next. While 256 steps is set and locked, fountain fills will display and print using the maximum capabilities of your monitor and printer resolution. Using Custom Fountain Fills A default fountain fill features two colors, but you can add colors to make any type of fountain fill into your own version. When you make multi-colored fountain fills, the appearance of your artwork can change dramatically. The position of added colors is shown by node positions on the dashed line guide joining the two default colors. After you’ve added color markers and clicked them to select them on the object, the property bar will display their position and color, as shown here: 444 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide 256 steps 20 steps 12 steps Color Position Selected color in multi-color conical fill You can add, move, and delete fountain fill colors you’ve added to a default fountain fill type in several ways, but you must have both the object and the Interactive fill tool selected, or you’ll wind up editing the object and not the fill. To explore doing this, follow the steps in this tutorial. Editing a Fountain Fill In-Place 1. Select the object to be filled, choose the Interactive fill tool (G), and then apply a fountain fill by choosing Linear, Radial, Conical, or Square from the property bar Fill Type selector. 2. With a default fill applied, double-click a point on the guide between the two existing color markers where you want to add a color marker. Doing this adds a color that is based on an average of two existing marker colors, so your custom fountain fill probably looks the same as the default fill. 3. Decide on a new intermediate color (choose one in this example on the Color Palette), and drag a color from the color well (drag the swatch) onto your new marker. You have a three-color gradient now. 4. Try a different technique to add a color marker position and a color at the same time: drag a Color Palette well directly onto the same fountain fill guide, but at a different location. 5. To reposition an added color, click-drag it along the guide path. As you do this, the color’s node position changes, as indicated by the Node Position value on the property bar. 6. To change any fountain fill color, click to select it, and choose a color from the property bar selector, or click a color well on the Color Palette. 7. To delete an added color, right-click or double-click it on the guide. To and From color nodes can’t be deleted, but they can be recolored. Additionally, color can be added when a color node position is selected, and you choose from the color selector to the right of the Fill Type selector on the property bar. You can drag a color marker “through” a neighboring marker to change the order of color nodes along any fountain fill object. Setting Fountain Fill Dialog Options The interactive way is great for controlling fountain fills, but if you want deeper and more precise controls, you can use the Fountain Fill dialog, shown in Figure 15-4. CHAPTER 15: Filling Objects 445 15 You can open the Fountain Fill dialog while a fountain fill is applied to a selected object and while using the Interactive fill tool by clicking the Edit Fill button in the property bar. Or, with your object selected and while any tool is in use, press F11. The Fountain Fill dialog options that aren’t available while you’re using the Interactive fill tool property bar are listed and explained here: ● Color Wheel Rotation This option is available only while a two-color blend is selected. You can choose to blend directly from one color to the other (the default), more or less “jumping” the hue cycle the traditional color wheel goes through, or choose Counterclockwise or Clockwise to blend between colors while cycling through a standard color wheel’s colors, traveling around the outside edge of the wheel. This might seem like a trivial option, but CorelDRAW is one of the few design programs that can shortcut through the traditional model of visible colors. For example, in other applications, a fountain fill that goes from red to blue necessarily has to travel through green, somewhat muddying the fountain fill. Not so if you choose Direct Blend here. 446 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 15-4 The Fountain Fill dialog provides some options common to the property bar and others unique to this dialog. Preset options Direct Blend Clockwise Counterclockwise PostScript options for spot colors Drag to define direction or center. ● Interactive preview You have some manual control over where you want the center and/or direction of a fill to take place within an object by dragging in the preview window. In Figure 15-4, you can see that the radial fountain fill will be positioned beginning in the upper-right of the filled object because this is where the center has been dragged in the small preview window. ● PostScript Options When a two-color fountain fill is selected with both the From and To colors specified as spot color inks, the PostScript Options button becomes available. PostScript Options offer halftone screens of special fills to certain dot shapes. Possessing PostScript level 3 capabilities, CorelDRAW features an expanded collection of screen styles including CosineDot, Cross, various Diamond styles, various Double and InvertedDoubleDot styles, various Ellipse and InvertedEllipse and other styles, Euclidean, Grid, Rhomboid, Round, Square, and Star shapes. While any of these styles is selected, Frequency and Angle options are available in the PostScript Options dialog, enabling you to override default printing settings for your selected spot color inks. An easy visual indicator that you are using spot colors is the small circle tick inside the chosen color swatch in the Fountain Fill box. Ill 15-10 If you’re unfamiliar with spot colors, it’s the printing process used to add a color to packages, for example, that cannot be reproduced using standard press inks, such as that reflective silver logo on a box of cereal. See Chapter 27 for the lowdown on spot versus process colors and for a guide to commercial printing of your CorelDRAW work. CHAPTER 15: Filling Objects 447 15 Tick indicates spot color. ● Presets The Presets drop-down menu includes a variety of sample fountain fill types, colors, and positions. Use them as they are, or edit them to suit a specific need. To select any of these, choose a name from the drop-down list. While you’re browsing the alphabetical list, a preview of the highlighted preset is displayed in the fountain fill preview window in the upper-right corner of the dialog. A preset can contain any of the properties associated with a two-color or custom fountain fill color. ● Add/Delete Presets The two small buttons to the right of the Presets drop-down list can save you hours of custom fountain fill creation time. First, the button labeled with the minus (–) symbol deletes your current selection from the list of preset fountain fills after presenting a confirmation dialog, just to ensure that you don’t delete a factory preset by accident. The button labeled with a plus (+) symbol is for saving the current fountain fill as a preset. To save your selected fountain fill settings, follow these steps. Saving Your Own Fill as a Preset 1. With your custom fountain fill colors and options set in the Fountain Fill dialog, enter a name in the Presets box. 2. Click the + button. Your custom fountain fill is immediately saved alphabetically in the list of available presets. 3. Click OK to apply the saved preset and close the dialog. 4. To retrieve and apply your saved preset to fill a selected object, press F11 to open the Fountain Fill dialog, click Custom to view the Presets menu, choose your saved preset from the list, and click OK to close the dialog and apply the saved fountain fill. Applying Pattern Fills Pattern fills are rectangular-shaped tiles that repeat vertically and horizontally to fill a closed-path object completely. They come in three different varieties: Two Color, Full Color, and Bitmap, each with its own unique qualities, shown in Figure 15-5. 448 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide While a pattern fill is applied, the property bar includes a host of options that can be used to apply dramatic changes to the fill’s appearance, as shown here when the Two Color Pattern fill has been applied to an object, and the object is currently selected: Ill 15-11 CHAPTER 15: Filling Objects 449 15 FIGURE 15-5 Pattern fills come in three types. Two-color pattern Full-color pattern Bitmap pattern Edit Fill Fill Selector Color Selectors Tile Size Buttons Tile Width Tile Height Transform Fill With Object Create Pattern Mirror Fill Tiles Copy Fill Properties In addition to altering pattern properties, the property bar has features to control the appearance of your pattern in the following ways: ● Fill Selector Use this drop-down box to choose from existing pattern fill libraries. ● Front/Back Color Selectors When a two-color pattern is selected, these two selectors let you set colors other than black and white for a pattern. ● Tile Size Buttons Use these buttons to set your pattern to Small, Medium, or Large preset width and height sizes. ● Tile Width/Height The Width and Height sizes of your selected pattern can be set individually using these two options, each of which can be set between 0.1 and 15 inches. ● Transform Fill With Object When this option is active, transformations applied to your object will also be applied to your fill pattern. This is a useful feature when you need to scale an object larger and don’t want your pattern to “shrink”! ● Mirror Fill Tiles Using this option forces a transformed pattern tile back into a seamless pattern. Two-color patterns are limited to exactly two colors, with no additional edge colors to create anti-aliasing. This means that the edges of the design can be harsh and somewhat jaggy if you export your work to a screen resolution of 96 dpi. However, if you export, for example, a TIFF copy of your work, the jagged edges you see onscreen will not appear in the exported bitmap image. Full-color patterns are composed of vector shapes, but the pattern itself already has color applied and cannot be altered. Additionally, these full-color fills cannot be extracted as vector shapes from the pattern. Therefore, when making your own pattern, save a copy of your pattern to CDR file format for editing in the future, and forget about the Break Apart and Convert To Curves commands in an attempt to reduce a full-color pattern to its vector component shapes. Bitmap patterns are carefully edited bitmaps; some of the presets are taken from photos, while others are paintings, and all of them are relatively small in dimensions. The difference between a full-color and a bitmap fill is that the vector-based pattern tiles for the full-color fills can be resized without losing design detail, focus, or introducing noise, but enlarging bitmap pattern tiles carries the same caveat as enlarging any bitmap—the more you enlarge it, the better your chances are that the component pixels will eventually become visible. You can scale bitmaps down, but not up—computers are “smart,” but they can’t create extra visual data from nonexistent data. Controlling Pattern Fills Interactively You can edit the look of an applied pattern fill by adjusting the interactive markers, and using the various property bar options common to all pattern styles. 450 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide The interactive handles surrounding a pattern fill help you to set the tile size, offset, skew, and rotation of the pattern. To experience this firsthand, open Platonic.cdr and work with the uncompleted group of objects on the left of the page. Use the right side duplicate of the Platonic geometry as a reference. Customizing a Pattern Fill 1. Select an object in the group at left, and then choose the Interactive fill tool (G). 2. Choose Two Color Pattern from the Fill Type selector. By default, a two-color dot- style pattern fill featuring Black as the Front color and White as the Back color is applied to your object featuring fill markers. 3. Insert the cursor in the top Edit Tiling field, and then type 1.2; then type 1.2 in the bottom Edit Tiling field. You’ve made the polka dot pattern a more pleasing size for one of the Platonic object faces. Clicking on the Small, Medium, and Large Tile buttons performs the same thing, but without precise size control. Dragging the Rotation/Size handle while holding CTRL to constrain the rotation angle also changes the size. 4. Drag the diamond-shaped center origin handle slightly in any direction. Notice that the center origin of the pattern changes. 5. Drag the white marker, governing the Back color, up and right to skew the pattern so it looks more like it’s on the face of the object, viewed in perspective. 6. Click the white Back color marker, and then click the Back color icon on the property bar—choose a light gray. Now the face of the Platonic object looks a little more properly shaded. 7. Repeat steps 3–6, varying the Front and Back colors to complete filling in other objects. 8. To quickly complete the assignment, while the Interactive fill tool is chosen, click a solid fill object, and then click the Copy Properties button on the property bar. Then click over a corresponding object in the completed design at right. Figure 15-6 shows the marker handles around a two-color pattern fill. CHAPTER 15: Filling Objects 451 15 Using Pattern Fill Dialog Options The Pattern Fill dialog offers an alternative way to control pattern fills (see Figure 15-7). To open this dialog (which is nearly identical for two-color, full-color, and bitmap pattern fills), click the Edit Fill button in the property bar while a pattern fill type is in effect. 452 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 15-6 The interactive markers surrounding a two-color pattern fill are there for you to control the pattern’s colors, size, and skew. Back color/skew handle Center origin Rotation/tile size handle Front color/ skew handle Interactive fill tool cursor Here’s what each of the options in the Pattern Fill dialog controls: ● Origin The X and Y Origin options are used to offset the center of the pattern from 0 within a range between 30 and –30 inches. Positive X or Y values offset the origin right or upward, while negative values offset the origin downward or left. Using the interactive origin handle in the workspace performs the same thing. ● Transform These options are Skew and Rotate, each of which is measured in degrees. Skew values range between 89 and –89 degrees, while Rotate values can be set between 360 and –360 degrees. These options work in combination with each other to apply vertical and/or horizontal distortion to the fill pattern. Rotation and Skew can be performed directly on an object onscreen; however, undoing a skew and rotation, and performing these distortions with precise values, is not easily done in the workspace. Ill 15-12 CHAPTER 15: Filling Objects 453 15 FIGURE 15-7 The Pattern Fill dialog provides an alternative method for setting pattern fill properties. Original Rotated Rotated and Skewed . and the object is currently selected: Ill 1 5-1 1 CHAPTER 15: Filling Objects 449 15 FIGURE 1 5-5 Pattern fills come in three types. Two-color pattern Full-color pattern Bitmap pattern Edit Fill Fill. property bar while a pattern fill type is in effect. 452 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 1 5-6 The interactive markers surrounding a two-color pattern fill are there for you to control the. for a guide to commercial printing of your CorelDRAW work. CHAPTER 15: Filling Objects 447 15 Tick indicates spot color. ● Presets The Presets drop-down menu includes a variety of sample fountain