Auto Size macro updated

Shelby's Autosize now supports document scaling.

It also has these new features:

• Single Undo
• Form Remembers Location (saved upon pressing Apply)
• No Sizing applied (If left blank or 0 entered)
• Straighten Horizontal or Vertical
• Added Accelerator Keys
• Delete line option
• Save Settings button

Showing real projects done with CorelDRAW

I found this exchange in a email from 2005. Yes, trying to clean house a little. LOL

On this point your position is inarguably correct. For promotional purposes, Corel must present images that are far beyond the comprehension of the average graphic artist.

To me, that often translates to attempts at photo-realism in Draw. But not always... things like maps, product labels/packaging, embroidery, vinyl signage, yellow page ads - all of these are done in Draw too. And can each be impressive in their own right. They just need to look like - or be - real billable work. If someone can project themselves into the future creating these things (and making a living), it's a compelling reason to plop down the cash on Draw.

As you'd said - it's more practical to just take a photo of a car (or maybe build in 3D in the first place for repurposing) than to make one static angle in Draw. Much of the photo realistic stuff in Draw is for the artist's amusement/challenge, not for commercial work.

The most effective approach would be to the people who buy the art and design. Create practical examples of real-world graphics that the customer can take to his supplier and say, "I want this. Can you do this? It very important that I have this because my competitors will have it soon."

I have a massive collection of commercial work that if I spread it on a table, an art director will probably give a thumbs up to most of it. But a sales manager would get even more excited, because he's looking past the paper and ink and seeing a big stack of clients and their money. If Draw is my weapon of choice, he won't argue with that, if I feel twice as productive with it.

Designing effective sales materials doesn't always have to push the envelope of what Draw can do, it just needs to be effective at communicating and produce results for clients.

People thinking about buying Draw for "meat and potatoes" work should see stuff along those lines. There's plenty of room on servers. :-) Whatever someone wants to do, they CAN do it in Draw.

Jeff

Converting Spot colors to the CMYK color model

Someone mentioned in the newsgroups that by tinting a Spot color towards a CMYK hue, the color model will change to CMYK.

IMO, it's better to change with:

1. color dialog
2. the find and replace function
3. a macro that will convert many colors at once

Here's why:

Straightening images in in PHOTO-PAINT X3

Here's a tiny movie showing X4 straighten tool for the curious X3 users, and also how to straighten in X3.

Adventures in Prepress

Once in awhile I come across a good case example. Today, there are no Corel products involved – at all – in what I want to show.

A job came in as a PDF, I printed using Adobe Reader to a PS3 device (Xerox DC-240). Notice the anomalies on the scanned press sheet relative to the "pure" look of the art in Adobe Reader. The overall hue isn't the issue as much as the discolored blocks where there are drop shadows nearby.

Someone told this budding designer to design in Pantone colors. The same had happened to me once too, for a job to be output on a CMYK device. LOL.

Anyway... during the conversion of drop shadows with spot colors these anomalies appeared on the press sheet.

So... this post shows that 100% Adobe-land has problems also, and that if you struggle with CorelDRAW and are tempted to jump the fence? You still have to mow the lawn, and there are new weeds to pull.

Click image for a larger version

Tough cases

If you're a production artist, chances are you've seen some very rough artwork come your way. Here's one of my "gems" that I've had to deal with. :-)

Patching an area between 2 objects

The rectangle in this image represents a 1/8" thick area that was a technical requirement. The goal was to join the shapes and have the lines smooth everywhere.

Select similar colors using the magic wand

In Photoshop, there is an option for wand tool to be "contiguous" - or not. This means when you select an area with wand, it's possible to have other disconnected areas of same hue selected. (It's like using the Color Mask, but without having to open color mask dialog)

I wanted same type of thing in PHOTO-PAINT. You can do it this way: