CorelDRAW - Tips and Tricks in CorelDraw, Working with Bitmaps

Tips and Tricks in CorelDraw
Working with Bitmaps

Tips and Tricks in CorelDraw

Creating Beautiful Patterns

In this tutorial you will learn how you can create beautiful patterns in coreldraw. There are many ways to create patterns. We can use Artistic media tool, creation of pattern using transformation of object and using blend effect etc.

An example below here explains how to create patterns using the transformation & blend effect on object.

. Click on Ellipse Tool.

. Draw ellipse.

. Fill ellipse with green color and yellow outline.

. Click two times on ellipse to reveal the rotation arrows.

. Click and drag the center of rotation to the bottom of the ellipse as shown in figure below

. Click on Arrange | Transform | Rotate to bring up the rotation dialog box.

. Enter the number 20 in the Angle parameters box.

. Click on the Apply to duplicate button 23 times. You should now have 24 ellipses in a circle as shown in figure below.

. Select Pick Tool.

. Marquee select all 24 ellipses

. Click on the Combine button on the property Bar. Your image would look like as shown below:

. Now, duplicate this image by clicking Ctrl+D.

. Drag and make this duplicate image smaller than the original.

. Fill it with red color and yellow outline.

. Select both shapes and press C and E or click on the Align button on the Property Bar. A dialog box will appear on the screen as shown below.

. When the Align dialog box appears, check the center boxes in both the horizontal and vertical rows.

. With then two shapes still selected, blend them together using a 10 step blend. Your finished image should look like as in figure below:

An example below here explains how to create flower patterns using the transformation & blend effect on object.

. Click on Ellipse Tool.

. Draw ellipse.

. Fill it with pink color.

. Press + Key to duplicate this ellipse.

. Drag and make that duplicate ellipse smaller than original.

. Fill it with red color as shown in figure below.

. Select both objects and Press C+B to align center and bottom as shown in figure below:

. Blend the two shapes using a 10 steps blend. Your image would look something like this.

. Move the center of rotation thumbtack to the bottom of the blended petal. Now your drawing should look something like this.

. Marquee select the object and click Ctrl +G to group it.

. Click two times to reveal the rotation arrows.

. Click and drag the center of rotation to the bottom .

. Open the Rotation roll-up by clicking on Arrange | Transform | Rotate.

. Enter the number 45 in the Angle parameters box and click on Apply to Duplicate 7 times to create the flower as shown in figure below.

. Using the ellipse tool, create a small circle and fill it with a radial fill of Orange to Yellow. Place it in the center of the flower.

. Select all the petals and the radial filled circle and group them together using the Group button on the Property Bar. That's it, you just created a flower.

Use of Nudge Offset Button

Before you must know the use of Nudge Offset, you must learn how to move any object with the help of arrow keys.

For this you should know the function of these arrow keys in coreldraw.

Up Arrow		For moving any object in upward direction.

Down Arrow		For moving any object downward use Down arrow key.

Left Arrow		For moving any object Left use Left arrow key.

Right Arrow		For moving any object Right use Right arrow key.

The main use of Nudge Offset button is to adjust the value of distance that the object is moved when you tap the arrow keys.

Figure showing Nudge Offset value is 20.0" inches

The Nudge Offset box defines how far a selected object moves when you "nudge" it by pressing the right, left, up, or down arrows on your keyboard. If you set the distance to 1", for example, you can choose any object with the Pick tool, press the down arrow on your keyboard, and that object moves one inch down. Exactly. Custom-defined nudge offsets can be a big time-saver. One scenario is that you have four rectangles sitting on top of each other and you want to space them one inch apart. A custom-defined nudge value makes this as easy as pressing the right arrow one, two, three, or four times.

The Duplicate Distance value boxes define how much offset will be applied to a selected object when you duplicate it by pressing Ctrl+D, or by choosing Edit | Duplicate from the menu bar.

With an object selected, you can move or nudge it in increments by tapping the arrow keys. To adjust the distance that the object is moved when you tap the arrow keys, look for the Nudge Offset dialog box on the property bar and type in a value.

Guidelines Setup

The very good use of nudge offset button is setting guidelines.

An example here will explain how you can set guidelines.

. Open Coreldraw

. Select Pick Tool

. Place it on the ruler and drag down

. Drag the pointer down. It will bring the dotted line on the page called Guideline.

An image showing guidelines is given below:

. Now, type 5 in nudge offset button in property bar.

. Select vertical guideline and press + key. Duplicate guideline will be drawn overlapping other guideline.

. Now click Right Arrow to move. It will move at the 5 inches distance, because you had assigned 5 inches in nudge offset box as shown in figure below:

Figure showing 5 inches distance between two vertical guidelines.

In the same manner you can adjust the distance between two or more objects by assigning the value in nudge offset button in property bar.

Note: No object should be in selection for assigning the value in nudge offset, because nudge offset button is not highlighted during the selection of any object.

Drawing of vector image

Drawing the Eye Shape

To draw Eye click on ellipse tool and draw a horizontal ellipse.

Figure showing horizontal ellipse

. Choose Arrange, Convert to Curves (CTRL + Q). Optionally, click the Convert to Curves icon on the Property Bar.

. Doing so will convert the ellipse into a curve and enable you to select and edit the nodes.

. Click on Shape tool.

. Select left node point of object, you will notice handles as shown in figure below.

. Click on "make a node cusp" on the property bar to make node cusp as shown in figure below.

. Select the top handle of the node of object and drag it downwards as shown in figure below.

. Select the bottom handle of the left node and drag it upward direction as shown in figure. Your drawing would look like this:

. Now repeat these actions on the right node point of the object.

. After repeating these actions your object would look like as shown in figure below:

. Now, draw select ellipse tool and draw a circle.

. Fill it with black color.

. Place circle inside the object. Your drawing would look like this as shown below:

An Overview on Fountain Fills

In this tutorial you will learn about the basics of fountain fill in Corel DRAW.

. Draw circle. Keep it selected.

. Click "Fountain Fill Dialog" from Fill Tool.

. Linear fill type is selected by default. Click ok and check out the effect.

. Open Fountain Fill again and change Linear Fill type to Radial. Click ok. Observer the result.

. Try Conical and Square fill types.

. Please do not change any other settings.

. This is the image showing different types of fill, in a clockwise manner from top left, they are Linear, Radial, Square and Conical.

. Select Linear fill type and Two Color is selected by default. Select two different colors from "From and To" drop down menu under color blend

. Click ok and observer the result.

Fountain Fill in Text

You can also apply fountain fill on text . Text is no different from any other object as it is since your text remains editable even with a fountain fill. Although, the entire word is treated as one object and the fill runs continuously through the object.

To convert text into object select your text, and choose Arrange>Convert to Curves to create individual objects from each character. Since the text has been converted to a graphic object, however, you cannot edit it as text after performing this conversion.

This image shows the selection just after the second character was filled.

Fountain Fill in the outline of the text

You cannot fill an outline with a fountain fill. You can however choose Arrange>Convert Outline to Object from the main menu. Just as it sounds, it takes the outline and turns it into an object, separate from the object it used to outline. While it can make some great effects on objects, it is really powerful when you take one extra step and use it on text.

Create your text. Apply a fairly thick outline - I have used a 20px outline for 140pt text for the example shown here. (The original text was 140pts but I made it smaller on export to fit.) Increase your letter spacing if necessary, since the outline tends to join letters together.

Now let's start the magic. Choose Arrange>Convert Outline to Object. The outline becomes a separate object. The sample at the left shows the text with regular outline first, with the outline moved away from the text in the second sample. Fill with the fountain fill you desire ... neat effect. If you really want to push the technique, start with your characters spread further apart, and apply an outline to the original outline. You may find the result is better when you specify a wide outline. Then open the Outline Pen window through the Outline Pen tool, and check Behind Fill, located at the bottom left of the window. This sends the outline behind the object and can be easier to control the effect.

Working with Bitmaps

Converting graphic to Bitmaps

By converting a vector graphic to a bitmap ensures special effects that are unavailable to vector graphic or objects. As you convert the vector, you can select the color mode of the bitmap. A color mode determines the number and kind of colors that make up the bitmap, so that file size is also affected.

Vector files are usually considerably smaller than a bitmap file of the same image, since there is less information required to achieve the same results. The exception is in photographic type images where color changes with almost every pixel. This type of file is best created and edited in a bitmap program.

To Convert vector graphic to bitmap

. Open any vector image.

. Keep it selected.

. Go to Menu bar.

. Click on Bimap>Convert to Bitmap

. Dialog box will appear on the screen.

. Choose any color mode you desire ie CMYK, RGB etc from the color list box.

. Choose resolution from the Resolution list box.

. Enable any of the following check boxes:

. Anti-aliasing - smooths the edges of the bitmap

. Transparent background - makes the background of the bitmap transparent

. Apply ICC profile - applies the International Color Consortium profiles to standardize colors across devices and color spaces

. Click Ok.

Editing Bitmaps

Why Edit Bitmap Images in CorelDRAW?

CorelDRAW is not really a full-features bitmap editor. So what's the point of editing bitmaps in CorelDRAW ? If you work exclusively with bitmap images, you should work in Photo-Paint instead of CorelDRAW. But if you combine both vector and bitmap images, CorelDRAW supports this much better than PHOTO-PAINT or any bitmap editor.

At this point, you might be asking yourself, "Can't we all just get along? Why can't somebody come up with a program that will edit both bitmap- and vector-based graphics?" Well, somebody has, and you're using the program. CorelDRAW includes a Bitmap menu that lets you create, edit, and save bitmap images in CorelDRAW. So, in effect, you can work in a mixed environment.

The one thing that you cannot do is transform bitmap images to vector-based images. Programs exist that attempt to trace the lines in bitmap images and convert them into vector-based curves, but these programs are basically trying to guess at which dots should be converted to which lines, and the results are usually not satisfactory.

Importing Bitmap Images

Simply select File > Import from the menu bar, and use the Look In drop-down list to navigate to the folder on your system in which your graphic files are stored. Or if you are opening one of the thousands of bitmap clip art images that come with CorelDRAW from your CD-ROM, navigate to your CD drive.

. Keep it selected.

Applying Effects to Bitmaps

After you create a bitmap image in CorelDRAW , you can apply some useful effects that are not available for vector-based objects.

Those effects include using a color mask to strip any unwanted color out o1f an image, assigning transparency to bitmap images so that they appear to have no background when displayed on web sites, and applying a fun range of distortion effects to your image.

Other effects include transformations with names such as Solarize, Impressionist, Psychedelic, Glass Block, and Vignette.

Using a Color Mask on Bitmap Images

You can use bitmap color masks to eliminate any color from any bitmap image. This is especially useful with scanned or imported photos. Color masking can be, in effect, a recoloring tool. Too much red or blue in a photo? You can correct that with color masking.

You can also use color masking to transform the fills of any bitmap images.

Stripping a Color from a Bitmap Image

. Open a bitmap image

. Select the bitmap image. Handles appear, just as they do when you select any object in CorelDRAW.

. Select Bitmap | Bitmap Color Mask from the menu bar.

. Click on the first bar in the Bitmap Color Mask rollup.

. Click on the Color Selector, that looks like an eyedropper

. Move your cursor, in the bitmap image, over the color you want to remove. That color appears in the first bar of the Bitmap Color Mask rollup. When the color in the rollup matches the color you want to delete, click with the Color Selector cursor.

Cropping Bitmap

After adding a bitmap to a drawing, you can crop, resample, and resize the bitmap. Cropping removes unwanted areas of a bitmap. When you resample a bitmap, you can change the image size, the resolution, or both by adding or removing pixels. For example, if you make an image larger without resampling, you can lose details because the image's pixels are spread over a greater area. By resampling, you can add pixels to preserve more detail from the original image. Resizing an image maintains the same number of pixels in a smaller or larger area. For example, you can lose details when you make an image larger without resampling because the image's pixels are spread over a greater area. Upsampling adds pixels to maintain some of the original's details.

To crop bitmap image

Open any bitmap image. Keep it selected.

. Click and drag on one of the selected handles to redefine the edge of your image.

. When you are satisfied with the result, choose Bitmap, Crop Bitmap from the Main menu to complete.

Mode

You can convert color mode of bitmap image to various type of modes ie black and white, grayscale, duotone, paletted, Lab color, CMYK & RGB color mode.

CorelDraw provides facility of converting one color mode to other mode.

CorelDRAW provides color modes when dealing with bitmaps:

. Black-and-White (1-bit)

. Grayscale (8-bit)

. Paletted (8-bit)

. Duotone (8-bit)

. RGB Color (24-bit)

. LAB Color (24-bit)

. CMYK Color (32-bit)

. Black-and-White (1-bit)

This is the simplest of color modes and is seldom used when dealing with photographs. 1-bit bitmaps contain the lowest number of colors per pixel in which a graphic can be stored. In a 1-bit bitmap, pixels are either black or white. This color mode is usually used when working with line art or other graphics which require only one shade of black and no other colors.

Grayscale (8-bit)

Supporting up to 256 different shades of black, this color mode is often used when a bitmap must contain more than one shade of black but requires no color. Because it contains only one color channel (black) it makes for a smaller file size than an all-black bitmap which uses a 24-bit or 32-bit color mode. Usually when people have a photograph and they say that they would like to convert it to black-and-white, they are usually referring to Grayscale (8-bit).

Paletted (8-bit)

This color mode also supports a maximum of 256 colors, however those colors can consist of any of the colors available in the RGB color spectrum. By default, converting a bitmap to Paletted (8-bit) will result in the color palette being automatically generated based on the colors provided in the source document. If the document contains colors that are not found in the RGB color spectrum (i.e. Pantone), it will convert them to the closest available RGB value. In the event that the source document contains more than 256 colors, the color palette will consist of the most used colors in the image.

Duotone (8-bit)

There are four different types of duotones: monotone, duotone, tritone and quadtone. Monotones support only one color, duotones support two, tritones support three and quadtones support four. When a bitmap is converted into a duotone (8-bit), the user is prompted to first select the type of duotone that will be created and then choose the colors that will be used in the bitmap. Duotone bitmaps must use Pantone colors and will always output grayscale as Pantone colors cannot be reproduced using CMYK inks. In addition to this, Duotone bitmaps are typically used when color separations will be created from the document. As such, color is not required when the separations are output.

RGB Color (24-bit)

This is the most commonly used color mode as it uses three 8-bit channels (Red, Green and Blue) which allow 256 shades of each color to be displayed, resulting in the possibility of 16.7 Millions different shades, representing of up to 16.7 Million colors (256 x 256 x 256). Color depth such as this is typically used in photographs where 8-bit color simply won't do. Computer monitors display color using RGB Color (24-bit) and as such, this color mode is typically preferred among those who design graphics for the web or primarily for display on screen.

LAB Color (24-bit)

This color mode was developed based on how the human eye perceives color. L represents Lightness while A represents the color along the red/green axis and B represents the color along the blue/yellow axis. This color mode can consist of all colors in the RGB color spectrum and is device-independent.

CMYK Color (32-bit)

CMYK is the color mode used by most color output devices and is usually used when documents that contain more than four colors are to be separated (less than four colors will often use Pantone colors instead). Because colors are displayed by combining Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, a color with a CMYK value will usually shift slightly if converted to another color mode (such as RGB Color (24-bit). For this reason, most designers will convert bitmaps to CMYK prior to printing or will specify that CorelDRAW convert them when printing.

For Changing Mode

. Click Bitmap>Mode

. Select any mode from the drop down menu of mode.

3D Effects

You can create 3D effects on bitmaps. CorelDraw provides number of 3D effects which can be applied on bitmap images. These are 3D rotate, Emboss, page curl, perspective, pinch/punch, sphere.

For any 3D effect on bitmap

. Go to Bitmap>3D effect

. Select from the drop-down list.

3 D Rotate effect on Bitmap

You can apply 3D Rotate effect on any bitmap image.

For 3D Rotate

Select Bitmap Image.

Go to Bitmap>3D Effect> 3D Rotate.

A dialog box will appear on the screen.

. Specify values in vertical and horizontal list boxes.

. Click on Best to fit.

. Click Ok.

. After 3D rotate a bitmap image would something like this:

3 D cylinder It will create 3D cylinder effect on bitmap images.

. Select Bitmap Image.

. Go to Bitmap>3D Effect> Cylinder.

. A dialog box will appear on the screen.

. Select any cylinder mode and adjust percentage.

. Click Ok.

. After cylinder effect a bitmap image would something like this:

Emboss: This effect will create embossing effect on bitmap images

Select Bitmap Image.

. Go to Bitmap>3D Effect> Emboss.

. A dialog box will appear on the screen.

. Specify values of Depth and Level.

. Specify Direction of Emboss angle.

. Select emboss color from the radio buttons right.

. Click Ok

. After Emboss effect bitmap image would something like this:

Perspective:

This effect will create perspective effect on bitmap images

. Select Bitmap Image.

. Go to Bitmap>3D Effect> Perspective.

. A dialog box will appear on the screen.

. Adjust rectangle on the left of dialog box.

. Click on best fit check button.

. Click Ok

. After perspective effect bitmap image would something like this:

Page curl:

This effect will create page curl effect on bitmap images

. Select Bitmap Image.

. Go to Bitmap>3D Effect> Page curl

. A dialog box will appear on the screen.

. Click on vertical or horizontal check box.

. Click on Transparent for transparent effect.

. Specify Curl color

. Drag right to increase width and height percentage.

. Click Ok.

. After pagecurl effect bitmap image would something like this:

Art Strokes

For creating any artistic effect on bitmap you can use artstroke effect of bitmap. CorelDraw provides number of artistic effects which can be applied on bitmap images. These are Charcoal, Crayon stroke, Pen and ink, water color, wave paper, impressionist.

For any Artistic Stroke on bitmap

• Go to Bitmap>Art Stokes

• Select from the drop-down list.

Anyhow you can apply any of these artistic stroke effects on your bitmap image and check out changes.

For charcoal effect on your bitmap image

• Select bitmap image.

• Go to Bitmap>Artistic Stroke> Charcoal.

• A dialog box will appear on the screen.

• Drag your mouse in the right direction to increase the size of charcoal.

• For increasing value of edge of charcoal drag in the right direction.

• Click Ok.

• After Charcoal effect bitmap image would something like this:

Blur Strokes

There are nine Blur effects. These effects let you alter the pixels in bitmaps to soften, smooth, blend, or create motion effects. The Blur effects are: Directional Smooth; Gaussion Blur; Jaggy Despeckle; Low Pass; Motion Blur; Radial Blur; Smooth; Soften; and Zoom.

For any Blur effect on bitmap

. Go to Bitmap>Blur

. Select from the drop-down list.

For Gaussian Blur Effect on bitmap

. Select bitmap image.

. Go to Bitmap>Blur> Gaussian Blur.

. A dialog box will appear on the screen.

. For more Gaussian Blur increase radius.

. Click Ok.

. After Charcoal effect bitmap image would something like this:

. After Gaussian Blur Effect image would something like this:

Radial Blur

. Select bitmap image.

. Go to Bitmap>Blur> Radial Blur.

. A dialog box will appear on the screen.

. For more Radial Blur increase Amount.

. Click Ok.

. After Radial Blur effect bitmap image would something like this:

Disort Effects

For creating any disort effect on bitmap you can use disort filter effect of bitmap. There are ten Distort effects that transform the appearance of an image without adding depth. The Distort effects are: Blocks; Displace; Offset; Pixelate; Ripple; Swirl; Tile; Wet Paint; Whirlpool; and Wind.

For any Disort Stroke on bitmap

. Go to Bitmap>Disort Effects.

. Select from the drop-down list.

For Swirl effect on your bitmap image

. Select bitmap image.

. Go to Bitmap>Disort> Swirl.

. A dialog box will appear on the screen.