Using Photo-Paint's Clip Mask

© 2001 by Abdullah Al-Jalil. All Rights Reserved.

  1. Start CorelDRAW
  2. Draw a perfect circle by holding down the Ctrl key as you drag. Refer to the rulers and make the circle 3 inches in diameter.
  3. Hold the Shift key and drag one of the corners handles to the center of the circle, right-click before releasing the mouse button to make a smaller circle

  4. Now you have 2 circles, marquee select them both and Combine them (select both and press Ctrl + L) or select Arrange | Combine.

  5. Press Ctrl + F9 to get Contour Effect Docker.

  6. Set the following options: Offset = 0.01 - To Center - Outline Color = yellow Fill Color = black (You should end up with a neon effect).
  7. With object still selected, copy the object to the Clipboard Ctrl + C
  8. Done with CorelDRAW (Note: you can achieve the same effects in Photo-Paint, but I wanted to show you how the 2 applications are integrated together)
  9. Start Photo-Paint 10, set the paper size to Width of 8 inches, Height of 6 inches and set the resolution to 92 dpi, white Background
  10. Choose Edit | Paste | Paste as New Object, Choose Window | Dockers | Objects. The Object Docker will display the new object above the background (the Circle)
  11. With the new object selected, Duplicate the circle 2 times by pressing Ctrl + D (2 more objects are added in Object Docker). The circles will be directly on top of each other. Separate the circles by dragging them away from each other until they look like Figure 6.

  12. Select the circle on the left and choose Image | Adjust | Hue/Saturation/Lightness (change the hue to blue).
  13. Select the circle on the right and change its color to red.
  14. Editors Note: At this point my image turned solid gray, even with SP1 installed. I had another user try it and they got the same result. Folks, it is big fat bug. To work around it, save the file, close it and reopen. Now you'll find the background is black and has some garbage in it. Yet another nasty bug that is repeatable. Select the background in the Objects Docker and then choose Edit | Fill and fill the background with white.

  15. Select the yellow circle press Ctrl-M (to create a mask from object)
  16. Choose Mask | Save | Save As Channel, name it as yellow. The choose Mask | Remove to remove the mask.
  17. Now select the blue circle object.


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  19. Select Object | Clip Mask | Create | To Show All
  20. In the Object Docker you will see a small box is added next to the objects (blue circle) and a small + sign in between, note that the small box color is red it means the Clip Mask is active
  21. Choose Mask | Load | yellow (The mask we created in Step 14)
  22. Note: Step 19 is not necessary, but it is there to make cutting around the Yellow circle easier.

  23. Press F5 to select the Paint Tool and set the following parameters - Brush Type = Custom Art Brush - PaintMode = Normal - Transparency = 0 - Brush Color must be Black (Black will erase, White will repaint)
  24. Start painting on the blue circle to reveal the yellow circle. Magic, notice the small box in the Object Docker updates to reflect the change.
  25. Now we are going to repeat Step 22 for the red circle
  26. Now select the red circle
  27. Mask | Load - then select (which we created in Step 14)
  28. Go to Object | Clip Mask | Create | To Show All to create another clip mask on the red circle object.

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  30. Press F5 to select the Paint Tool and set the following parameters - Brush Type = Custom Art Brush - PaintMode = Normal - Transparency = 0 - Brush Color must be Black (Black will erase, White will repaint)
  31. Editor's Note: We also found that switching the Paint to white would not restore the transparency of the Clip Mask as it is supposed to do. This is yet another bug that survived SP1.

  32. Start painting on the red circle to reveal the yellow circle. Magic again, Notice the small box in the Object Docker
  33. Now you should something that look like this.

  34. Now you can achieve even more following the same procedures described in this tutorial, I hope this helps many Photo-Paint users to take advantage of this cool feature.
  35. Thanks.


Last Updated May 31, 2001.

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