5. Right-click inside the dashed indicator lines for the mask area, and then choose Object: Copy Selection from the context menu. On the Object docker, you’ll now see a new thumbnail at the top of the list of objects, titled “Object 2”; see Figure 25-9. Pressing CTRL+R removes a mask in a document window. This is equivalent to a Select | None command in other programs. To hide the marquee lines running around a masked area of an object—and you’re only hiding, you’re not deselecting but only hiding an onscreen element—press CTRL+H to alternately Hide and Restore the marquee. 6. Click the Object 1 entry on the Objects list to make it the current editing object. Then, choose Object | Flip Horizontally. And yes, it will look strange to have “Julian” floating above the other kid’s chest! 7. Click the Object 2 entry on the Objects docker, choose Lightness from the Merge Mode drop-down list—a good mode for making underlying areas fade away only if the top affecting object has lighter corresponding pixels—and then move the object over Julian’s chest at image left with the Object Pick tool. 794 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 25-8 Once a photo is an object, you can perform many PHOTO-PAINT feats not possible with a standard JPEG or other image file. Click to turn a Background into an object. 8. Evaluate the composition for a moment. What needs to be done now is to remove some of the backwards text on Object 1 to keep it from showing through. A straight paint color won’t do the job, because the image area has varying tones of color from the texture of the T-shirt. Choose the Clone tool from the group that contains the Red-Eye Removal tool. 9. The Clone tool picks up an image area you define by right-clicking and then applies the image area to a different area when you drag, based on the diameter and feather amount (softness or soft-edge in other bitmap programs) you set for the tool. On the property bar, choose Medium Soft Clone from the drop-down list. CHAPTER 25: An Introduction to PHOTO-PAINT 795 25 FIGURE 25-9 Copy the image area that you don’t want to flip to a new object in the document. Feather amount 10. Hide Object 2 by clicking the visibility (the eye) icon to the left of its thumbnail. 11. Right-click with the Clone tool just below the name on Julian’s T-shirt. You’re choosing a sampling area that’s close in tone and color to the area you want to hide. 12. Drag, ever-so-slowly, slightly, and carefully over the backward lettering on the T-shirt, to get a feel for the Clone tool. When you release the mouse button, the sampling point for the Clone tool snaps back to its original position. Therefore, release the mouse button when you see that the traveling sampling point is getting mighty close to an undesired area for sampling. Work from the outside inward, resampling frequently to match the original tones of the light shirt. Periodically, unhide Object 2 to see how much work you need to do, and what areas are not necessary to clone away. 796 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 25-10 Use the Clone tool to visually integrate the areas in Objects 2 and 1. Clone tool Right-click to set sample point then stroke over area to be retouched. Hide object Active object 13. When you think you’re finished cloning, restore the visibility of Object 2. You might be done, but you might want to refine the edges of Object 2 with the Eraser tool. If so… 14. Choose the Eraser tool, and then on the property bar, choose a soft tip from the Presets drop-down list, and set the size to about 35 pixels in diameter. 15. Zoom into the editing area, and then drag over any areas whose brightness doesn’t match the edge of the object. Figure 25-11 shows the work in progress, and the illusion looks pretty convincing. 16. Optionally, you can standardize this image’s data by combining all objects—as you did in the Hollywood condo example. Right-click over either object title on the Object docker, and then choose Combine | Combine All Objects With Background. CHAPTER 25: An Introduction to PHOTO-PAINT 797 25 FIGURE 25-11 Erase areas whose tone and color don’t match the edges of the object. Eraser tool Lightness merge mode Ill 25-10 Consider what you’ve learned in this chapter: you now know how to repeat actions on an entire folder of images, you can scale, crop, and flip pictures, and you have a basic handle on all the sophisticated editing you can perform using transparency, objects, and merge modes. But the biggest payoff is an ironic one: a good photo retoucher’s work should go unnoticed! Now bring what you’ve learned into Chapter 26, for more invisible mending and a technique or two that will definitely get your work noticed. Special effects and advanced retouching techniques lie ahead. 798 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide CHAPTER 26 PHOTO-PAINT Effects and Advanced Editing 799 C hapter 25 got you off the ground with some basic photo-editing techniques; this chapter approaches a lot more ambitious editing of images, yet stays within the realm of common tasks for professionals you’ve seen and would like to re-create. Removing backgrounds, combining areas of different photos into a seamless composition, and creating animated GIFs are on the menu today. Along the way, you’ll discover and learn to use some of the most important tools and features in PHOTO-PAINT, and by the end of this chapter, you’ll be able to do a lot more than simply re-create the images in the following tutorials. You’ll make the techniques, and anything you work on in the future, truly your own. Download and extract all the files from the Chapter26.zip archive to follow the tutorials in this chapter. This folder has a Gallery subfolder with finished examples of the tutorial files for this chapter. Turning a Snapshot into a Photograph If you’ve ever worked in a large manufacturing company as a designer, you already know that whoever takes the picture of a new product has tunnel vision: they pay attention to focus, and perhaps even lighting the product—but pay no attention to a cluttered, inappropriate background! And your boss is no help because he’s conditioned by watching YouTube to think that, “Oh, you can just Photoshop this, can’t you? Takes two secs!” Nope: you own Corel PHOTO-PAINT and you’re going to learn how to PHOTO-PAINT this sorry photograph into something that looks terrific in that brochure that was due yesterday. Objects and the Path Tool Open Labeling machine.cpt in PHOTO-PAINT now: clearly, all that’s missing is a coffee cup and a deck of playing cards to totally ruin the visual importance of the Market Up® 8500 labeling machine. When photographing product, you either highlight it within a compatible setting (in this example, perhaps next to retail packages or a shopping cart), or you go very minimalist and shoot against a pastel seamless paper. The purpose of this section is to show how you use PHOTO-PAINT to lift only the labeling machine off the background, and then replace the background with something stylish yet neutral in content so the machine is the hero of the photo. Because the silhouette of a machine, or a box, or anything with clearly defined geometry is a hard edge, the best and quickest tool to use in PHOTO-PAINT for extracting the image area is the Path tool. The Path tool operates almost identically to the Bezier pen tool in CorelDRAW. When you use the tool, the property bar has options that you’ll feel right at home with, and paths you draw have special properties in this bitmap-editing program. Paths you create can: 800 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide ● Stroke a Path Once a path is selected, you can choose any of the brush tools (Paint, Effect, Image Sprayer, and even the Eraser tool), and then choose Object | Edit Path | Brushstroke from Path. If you’re new to PHOTO-PAINT, this action is fraught with peril, so don’t just leap into using this command. You probably want to create a new object upon which to stroke the path before doing anything permanent to a photo: choose Window | Dockers | Objects, and then click the New Object button. Also make sure that the size of the brush and the preset for the brush along with the color (if any) is the one you want. By stroking a path onto an object—paths do not belong to any specific object—you’re free to experiment and can delete the object if you mess up. In addition to the Objects Docker button you’ll use in this chapter’s tutorials, the New Object command is also in the Object | Create main menu. ● Mask from Path This is the command you’ll use in the steps to follow. You can make a mask—a selected area of an object or the background of a photo—based on the shape of a path. The mask allows edits only within the interior of the shape; you can fill (see the next item here) and also delete the interior of an object, leaving transparency. If you want to work on the exterior areas defined by a mask, press CTRL+SHIFT+I to invert the areas so the exterior is subject to changes while the interior of the object is protected from changes. ● Fill a Path You can fill the interior of a path by first defining a mask based on the shape of the path; to do this, with the Path tool selected on the toolbox (so you can see options on the property bar), click the Mask From Path button, and then mosey on over to Edit | Fill. In the Edit Fill & Transparency box, click the type of fill you want, and then click Edit to use and customize the presets available. Regardless of how you create a mask, to remove it, the keyboard shortcut is CTRL+R. Here’s the game plan: in the following steps, you convert the image background to an object. Then use the Path tool to work around the edge of the labeling machine, closing the path around the machine; create a mask from the path; use the Object | Create | Object: Copy (or Cut) Selection; and then delete the original background. Let’s begin. Using Paths as Masks 1. Open Labeling machine.cpt in PHOTO-PAINT. Then choose Window | Dockers | Objects ( CTRL+F7 is the shortcut). CHAPTER 26: PHOTO-PAINT Effects and Advanced Editing 801 26 2. Click the Background icon to the right of the Background item on the Objects docker list. This is a shortcut to Object | Create | From Background, and the title of the image is now “Object 1.” 3. Drag the document window edge outward a little. You’ll notice a white area surrounding the image—this is the background to the document, and Object 1 is now floating above it. If you like, increase the size of the thumbnail for Object 1 by dragging the slider to the bottom right of the Objects docker to the right. Ill 26-1 4. Press ALT+F10 to display the Paths docker. You’re going to draw a path around the labeling machine now. 5. Choose the Path tool from the group of shape tools in the toolbox. Before you begin, if you’re not experienced with CorelDRAW’s Shape and Bezier tools, the Path tool is used both to draw paths and to edit them. Figure 26-1 shows what the property bar in PHOTO-PAINT looks like when the Path tool is active. The callouts in this figure pertain only to this chapter’s example. The other tools have familiar icons that perform the same functions as those on the property bar in CorelDRAW when the pen tools are used. 802 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Document Background Entire photo is a floating object. Click to turn a Background into an object. Thumbnail size 6. Traveling clockwise, click to place a control point toward the top left of the outline of the labeling machine; you can start anywhere you like along the edge, but this tutorial would become a little oblique if we didn’t use a common reference point. 7. The next node to be placed is at the end of a curve: to build a curved path between node 1 and node 2, click-drag after you define the point, exactly as you would using the Bezier tool in CorelDRAW. 8. At some point you might need to zoom or pan your view of the document. If you choose to press H as a shortcut to the Pan tool, then press ENTER to return to the last- used tool; there’s a good chance you won’t be able to extend the path you’re drawing because you’ve switched tools. Make sure to click the last node on your path—the cursor features a “+” sign, which means it’s good to extend the path now. The illustration here shows the three cursor states for the Path tool. As you pan your view and change tools, do not try to extend the path when your cursor looks like the CHAPTER 26: PHOTO-PAINT Effects and Advanced Editing 803 26 FIGURE 26-1 The features on the property bar when the Path tool is chosen help refine the paths you create. Shape Bezier Freehand Path tool Mask From Path . object has lighter corresponding pixels—and then move the object over Julian’s chest at image left with the Object Pick tool. 794 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 25-8 Once a photo is an object,. won’t do the job, because the image area has varying tones of color from the texture of the T-shirt. Choose the Clone tool from the group that contains the Red-Eye Removal tool. 9. The Clone. clone away. 796 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 25-10 Use the Clone tool to visually integrate the areas in Objects 2 and 1. Clone tool Right-click to set sample point then stroke over