HI_HO Designs

Masking out Difficult Images in Photoshop

2010-05-06T04:52:00.000-07:00

It would be very difficult and time consuming to separate this image from its background because of the complexity and fine detail involved with the feathers on the lady’s headdress. This tutorial will focus on using Channels to help mask out a complex objects with clean edges. This technique will also save you a lot of time. The initial goal is to separate the feathers from the pink background on the left side of the face, there are lots of places where tiny bits of pink are showing through the feathers

Make a duplicate layer of the image. This way the original is preserved on the background and we are working on a duplicated layer. Hide the background by clicking off its visibility icon. Choose Select&gt>Color Range from the Menu. When the Color Range Dialog box open, choose the Left Eye Dropper tool and click on the background color in the image window (pink). You will see the selected color turn white in the dialog box. More the Fuzziness slider until the image is mostly black and the background is a clean as you can get it.
Tip: To add a color to the selection click on the eyedropper tool with the plus sign and click in the image. Click ok

With the selection active, switch to the Channels palette. Click the save selection as channel button, it’s the second one to the left on the bottom of the channels palette. A new alpha channel will now be visible. Press “Ctrl/Cmd+D” to Deselect and click on Alpha 1 in the channels palette. The main window will now turn black and white. The advantage of using a channel is the ability to fine tune the selection without effecting the original image. Black represents the areas that we want to keep and white, the areas to be discarded.

Notice that there are areas of gray, these would be semi-transparent and need to become solid black and white (except for areas that should be semi transparent such as soft edges). There are tiny dots also visible, there will make for a very messy selection. Here is a quick solution that I have come up with: Click Imaget>Adjustments>Levels..

In the levels Dialog box, click the black point slider on the left and drag it to the right until the gray areas have become a solid black, Slide the White point slider to the left until the whites are nice and clean and the grainy effect has gone. Click ok to apply.

Time to fine tune the mask. Choose a black brush and make the edge hard. Paint over all the areas that belong in the object to mask out. Use a larger brush for large areas and a smaller brush for finer detail such as around the feathers. Use a white paint color to paint out the areas that should be removed.

Sometimes it can be hard to guess which part of the image belongs in the foreground and a peek at the original image is needed. Click on eye icon to the left of RGB at the top of the Channels palette (Fig 5). The original photo is now visible and the mask appears as a reddish color. Click the eye icon to go back to the mask view. The mask can also be hidden by toggling the eye (visibility icon). Keep going until you have a clean mask.

Hold Cmd(Ctrl PC) and click on the Alpha 1 thumbnail. You will now see an active selection. Click on RGB to see the color image. Open the layers palette. Select the working layer and press the Delete key (Backspace on Windows). The masked area of the backround will now be removed to reveal a nice clean masking effect. At this point In am only worried about removing the pink background on the left.

If there are areas that still need to be removes such as on the right side of this image, repeat the proceeding steps. Because each image is unique, some will need several passes and some can be done in a single pass. As you can see, this technique is very effective and the image can be dropped onto any background. Look at the top left of the image to see how precise the cut out is on the detailed feathers. Try that with the pen tool!

Na'vi Avatar Photo Manipulation

2010-05-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

This is a Photoshop tutorial showing you all the steps you need to take in order to photo-manipulate yourself into a Na'vi (based on the characters in James Cameron's movie "Avatar"). I used Photoshop CS2 in order to create this, but newer and older versions should do the same, as I used basic Photoshop tools only. I hope you will find this helpful.

Import a photograph of your choice, but make sure its size is relatively large, as it gives more room to play with. Also, make sure that the person on the photograph is well lit - but not overlit - perhaps taken with a flash, so that enough sharp details are visible.

Choose a "hard" brush from the "Tools" window (I tend to use a "Chalk" brush) and set its "Mode" to "Color", and its "Opacity" to 50%. Now pick a shade of blue from your Color Palette and brush over the entire skin area, leaving out the hair, eyes, and clothing. Now repeat this a couple of times using different shades of blue. In order to get the kind of blue I wanted, I did this four times in total using these colours: #5d7a99 - #32576a - #3c6986 - #54809b. However, every photograph is different, so you may prefer different shades of blue for your image.
And finally, pick a shade of purple, I used #472a50, with a small brush and its Opacity set to 10%, paint the lips with it, and then randomly brush all over the face with it, as this breaks everything up a bit, thus making it more "natural" looking.

Now in my case, I was working on a picture of Tom Cruise with facial stubble. The Na'vi, however, don't seem to have facial hair, apart from the eyebrows - but only if they are a human hybrid (those hybrids also have smaller eyes, and five fingers on each hand instead of four). So I removed the stubble with the "Clone Stamp Tool". You have to zoom right in and press "alt" on your keyboard to select the source area, click once, then let go and paint as normal. Always make sure you pick a source area that looks most similar to the area you want to copy to, and if something doesn't look right, try a different source.

Now remove the ears! In my case this was very easy, as I simply had to paint them black / match the background. The person on your picture may have long hair, in which case you could just hide the ears by using the "Clone Stamp Tool" and copy hair over. However if you have short hair this step could be tricky, for the Na'vi (and the hybrids) have their ears set higher up than human ears. In any case, I would probably use the Clone Stamp Tool again.
Now either you can paint the Na'vi ears yourself, do as I did - import a screenshot I found on the Internet. There are many movie screenshots you can find on the Internet. Save the image onto your computer and go to "File" then "Open..." and select the image.
You can also download the ears I've prepared to make your life easier.
Now select the "Polygonal Lasso Tool" in the Tools window, and create a mask around the ear you wish to import. Once you have done this, either drag the image over into your project, or you can go to "Edit" and "Copy" the ear and "Paste" it onto your image. It will now be on a new layer - which you can see in your "Layers" window. Now place the imported ear wherever you want it to be - you may need to resize it, so click on the "Move Tool", then click on one of the corners of your selection and click on "Maintain aspect ratio" which is the little "chain" icon in the menu (you don't have to do this if you don't wish). Now drag on one of the corners of your selection until the ear has the right size you want.

If it's a frontal face shot you're working on, you simply need right-click with your mouse on the layer with the ear, and select "Duplicate Layer". Then right-click on one of the corners around the selection and choose "Flip Horizontally", and move the second ear to where you want it to be. As you can see, the image of the ear that I had originally imported had the tip of the ear missing. I fixed this by painting the rest in, using the Clone Stamp Tool, and the Brush Tool set to "Normal" (use the "Eyedropper Tool" to select colours from the actual ear itself).

Now we're going to enlarge the eyes. Normally you can try and do this by eye, but because Mr Cruise is looking directly at the camera in my picture, both eyes had to be enlarged identically. First of all, duplicate the overall main image you have so far, so that you have two identical copies lying on top of each other as layers. Then use the "Polygonal Lasso Tool", with "Add to selection" selected from the menu (that way you can select several areas at the same time). Create two masks, one around each eye, including eyelids and eyebrows. Click on "Move Tool" from the Tool bar, then enlarge the selection until the eyes have the size you want. Now click on "Move Tool" again and select "Apply" on the pop-up window. Now "Copy" and Paste" from the Edit Menu. The eyes should now be on a new layer. Duplicate that layer. Then use the Eraser Tool to erase the left eye on one "eye layer", and the right eye on the other eye layer. Basically this means that you now have one layer for each eye, though both enlarged, their proportions to each other are still correct. Press "ctrl" on your keyboard and select both "eye layers" and use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the eyes up and down, then select each individual eye to move it left and right, once again by using the arrow keys

You can now use the "Eraser Tool" and brush around the eyes with it to remove what is overlapping and the border lines. Doing this will reveal the layer underneath, so don't erase too much.

This is the most difficult part - the nose! This could potentially take quite some time, so don't get frustrated, just try your best.
Use the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" and generously select the nose along with its surrounding area. Select "Filter" from the main menu and go to "Liquify...". A new window opens and you may want to zoom in a little. Select the "Forward Warp Tool" - with the "Brush Density" and "Brush Pressure" set to 100. And now "shape" the nose into that of a Na'vi's. If you make a mistake you can use the "Reconstruct Tool". It will probably look a little strange, but that's ok, just click "OK" when it looks remotely like the one in my picture. If yours looks better, excellent!

This is still fairly difficult. You will now be using the "Burn" and "Dodge" tools from the Tools window a lot. Use both tools, with their "Range" set to "Midtones", and the "Exposure" set to 5% and continue to "shape" the nose by carefully adding definition. "Burn" darkens, while "Dodge" highlights, so make sure you figure out where the light on your picture is coming from. Because this step is so tricky, it is okay to carry on with the next steps and return to the nose from time to time.
I also used the "Dodge" tool, set to "Midtones" and "Highlights" in order to brighten the irises of the eyes. And finally I dyed the tip of my nose pink, with the Brush tool set to "Color", and the colour itself taken from the ears by using the "Eyedropper Tool".

I continued to use the "Burn" tool - a combination of both "Midtones" and "Shadows", to further add definition all around the face. Check out the differences between images 9 and 10. You may choose not to do this on your photograph. However, you might have noticed that I went back to "Liquify" the nose a little more....

My overall image had turned a little too dark in my opinion, so I went to my Layers window, and at the bottom I clicked on the "black and white" symbol that has the name "Create new fill or adjustment layer", and selected "Levels..." from the menu. Now a new window opens up and and all I did was click on "Auto" and "OK". However that option doesn't always turn out a good image, so you may want to play around with the sliders. Alternatively, if your image is too light or pale, you can change this here too, using the sliders.

For the pattern and sparkles on the face, use the "Burn" tool - Midtones and Shadows, as well as the "Brush tool" - this time a circle shape - with its Hardness 50%, Opacity around 10%, so there's room to build up colour depth, the "Mode" set to "Normal". You'll need to play around with this, as it can take a while to get it right.

Now it's time to enlarge the irises of the eyes! Basically we're repeating So follow every single step, just apply them to the irises alone. Once you're happy with their position, use the "Eraser Tool" to bring back the eyelids from the layer underneath.
And finally I did some additional lighting effects, by using the "Burn Tool" set to "Shadows" and the "Dodge Tool" set to "Highlights". However this may not be relevant to your image. All done, I hope you are pleased with your results.

Now let's compare the final result with the original image:

Turn A Photo Into A Collage Of Polaroids In Photoshop

2010-05-02T02:04:00.000-07:00

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we're going to learn how to take a single photograph and turn it into a collage of polaroids, with each polaroid containing a small section of the overall image. You can use this effect with lots of different types of images, whether it's a photo of one person or several people. It's great for photos of family or friends, vacation photos, or even as a creative effect for wedding photography.

This is a very easy photo collage effect to create, and as we'll see later in the tutorial, much of the work is simply repeating the same few steps over and over again until you're happy with the results.

The first thing we need to do for this effect is duplicate our Background layer. With our image open in Photoshop, we can see in the Layers palette that we currently have just one layer, the Background layer, which contains our original image:

To quickly duplicate the layer, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac). Photoshop creates a copy of the Background layer for us, names it "Layer 1", and places it above our Background layer in the Layers palette:

The Layers palette now showing the copy of our Background layer above the original.
Next, we need to add a new blank layer between our Background layer and the copy of it that we just created. Currently the copy is selected in the Layers palette (we can tell the layer is selected because it's highlighted in blue). Normally when we add a new layer, Photoshop places the new layer above the layer that's currently selected, but we want our new layer below "Layer 1", not above it. To tell Photoshop to place the new layer below "Layer 1", hold down your Ctrl (Win) / Command (Mac) key and then click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Hold down "Alt" (Win) / "Option" (Mac) and click on the "New Layer" icon at the bottom of the Layers palette.
Photoshop adds a new blank layer named "Layer 2" between "Layer 1" and the original Background layer:

Photoshop adds the new blank layer between the Background layer and "Layer 1".
We're going to use black as the background for our effect, so let's reset our Foreground and Background colors if needed by pressing D on your keyboard. This sets black as your Foreground color and white as your Background color, as we can see in the Foreground and Background color swatches near the bottom of the Tools palette:

Press "D" to reset Photoshop's Foreground and Background colors to black and white if needed.
Now with black as our Foreground color and the new blank layer selected in the Layers palette, let's fill the new layer with black using the keyboard shortcut Alt+Backspace (Win) / Option+Delete (Mac). Nothing will appear to have happened to the image itself, and that's because "Layer 1", which contains a copy of our original image, is blocking "Layer 2" from view. But if we look at Layer 2's thumbnail in the Layers palette, we can see that we've filled the layer with black:

Layer 2's thumbnail in the Layers palette now shows that the layer is filled with black, even though we can't see it yet in the image itself.
With "Layer 2" (the layer we just filled with black) selected, click once again on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Photoshop will add a new blank layer between the black-filled layer and the copy of the original image above it:

Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool either from the Tools palette or by pressing M on your keyboard:

Then, with the Rectangular Marquee Tool selected, drag out a selection inside your image which will become the inside of the first polaroid (the part which contains the photo). I'm going to drag my selection around the baby's face. It doesn't really matter where you make this selection since you'll be able to move it anywhere you like later:

We need to fill the selection with black at this point. Technically, it doesn't matter which color we fill the selection with, but to keep things simple and since black is currently our Foreground color, let's use black. Make sure you have the new blank layer selected in the Layers palette, and then use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Backspace (Win) / Option+Delete (Mac) to fill the selection with the Foreground color, which is set to black. Again, nothing seems to have happened in the document, and that's because the image on "Layer 1" at the top is still blocking everything else from view, but if we look at the thumbnail for the blank layer in the Layers palette, we can see that the selected area has indeed been filled with black:

We're going to use the selection we just filled with black to create what's called a clipping mask for the layer above it. What this means is that the layer above it, "Layer 1" which contains the copy of our image, is going to be "clipped" by our filled selection on the layer below it. In other words, the only part of the image on "Layer 1" that will remain visible is the part directly above the section filled with black. The rest of the image will become hidden from view. To create our clipping mask, click on "Layer 1" to select it in the Layers palette. Then go up to the Layer menu at the top of the screen and select Create Clipping Mask. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Ctrl+G (Win) / Option+Command+G (Mac). Either way, Photoshop "clips" the image on "Layer 1", keeping only the area above the black-filled shape below it visible and hiding the rest of the image, revealing our black background on "Layer 2" in its place:

If we look in the Layers palette now, we can see that "Layer 1" is indented to the right with a small arrow pointing downward on the left. This indicates that the layer is being clipped by the layer below it:

We need to add another new layer, and we need it between the black-filled layer ("Layer 2") and the layer containing our filled selection ("Layer 3"). To do that, click on "Layer 2" to select it and then click once again on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Photoshop adds the new layer between "Layer 2" and "Layer 3" and names it, surprisingly enough, "Layer 4":
With your Rectangular Marquee Tool still selected, drag out another rectangular selection, this time around the outside of the original selection, which will become the white border of the polaroid. Keep in mind that polaroid photos have some extra space at the bottom of the border, so add some extra space at the bottom of your selection:

Since the border of a polaroid is usually white, let's fill our selection with white. Make sure that you have the new blank layer, "Layer 4", selected in the Layers palette. Then, since white is currently our Background color, let's use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Backspace (Win) / Command+Delete (Mac) to fill the selection with the Background color (white). Press Ctrl+D (Win) / Command+D (Mac) when you're done to deselect the selection. We now have our first polaroid in our image:

We have our first polaroid, and we're going to use it to easily create as many polaroids as we want. But before we do anything else, let's add a slight drop shadow to it. We won't be able to see the drop shadow just yet, since we're using a black background, but we will see it once we start piling polaroids on top of each other. To add our drop shadow, with "Layer 4" selected, click on the Layer Styles icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Select Drop Shadow from the list of layer styles:

This brings up Photoshop's "Layer Style" dialog box set to the Drop Shadow options in the middle column. I'm going to set my shadow Angle to about 120° and then lower the Opacity value at the top all the way down to about 30% so my shadow isn't too intense:

Click OK to exit out of the Layer Style dialog box. As I said, we won't be able to see the drop shadow just yet thanks to our black background, but don't worry. We'll see it soon enough.

I'm going to rotate my polaroid to add a bit more interest to it. In order to do that, I need to select both layers in my Layers palette which make up my polaroid. I already have "Layer 4" selected, which makes up the outside of it, but I also need "Layer 3" selected, which makes up the inside, so with "Layer 4" selected, I'm going to hold down my Shift key and click on "Layer 3", which will select both layers at once (they'll both appear highlighted in blue):

Then with both layers selected, I'm going to bring up Photoshop's Free Transform handles around my polaroid using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac). To rotate it, all I need to do is drag my mouse cursor anywhere outside of the Free Transform handles. The mouse cursor will change to a "rotate" cursor with curved arrows on either end of it. As I drag my mouse, the polaroid will rotate:

You can also move the polaroid to a new location if you wish by clicking inside of it and dragging it around the screen with your mouse. I'm going to leave mine where it is for now and simply rotate it. As you drag, you'll notice that the border of the polaroid moves and rotates but the image inside of it does not, and that's because we're not moving the actual image. It remains fixed in place. The only thing we're moving is the polaroid itself, and this is what's going to allow us to create our final effect, as we'll see.
When you're happy with the location and angle of the polaroid , press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to apply the transformation.
We have our first polaroid created and rotated into place. Now we're going to use it to create as many polaroids as we want. Before we can do that though, we need to group all three layers which make up the polaroid , which are the top three layers in the Layers palette. "Layer 1" contains the image itself, "Layer 3" contains the inside of the polaroid , and "Layer 4" contains the outside of it. In order to group them, we need them all selected. We already have "Layer 3" and "Layer 4" selected, so once again hold down your Shift key and click on "Layer 1" to add it, so all three layers are selected and highlighted in blue:

Then, with all three layer selected, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+G (Win) / Command+G (Mac) to group them. You'll see all three layers disappear from the Layers palette and be replaced by a layer named "Group 1", which contains a folder icon to indicate that it's a Layer Group. If you click on the right-pointing triangle to the left of the folder icon, the group will open and you'll see your three layers inside of it:

We're going to use this Layer Group to create our second polaroid , and we're going to do that by duplicating the group. First, click once again on the triangle to the left of the folder in the Layers palette to close the group so your Layers palette doesn't get too cluttered. Then simply click on the group and drag it down onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

When you release your mouse button, you'll see the copy of the Layer Group appear above the original:
We now have our second polaroid.

Just as we did with the original, we're going to move and rotate this second polaroid using Free Transform (I didn't actually move my first one, but you may have, so let's pretend I did as well). First, twirl open the newly created copy of our Layer Group by clicking on the triangle to the left of its folder icon. Just as before, you'll see all three layers inside of it which make up the polaroid . We need to select the bottom two layers which make up the inside and outside of it, so click on one, then hold down Shift and click on the other to select them both:

Then with both layers selected, press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform handles around the polaroid . At the moment, it looks like there's only the one polaroid in the image, and that's because both of them are directly on top of each other. Click inside the polaroid and drag it to move it to a new location, and you'll see that you do in fact have two. Drag this second one to wherever you like in your document, and then rotate it just as before, by moving your mouse anywhere outside of the Free Transform handles and dragging your mouse to rotate it left or right. You'll see that once again, we're only moving the polaroid itself. The image inside of it remains fixed in place, and now that we've added a second polaroid , we're displaying more of the full size image:

You'll also notice that with the second polaroid overlapping the original, we can now see the drop shadow, which gives the image a bit of depth. When you're happy with the location and angle of your second polaroid , press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to apply the transformation. We now have two polaroids completed:

At this point, we just repeat the exact same process over and over until we've added enough polaroids to reveal enough of the original image. First, drag the top-most Layer Group down onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. This will create a copy of the last polaroid you made. Then twirl the new Layer Group open by clicking on the arrow to the left of its folder icon and select the two bottom layers which make up the inside and outside of the polaroid. Press Ctrl+T (Win) / Command+T (Mac) to bring up the Free Transform handles, click inside them and drag the image into a new location to reveal more of the overall image, then move your mouse outside of the handles and drag to rotate the new polaroid. Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) to accept the transformation, then repeat the process again until you've added enough polaroids that you're happy with the results. There's no "right or wrong" placement of the polaroids , so don't be afraid to play around with it, and you can always go back and move or rotate any of the polaroids at any time by selecting its Layer Group, twirling it open, selecting the two bottom layers, then using Free Transform to move and/or rotate it again.
I'm going to add, move and rotate more polaroids here with my image, and after creating about 16 polaroids, moving and rotating each with the Free Transform command, here is my final result:

And there we have it!

Ultra Glossy Liquid Metal Text Effect

2010-04-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

This tutorial is mostly based on Layer style settings and a combination of a lot of Curves. When combined together, they give a rich, deep and glossy / beveled look to the text.
Let’s get started, create a new canvas, we used 600*500 size and filled it with very dark blue-gray color: #2d3134. We also made a little spot in the middle, to highlight the future effect.

Using Arial Rounded MT Bold font, type your word.

Since we are going to create a “liquid” metal effect, we want the letter to organically stick to each other and create the illusion of liquid material filling them, so for this purpose we seen to set the tracking for the selected characters to -40. If you are using very big font or simply another font where characters are placed more far apart, you will need to set this setting to -100 or maybe even more. Just look and see what seems to be the best option for your font.

No the most important part begins, go to layer styles palette (Layer >> Layer Styles >> Blending Options) and start applying the following values to each Option you have on the left column…
Begin with dropping the shadow. We wanted to have a relatively sharp shadow, so we set the size to 3, however if you wish to have it more blurred, chose settings of 15pixels or bigger.

For the shadow’s quality, we made a custom Contour, please see the mapping below:

Proceed to Inner Shadow…

here we used Ring – Double Contour settings for the Quality, if you don’t have these contours in your Photoshop, please see our mapping:

Inner Glow is also important, the more opacity you are going to add, the paler your text will end up being so we decided to set it to 57%, I could have reduced it to even less but then it would be hardly visible. All depends on the initial color you are working with.

Use the following Photoshop Contour for Inner Glow settings:

Now the more trickier parts begin when we start adjusting the Bevel and Emboss settings as this is pretty much what makes our effect look so great. First apply the basic bevel and emboss settings as you see below

We will be using the “Wow Chrome” curve, please see below how to construct it on your own. It’s a little complicated to create one yourself so if you have it pre-installed in Photoshop — will save you a lot of work.

Inside the Bevel and Emboss settings, there is a sub-menu, where you can set settings for Contour and texture. In this effect we will employ both to create a really rich and unique effect. First the Contour settings, using Cove-Deep contour with 50% range..

And this is how you make the Cove Deep contour…

Move down to the Texture settings inside your Bevel and Emboss menu, and use any web 2.0 strip pattern as an overlay. If you download the PSD file, the pattern will come included in the Texture Patterns so you won’t need to add anything, however if you won’t download the psd and don’t have any pattern of that kind, either replace it with any other you have and experiment with different results. I played around with other textures and must say that for these Layer Style settings pretty much any texture will look cool!

Overlay the color of your letters with dark gray #4a4a4a color.

Finally, to give our text effect a more neat effect we are going to Stroke this text with a 1 pixel white line, however, when i just added the white line around the text i felt that it’s too sharp and looks a little irritating so I have reduced the opacity to 76%, which i think made the Stroke effect look neat and less dominating.

And, here is what we have got. You see, since our letters were too close to each other, the effects we have created nicely “glue” the letters together.

Tips for Designing Newsletter Layouts in CorelDRAW

2010-04-27T04:47:00.000-07:00

Not only is CorelDRAW one of the most robust illustration tools around, but unlike other graphics programs, it can also be used to create multipage layouts. This nifty feature makes it the perfect choice for designing projects like booklets, brochures, and newsletters. While expecting to create a 2,000-page catalog with CorelDRAW isn't realistic, handling a few dozen pages with CorelDRAW is a breeze.

If you're new to the layout and design world, you might find yourself looking for ways to tackle your layout project, fine-tune its readability, or give it some graphic zip. This tutorial provides tips to help you start the process and describes ways to add interest to your text by inserting a little graphic relief.
Start with a Well-Planned Layout
Creating a new layout can be a fairly intimidating experience if you're not quite sure where to start, what your document should look like, or how you should tackle it. Even the most experienced layout artists establish a game plan before starting any layout project. If you create a layout plan and follow it one step at a time, even the most complex layouts can be relatively painless.
When beginning any layout, it's always best to get organized before you open your software program and begin assembling content. You can best tackle this early process by making a simple sketch with good old pen and paper. Sketch a shell for your layout, and include the number of pages allowed by your budget.
The sketch below illustrates margin widths and page proportions as well as faked-in headline text, body text, and line rules. Following this process can help you roughly position your text content. As you develop your layout sketch, you may want to indicate any special treatment of backgrounds, colors, content, or any other issue that could affect the text flow.

Create Your Text Content
It is helpful to consider how your publication text will make its way onto your layout pages. Will you type it into CorelDRAW, or will it be imported from another application? If necessary, you can type text directly into your CorelDRAW layout by using the Text Tool. For large amounts of text, your best strategy is to use the resizable Edit Text dialog (see below). Once you've created a paragraph text frame with the Text Tool, you can open the Edit Text dialog by choosing Text > Edit Text.

You can quickly type and edit text from the Edit Text dialog, so you don't need to navigate through the page views or change the view magnification. You can also apply formatting and use the CorelDRAW spelling checker, thesaurus, and grammar-checking features without leaving the dialog. For very long documents, the most efficient method is to import, or cut and paste, text from a text editor or word processor - such as WordPerfect® - into your layout.
Much of your layout is done in CorelDRAW itself, so avoid using your word processor's specialized formatting features, such as headers, footers, drop caps, text effects, columns, borders, shading, tables, and so on. Concentrate simply on composing your text, but do take advantage of style-based features, such as font, size, indents, and tabbing. These text properties are easily translated by CorelDRAW into your text layout.
With your text content created, the next thing to consider is how to import it. Create your stories as individual text files instead of as a single composite file. This method allows you to import them quickly and easily into the document layout shell that you're about to create.
Create Your Layout Shell
With your layout plan etched on paper, your next step is to create the rough shell for your text content in CorelDRAW. Begin a new file, and set the page size, orientation, and number of pages according to your needs. If you're accustomed to specifying measured values in printers' measures, use the Drawing Units setting on the Property Bar to set your unit measure to "picas, points" as shown below. If you've never worked with printers' measures, it may help you to know that there are roughly 6 picas to an inch and 12 points in a pica.

Use vertical and horizontal guidelines to serve as your top, side, and bottom margins and column gutter guides. You can set these up manually by dragging from the ruler bars. I highly recommend using the Preset guidelines in CorelDRAW. You can instantly place guidelines for margins, gutters, and columns at precise page positions throughout your document. Choose Tools > Options (Ctrl+J), and navigate to Document > Guidelines > Presets in the tree directory to access the Corel Presets, or create your own presets by enabling the User Defined Presets option in the Options dialog (see below).

Another CorelDRAW feature I recommend is the Facing Pages view. In the Options dialog, navigate to Document > Page > Layout, and enable the Facing Pages option (shown below). This feature enables you view your page layouts in actual spreads - just as your reading audience will see them.

Use the Text Tool to create paragraph text frames for the body text of your stories, and create your headlines as artistic text. Choosing View > Guidelines and View > Snap to Guidelines enables you to see - and quickly snap to - the margin, gutter, and column guides you've created. In the example below, I used preset column guides and paragraph text frames to rough out the shell for a three-column layout on two facing pages.

Linking paragraph text frames allows text to flow back and forth between columns as you edit or format it. You can link empty text frames by clicking the bottom flow tab of one frame and using the targeting cursor to click the frame you wish the text to flow into. The example below shows the flow direction of the paragraph text frames for our two-page layout.

Use Line Rules and Boxes for Structure
Unless your publication is required reading for your audience, only a fraction will have the patience to stand reading large amounts of text without craving some visual variety. Adding line rules and boxes is a simple way to organize and structure your content so that readers can follow along.
In CorelDRAW, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking (but not dragging) with the Freehand Tool to constrain line rules to horizontal or vertical, and use the Property Bar to apply line widths and styles. Line rules can give structure to a crowded layout, as shown in the example below.

You can use the Rectangle Tool to create boxes layered behind (and grouped with) your text, but there's a better way to put text in boxes. You can use the rectangle itself - or any closed shape - as the container for your paragraph text. The advantage here is that the two components automatically act as a single unit, so you don't need to group the two objects together.
To place text inside a selected closed shape, hold the Text Tool cursor inside the outline of the shape, and click when you see the "Insert in Object" cursor. The shape is immediately converted into a control curve that is capable of supporting paragraph text and all of its formatting. The example below shows the Insert in Object cursor ready to enter paragraph text in a nonrectangular box shape, and the resulting shape converted to a text container.

Wrap Text Around Shapes
Applying a CorelDRAW text wrap effect to simple shapes is an easy way to create an interesting flow of paragraph text. The simpler the shape, the less distracting the text wrap will be. The example below shows a typical text wrap around a simple shape.

You can apply a text wrap effect to a shape by right-clicking the shape and choosing Wrap Paragraph Text from the context menu. You can also customize the wrap effect by choosing a different style or changing the text wrap offset value from the Wrap Paragraph Text menu (shown below) on the Property Bar.

If your text wrap is difficult to manage because of an awkward shape contour or void, you may need to activate the text hyphenation feature in CorelDRAW. To do this, select your text frame, open the Format Text dialog (Ctrl+T), click the Paragraph tab, click the Hyphenation Settings button, and enable the Automatic Hyphenation option in the dialog that opens (shown below). This dialog also includes options for you to adjust the automatic hyphenation of your text.

Treat Text as Graphics
Another way to add graphic appeal is to apply a drop cap effect to the first paragraph in a story. Drop caps are applied by using the controls on the Effects page of the Format Text dialog, which you can access by clicking the Effects tab. These settings let you apply automated effects by line depth and character spacing. Just remember - only the first paragraph of a story needs a drop cap, as in the example below.

If the automatic effects aren't suitable, you can manually create drop cap character shapes as graphics for interesting results. These mini-illustration designs can range from plain and subtle to large and decorative. Shown below are three simple examples of manually created drop caps, all of which you can create relatively quickly in CorelDRAW.

Another well-used technique is "reverse" treatment, meaning that the text appears white over a colored background. The example below shows a common reverse text effect applied to an editorial sidebar. In CorelDRAW, this effect is easily applied by filling either paragraph or artistic text with white and layering it in front of a colored rectangle.

Beef Up Text Contrast
One common result of hastily prepared layouts is that uninteresting walls of gray text fill your pages. Although such layouts may be fine for epic novels, you need to create something more ambitious if you want your flyers, brochures, or newsletters to successfully attract your audience.
One solution is to contrast different types of content by varying the style and weights of your text. Headlines can stimulate reader interest, so make them larger and bolder than all other text. Subheadings help break up the monotony of straight text - make these bold but smaller than the headlines. Aim for balance by leaving a comfortable white space above and below headings. If needed, rewrite headings to make this happen. Forcing text to fill the page may be an efficient use of space, but you'll run the risk of losing your audience's attention.
In CorelDRAW, you can toggle the font style of your selected text on and off or adjust the font size with timesaving keyboard shortcuts. (When changing text sizes, be sure that your keyboard is set to NUM LOCK mode.) Here are some of the keyboard shortcuts you can use:

Plan for Options in Your Layout
Creating your layout is easier if you have some optional items ready to help stretch the text or fill a space. Pull quotes and sidebars can help provide this flexibility. Pull quotes are essentially text extracts from the main story that highlight an idea. Sidebars contain text related to the main story and can be placed near the related subject but away from the main flow of the story.
Both text and shapes were used to build the pull quote design shown below. The quote shapes were dragged as curves from the Insert Character docker (accessible by choosing Text > Insert Character). The paragraph text was created inside a closed rectangle shape, and line rules, rectangles, quote symbols, and color were added for graphic appeal. The entire arrangement was placed inside an invisible rectangle with a text wrap between the paragraph text columns in the layout.

By following the strategies described, you'll be well on your way to maximizing the readability of your brochure, pamphlet, or newsletter. In the near future, we'll explore layout pitfalls and how CorelDRAW can help you avoid them.

How to draw mechanical threads

2010-04-27T02:03:00.000-07:00

When it comes to drawing realistic-looking threads for either illustration or engineering drawings, many users often puzzle of just how to tackle the shape and shading aspects. Here's one basic technique you can try on your own using the tools available in CorelDRAW 11 to create machine-bolt style threads around a cylindrical object.

For the thread spiral, you'll be welding three basic objects together (two triangles and a rectangle). Draw a square by click-dragging with the Rectangle Tool (F6) while holding the Ctrl key to constrain its shape. Immediately convert the object to curves by choosing Arrange, Convert to Curves (Ctrl+Q).
Choose the Pick Tool (Spacebar) and double-click any of the four corner nodes in the shape. This will turn the square into a triangle to represent one end of the thread shape. This triangle will represent one end of the spiral thread.

Using the Rectangle Tool again create a rectangle to represent the middle of the thread. Make its thickness roughly two thirds that of your triangle (or scale it later to suit). Using the Pick Tool, position your triangle at one end. Rotate the triangle to point away from the rectangle center with the triangle's longest side touching the end of the rectangle.
Next, create a copy of the triangle for the other end of the rectangle. For a quick copy, use the Pick Tool and drag while clicking the right mouse button. Position the new copy at the other end of the rectangle. With the copy still selected, use the Property Bar Mirror buttons to flip the orientation of the triangle to point away from the rectangle center. With the objects exactly positioned, select all three at once and click the Quick Weld button in the Property Bar. This will cause all shapes to be combined into a single closed object

To angle your new thread object, you'll need to use a Skew transformation. To do this quickly using the Pick Tool, click to display the rotation/skew handles and hold Ctrl while dragging a skew handle to constrain movement to 15-degree increments. Release the mouse button once the object has been skewed 15 degrees.

Create a new rectangle object to represent the screw cylinder to occupy the space between the two triangle ends of the thread. You'll need to layer it in back of the thread spiral by pressing Shift+PageDown. Then, make copies to create additional thread spirals by holding Ctrl as you drag while clicking the right mouse button. Then, use the Repeat command (Ctrl+R) for as many threads as you need. This will create the basic thread arrangement

Once your thread arrangement is complete, add color and shading to simulate depth and remove any applied outline colors. Using the Interactive Fill Tool (G) to create custom linear fountain fills. The next illustration shows a simple linear fountain fill using Green-White-Green applied to the cylinder object, and a similar color scheme applied to the threads. The cylinder's white highlight is offset slightly to simulate lighting direction. You will need to set the angle of the linear fountain fill applied to the threads to match the angle of created between the endpoints of the thread spiral.

By varying the cylinder size or the size, angle and/or frequency of the threads, you can quickly create any number of variations. Typical metallic color schemes can also be used to simulate different materials for your thread. Metals such as gold, copper, or steel can be characterized using the contrasting color values applied to their highlight and shadow colors. For gold, set the highlight color to 20 % yellow and the shadow color to 20 % magenta+20 % black+100 % yellow. For copper, set the highlight color to 5 % cyan+20 % magenta+20 percent yellow and the shadow color to 20 % cyan+80 % magenta+80 % yellow+10 % black.

How to Make Flame Skull with Photoshop

2010-04-26T22:46:00.000-07:00

Step 1
For this tutorial, I used Photoshop CS3, a skull from Designious.com (you could choose to use a free skull though, such as Skull Vector Pack 1) and some hi-res flames images. The high-res image files are available to Psd Plus members in the download pack. Though non-members are certainly welcome to shoot your own flame photos or find some stock to use here, so you can follow along.

To get things started, create a new document 210mm by 290mm with a 100% black background.

Step 2

Copy (Command + C) and paste (Command + V) the vector from Illustrator to Photoshop as pixels.

Step 3

On a new layer create an ellipse filled with dark red (#4c0400) that surrounds the skull. Next, apply a Gaussian Blur of 250px (maximum value), and place that layer under the skull.

Step 4

Let's prepare the skull for the flames. Select the white color from the skull. (Select > Color Range) and fill it with an orange-yellow color(#f9ae31), except the teeth and mandible that will be filled with light red (#e82b19).

Step 5

Select the red area using Select > Color Range and then contract using Select > Contract &gt; with 4 px, then and Delete.

Step 6

Select the yellow color. Next use a Brush with Toll on 250-300 px, Hardness of 0, Opacity at 10-15%, red for the color (d02207), and gradually color from the interior towards the exterior, until you get a skull with a bit of glow.

Step 7

Lets try to add some volume to the skull. Use the Eraser Tool with a diameter of 200px, Hardness of 0, and Opacity of 70%, and erase some of the red. Here we establish the lighter and darker parts of the skull so we can see some volume.

Step 8

Now double the Skull layer. Select the skull closest to the background and apply a Gaussian Blur of 8-10 px to create a glow.
Select the area under the nose including the teeth. Now grab a 80px Brush with a color of red (#d02207). Brush color on the right and left sides creating a soft gradient that ads depth to the lower part of the skull.

Step 9
Now that we have a hot skull on our screen, let's start the fire! Open the files with the flames and prepare each of them to be used on our image as follows:

A. Open the flames files.

B. Go to Select > Color Range, and select the darker area of the background. Next, Invert the selection (Command + Shift + I).

C. Go to Select > Modify > Feather, and set to about 20px. Then drag and drop them into our main skull document.

D. Set the blend modes to Screen or Lighten.
E. For the flames that will have other flames on top of them, we'll need to adjust the color Balance. You can do this by going to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance (Command + B).

Step 10

Use the Free Transform Tool (Command + T) to arrange each flame into the desired position and the desired proportions.

Step 11

Notice that the teeth area looks a bit darker than the rest of the skull so using the Brush Tool(B) and yellow (d02207) you lighten some parts of the teeth so they can blend better with the flames.

Step 12

Use the Smudge Tool (R) on the flames near the eyeballs to make them touch the skull so that you create a smooth transition from the skull to the flames.

Step 13

Use the Smudge Tool (R) to make the yellow parts of the skull blend with the base of the flames.

Step 14

Use the Smudge Tool again in the red areas from the shadow where you try to draw a contour going towards the dark areas.

Step 15

Use the Dodge Tool (O) to enhance the glowing effect on the edges of the skull.

Step 16

Use the Burn Tool to work on the shadow areas of the contour so you can smoothen the passes from light to dark.

Step 17

Now for the smoke. To create the smoke, use the same flame images and apply the same techniques you did in Steps 10 and 11 to them. The difference here though is that you'll need to desaturate these images to make them look like smoke. You can do this by going to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation > Desaturate (Command + U), then set it to -100 for Saturation, and -16 for Luminosity.

Step 18

Now lets apply a 2px Blur filter on the smoke so it blends better. Do this by going to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur.
Conclusion

Now the sparks! Using a Brush of 3px with 100% Hardness and 100% Opacity you start drawing the sparks. You can alter some of them using the Smudge Tool (R). And that puts the finishing touches on this image.

Page Curl

2010-04-26T02:01:00.000-07:00

This tutorial will demonstrate how you can create a page curl effect. Many people have written asking how this is done and I'll be demonstrating the technique with all of the programs I write tutorials for. I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows for this technique. Some things may be done differently with other versions.

Sometimes it's harder to see how a certain effect can be created in a drawing (vector or object oriented) program versus a paint program. It may not be immediately obvious how to create the effect using a collection of objects rather than just being able to paint the pixels in. I think this may be the case with an effect like a page curl. For this tutorial I'll create a yellow sticky note and curl one corner of it up.
Begin by drawing a rectangle. Once you've drawn the rectangular shape, fill it with a bright yellow

Draw another rectangle that's long and narrow. Place this rectangle along the bottom of the first and turn it so that it covers the two corners of the yellow rectangle

Use the Pick tool to draw a marquee around both of the shapes.
Along the toolbar (the second line below the menu choices) you should see the trim icon. Click this icon to trim the top rectangle (the last rectangle shape you created) from the bottom rectangle (the yellow one that you created first).

Click away from the two shapes to de-select them. Select the long rectangle and press the delete key to discard it. You should now have just the bottom portion of the sticky note (a rectangle shape with an angled bottom).
Double click the Polygon tool and, in the Options dialog box, choose the Toolbox tab. Under Polygon Tool Defaults set the Polygon option and set the number of Points/Sides to 3. This will enable you to draw a triangle.
Draw a long narrow triangle shape beside the yellow rectangle

Choose Layout, Snap to Objects.
Select the Pick tool and click twice on the triangle to set the rotation points (see figure 7.5). Move the center of rotation point (see figure 7.5) to the top point of the triangle. Click the triangle again to set the sizing points. Move the triangle so that the top point is aligned with the bottom-left corner of the sticky note. Click the triangle again to change to the rotation points. Click on one of the corner rotation points and drag the triangle until it aligns with the bottom of the sticky note

With the triangle still selected, choose Arrange, Convert to Curves.
Select the Shape tool. Select the node in the middle of the right side of the triangle and press the delete key to discard it.
With the Shape tool, marquee select the two right corners of the triangle and click on the To Curve icon on the toolbar.
Place the cursor in the middle of the line along the right side of the triangle and drag it to the left until you get a nice rounded curve

If you need to, you can stretch the triangle shape so that it fits along the bottom of the rectangle. Just select the Pick tool and click on the triangle, then stretch it to fit. With the "Snap to Objects" still on this should be relatively easy.
Now you should have both shapes of the sticky note. The yellow note, itself, and the triangle that'll become the page curl.
All that's left to do is use a fountain fill to blend some shadows and highlights onto the triangle to give the appearance of a 3-dimensional curve.
Use the Pick tool to select the triangle shape.
Click-and-hold the Fill tool icon. This will bring out the Fill tool flyout. Select the Fountain Fill Dialog icon.
In the Fountain Fill dialog set the Type to Linear and click the Custom button.
You're going to have to play around with the Angle, the Edge Pad and the placement of the colors to come up with a fill that fits your particular triangle.
To start, set the left-most color to a bright yellow. Click on the Current option and then select Others. Set the color to a darker yellow. I chose 0, 0, 75, 24.
Click along the top of the gradient about a quarter of the way out from the left end and click the bright yellow color square in the colors swatch. Click a little ways over to the right and choose white. Click a little over again and select the bright yellow again. Finally, set the color at the far right to a dark yellow.
Set the Angle to about -45% and the Edge Pad to 20.

Click OK.
You may find, like I did, that the fill doesn't give you the effect you expected. If this is the case, bring up the Fountain Fill dialog box again. If the white line wasn't visible move the two yellows and the white over and click OK.
Once the white and yellow lines are visible you can adjust the angle, as well.
You may find that you'll need to add another color such as another dark yellow close to the left edge of the bright yellow/white lines.
It should only take a couple of minutes of fine tuning to get the effect just right.
Marquee select both shapes and select the Outline tool. Hold down the mouse button until the flyout appears. Select the No Outline option.
You'll now have a yellow sticky note with a curled-up corner
Now, because this is a vector image, you can easily resize it, and add some text as I've done. The final image can then be saved as a web-ready JPG

Note that you can use similar techniques to add a curled effect to any image you want. You would, of course, choose different colors.
Make sure you keep a copy of the vector drawing i.e. save the image as a CDR file so you can go back and make changes easily later on.
That's it! Happy designing.

Making an Eye

2010-04-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

When creating an eye in 3d there are usually two approaches. First one is just to create a sphere and apply an eye texture to it. This gives a more comic look, but the drawback is that there is no depth in the eye, thus making whole model feel shallow (some would say without a soul). Second approach, the one which we will be explaining here, is to make fully 3d eye, just like Pixar does in their movies. So, let’s begin.

Create a sphere with a radius of 100 units and 64 segments. Than right click on it and convert it to editable poly. Change its color to white.

Select and delete polygons as shown in the picture. This will be our eyeball.

Select the edge rim of the just deleted polygons.

While holding the Shift key pressed, scale the edge inwards and than move it towards the inside of the eye to complete the iris.

Shift scale the edge again to make a pupil.

Now, select the polygons that were on the edge that we just scaled, right click on them and choose Collapse. This will combine all those vertices into one vertex and we will get a nice uninterrupted pupil.

Next, select and detach the pupil from the main model and than do the same with the iris. Also give the pupil a black color and the iris a color of your own choosing.

Now, create another sphere which radius is as big as the radius of the iris and with 32 segments. Position it so that half of it is outside the eyeball.
Select and delete the polygons that are inside the eyeball.

Scale it down a single axis (in this case the Y axis) to flatten it a little bit.

As a final step, add a transparent material to the sphere to complete the cornea.
Note: In this tutorial we have concentrated on the modeling process of the eye and as for the materials, they will probably be explained in an another tutorial.

Creating GEL Text

2010-04-16T06:39:00.000-07:00

Creating GEL buttons has already been covered here and covered very well so I thought it would be fun to see if we could create the GEL look in text. Before we get started, however, we need to set a few common parameters. I will be using CorelDRAW® 11 and so some features may be different or may have migrated to different menus, as they often do between versions of CorelDRAW.

As I am creating this tutorial to be seen on the Web, I am going to use Corel's RGB palette, which many of you will remember was the default palette before version 7. The colors are brighter and will produce a better looking effect.

In the Tools drop down menu, select Color Management… From the Style drop down list, select Optimized for the Web. This sets the color space to RGB.

From the Layout menu, select Page Setup… In the Page Setup dialog, change the Resolution to 96 dpi (Windows®) or 72 dpi (Macintosh®). These two settings are screen resolution and are the proper 1:1 resolution for viewing on the Web. Even if you plan to output your image for commercial printing, use these two settings to avoid confusion. You can change the resolution before you output your files.
For this tutorial we shall create a GEL symbol for the at character (@). As CorelDRAWing this symbol is a lot harder than it looks, we'll use an Avant Garde @ symbol for a guide.

Using the Text Tool, click on the page and key in @ in Avant Garde (the CorelDRAW default font). On the Property Bar, change the size to 130 and press Enter to apply the change.

Press and hold the Freehand Tool to open the Curve Flyout menu. Select the Pen Tool (the fourth from the right). Click and add a series of connected lines as shown here in red. The idea is to place each anchor point in-between the outlines of the @ and to place the control points on logical points from which to create curved line segments. When you have clicked the last control point, double click to let CorelDRAW know you are finished.

Select the Shape Tool. Click on the outline to select it. Marquee select all the control points by dragging a rectangle around all the points with the Shape Tool. On the Property Bar (the context-sensitive menu at the top of the screen) press the Convert Line to Curve icon. Drag a line segment and pull it like a rubber band until it more or less conforms to the shape of the @ symbol.

Continue until all the line segments are now gently curves and more or less follow the shape of the @.

We can fine tune the control points by adjusting the Bezier control handles. Select the outline with the Shape Tool. Click on a control point. Note that two lines with small boxes on the ends appear coming out of each side of the point. These are Bezier control handles with which we can adjust the segments of the outline. You can drag these in or out to make the curve segment longer or shorter and you can rotate them to adjust the angle of the curve segment. Experiment until you get the curve as smooth as possible. The smoothest curves will have both Bezier handles in a straight line. The angle of the handles will also be more or less parallel to the curve.
TIP: Moving the handles can be tricky and inexact if you are not real comfortable using the mouse. Zoom in close. Select a point and then use the arrow keys on your key pad to move the handles. You may also need to set the nudge amount on the Property Bar to 1px. (CorelDRAW's default idea of a nudge is sometimes closer to a shove)!

You might need an extra control point at the top of the "a" shape. Double click with the Shape Tool to add the point. Continue to fine tune the shape until you have gotten it as close to the shape of the @ symbol as possible. Name and save your CorelDRAWing and take a short eye break.

Delete the Avant Garde @ symbol. Select the outline. Click and hold on the Outline Tool to open the Outline Flyout. Select the Outline Pen options (the first icon). Change the line width to 16 points. Click the two middle Corner and Line Caps radio buttons to round the ends and the corners. Press OK.
With the outline still selected, select Convert Outline to Object from the Arrange menu.

From the View menu, select Wireframe or Simple Wireframe. You will notice the original outline has been left behind. As we don't need it anymore, delete it. Return to the View menu and select Enhanced to return to the anti-aliased display mode.

Select the Interactive Fill Tool icon. From the drop down list of Fill Types on the Property Bar, select Conical. The Interactive Conical Fill controls will appear on the screen. You can drag the ends of the fill path to rotate the fill. You can also double click on the circular portion of the fill path to add more colors. For what we are going to do, just leave everything as is. Click the white box at the end of the fill path, then click the red color on the screen palette. Repeat this for the other end so you now have a red to red conical fill. To the left of the Fill Type drop down list is the Edit Fill icon. Click it to open the Fountain Fill dialog. Select the counter clockwise fill option (indicated with the red ellipse) and press OK to apply the change.

Make two copies of the rainbow filled shape and set them to one side. We'll need them later on. Change the fill of the original @ to black by selecting the shape then pressing the black color on the screen palette. You can also drag and drop colors from the screen palette onto the object.
Press and hold the Interactive Tool icon to open the Interactive Tools Flyout menu. Select the Contour Tool (the nested squares). If the shape is not selected, select it with the Contour Tool. On the Property Bar press the To Center icon. Change the Contour Offset amount to 1pix.
NOTE: Your shape may have an unfortunate wedge going though it. Mine did. If yours does not then skip this part. Select the shape and from the Arrange menu, select Break Curve Apart. Now marquee select the entire shape. The status bar at the bottom of the screen will tell you how many shapes are selected. You should only have 2. If it shows more, cut the counter (the inside of the "a" shape) to the clipboard (Edit > Cut). Marquee select most of but not all of the shape. If you see a small portion selected, delete it. Paste the shape from the clipboard back onto the shape, select both and from the Arrange menu, select Combine. Your contour should now be successful.

Select the contour with the Pick Tool (the arrow). Open the Bitmaps menu and select Convert to Bitmap. Use the settings shown above. Press OK to create the bitmap.

Center the bitmap over the rainbow-filled @ shape. Open the Interactive Tools Flyout menu and select the Transparency Tool (the wineglass icon). From the Property Bar, select Uniform (the default) and from the Transparency Operation drop down list, select Subtract. Change the slider setting to 30%.

Select both the rainbow-filled shape and the transparent bitmap. Convert these two items to bitmap (Bitmaps menu) using the settings shown).

Locate one of the duplicate @ shapes which I asked you to set aside. Change the fill to white and apply a black outline. Apply a 1-step, To Inside contour with a 4pix offset amount.
From the Arrange menu, select Break Contour Group Apart. Open the Arrange menu again and select Ungroup. Delete the wider shape (shown in dashed blue line).

With the shape selected, press the + key to make an in-place duplicate. Move the duplicate 12 pixels to the right and 12 pixels down.
TIP: With nothing selected, change the Nudge amount on the Property bar to 1px. Now use the arrow keys on your computer keypad to move the duplicate shape the precise amount. (You could also set the nudge amount to 12px. Just remember to set it back to a lower amount when you are done).

Select both shapes and then press the Trim icon on the Property Bar. The cutter shape remains and while nothing seems to have changed, if you drag the underneath shape away, you'll see the top shape has been trimmed out of the bottom shape as shown in blue.

Duplicate the whole shape by pressing the + key. Move the duplicate shape up and to the left 12 pixels in each direction.

Select the trimmed out shape and cut it to the clipboard (Edit > Cut). Select the two shapes. On the Property Bar, press Back Minus Front. This is a new path command that does the same function as Trim except it removes the top, or trimmer shape. Paste the shape we just cut to the clipboard back onto the page (Edit > Paste). Save your work and take a short eye break.

Position the two cutout shapes as shown. Select the top shape and then select the Interactive Fill Tool. From the drop down menu on the Property Bar, select Conical. Make the starting and ending colors Baby Blue. Click the Edit Fill icon which is just to the left of the drop down list of Fill Types, to open the Fountain Fill dialog. Click the Clockwise Fill icon and press OK to close the dialog.
TIP: If you let the cursor rest for a moment over the color squares on the screen palette (or any of the buttons and icons), the color name, or tool or button name, will appear in a balloon under the cursor.
Select the bottom shape and repeat this step except use Spring Green for the start and end colors. The idea here is to create two rainbow gradients, one lighter and one slightly darker which we will use for highlights and reflections.

Position the top highlight shape over the bitmap as shown. With the highlight shape selected, select Break Curve Apart from the Arrange menu. You will now have a series of separate shapes.

Using the Freehand or the Pen Tool, CorelDRAW a single diagonal line through the bitmap image as shown. Select the top left most shape. Select the Interactive Transparency Tool and from the drop down list of Transparency Types, pick Circular. Select Add from the Transparency Operations drop down list. Drag the dashed arrow portion of the fill until the center of the circle is over the area where the diagonal line passes though the top of the @ shape. Click on the outside color, which is now white and change this to black by clicking the black square on the screen palette. Click on the inside color square and change the black to white. We have just made the center opaque and the outside transparent which is the opposite of the default setting.
NOTE: Black represents 100% transparency and white represents 0% or no transparency. You can also click the start or ending square and move the slider on the Property Bar to adjust the amount of transparency. Shades of gray represent various amounts of transparency.

Select the next shape (directly over the "a"). From the Effects menu, select Copy Effect… Lens From… A large black arrow cursor will appear. Click the first highlight shape to which you applied transparency. Adjust the transparency so the lightest portion is centered on the red diagonal line and the diameter is similar in size to the first circular transparency.

Repeat this last step and copy the lens effect to the other shapes. When you are finished, select all the highlight elements and group them.

Position the bottom shape, which we will call the reflection, as shown. Break the Curve Apart. Apply a Circular, Multiply transparency reversing the starting and ending transparency percentages and centering the darkest portion of the circular transparency on the red diagonal line.

Copy the lens effect to the other shapes and adjust the center and diameter of the transparency. Group all the reflection elements. Save your work and take a short eye break. We're almost done.

Locate the other duplicate you made of the vector @ shape. CorelDRAW a rectangle around the @ to the size shown. Set the fill and outline to none.
Select both the rectangle and the rainbow-filled @. Convert these to Bitmap but do not select the Transparent Background option.

With the bitmap selected, select Bitmaps > Blur > Gaussian. Apply a 7 pixel Gaussian Blur.

Position the blurred bitmap over the other elements. Apply a Uniform, Subtract 50% Transparency. Move the blurred bitmap until the shape appears to the right and down from the shapes beneath it.
If the @ were indeed filled with rainbow-colored GEL and we placed the @ on a white sheet of paper and let light shine though it, we would get the same diffused color effect as we have achieved by placing the transparent blurred bitmap on top.

Chinese Bamboo

2010-04-15T02:57:00.000-07:00

Do you like the bamboo scene on this picture? Well, here is a quick tutorial to draw bamboo with the Illustrator Symbol Sprayer and Mesh Tool.
Create a path like the image below with the Pen Tool and fill it with the color green. Select the Mesh Tool and click on the lower left corner of the bamboo body (pt. 1) to add a mesh point. Then change it to a lighter tone of green (yellow-green). Now add another Mesh point at the upper left corner of the bamboo(pt. 2). Add another
point above pt. 2. Add a final point beside pt. 2 and select a darker green tone for the shadow.

Select the bamboo body you’ve created in the previous step, hold down the ALT key, drag it up to make a copy (you can use Copy & Paste if you like). Then resize the new bamboo body horizontally with the Selection Tool. Send this new bamboo body behind the first bamboo body by selecting Object > Arrage > Send Backward or press Ctrl+[. Repeat this step until you get a stack of 5 or 6 bamboo bodies.

After you’ve finished the first bamboo, make a copy of it by ALT drag or Copy & Paste. Select the new bamboo stick, apply Filter > Distort > Twist(Angle=3) so that they don’t look identical.

We want the bamboo to look natural, so we need to create some bended bamboo. Repeat again to create a bended bamboo like the image shown below. Now we 3 different forms of bamboo: straight, bended, and twisted.

Make more bamboo by ALT + drag. Flip and resize them around so they don’t look alike.

Create the basic shape of the bamboo leaves. Use the Mesh Tool to apply a mesh gradient on it.

Drag the bamboo leaves to the symbol panel to create a new Symbol. If your symbol panel is not visible, go to Window > Symbols or press Ctrl+Shift+F11.

Create a new layer and lock the bamboo sticks layer(Layer 1). Select the Symbol Sprayer Tool and pick the bamboo leaves Symbol. Spray it on Layer 2 by dragging the mouse.

To create various sizes of bamboo leaves: use the Symbol Sizer Tool and randomly click on the bamboo leaves object. Tips: hold down ALT key+click to reduce size.

Use the Symbol Spinner Tool to rotate/spin Symbols.

Use the Symbol Shifter Tool to spread out the bamboo leaves by dragging your mouse around.

Select a lighter green color and use the Symbol Stainer Tool to tint the symbols.

Use the Symbol Screener Tool to reduce the opacity of the bamboo leaves. This will result in a transparent effect.

After you done with the leaves on Layer 2, make a new layer(Layer 3) behind the bamboo stick layer. Lock Layer 1 and Layer 2, use the Symbol Sprayer Tool to create more bamboo leaves.

Duplicate more bamboo sticks. Resize and send them behind the big bamboo sticks.

Here is the final image.

Handy Techniques for Cutting Out Hair in Photoshop

2010-04-14T02:57:00.000-07:00

When trimming out images in Photoshop, human hair or animal fur always proves troublesome and can be tricky to achieve a realistic look. Here are two techniques I use on images with both plain backgrounds, and those with a varied background tones, each achieving pretty decent end results.

Technique One: Images with Plain Backgrounds

The best photos are those professional studio type shots that are taken against a plain white background. These shots make it much easier to find the edges of the subject, but trimming out fine hairs can still be a little tricky. In this example we’ll be using the common Channel technique to trim out this lovely lady.

Open up your image in Photoshop. This particular image doesn’t have a pure white background, but it is a plain colour and has good contrast between the subject and grey backdrop.

Head over to the Channels palette and review each of the Red, Green and Blue channels. Each one will be made up of slightly different tones, pick the one with the most contrast between foreground and background. Drag this channel onto the new channel icon to duplicate it.

With only the new channel selected, adjust the Levels (CMD+L) to dramatically increase the contrast between light and dark areas. However, don’t go too far, as you’ll notice some horrendous pixilation appearing in the fine areas.

Due to the slight variation in tone of the background, it appears grey in the darker areas. Use the Dodge tool set to a low Opacity to target the highlights and brush over this background area to really brighten it up.

Switch over to the Burn tool and target the shadows to dramatically darken down the inner areas of the image to pure black.

Use the brush tool to finish off the blacks by painting over the remaining areas of the inner section of the image.

Inverse the image to switch over the black and white areas (CMD+I), and give a quick check for any stray areas that may have been missed by the brush.

CMD+Click the Channel thumbnail to load the selection, then turn back on the visibility of the original channels. Head back over to the Layers palette and copy the selection. Paste it on a new layer and hide the original to see the cut out image against transparency.

The selection has managed to trim out even the finest of hairs to give a realistic cut. Paste the photo against an alternate background. Zoom in and check for any light coloured fringes around the edges, especially if placed against a darker background. These can be reduced using the Burn tool set to Highlights and gently brushed over the outline of the image.

Technique Two: Images with Detailed Backgrounds

The Channels technique is all well and good for studio photography with plain backgrounds, but it gets a little more difficult on standard shots with detailed backgrounds getting in the way.

Open up your image in Photoshop. This image has a decent contrast between foreground and background, but certain areas of the hair do blend in with the darker tones of the backdrop.

Start by trimming out the clear edges with the Pen Tool, but when you reach the hair simply create a rough tracing.

Around the hair portion, aim to include only solid areas of hair that aren’t merging with the background, otherwise the lighter tones will mess things up later.

Make a selection with a feathering of 0.2 pixels to remove any harsh edges then paste onto a new layer. Reduce the transparency of the image so that the original hair line can just be seen.

Here’s where the fun begins! Use the Smudge Tool to draw in areas of new hair, using the original outline as a template. Begin with a 4px brush to flesh out the thick base hair and disguise the jaggy lines from the path. A Wacom Graphics Tablet really comes in handy here to speed up the process and help add varied line thicknesses.

The new hair will soon flesh out the image back to its original appearance. It doesn’t look too bad at this stage, but repeating the process with a thinner brush will draw in those individual hairs.

Use a 2px brush with the Smudge Tool to draw thin stray hairs in varied directions to add realism to the image.

The photo can then be placed on any background with ease, and displays a crisp cut-out with no fringing or loss of fine detail.

Broken Glass Photoshop Photo Effect

2010-04-13T01:22:00.000-07:00

Hello. This is a tutorial that will help you achieve a dynamic glass shatter effect. In this tutorial we will use some broken glass brushes and also on of my own glass texture. As you can see, we will use 3d model. With this photoshop photo effect, you can make your photo look like it was ripped or broken into pieces. So, lets start.
To make the image look more dramatic, I will be using a 3d model in a reaching pose in perspective.

Since the main focus of this is the foreground, as I am trying to achieve a "seen through (shattered) glass" effect, I will keep the background simple and use a texture background.

First thing you need to look for in order to get a shattered glass effect is either finding the right stocks to tweak or a couple of brushes. I thought I'd ease your work and share a couple of shattered glass brushes I have. They're not the best out there, I used them as well as a couple of smashed glass brushes I purchased from Renderosity (by mystikel) that included separate shards brushes. I started testing brushes as I went along creating the effect. Make a new group of layers and start applying brushes until you've covered the whole area. Just make sure you keep your brush layers separate, there may be some you will not need or have to edit opacity or blend in order to work with the rest. This is what I have so far. I went with a gradual look, glass is supposedly more shattered up top and the cracks aren't that prominent in the 2nd half of the image. Notice how there are actual shards visible near the hand? That's what I meant by dynamic. Making it look like it was captured "in motion".

Next I duplicated the whole group. I hid the original and merged the glass so I could add a color overlay to it. To only add an overlay to a selection you'll need to hold your Ctrl key and click the layer, create a new layer (Layer>New>Layer or simply Shift+Ctrl+N), pick a color from your swatches (I used a dark blue) and set it to Soft light. This is what I have so far.

For maximum effect, you can also add a glass texture. I used one of my own, that I am sharing with you for practice on this tutorial. I've set the layer mode to Screen and I used a large round Eraser brush set at 30% opacity. You shouldn't brush it all equally, so leave some areas of the texture more visible than others, mostly those that aren't already covered by cracks.

Next I will work on getting the shards to really stand out. Normally I would use my tablet to paint, but I will keep it to mouse and Photoshop settings only so those of you who don't own one can do this too. I took the Pen Tool and made sure it was set to Paths, then changed my brush tool to the default 3 px small brush, color set to white. Follow the outline of your shards with the pen tool and when you're done right click the image and select Stroke Path and check you have Brush set in the dropdown menu. You will see the outline being filled with the 3px brush selected. Now click the image again and select "Make Selection" then switch tool to cancel the path. Repeat the process for all your shards. It doesn't really look good now, but we are far from finished.

Add some whites to the inside of the shards, and use a low opacity Eraser (30-40%) and Smudge tool to edit it, depending on where your light source is supposed to be. Same for the outline, brush over some of the edges to lower the opacity.

Now look for your model layer again, duplicate it and go to Filter>Blur>Motion blur. I used Angle -86 and 83 pixels distance. Used the eraser again to clear the face and body.

For the last part I added a Gradient overlay, set it to Soft Light and adjusted the brightness contrast of the final image and sharpened it.

Create a Realistic Landscape from Scratch with a Graphic Tablet

2010-04-06T04:36:00.000-07:00

First things first, the use of a graphic tablet is a must for this tutorial. This tutorial is made in CS3 but for most older versions of photoshop there shouldn't be a problem because the tecnniques used are scarce.
The main tools used are gradient tool and smudge tool.
Good luck and have fun!

Make a new file with the dimensions width 1280px and height 800px.
Use the colorpicker tool to collect colors from a photo or painting, this helps to get a more realistic feel to the end result. Blurring a photo or using the filter paint daubs with a large brush size and sharpness 0 helps to get the colors. I marked the places where I took the colors. Don't just click anywhere, use the darkest blue from the sky, the colors which give depth to the picture and some foreground colors.

Use the gradient tool to set the colors for the background. Use three of the colors you have just picked.
The darkest blue from the sky, the lighter white/gray also from the sky and a color from the foreground.

Make a new layer for every new object, very useful when you need to change or add things to the illustration in a later stage.
Add a new layer.
Select the polygonnal lasso tool and use it to make the outlines for the mountains in the background as shown below.
Now select the gradient tool and fill the new shape with the two colors shown on the right. The mountaintops should be a bit darker.

Make the remaining three layers of mountains the same way as desribed in the previous step.
Use the polyganol lasso tool and fill the layer using the gradient tool.
Use the colors you picked from your reference image.
Don't forget that the mountaintops should be a bit darker, this is done to create a fog effect at the foot of these mountains.

Make the lake, the rocks and the foreground the same way as you made the mountains. Be creative about the shapes, there are endless posibilities.
After you are done making the shapes, flatten the four layers with the background mountains into one layer. Also flatten the lake, the rocks and the shapes that make up the foreground into another layer.

Name the layers, "background", "mountains" and "foreground". Always name your layers, so when you have a complicated file with lots of layers it's much easier for yourself but also for someone else to see how the image is build.

Make a lightsource coming from the right.(By choice you could make it come from the left.)
Set the foreground color to white.
Use the gradient tool, set to "foreground to transparent", the mode should be "color dodge", the opacity setting on a low value, I chose 12%.
Select the layer "background".
Click on the rightside in the middle of the image and drag the pointer to the center of the image, release at that center.
Now select the layer "mountains" and again drag the pointer to the center of the image and release.

Use the smudge tool to create details in the most distant mountainline, set the diameter to a low value. I used a setting of 4 pixels. If you use a smaller diameter you can give the image more detail.
You can activate the option "Finger Painting" for different kind of effects.
Start smudging with a lot of pressure from just above the mountaintops in a bend or corner down and to the right untill just above the next line of mountains. Smudge these strong lines into the mountain ridges. What you are actually doing is smudge away parts of the mountains so the background color can shine through. You can hide the background layer to see the effect.
Do the same for the three remaining groups of mountains.
Keep in mind that the light is coming from the right, and that the darker mountains are much closer that the faint colored mountains.
And don't worry if the effects that you achieve are not what you expected, it takes some practise. I always tip people to look at real pictures of the subject you want to draw as a reference.
In the next step there is a more detailed explanation of how to smudge the mountains into shape.

Smudging the mountaintops: Smudge in the direction of the red arrows.
Darker red means more strength.
Smudge diameter is set to 4 pixels, option Finger Painting is selected.

Use the same technique when smudging the foreground into shape, but set the brush diameter a bit larger to 6 or 8px.
Also select the option "sample all layers". This means that you can smudge the color from the background into the foreground layer without distorting the background layer. This option could also have been set when smudging the background mountains to get a different effect.
Don't forget about the lightsource, and start smudging down from the corners with a lot of pressure.

Use the same technique for the water and the rest of the foreground, but this time when smudging make a lot of "uncontrolled" movements like circles and twisted lines.
Use a diameter between 2 and 8px. Use the smaller brush to create more details.

Now let's make some clouds.
First make a new layer, call it "clouds" and put it behind the mountains layer and over the background layer.
Select the brush tool and change the brush tip to "dry brush".
This brush should be a standard brush in CS3, no need to change the brush palet. If you are using a different version of photoshop and can't find it, you could just select a similar type of brush.
Bring up the brushes window using F5, the standard menu button or using the menu=>window=>brushes option.
Make sure that the settings are as below, don't forget to adjust control settings to "pen pressure".

Start with a brush size of 30 px, but you can vary the size if you want.
Select the colors from your reference image or use your imagination. I used my starting reference image and picked the darkest blue from the sky for the shadow parts, the lightest blue for the highlights and a light pastel color.
I could also have chosen a light purple color or a green tinted color, the sky is full of colors.

After you have brushed the colors use the smudge tool to blur the clouds.
Set the brush diameter to 30px.
Use very little pressure smudging the clouds, almost none.
And don't miss a spot, you don't want any of the hard pixels that the dry brush left behind.

Make a copy of your file and rename that file "yourfile"2.psd so you have a backup. Now you can safely flatten all the layers.
To make the image more realistic you can zoom in on the different parts and use the smudge and brush tools for details.
You can paint flowers, stones and trees into the scenery.
But for now we are going to finish the image using the "color dodge" and "multiply" modes with a standard brush setting.
Vary the brush diameter from very small to very large. Colors used are black for multiply and white for color dodge.
A tip is to duplicate the one layer you have so you can play around with the different tools and easily make changes undone.

Finished result:

Creating a Cracked Text Effect with Corel DRAW!

2010-04-06T03:39:00.000-07:00

This tutorial will demonstrate how you can create a Cracked Text effect. I used Corel DRAW! 8.0 for Windows for this technique. Some things may be done differently with other versions.
One of the things that's so cool about vector drawing programs is that certain effects that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to re-create in a paint program are so easy to accomplish with a drawing program.

This next effect, "cracked text", is no exception. This wouldn't be easy to do in a paint program but you can follow along and get this one done in just minutes with Corel DRAW!
To get started, open a new file and use the Text Tool to enter some text. I entered the word "Cracked" in 100 point using Arial Black

You might want to zoom-in a little to work on the image. To do so, just select the Zoom Tool and click on the image workspace until the text fills the screen.
Select the Eraser Tool. It's in the second space from the top of the toolbar. If you don't see it hold the mouse down for a moment until the flyout menu appears.
Use the up or down arrows to adjust the size of the tool. How big or small should it be? Why just the right size for the cracks, of course. All kidding aside, it really depends on the size of your text and how big you'd like the cracks to be. With the 100 point text that I used I set the tool to 0.05 inches.
Now click-and-drag the tool over the text in short jagged moves so that it breaks up the letters

Continue until you've created cracks in all of the letters

Now, here's where the cool tricks that Corel DRAW can do come in!
Choose Effects, Extrude.
In the Extrude dialog box set the Depth to 5 and click Apply.
Choose the Lighting icon and click on at least one light. Place it where you'd like the light to come from. I chose the upper-right corner.
Click on the Rotational icon and position the text the way you want it appear

Creating Drop Shadows with Corel DRAW

2010-04-06T03:33:00.000-07:00

This tutorial will show you how to create drop shadows in Corel DRAW! I used Corel DRAW! 7.0 for Windows. Some things may be done differently with other versions.
Drop shadows are not something you'd expect to be able to do in a vector based drawing program. Although the shadows created with this technique differ from those done with a paint program such as Photoshop they are, nevertheless, a pretty cool effect.

Open a new graphic. Choose the text tool and enter your text. Choose the pick tool to select the text. Use Text, Format Text to bring up the Format Text dialog box.
Choose a size and font for your text. I used 50.0 points and the Dauphin font

Choose Edit, Copy then Edit, Paste. Move the top copy aside and use Edit, Paste to create a third copy. Move this one aside, as well

With this last copy still selected choose a light gray color. This will change the last copy to light gray.
Move one of the other copies over the light gray one so that it's a little above and to the left of the light gray copy. If you have to, use Arrange, Order, Forward one so that the black copy is above the light gray one

Use the pick tool to select both the light gray and the black copies.
Choose Effects, Blend to bring up the Blend menu. I left the default 20 steps and clicked Apply

Finally, use the pick tool to select the last copy and, with it selected, changes its color to the color you want the the text to be. Move it into place over the blended copies to arrive at something like this

Using the Blend Tool and Power Clip in CorelDRAW

2010-03-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

This tip has been written for CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X3. While similar features might be available in previous releases the tip will be fully applicable to CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3 and newer versions only.
In the following tip, you will see how the Blend Tool and the PowerClip tool were used to create a business card and logo for a locksmith service.

1. Select a key shape from the Transportation symbol font (symbol 061).
2. Select the key and convert it to curves (Ctrl+Q) or Arrange/Convert to Curves.
3. Remove the fill from the key and select a heavy (6 - 7 pt) stroke outline color of your choice.
4. Copy and paste the key (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, or Edit/Copy and Edit/Paste). Make the stroke on this duplicated key lighter (.2 pt) and make the outline color white.
5. Select the white key, then select the Blend tool and drag to the larger stroked key.

6. Select the Interactive Drop Shadow tool and add a drop shadow to the blended keys.

7. Create a box to represent the size of the business card you want and fill it with a radial, gradient fill. Select your key and PowerClip it to the box (Effects/PowerClip/Place Inside Container). You can also edit the positioning of the key by selecting Effects/PowerClip/Edit Contents/Finish Editing This Level.

8. Select the Text tool and add your text.

You're done!

Working with RAW files & snapshots

2010-03-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

The applications and features described in this tutorial require CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 or newer to be installed.
When you edit photos in Corel PHOTO-PAINT, you have the option to import your images as RAW files. These files are like digital negatives with many more editing options than other image formats.

You can save your picture as a RAW-file, or import it directly from the camera into Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

The dialog box looks much like the Image Adjustment Lab in Corel PHOTO-PAINT, but you have the White Balance option that works much like resetting your camera before you shot the picture.

You can adjust the image even further by clicking the Detail Tab, and in the Properties area, you can find details about the camera settings etc.
But when you do not have access to the RAW-format you can edit the image in this way:
1. Open the image in Corel PHOTO-PAINT, and select the Adjust menu | Image Adjustment Lab, and you will see the same window as mentioned before.
In both cases, there is an excellent feature: The Create Snapshot feature

2. Click the Create Snapshot button in the bottom of either of the screens, and you have created a snapshot of the image as it is. This is shown by the small thumbnail picture below the image.
3. Make some adjustments in the picture by dragging the different sliders to the left or to the right.
4. Click the Create Snapshot button again, and you have made a new thumbnail showing the adjustments.
5. Click the Reset to Original button, and make some other adjustments,
6. Click the Create Snapshot button again, and you have made a new thumbnail showing the second adjustment.
7. Click on the Snapshot thumbnails, and you can browse through the different adjustments to find the best adjustment.

Cropping graphics in CorelDRAW

2010-03-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

The applications and features described in this tutorial require CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3 or newer to be installed.
Whether you are working with a drawing or an imported bitmap, the Crop tool lets you remove portions of your graphic quickly and easily. You no longer need to ungroup objects, break linked groups apart, or convert objects to curves to remove unwanted areas in a graphic.

The Crop tool is located in the toolbox, on the Crop tool flyout.

To crop objects, you define a rectangular area (cropping area) that you want to keep. Portions of the graphic outside the cropping area will be removed. You can specify the exact position and size of the cropping area, and you can rotate and resize it.

Cropping clipart

Cropping an imported bitmap

To crop a graphic

1. Open the Crop tool flyout , and click the Crop tool .
Important note: If an object or bitmap is selected, only the selected item will be cropped. If no objects are selected, the entire graphic will be cropped.
2. Drag to define a cropping area

3. If you need to adjust the cropping area, perform any of the following tasks:

To move the cropping area, click inside the cropping area and drag it to a new position. If you want to specify the exact position of the cropping area, type values in the Position boxes on the property bar.
To resize the cropping area, drag any of its handles. If you want to specify the exact size of the cropping area, type values in the Size boxes on the property bar.
To rotate the cropping area, click inside, and drag a rotation handle. You can also type values in the Angle of rotation box on the property bar.

4. Double-click inside the cropping area.
Cropped objects, including text objects, are automatically converted to curves.

A cropped graphic

Photo Strip

2010-03-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

This is a Photoshop tutorial on how to create a beautiful photo film strip, as seen in Apple’s iLife package design (’06 version) and DigitalMash website. The warp tool will be used to create the twisting effect (so, you need Photoshop CS2 or above to complete this tutorial). With the completion of this tutorial, you will be able build a photo strip with your own photos or artwork.

1. Create a Strip (Vector Shapes)
First, create a strip with the Pen tool (either in Photoshop or Illustrator). We will use these shapes as a guideline and for masking purposes.

2. Photo Stack
Choose 3 photos of your choice and stack them together.

3. Warping (Photoshop Warp Tool)
Adjust the layer opacity to 40 or 50% so you can see the guideline underneath. Go to Edit > Transform > Warp. Now you should see a grid and 4 anchor points in the corner. To bending the image, simply drag the anchor points, direction points, or grid lines.

Repeat this step for the rest of the strip. Since this step is relatively simple and repeatitive, I’m not going to get into the details. Here are the screenshots of the steps:

4. Masking
Organize the layers into groups (ie. strip 1, 2, 3, 4).

Load selection from the shapes you created in step 1 and add a layer mask for each group (so you get a perfect smooth curve).

5. Shadows
In masked group 1, create a new layer above the strip. Use the Gradient tool and drag from the top to bottom to create a black gradient.

Repeat this step for the other strips.

6. Highlights
To make highlighted and glossy areas: create a round glowing circle, compress it, and rotate it in the angle according to your strip’s direction.

7. Line Strokes
To make line strokes: load a selection of the mask, create a new layer, fill it with black, shift the selection to the left by 1 or 2 pixels, delete the selected area by pressing the Delete key.

8. Final Touches
To make the image look more interesting, desaturated the two strips in the back.

Abstract Background

2010-03-22T05:58:00.000-07:00

In my previous tutorial, I’ve showed you how to make stylish flowers with the Blend Tool. This tutorial will show you how to make an abstract background with Illustrator Blend Tool. It is very cool and simple!

Gradient Background

Create a rectangular path and fill it with blue gradient.

Screen Gradient Paths
Create another path with Blue-Black gradient and select Screen Blending Mode. This will create a lighter blue gradient shade. If your color setting is CMYK, make sure the black is full black (C,M,Y,K=100). The red arrow on the image is the direction of the gradient fill.

Repeat the previous step to create another Screen gradient path.

Abstract Wave
Make 2 white stroke paths.

Blend Tool
Go to Object > Blend > Blend Options, enter Specified Steps = 20. Then with the 2 strokes selected, go to Object > Blend > Make or press Ctrl+Alt+B. This will blend 2 white strokes and create an abstract wave effect. If you want to change the Blend step, you can go to Object > Blend > Blend Options or double click the Blend Tool(B) on the tool bar.

Change Stroke Color
Use Direct Selection Tool (A), select one of strokes and change it to blue stroke color. Notice how 2 strokes blend from blue to white.

Wild Blend
Now go crazy with your Pen tool, create 2 wavy strokes and blend them. Play around with the Blend step, stroke weight and color.

Repeat the steps to create the last abstract blend, from blue to purple.

Final
Your image should look like something below:

Stylish Vector Flower

2010-03-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

Learn how to create stylish vector/line flower with Illustrator Blend Tool. This Adobe Illustrator tutorial is great for creating background and large print illustration.

1. Flower Petal
Create two stroke paths: one yellow and one blue.

2. Blend Options
Go to Object > Blend > Blend Options and set it to Specified Steps = 10. Specified Steps basically tells how many step to blend from 1 object to another.

Blend
Now select the 2 petal paths, go to Object > Blend > Make or press Ctrl + Alt + B and you should get something looks like the image shown below.

3. Duplicate More Petals
Duplicate more petals to form the flower by Copy & Paste or Alt + Drag.

4. Stem
Create a stem by using the same Blend technique as in the previous step. Here I set the Specified Steps = 8.

5. Leaf
The leaf is formed by 2 parts, top and bottom. I use Specified Steps = 5 here.

6. Put Them Together
Now put them together to create a beautiful flower.

7. Right Long Leaf
Create a long leaf with Blend step = 3.

8. Left Long Leaf
Repeat the previous step to create the left long leaf.

9. Final
Your final image should looks like the image shown below:

How to Make Glossy Button

2010-03-22T03:29:00.000-07:00

You have probably already seen this tutorial somewhere before or know how to make glossy button with Photoshop. Here is a tutorial to show how to do it with Illustrator.

1. Create the Circle Shapes

First create a circle path and fill it with orange color. Then Copy (Ctrl+C) it and Paste in Front (Ctrl+F). Scale down about 40% and drag it slight below the center point of the orange circle.

2. Blend Tool
Select the Blend Tool, click on the top edge of the yellow circle and then click again on the top edge of the orange circle. Or you can blend them by selecting both circles, go to Object > Blend > Make (Ctrl+Alt+B).

3. Add Final Light Reflection
Make an oval path and fill it with black & white Gradient and place it on top of the circles. Note if your color setting is CMYK, make sure the black for the gradient is full black(C=100, M=100, Y=100, K=100). With the oval path selected, go to Transparency pallate, select Screen Blend Mode. If your Transparency is not showing, go to Window > Transparency or press Ctrl+Shift+F10.

Advantages
There are serveral advantages to create this glossy button with Illustrator than Photoshop:

It is vector, which mean it is scalable.
It is easier and faster to make this with Illustrator (less steps).
Easier to change colors, just need to fill the circles with different colors.

Tracing Photo

2010-03-22T03:09:00.000-07:00

Full detailed tutorial on how to draw and trace people from a photo. Learn how to create realistic illustration with just simple gradient fill. No massive Gradient Mesh!

Download Source File

1. Place a photo
First place a photo in Layer 1 by File > Place or Copy & Paste from clip board. Double click on Layer 1 to change the Layer Options. Set Dim Images to: 30% and lock layer.

2. Start tracing
Make a new layer (Layer 2). Hold down Ctrl key and click on the eye icon of Layer 2 to view Layer 2 in Outline mode.

Use the Pen Tool and start tracing the basic features of the girl. While you are tracing, there are couple shortcut keys you should know in order to work more faster.
These shortcuts are:

Ctrl+[ = Send Backward (This will send object back 1 step)
Ctrl+] = Bring Forward (This will bring object front 1 step)
Ctrl+Shift+[ = Send to Back (This will send object all the way to the back)
Ctrl+Shift+] = Bring to Front (This will bring object all the way to the front)
Ctrl+F = Paste in Front (This will paste object in front with same position)

3. Make shadow
Draw a new path as shown (top). Then Copy the base path of the face and Paste in Front. Select the copied base path and the new path, open your Pathfinder, Alt-click on Intersect shape areas.

Use the same technique from previous step and make all shadow paths for the overall illustration. You don’t have to get into the details yet, one simple shadow path of each part is good enough (ie. eye, lips, shirt, body, etc). Remember to use Ctrl+C for copy; and Ctrl+F to paste object in front. Trust me, this will save you a lot of time!

4. Fill in base color
Now fill in the base color for the face, eye, lips, and eyebrow.

5. Shadow gradient
Fill the shadow path of the face with a Gradient (white-skin tone) and select Multiply for Blending Mode.

Select the other shadow paths and use the Eyedropper Tool to copy the gradient fill of the main shadow path.

For the lip and eye shadow, use the Eyedropper to copy the base fill and select Multiply Blending Mode.

6. Body
Use the same technique, copy the gradient fill for the body. Note you might to adjust the gradient of each shadow path to blend in with the overall illustration.

7. Hair
Pretty much the same, fill 1 path with the gradient, then use the Eyedropper Tool to copy the fill.

8. Shirt
Same technique as the previous steps.

9. Skirt
Fill the skirt with a blue gradient, then use the Eyedropper Tool to copy the fill for the shadow.

10. Hair details
Now you can add more details to the hair. Make shadow effect by adding Multiply paths. Add some highlights by using lighter gradient color. If you want, you can add more details to the clothes, lips, or add a cool tattoo on her body.

Final
After you get used to this tracing technique, you can basically trace anything!

Smashing Your Creative Block

2010-03-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

The question arises so much nowadays, How do you overcome your Creative Block? I made it simple for everyone today and created a Photoshop Tutorial to smash your creative block. I will use simple and easy techniques to create a smashing composition text tutorial. It won’t take you to long to finish and you will learn that it is pretty easy to create this effect. Have fun.

Today we will creating a Text Effect Tutorial. In this Tutorial we will be smashing the Creative Block into pieces, Literally. I will be teaching you how to use the simple tools of photoshop to your advantage and create a striking text effect. We will be breaking apart the text with simple methods and bring across a message to everyone.

Step 1:
Open up photoshop and create a new canvas with the sizes 1500 x 720px and fill it with Black #000000. Once you have that set up, grab your text tool (T) and choose a nice bold font. In this case I used MyriadBold, at a size of 70pt and Filled White #FFFFFF. I centered the text on the canvas and then rasterized the layer. To Rasterize make sure your text layer is selected and then go to Layer&gt>Rasterize&gt>Type – this will turn your text layer into a flat layer, ready for editing. Name the layer Creative. You should have something like this below.

Step 2:

Now that you have your Type setup on the canvas and your layer Rasterized. Its time to get editing. Grab your pen tool – make sure at the top that you have Paths option selected, we don’t want to work with Shape Layers in this tutorial. Make sure your Creative layer is selected, now use your pen tool and draw a line around the middle part of the C, then when you have closed your path make sure you right click and hit Make Selection, Make sure you choose 0 Radius when the box comes up – just hit OK. Then go to Edit&g>Cut (CTRL + X) Now go to Edit&gt>Paste (CTRL + V) this should paste half the C into a new layer. By using the Move Tool (V) you are able to move the half C around and position it as you like. This is my outcome.
Pen Tool:

Outcome:

Step 3:
In this step I will show you have I made the R stretch up like that. Firstly Duplicate your Creative Layer by selecting the layer and going to Layer&amp>gt&gt>Duplicate layer… Now hide that layer by clicking the Little Eye Icon next the the layer name on the left hand side. Now create a new layer below your Creative copy layer and grab your pen tool. Now create a Sharp Triangle Shape over the R and then fill it with Black #000000, be sure that you filled the layer in the New Layer you created below the Creative Copy Layer.

Now that you have your black filled shape covering your R unhide the Creative copy layer above it and then right click the layer and select Create Clipping Mask (CTRL + ALT + G). You shouldn’t see a change just yet, but grab your move tool (V) and move the Creative copy Layer down a bit, you will see it influences the feel of the R. Move the layer to a position that you are happy with.

Step 4:
Now that we have our R sorted out its time to move onto the next letters. Using the Same techniques as earlier let’s shift and delete and play around with the EATIVE text. A brief run through the steps are Make sure your Creative Layer is selected and grab your Pen tool, select the part of the letter you want to move and then Cut it, Edit&gt>Cut (CTRL+X) and then Paste it Edit&gt>Paste (CTRL+V) and then use the Move Tool (V) to shift the shapes around.

Step 5:
Now that your Creative word is totaly sliced up and moved around its time to bring in our second word. “Block” Grab your type tool and Type BLOCK with the same font and a size of 40pt filled white #FFFFFF. Rasterize the layer by going to Layer&gt>Rasterize&gt>Type or Right Click&gt>Rasterize. Now your word is setup and ready to go. Their is nothing fancy about cutting up the word block in this tutorial, play around and use your imagination. Select the parts and cut and paste them and move them around to create a sliced feel of the word. This was my outcome after I sliced up the word Block as well.

Step 6:
Now we are past the hard part of the tutorial. Now we are going to use stock images to just spice up the piece a bit. Firstly get yourself a nice concrete texture, I used one out of my 24 High-Res Concrete Textures available here on Creativeoverflow. I placed the concrete texture above all my other layers and then set the Blending Mode to Darken. Now, this might take some concentration, you have to Hold down CTRL + SHIFT and click each individual Layer’s Tiny Window. This will highlight the Layer with the selection tool. Go down your layers list and be sure to select all of them. This is what your selected items should look like with the texture on top.

Now go to your Texture layer and select it by just clicking on it and then select the Add Vector Mask button on your layers pallett, its right next the the FX button at the bottom. Another alternative is to go to Layer&gt>Vector Mask&gt>Hide all and then use your brush with white to fill the highlighted areas.

Step 7:
I know that the piece doesn’t look very attractive at the moment, but we will change that. Go to your Textured layer and select your Burn Tool (O). Set the exposure to 50% and choose a medium sized soft brush. Burn the edges of the Letters to create a contrasting effect. I have pointed them out to you in the preview below.

Step 8:
Now go to Layer&gt>New Adjustment Layer&gt>Brightness and Contrast – Set the Brightness to +14 and the Contrast to +100. This should add some depth to your Lettering, but not enough. We are going to a layer style to the sliced pieces. Double click on one of the sliced pieces and choose a Drop Shadow and. Use the settings below. then hit OK.

Now right click on your layer that you just adding the Layer Style to and select Copy Layer Style. Now Select all the Sliced Layers, excluding your two word layers (Creative and Block), Your R layer and Textured Layer. You can select them by holding down CTRL and clicking on each layers name. Once you have them all selected right click on anyone of them and select Paste Layer Style. This should add a large amount of depth and diversity to your letters.

Step 9:
Now create a new layer by going to Layer&gt>New&gt>Layer (CTRL+SHIFT+N) and then fill it with Black #000000 now set the blending mode of the layer to Color Dodge and select your brush tool. Use a fairly large soft brush with striking colors, example orange, Green, Pink, Blue. I used Green and orange and vaguely touched the edges of the Text. Next I created another New Layer and filled it with Black #000000, I set the Blending Mode to Overlay and grabbed my Brush tool with the same soft brush and just selected White #FFFFFF as my foreground color. I brushed on the lettering to bring out some light and highlights in the text.

Step 10:
Our final step for this tutorial is pretty basic, we use the Smashed Glass image and import it into our Composition. We set the blending mode of the layer to Linear Dodge and we erase some of the parts that we don’t want. Now you are done with the tutorial. Hopefully you have smashed your creative block into pieces. You are more than welcome to add on your own bits and pieces, but I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.