Coloring areas with flexibility

I had an interesting challenge recently at one of the print shops I freelance at.

The client provided an PDF file of some lots for sale. They wanted to use it in their sales materials to indicated the status of specific lots.

Since the lots themselves were about a half millions dollars each, it was important that communication was clear. Yep – that's the price for the dirt only – welcome to Calgary. :-P

I exported the PDF out of Acrobat as a high-resolution monochrome bitmap. At 600 DPI, this maintained the clarity of the lettering quite well since the original PDF dimensions were large.

For coloring, I'd initially thought about painting the lots with Photo-PAINT using subtract or multiply merge modes.

I opted to draw the perimeter of the lots & road using this technique. After 8 years of using CorelDRAW, I'd learned something that totally changed my career. This technique is it.

I created a few lines as trimming tools split up the sections further. It went reasonably quickly, since splitting up a block of lots often could use the same line as a trimming tool.

Then I filled each lot with a color and ensured each piece was partially transparent and set to Multiply merge mode through the Interactive Transparency tool's Property Bar options.

I now have the flexibility for 2 important things:

1. The ability to export to a color bitmap at any practical dimension without loss. All color components are vector shapes.

2. Changing the status of lots is easy: Press and hold Shift. Right-click on the mouse and drag & drop from one shape to another. The shape you drop on will inherit the color from the first shape.

After seeing the result, the client ordered double the amount of copies they originally wanted.

Delete a point on Photo-PAINT X4's Tone Curve line

Before, I'd drag it right off the line (like in PP X3).

In X4, this "old delete method" is gone, but new one appears.

New Way: Select a point with the mouse and delete it with your keyboard's Delete key.

X4 - some PDF presets discard live drop shadows

Hello,

If you use drop shadows in your designs, note that Coreldraw X4's PDF engine will not include them in the final PDF, depending on the PDF preset.

1. Load shadow.cdr in X4.

2. Publish to PDF - choose PDF for document distribution preset.

3. Look at PDF, shadow not there..

Sigh.. one more reason to use the Sancho Drop Shadow macro...

Refreshing CorelDRAW's screen

I've heard of people closing and reopening files (and even Draw itself) again and again, just to redraw the screen. That's downright crazy.

Here's a public service announcement to let all users know about CTRL + W. It redraws the screen, clearing away screen glitches and other anomalies. This works for all CorelDRAW versions.

For many users, CorelDRAW X4 has more refresh problems than other versions. I lamented this to the Macromonster Shelby, and he created the nifty "auto refresh" code below.

It's really helped for me, and it's also easy for anyone using CorelDRAW X4 to try it out.

Is it total wacky overkill to redraw the entire screen after moving any element, or changing a selection? Well, Yes. But it works. Either this, or manually pressing CTRL + W 100+ times per day in my case.

Maybe X4 Sp2 won't need this... :-)

Copy and paste the green text into the place indicated in the image.

Private Sub GlobalMacroStorage_SelectionChange()

Windows.Refresh

End Sub

It's the little things...

At the CorelDRAW Unleashed Conference last month, someone asked me how to make a triangle with rounded corners.

They'd spent a loooonnnnnng time attempting it, making 3 circles, and drawing lines between them. Forget it. Don't bother. :-)

let me show you 2 sensible ways.

A. The New E-Z Way (X3 or higher)

1. Make a Polygon (press Y to invoke tool). Hold CTRL, drag out to be approx. 3" tall.
2. Set to 3 points on the property bar (not outline points!!!). You should see a triangle on screen.
3. Convert polygon to curves. Ctrl + Q.
4. Menu: Windows | Dockers | Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer
5. Choose fillet from drop-down. Press apply.

B. Old-School

1. Make a triangle. Often I'd make a box with the rectangle tool.
2. Convert it to curves. Ctrl + Q.
3. Double-click shape, select one node and press delete.
4. Give the triangle a very thick rounded-corner outline (40 points for ex.).
5. Convert outline to object. Ctrl + Shift + Q
6. Weld the outline to the interior piece.

Go try both methods now!

Optimum Image Posting at CorelDRAW.com

If you need to post an image in the forums, note that the maximum size inside the main forum is 600 pixels wide, by any height. If you stay under that, then images such as screen shots will look much clearer.

How to Make an Avatar for CorelDRAW.com

Do you have an account at CorelDRAW.com? If so, it's time for you to make an avatar if you don't already have one. You can upload it through your profile, look for a tab that is labeled Avatar.

1. Find an image you like. It can be anything. Open it in Corel Photo-PAINT.

2. Run the Image | Resample command so that it is no larger than 80 Pixels in the widest or tallest dimension. Why do it now? For the next step....

3. Use the Effects | Sharpen Adaptive Unsharp command to restore detail that was lost during downsampling. You may need to enter 100% for the sharpen value.

4. Save your avatar as a 24-bit PNG file (without any masks or transparency). It will be converted to Jpeg by the CorelDRAW.com site automatically. If you send a jpeg of your avatar, then it will be compressed twice... not good.

NOTE: If you want a Square Avatar, some methods are to either;

A. Open your original high resolution file. Select the Crop Tool. Press and hold the Control Key. You should be able to make a perfectly square crop. Double-Click inside the crop. Then go to Step 2 above.

B. Add or delete some "space" around your image by using the Image | Paper Size command. Make the width and height numbers the same. You can pan the image around inside the dialog. Then go to Step 2 above.

Enjoy, and I hope to see your cool new avatar!

PNG's from Photo-PAINT adds a white haze to some areas

Some of you might know that I found an odd bug in Photo-PAINT where it's exports are not "pure" relative to Tiff exports from PP, or PNG exports from CorelDRAW. You can see what happens below. For more info, read this whole thread.

For flattened PNG's or those with relatively "hard" masks, the anomaly won't be noticeable.

click for a clear view.

Quick access to your favorite export filters

Someone asked how to move their favorite filters to the top of the list in the export dialog. Press CTRL + J to enter the options, and follow the dialog below.

Click for a clear version.

Shattered Effect in CorelDRAW

Someone in the CorelDRAW.com forums asked about ways to get this effect.
Here are some steps that will work in X3 or higher.

A super-talented friend

Kelly Gannon, now here's a great guy. He made a cool drawing of me, and had nice things to say! Go see here.

Kelly has drawn caricatures for numerous major corporate events as well as drawing in Disneyland and Disney-Burbank Studios, and as far away as the Caribbean, and the Pacific Ocean, and the Mediterranean on Celebrity Cruise Ships.

Click for a larger version, suitable for framing. :-p

Quick but major changes to Photo-PAINT

I often change the workspaces for both CorelDRAW and Photo-PAINT (PP). No surprise there... One of the key things I do for PP is set the following:



Why? With my change, there can be no confusion between an Object and Mask Marquee .

Also, the red overlay... no thanks!

Some CorelDRAW Heavyweights

Here's a photo of Foster D. Coburn III (Left) and Tony Severenuk (Right) that I snapped during the CorelDRAW Unleashed conference that was held during July of 2008.

Foster had written many of those thick books of CorelDRAW back in the 90's, and runs the CorelDRAW Unleashed Site, as well as the Unleashed.com site (which has tons of stuff to look at).

Foster and I will be teaching on a cruise ship in Jan. of 2009.

He also has released the best overall training resource for COrelDRAW X4. I wrote 3 chapters in it. Go have a look!

Tony is a User Experience Designer at Corel, and has been at Corel for about 10 years.

Both are great guys who think about CorelDRAW perhaps more than I do, which is nearly impossible!

Click on the image for a close-up.

Images for Internet use

This post is a checklist/guideline for reducing the size of your images for use on the internet. This includes emailing images to others or putting them on a web site.

Images that are too large will take much longer to load, even with a hi-speed connection. They'll also have interpolation artifacts from the browsers too, instead of presenting pixels to the viewer at 1:1.

A. Existing Image(s) (from a camera for ex.) For Direct CorelDRAW exports, go to section B.

1. Open with Photo-PAINT.

2. Crop & color-correct the image.

3. Now, I'll often over-write the original. Chances are huge that I'll never need an uncropped, un color-corrected version of this image ever again. I want to save now since it preserves the remaining pixels of the original file (there's no mushiness as the image hasn't been up or downsampled). People say: Jeff, "storage is cheap". I say, "Keep the originals if you want. I don't want the originals after fixing them. That's why I fixed them."

4. Choose Image | Resample. For large images, keep the longest dimension at 800 pixels so that you understand what's happening. Keep the aspect ratio/proportions.

5. Sharpen the image using Effects | Sharpen | Adaptive Unsharp. Try a setting of 50. This restores some detail that was lost during downsampling.

6. Export as a new file name to a location of your choice - but choose the format based on colors in the file;

6A . If less than 256 colors, choose GIF (important: use optimized palette, none for dithering.) Simple artwork, logos, lineart, cartoons...

6B. If a photograph or more than 256 discreet colors, choose JPG.

Check: Optimize
Sub Format 4:4:4
Compression 10-20
Smoothing 10

You should now have a excellent file on disk that you can email or put onto a web page.

B. Export the artwork directly from CorelDRAW

1. Export as a new file name to a location of your choice.

Choose the format based on colors in your CoreDRAW file:

1A . If less than 256 colors, choose GIF (important: use optimized palette, none for dithering.) Simple artwork, logos, lineart, cartoons...

1B. If a photograph or more than 256 discreet colors, choose JPG.

Check: Optimize
Sub Format 4:4:4
Compression 10-20
Smoothing 10

keep the longest dimension at 800 pixels so that you understand what's happening for now. Keep the aspect ratio/proportions.

You should now have a excellent file on disk that you can email or put onto a web page.