure 21.18 for a sample of the effects you can create.
On an existing image, choose the kind of effect that you want to apply to your image; then drag the cursor in your image to apply the effect to your image.
Using different brushes with the Paint tool.
The image on the right has been smeared by zigzagging the Smear tool across the rectangles.
The Clone tool is different from the Paint and Effect tool in that it uses a part of an existing image as paint on the brush.
The Trouble Sea. A painting I created using the Paint and Smudge tools.
Use the Clone tool to select the sand, and paint with the sand over the base of the sign post to make it look as if it is planted into the sand.
The neat thing about the Clone tool is that you can select the image source from an image other than the one you are currently working on.
If you select the source of the clone effect from an object, the Clone tool will honor the boundary of the object. That is, it will not select paint from past the boundary of the object. However, if you select the background source for the clone effect, objects that lie on top of the background will be ignored when selecting paint from the source image. For the best effect, it is usually best to combine all the objects with the background in the source image.
The Image Sprayer tool is, just as the name implies, a tool that effectively sprays images onto the screen.
You can modify the size of the images, the rate at which they come out of the sprayer, and so on. See Figure 21.20 for an example of the use of this tool.
In this lesson, you learned that there are many different ways to create, manipulate, and transform floating bitmap objects using the Mask tools, Pick tool, and Object Docker.
As soon as you create the image, you can individually modify the pixels in a bitmap image--the entire image or a floating bitmap object--using tools such as the Paint Shape tools and the Paint, Effect, Clone, and Image Sprayer tools.
The Image Spray tool in action.
Let's put some of what you have learned to practice by creating an image using some of the tools and object techniques learned in this lesson. The following steps create the image in Figure 21.20:
Remember to save your image by choosing File | Save As. Save the image as a PHOTO-PAINT 8 file to maintain the object information. You will not use this image in further workshops so it is not necessary to save the image. Play around with feathering the edges of some of these objects, and changing each objects opacity to see what kinds of different images you can create. Best of all, have fun!
© Copyright, Macmillan Computer Publishing. All rights reserved.
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