Weekend Widget: True BoxShot

There is no doubt you've seen cool three-dimensional product shots on Web sites or in printed catalogs. You've probably wondered how they were created. Today's pick is True BoxShot and it makes the process incredibly easy. The box shot shown at right is a product of the software. In reality there is no box as it is downloadable software.

So that you can go through the process yourself, download a trial version of the standalone product, the Photoshop plug-in or the bundle of the two products.

When you open it up, you have the choice of several different "3D" products you can create. They include a box shot, a CD, a DVD case, a screenshot, a member card (credit card), a photo or a book. Then you simply need to load the graphics for each size of the product. In the example here, you would only need the front and one side of the box since those are the only panels visible. Don't worry, you are simply providing a flat rectangle view of each side. If you have designed the product in CorelDRAW (or Corel PHOTO-PAINT or Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop), you'll just export each panel as a PNG file.

Within seconds you can see a quick preview of how it looks. For me, the learning curve was about five minutes before I had a preview of my first "box". You can choose a background color or even a bitmap background. Do you want the box to reflect on the floor or to have a shadow? Either of those effects is a simple click away. Want to rotate the box in 3D space? Again, not a problem. When done, you simply render the final bitmap at the size of your choice. Keep in mind that the trial version will limit the size of the rendered bitmap and it will lay some text over the graphic indicating it was created with a trial version. Beyond that, the trial is fully functional. You can even save the graphic with a transparent graphic so that you can drop it over the bitmap of your choice later.

Get more information on the standalone version, Photoshop plug-in or bundle of the two products by following the links provided. If you need to create this type of graphic, the prices of each of the products is very fair. The standalone version sells for $44.99, the Photoshop plug-in sells for $39.99 and the bundle of the two products sells for $64.98.

I went for the standalone version as it doesn't rely on any other software. Just import bitmaps of each of the box panels and output a bitmap of the finished product. The output is very impressive and yet the product is very easy to use. Anyone who needs to create box shots would find this money well spent!

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Tutorial Tuesday: Getting Rid of the White Box

This is definitely an older tutorial and yet it answers a question that gets asked constantly. How do I get rid of that darned white box around my image?

The answer is using the masking tools in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. If you aren't using Corel PHOTO-PAINT, you are really missing out on a valuable part of the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. Things certainly get more complicated if the image is not surrounded by a solid color. But you first must understand getting rid of the white box before you can move on to masking out a more complex background.

Sure, there are ways to do this directly in CorelDRAW. None of them are as easy and quick as using Corel PHOTO-PAINT. And once you save your file with a transparent background, you'll never have to worry about removing the box on that image again.

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CorelDRAW X4 Neuters Dialog Boxes on Vista

As I've been finishing up my CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book, I've done screen shots of some dialog boxes in both Windows XP and Windows Vista so users can see the difference. According to Microsoft, Vista is supposed to be an improvement. Corel's marketing tells us that CorelDRAW X4 has added features on Vista. To me, both of those claims are debatable. Does CorelDRAW X4 add some functionality on Vista? Yes it does. What isn't mentioned is that some functionality is also removed when running on Vista.

This is most evident to me in the Open and Save dialog boxes in CorelDRAW. When running on Windows XP, the Open dialog box tells us the version of the file, compression information and more. It also offers to show a preview of the file. The Vista version of the dialog box has none of that. Yes, you could see a preview if you change the file viewing area to thumbnails. The Save dialog box on Windows XP allows you to enter Notes and Keywords. Vista users will have to select File | Document Properties to enter that information before saving. To me, this change in functionality is a major downgrade.

Today I learned of a workaround that will give you the Windows XP versions of the dialog boxes when running on Windows Vista. It is possible this solution will cause other problems, so please proceed with caution. Some users have reported that some other user interface elements change when you run this way.

Go to the folder on your hard drive where CorelDRAW is installed. Find coreldraw.exe. Press Alt + Enter to bring up the Properties dialog box. Select the Compatibility tab. Place a check in the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" and select Windows XP (Service Pack 2) from the drop-down list. Repeat the process for corelpp.exe if you want to restore the PHOTO-PAINT dialogs. If you find that these changes are causing problems, you'll have to uncheck the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" checkbox and go back to the normal Vista versions of the dialog boxes. Hopefully you can run problem free and you can have the more useful dialog boxes.

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The Creation of 3D Box Shots

A very common vision when you see a software box on the Internet is for that box to be shown in a three dimensional view. Sometimes those images are actual photographs, but it is just as common that the graphic was built from flat pieces.

There are a number of ways to build such a graphic and the best method can vary based on a user's goals. You can use perspective tools in either CorelDRAW or Corel PHOTO-PAINT to adjust the three orthographic (flat) views of the box until they fit together. With a little practice, you can create a series of steps to accomplish this fairly fast. For those using CorelDRAW, you may want to look into the EZ Metrics utility as it will instantly put the three pieces into perfect perspective at the angle of your choice. Then you'll just slide the three sides together and you're all done.

I'd like to introduce two other utilities that are geared towards creating 3D box shots. They are Box Shot 3D and True BoxShot. Both products allow you to try the program before you buy it. If you need to create these type of 3D box shots on a regular basis, one or both of these programs should probably be in your design arsenal.

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