“create node” cursor. If you use the document scroll bars for changing your view, you haven’t switched tools and you’re cool to continue drawing the path. Ill 26-2 9. Draw a tight path all the way around the outline of the labeling machine, and finally click at your start point to close the path. Right now is a good time to zoom into various areas to make sure the path is faithful to the edge of the machine. If there’s a misplaced node or curve segment, with the Path tool selected, choose the Shape tool on the property bar, click the node and move it, or click the node to display its control handles and then drag a control handle to steer the curve segment so it fits the edge of the machine. 10. Click the Mask From Path button on the property bar. The interior of your path is now selected. Ill 26-3 804 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Begin path and create node. Extend current path. Close path. 11. Choose Object | Create | Object: Copy Selection (CTRL+UP ARROW). Usually, when beginning a new program, it’s better to duplicate something by copying it than cutting it (the author used CTRL+SHIFT+UP ARROW in these figures). 12. On the Objects docker, click the Background entry—the image without the machine— to make sure it’s the chosen object (the title will be highlighted in a foreground Windows color), and then click the Delete button (the old-fashioned metal trash can). Now you have only the labeling machine as an object in the document, and it’s surrounded by a checkerboard pattern indicating that there are no pixels surrounding it. Ill 26-4 13. Take a break, keep the document open, and press CTRL+S to save your work up to this point. You can name an entry on the Objects docker anything you like; you don’t have to accept the default name of “Object n.” To rename an entry, click the name, then click again to open the name for editing, and then type anything you please. Replacing the Background Because the labeling machine is supposed to be the primary focus of the image, a new background can be quite simple—you just add a hint of detail to make the overall scene look consistent in its photorealism. In the next steps, you’ll add a gradient to a new object behind the machine, distort the object a little to add perspective, and apply a little texture to keep the fountain fill object from looking too perfect. Here’s how to set up and edit a new background for the scene. CHAPTER 26: PHOTO-PAINT Effects and Advanced Editing 805 26 Putting a Background Behind an Object 1. Hide or delete the path in the document by clicking either the Show/Hide Path button at the bottom of the Paths docker, or click the Delete button. 2. On the Objects docker, click the New Object button. A new entry appears on the docker, labeled “Object 2,” and it appears above the labeling machine in the order of objects in the document. 3. Drag the title “Object 2” to below “Object 1” on the Objects docker. You’ll see the little hand turn into a little clenched hand as you perform this action. Ill 26-5 4. Click the “Object 2” title to make sure it’s the current editing layer. Choose the Interactive fill tool from the toolbox, and then drag from top to bottom in the document window. 806 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Drag Object 2 down below Object 1. New Object 5. Right now, you might not have the fountain fill traveling from the ideal color to an ideal color. The Interactive fill tool uses the current foreground and background colors on the toolbox to create a Linear fountain fill. Double-click the top color marker (node), and then in the Node Color dialog, choose R: 166, G: 166, and B: 166. Click OK to apply the color. Double-click the bottom node marker, and set its color to R: 204, G: 204, and B: 204. Click OK to apply the color and close the box. Ill 26-6 6. Eventually in this tutorial, you’ll use the Mesh Warp effect to bend the background to suggest a floor in the composition. To do this, you first need to shrink Object 3 a little so you’ll be able to drag the handles of the Mesh Warp past the edges of the object. Choose the Object Pick tool, click the Scale button, and then click the Maintain Ratio button so the object scales proportionately. Zoom out of the document if you can’t see the four handles at each corner of the object (you can scroll toward you with the mouse wheel to do this); drag a corner control handle toward the center of the object until the object is just a little wider than the labeling machine, and then drag toward CHAPTER 26: PHOTO-PAINT Effects and Advanced Editing 807 26 Interactive fill tool Drag top to bottom, and then double-click a marker. Foreground color Background color the center of the object to move it back so it’s centered relative to the document window. Ill 26-7 7. Choose Effects | Texture | Canvas. In the Canvas dialog, set the Transparency to about 66% so the fountain fill isn’t completely hidden by the effect, and then set the Emboss value to about 115% for a visible yet not overwhelming effect; see Figure 26-2. Click OK to apply the texture. 8. Choose Effects | Distort | Mesh Warp. In the Mesh Warp box, at the default Gridlines frequency of 4, you have nine intersections within the warp lines that you drag to reshape the selected object. The idea is to mold the canvas object, as shown in Figure 26-3, so that its bottom sweeps toward the audience, creating the illusion that the labeling machine is resting on a plane that sweeps up and back off the top of the 808 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Scale document window. First, drag the bottom right intersection to the right; doing this warps the middle right intersection in an unpleasant way, bulging the right side too much. Drag the middle right intersection to the left until the right vertical warp line describes an arc toward the bottom. Then drag the top right intersection to further smoothen the arc the right vertical mesh line describes. 9. Perform step 8 on the left vertical mesh line, mirroring it in its direction. Click OK to apply the effect. 10. With the Object Pick tool, click the Scale button on the property bar, and then increase the size of the object until you cannot see the background in the composition. 11. Save. Keep the file open. CHAPTER 26: PHOTO-PAINT Effects and Advanced Editing 809 26 FIGURE 26-2 Apply a subtle texture effect to the fountain fill to add visual “business” to the background object. Adding a Shadow What’s missing now is a visual element that binds the machine to its new background: a drop shadow. Frequently, a shadow can be painted into a composition, and you really need only to suggest the shape of the shadow—audiences anticipate the presence of a drop shadow, but usually don’t notice whether the shape is authentic. In the following steps, you’ll add an object between the background and machine objects, do a little painting to represent the shadow, blur it to make it look more believable, and then use the Multiply merge mode before combining all the objects to make your blurry painted shadow look more dense in the composition. Painting Detail into the Picture 1. Click the Object 2 title on the Objects docker, and then click the New Object button. Doing this forces PHOTO-PAINT to create a new object directly above the current object, sparing you the need to reorder objects by dragging their entries on the docker. 810 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 26-3 Use the intersections of Mesh Warp by dragging them to reshape an object. Drag at intersections. 2. Choose the Paint tool on the toolbox. On the property bar, choose the Art Brush category thumbnail, and to its right, choose Loaded Cover from the drop-down list; the diameter of the brush is set to 46 pixels, and this is a good size for the next steps. It doesn’t make a lot of difference which brush you choose, because you’ll soon blur your strokes, but this particular variation is nice because it adds a little grain when you use it. 3. Double-click the Foreground color icon on the toolbox to display the foreground color mixer. Choose black and then click OK. 4. Make a few strokes beneath the machine, as shown in this illustration. Notice how your strokes appear to go behind the labeling machine because it’s the top object, above your strokes and the background object. Ill 26-8 5. Click the Merge Mode drop-down list while the shadow object is the current editing object, and then choose Multiply. Then drag the Opacity slider down to about 75%. CHAPTER 26: PHOTO-PAINT Effects and Advanced Editing 811 26 6. Choose Effects | Blur | Gaussian Blur; there are several effects to apply a blur to an object, but Gaussian produces the most intense and pronounced. You’ll see that Gaussian Blur leaves what looks like a diffuse shadow beneath the labeling machine. Set the Radius for Gaussian Blur to about 35 pixels, and then click OK to apply it. Press CTRL+S to save your work one final time. 7. You can consider your retouching work finished, or you can “standardize” the CPT file so a copy can be shared as a JPEG image. PHOTO-PAINT object files can’t be shared with friends and clients who don’t own PHOTO-PAINT. On the Objects docker, right-click over any of the object titles, and then choose Combine | Combine All Objects With Background. Ill 26-9 8. Choose File | Save As, click the Save As Type drop-down list, and pick JPG-JPEG Bitmaps. Choose a file location, and then click OK. In the Export as JPEG dialog, click the Quality drop-down list, choose Highest, and then click OK. Then email your work to your fictitious client, and they’ll be astounded and send you a large, fictitious check. Take it to a fictitious bank and cash it right away. Creating a Fantasy Composition It would be hard to miss some of the extraordinary ads on the Web that feature smaller-than- life people in unusual settings: swimmers in a drinking glass, ant-sized folks exploring a kitchen drawer—you get the picture. This section takes you through the steps involved in 812 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide getting a fellow ice-skating into a scene of a miniature turtle pond; he won’t care that the water might not be frozen, it’s all in good fun, and you’ll use PHOTO-PAINT’s features to make it a believable fantasy. Figure 26-4 shows the two images you’ll visually integrate. Using the Brush Mask Tool Shortly, you’ll use PHOTO-PAINT’s Cutout Lab to assist you in trimming the skating fellow from his skating rink background. However, it will give you a better idea of how much the gentleman needs scaling down if you first remove most of the background manually—it also gives you the opportunity to experience the Brush Mask tool in PHOTO-PAINT. The Brush Mask is an intuitive and easy-to-use selection tool; wherever you stroke in an image becomes subject to editing, while the exterior areas are not available for editing. In the steps to follow, the editing is simple—you’ll move the selected area, the skater, to a new object in the image, and then drag him over to the turtle pond image. Stroking to Select an Area 1. Open Skating Claus.cpt and Rink.png. Arrange the windows so both are in full view; you’ll want to zoom out of both images and resize the documents to fit them both within PHOTO-PAINT’s workspace. 2. Click the title bar of the skater image to make it the foreground document, and then choose the Brush Mask tool from the mask tools group just below the Object Pick tool on the toolbox. CHAPTER 26: PHOTO-PAINT Effects and Advanced Editing 813 26 FIGURE 26-4 Santa Claus in the tropics is a novel idea for a PHOTO-PAINT composition. . bottom sweeps toward the audience, creating the illusion that the labeling machine is resting on a plane that sweeps up and back off the top of the 808 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Scale document. current object, sparing you the need to reorder objects by dragging their entries on the docker. 810 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 26-3 Use the intersections of Mesh Warp by dragging them to reshape. it fits the edge of the machine. 10. Click the Mask From Path button on the property bar. The interior of your path is now selected. Ill 26-3 804 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Begin path and create