august 2014 rrp $5 - corel down under mag 82 august_2014.pdfcorelunder, no.82, august 2014, 5 here...

Issue 82

August 2014 RRP $5

Corelunder, No.82, August 2014, 3

David Mutch and our newest committeemember Leo Fernandez will be demon-strating Corel Draw at our August meeting.

Congratulations Leo, on joining the CDUcommittee. I’m sure you’re going to nd itvery interesting and rewarding. It’s great tosee a new young member who will bringfresh new ideas into our group. Leo comesfrom a print background and is very experi-enced in designing business forms, layingout brochures, creating logos and all otheraspects of using Corel Draw in a commer-cial environment. Leo is a valuable additionto our committee and along with DavidMutch, is quickly becoming the go to guy ifyou have a Corel Draw question.

We have some breaking news. Jenette wasto give us a presentation on Painter X3 inSeptember, however Corel have justannounced the release of Painter 2015.Jenette will still present on Painter but itwill now be on Painter 2015 instead. Thiswill give everyone a chance to see the newfeatures in this new upgrade from Painter.Jenette is our resident expert on Painter socome along and ask her any questions youmay have on this new upgrade, or onPainter in general.

Jim will be helping out in September as wellwith a demonstration on Paint Shop Pro.Any photographers or artists really shouldcome along to the September meeting.

Also, I’d like to thank Kelvin for stepping inand demonstrating the new Aftershot Pro 2at the July meeting. We had planned a talkon Video Studio, but due to the release ofthe new Aftershot, the talk on Video Studiowill now be sometime in the future. Kelvinalso showed us some of the new Nic lters.It was great to see a couple of members ofthe Maroondah Photographic Society at ourlast meeting as well. It was an interestingsubject for the MPS members, as I expectthe September meeting will also be. Ourtwo groups do share a lot in common,including the same meeting room, so hope-fully both groups can nd some commoninterests thus enhancing the informationand presentations to both groups’ members.

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This method is certainly a quick andreasonable way to add multiple ‘images’into DRAW, certainly much faster thanscanning each object individually, but itleads to numerous problems as none of theindividual components can be manipulatedseparately and creates a large white back-ground. Individual items within thescan cannot be moved independ-ently, resized, re sampled orenhanced.

Suppose that the original items couldnot be re scanned - what then?

Here is a method using masks inCorel PHOTO-PAINT to separate outeach item so that each can then beindividually manipulated. Further-more, each individual item will nowhave an object border closelymatched with its shape, rather than asquare or rectangular box border,enabling text in draw to wrap selec-tively around each shape and for anynew background colour to go rightup to the border of the object . Wewill use Masks to isolate individualobjects and place them on separateobject layers within Photo-Paint so

they become separate objects withinDRAW.

To read an overview of masks in generalplease see the box “What is a Mask”.

Fig.1. The original large bitmap in CorelDRAW)


Here is the original page with the singlelarge image containing multiple objectswithin DRAW: Fig 1.

1. First off, select the image withinCorelDRAW. The square black trans-formation handles will appeararound the bitmap. For some imagesyou may also see tiny node boxes -ignore these if displayed.

2. Click the Edit Bitmap button on theProperty bar, or use Bitmaps > EditBitmap. The bitmap will open inPhoto-Paint and appear as ‘Back-ground’ in the Object ManagerDocker.

3. To isolate each component withinthe one large bitmap we will useMask techniques. Masks can be usedfor a variety of purposes and each ofthe mask tools (Rectangle, Ellipse,Magic Wand, Lasso, Magnetic, Free-hand, Brush and Planar) accom-plishes different tasks with differentresults. So the mask tool you usedepends on the task you want toundertake and the result you wish toachieve. A complete description ofall Mask Tools is beyond the scopeof this tutorial.

Of importance to note isMask Modes.These are: Normal, Additive, Subtractiveand Overlap, the controls of which arelocated on theleft hand sideof theProp-erty barwhen any mask tool is selected. InNormal mode any previous mask isreplaced when a new mask is created ordrawn. InAdditive mode, any previouslyunmasked areas are added to an existingmask when a new mask is created ordrawn. Previously masked areas are unaf-fected.Subtractive mode is the opposite toAdditive: any previously masked area isremoved when overlapped by any part of anewly created mask. Unmasked areas are

unaffected.Overlap mode is a combinationof Additive and Subtractive - use withcaution.

A close look at the items with the bitmapwe are using reveals that each componentsits on a nice white background with clearspace surrounding each, and that many ofthe objects have a faint shadow, a result ofscanning non-at 3D objects. Theseshadows look good and should be retainedif possible. Fig 2.

To isolate each component I could use theRectangle Mask Tool which would create arectangular white box surrounding eachcomponent. For the task here I wish tocreate a mask that surrounds the shape ofeach object rather than a rectangle. There-fore eitherFreehand, Magic Wand, Brush,Magnetic or Lasso Mask Toolswould besuitable rather than a pre-specied shapesuch as either rectangle or ellipse.

The Magic Wand Mask Tool would begreat for selecting all of the white back-ground and isolating all of the componentstogether. But I want to select each compo-nent separately. If I used theMagic Wand Icould then use, say theRectangle MaskTool inSubtractive mode and remove the

Fig. 2. Some of the components have lightshadows but all are nicely separated with whitespace between them.


mask around components I don’t want.That would work.

I could use theFreehand Mask Tool butthat would necessitate very careful drawingaround the desired component by handusing a mouse or pen. Yes that would workbut its too much work and too tricky.

I could use theMagnetic Mask tool bycarefully drawing closely around theoutline of a selected component but again itwould be a bit too tricky due to the softshadow surrounding many objects.

This leaves theLasso Mask Tool, which infact is ideal for this task. TheLasso MaskTool will allow me to roughly draw arounda selected object and then it will contract tond the precise object edges. YES!.

In HELP, Corel describes theLasso maskToolas “ lets you roughly outline an imagearea and then contract the mask marqueearound a specied range of colours withinthat area; uses an initial seed colour (Amer-ican spelling corrected)”. In effect this meansthat theLasso Mask Tool will use thecolour where you draw the original maskshape as a seed colour and then contractuntil it nds a contrasting colour boundary.

When you select theLasso Mask Tool theLasso Mask Property Bar appears. Fig 3.

The Mask Modes are explained above.

TheColour tolerance value is the valuethat determines the colour range or sensi-tivity of the tool. It has similar propertiesfor the Lasso mask tool and the Magicwand mask tool as well as the Fill tool.

A lower Tolerance value means that fewercolours will be within the range.HigherTolerance values will include a largerrange of colours.

When using theLasso Mask Tool, theobjective is to surround the selected objectwithin an area of ‘seed’ colour surroundingthe object. TheTolerance value will then beused to contract the mask within the seedcolour tolerance range until it reaches acolour boundary that is outside the toler-ance range.

In this case the task is relatively easy as wejust need to surround the section we wishto mask using any of the white spacearound it. More complex backgrounds willmake this task harder and may evenpreclude using this tool at all.

TheLasso Mask Tool works in twodifferent ways: either in straight line modeby repeatedly clicking to surround theobject, or in freehand mode by clickingonce to start and then dragging the cursoraround the section we wish to mask.

Both methods requirethe user to double clickto nish. A straight linewill be created betweenthe nal double clickpoint and the origin.Both methods can beused in the same actione.g. click - click - drag -click - drag - drag -double-click.

Fig. 3. Lasso Mask Property Bar.

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Select theLasso Mask Tool and make sureyou are inNormal Mode.

Set theTolerance to 10 initially.

Zoomandcentre into the area you wish tomask using the mouse wheel, but so youcan still see plenty of white space aroundthe area of the section.

Try both methods. Start in the white spaceabove the upper left of the section thenclick, click, click, click to surround the area,then when near the origin, double click. Asyou click a thin black line will displaybetween your click points. As soon as youdouble-click the mask will contractaccording to the tolerance range andsurround the section as a hard colourboundary, displaying amask marque ofmarching ants *. Try dragging around theobject as well, taking care to stay well awayfrom any colour boundary. In other words,only drag in white areas here.

* Note:The Mask Marque of marching

ants will only display if theMask MarqueVisibility is switched on (it is on bydefault). If you don’t see any marching antsit may be that the Mask Marque Visibility isswitched off, so turn it on using Mask >Marque Visible (CTRL+H). It will have aTick mark beside the command when it ison. If you see a pink or coloured areaaround the selection this indicates that theMask Overlay is switched on. You can turnit off by making sure that Mask > MaskOverlay is un-ticked.

If you see small masked areas outside yourdesired object, or the resulting mask is tooclose or too far away. Then adjust the Toler-ance value and try again. In Normal mode

the new mask will simply replace theprevious one.

We should now have a nice tight masksurrounding our selection. Fig 4.

To make a nice smooth, soft boundarysurrounding our selection we need tofeather the mask.Feathering increases thesize of the transition area from black(transparent/protected) to white(opaque/unprotected) within the 256 gray-scale range(see What is a Mask box on page11). This helps the edges of oating objectsmerge better with backgrounds and otherobjects by smoothing the transparency oftheir edges. Abigger feather increases thearea of transparency transition. However, afeather that is too large can make an objectappear blurry or even hide parts of theobject we wish to see.

TheLasso Mask Tool makes it easy tofeather your newly created mask as theFeather command is right there on theProperty bar for this tool. Click the Feather

Fig.4. Masked area displayed by the MaskMarque marching ants.)


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command on the Property bar. The Featherdialogue box appears.

In theFeather dialogue box we haveseveral options:Width, Direction, Edges, aPreview button and OK, Cancel and Helpbuttons. TheWidth value is theFeatherwidth. TheDirection drop down list allowsus to choose whether to feather Inside,Middle, Outside or average. The currentlydisplayed mask marque shows us theMIDDLE of the current mask boundary. Ifyou choose any direction other thanAverage, you can then choose whether theedges will be linear or curved (a slightlydifferent algorithm is used for feathering ineach case).

ThePreview button (lower left of thedialogue box) temporarily switches toMask Overlay view so we can better see themask feathering. Click the Preview button.A light pink (default) or coloured area nowsurrounds our selection. Varying the Widthvalue now clearly shows how the widthwill affect the feathering. With the Previewbutton ON, try changing the width value to1, then 20 then 50 but nally return to avalue of between 4-10. We need a nicefeather that will appear almost invisible butstill blends objects’ edges nicely. The largerthe object and the higher the resolution,then the larger the feather we need to use.For 96-300 dpi images, a feather of between4 and 12 is usually sufcient for most tasks.

Also, experiment a little with the Featherdirection. Try Inside, Outside, Middle andAverage to view the differences.

In this case we wish to clearly display theentire selection and want to transition themask transparency into the white space asthe nal result will likely appear on a whitepage background. So for this task, the best

direct will be Outside, Middle or Averagebut denitely NOT Inside. Fig 5.

When you click OK the dialogue box closes,theMask Overlaydisappears and if youwatched closely (and depending on yourFeather settings) you should see that theMask Marque marching ants boundaryhas shifted slightly - usually a little furtheroutside the selection.

We started with a single large image ofmany components and wish to separate outeach component individually. This meanswe need to createseparate oating objectsfor each nicely cut and feathered compo-nent. Its actually REALLY easy in Photo-Paint.

UseCOPY, then PASTE (CTRL+C, thenCTRL+V).

The selection is pasted into Photo-Paint as anew oating object. Make sure you can seetheObject Manager Docker (Windows >Dockers > Object Manager or CTRL+F7) -you will see a new object above the back-ground called (usually) Object 1. Fig 6. You

Fig. 5. The Feather dialogue.


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will see that the oating object has a cheq-uerboard background, indicating that itsbackground is transparent.

Alternatively, if you wish you can also useCUT (CTRL+X), then PASTE. Cutting anobject from the background will replace thearea from which the selec-tion was cut with an area ofPaper Colour. Paper Colouris shown as the middle ofthe three colour swatchesjust below the Toolbox. Youcan change the Paper Colourby using CTRL+ Left Clickon any colour swatch in theColour Palette. If you do useCUT the PASTE, you willsee that the selection disap-pears from the backgroundand is replaced by an equiv-alent area lled with thePaper Colour.

Cutting from the back-ground and then pastinginto a new object has its

advantages as objects areremoved from the back-ground and you can seewhich ones you’ve alreadydone against those youhaven’t. (See Note 2 below aswell)

OK, now we know what todo, simply repeat from Steps5, 6 and 7 for each newcomponent, creating newoating objects each timeuntil all the desired compo-nents are separated.

WARNING:Don’t forget toreselect theBACKGOUND

object in the Object Manager Docker eachtime. This is where the areas you wish toselect reside, not in any of the oatingobjects. If you have a oating objectselected and your masked area is outsidethis object then a “Selection is Empty”

Fig. 6. Our new oating object

Fig. 7. Selection is Empty Error message


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warning message will appear. To x this,close the error box and make sure you havethe Background selected. Fig 7.

Eventually you will have all the compo-nents from the single image as oatingobjects, each with a transparent back-ground. Fig 8.

Now we have all our objects separated butthey are still in Photo-Paint.

To begin the process we passed the bitmapfrom DRAW to Photo-Paint using the EditBitmap command in DRAW.

To pass the result back into DRAW weneed to FINISH EDITING by clicking the

Finish Editing Button** inPhoto-Paint

which saves the result back to DRAW andthen closes Photo-Paint. This buttonappears on the Standard Toolbar whenevera bitmap is passed from Draw to PhotoPaint. Click this button to pass the resultback to CorelDRAW. Click YES in thedialogue box which asks if you wish to saveyour changes. If you click No then all

changes will be lost. (Fig 9 . Finish EditingButton.)

** Note:If for somereason you don’t seethe Finish Editingbutton, then simplySAVE and close Photo-Paint, as this is all thatthe Finish Editingbutton does anyway.Saving saves the resultback into Draw, not toa le.

Back in DRAW now,you will see a newgroup containing thesame number of newobjects as you createdas oating objects in

Photo-Paint. These are in fact, all theoating objects, now as Draw objects. (Fig10. Multiple separate objects passed back toDraw within a group). They can easily beungrouped and when selected, each can beindividually repositioned, scaled, rotatedetc. etc.

In the current example, the object called“background” is the remaining backgroundfrom the original image. If this is object isdeleted then a new vector background canbe created in DRAW, below all the newobjects and one can then clearly see the nicefeathered edge of each of the separatedobjects (Fig 11. Separated objects over anew background, each showing a smoothfeathered edge, And Fig 12 - an enlargedarea.)

Masks are a very powerful tool and can domuch more than the relatively simple taskshown here. I hope you enjoy exploring theuse of masks further.

Fig. 8. Completed separated oating objects.


1. If you nd that you inadvertentlycaptured a small area outside your desiredselection (shown by one or more smallcircles of marching ants outside yournormal mask), you can delete this extramasked areas in several ways usingSubtractive mode BEFORE you create yourfeather. One of the simplest ways is to usethe rectangle or ellipse mask tool to dene asmall subtractive mask surrounding theextra area. Don’t forget to return to NormalMode before proceeding with new masks.

2. To check to see if you have isolated all ofyour components from the background, tryswitching the visibility of all objects to OFFthen just displaying the background. To dothis, right click over any eye icon of anyoating object in the Objects ManagerDocker and choose Hide All. Then click theeye on the background to display just italone. To switch the visibility of all objectsback on, right-click in the eye icon area ofthe Docker and choose Show All.

A mask is applied to an image duringimage editing to dene protected areasand editable areas. A selection is an areaof an image, also called an editable area,that is not protected by a mask and istherefore available for editing.

A mask, once created using various masktools, is actually a separate grayscaleobject comprising 256 shades of grey fromBlack (0) to white (255). The black areas ofthe mask will fully protect areas of theimage while white areas of the mask willfully unprotect areas of the image. Valuesbetween 0 and 255 will have varyingdegrees of protection (thus, featheringand transitional regions within the mask).The mask marque (marching ants) showsthe mid point between black (0) andwhite (255) values within the mask, whilethe Mask Overlay tints the display ofprotected areas.

If you create a mask it is called theCurrent Mask. Masks can also be saved asAlpha Channels (within the Photo-Paintimage) or as a separate le. The Current

Mask and any Alpha Channel Masks canbe seen in the Channels Docker of theimage. Though many masks can be savedas Channels within the image, only theCurrent Mask is active and will affect animage by creating a Selection.

An unprotected area (selection) can bemodied by painting and editing tools,special effects, and image commands suchas cut, copy or paste. The current tutorialutilises the Cut/copy capacity of a selec-tion to remove the selection from the orig-inal image and paste it back into theimage as a new oating object.

A special kind of mask called a Clip Maskis a mask that lets you edit an object’stransparency levels without affecting thepixels in the object. Clip Masks are alsodisplayed in the Channels Docker.Multiple Clip Masks can be active simul-taneously within the image, each appliedto a dened Object and are independentof the Current Mask.


Is the interactive function that allow you to place vector objects and bitmaps, such asphotos, inside other objects, or frames. A frame can be any object, for example artistic textor a rectangle. When the object is larger than the frame, the object, called the contents, iscropped to t the form of the frame. This creates a PowerClip object.


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You can create more complex PowerClip objects by placing one PowerClip object insideanother PowerClip object to produce a nested PowerClip object. You can also copy thecontents of one PowerClip object to another PowerClip object

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The PowerClip toolbar lets you edit, select,extract, lock, or reposition the contentsinside the frame. The toolbar appearswhenever a PowerClip object is selected.

You can lock the PowerClip contents, sothat when you move the frame, the contentmoves with it. If you want to delete thecontents of a PowerClip object or modify itwithout affecting the frame, you can extractthe contents.

TO Center the contents inside thePowerClip frame:

DO: Click Effects PowerClip Centercontents

TO Fit the contents proportionally insidethe PowerClip frame

DO: Click Effects PowerClip Fitcontents proportionally

TO Fill the PowerClip frame proportion-ally

DO: Click Effects PowerClip Fill frameproportionally

TO Fill the PowerClip frame bystretching the contents

DO: Click Effects PowerClip Stretchcontents to ll frame


The CorelDRAW workspace is acustomizable user interface withthe program. It consists of adrawing space, surrounded bytools and reference points to helpyou quickly create a layout.

Elements of the Workspace

Picture 2 (on the following page)shows the default CorelDRAWX7 workspace with mostelements labeled. The elementsare as follows:

1. The Windows program command bar.This bar contains the le name, and otherprogram controls.

2. Just below the Windows bar is the MenuBar. The Menu Bar is common to most

Windows programs. It presents a drop-down list of commands arranged by cate-gory.

CorelDraw X7

The Workspace – Part 1

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.CorelDRAW X7 Default Workspace Labeled


3. Below the MenuBar is the StandardCommand Bar. Thisbar is static for anygiven workspace.That means, thecommand iconsremain unchanged.That said, theStandard CommandBar can be custom-ized for a particularworkspace.

4. Right below theStandard CommandBar is the PropertyBar. The PropertyBar is dynamic. Itpresents commandsappropriate for theTool, Object orObjects selected. InCorelDRAW X7 theProperty Bar hasapproximately 89different states thatit can be in.

5. Located at the farright of the Prop-erty Bar is a plus

sign in a circle. Thisis a new commandin X7. It’s a “addcommand” icon. Itcan be used to addcommands to theProperty Bar. Moreon that next timewhen we exploremodifying the work-space.

6. Number 6 is also anew feature in Corel-

Fig. 3: Lite Workspace

Fig. 4: Classic Workspace

Fig. 5: CorelDRAW X7 Default Workspace

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DRAW X7. It’s an Open Document Tab Barthat has all of the open documents listed.To switch from one document to anothersimply click on the tab. You can also easilyclose any open document by hovering overthe tab and left clicking on the little X thatappears to the right of the document name.

7. The little plus symbol on the far right ofthe Open Documents Bar is a New Docu-

ment command. This is another newfeature of CorelDRAW X7.

8. To the immediate right of the workspaceis the Dockers panel. The Dockers panel hastabs identifying open Dockers.

9. Number 9 is also a new feature in Corel-DRAW X7. It’s a plus symbol at the bottom

of the Dockers’ tablist. The plus symbolallows the user toeasily open a Dockerthat is not currentlyon the list. More onthat next time whenwe explore custom-izing the workspace.

10. To the far right ofthe workspace is thestandard colorpalette. In all therecent versions ofCorelDRAW you canhave multiple colorpalettes open.

11. Number 11 identi-es the standardscrollbars. Where thescrollbars meet, in thelower right corner, isa Desktop ViewController. This isvery useful tool whenzoomed in. You canleft click and drag thedesktop view wher-ever you need it.

12. Below the scroll-bars is the documentcolor palette. Colorswill be automatically

Fig. 7: Illustration Workspace

Fig. 6: Adobe Illustrator Workspace

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added to this bar as they are used in thelayout.

13. At the very bottom of the workspace isthe Object Information, or Status Bar. Thisbar has various states that are userselectable.

14. Moving up and to the left, number 14identies the rulers. The rulers are gradu-ated in whatever measurement is in use forthe layout, inches, millimeters, etc. Thedefault in this case is inches.

15. To the far left of the workspace is theToolbox. It contains all of the available toolsfor any given workspace.

16. Number 16 identies another newfeature in CorelDRAW X7. The plus symbolcan be used to customize the toolbox byadding tools that are frequently used.

17. Sharing the space with the bottomscrollbar (number 11) is the Page Naviga-tion area. Here there are tabs to move frompage to page, and command icons to createnew pages.

18. In the center of the workspace is thelayout page.

19. All of the open space surrounding thelayout page is considered the CorelDRAWDesktop. Objects placed on the desktop arepage independent. That means if you wantto move an object from one page to another,one way to do it is to move it off the page,then go to the page where you want it, anddrag it back onto that page from thedesktop.

Standard Workspaces

All versions of CorelDRAW come with adefault workspace. Newer versions, like X6,also included an Adobe Illustrator work-space.

With the release of CorelDRAW X7, Corelhas expanded the number of workspacesthey include with the program. The work-spaces that come with X7 are:

1. Lite – The Lite workspace is designed fornew users. It is simple with a minimumnumber of tools, commands, and Dockers.See picture 3.

2. Classic – The Classic workspace is essen-tially the default workspace that isprovided in CorelDRAW X6. See picture 4.

Fig. 8: Page Layout Workspace

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3. Default – The Default workspace wasredesigned for X7 to include some of

the newer features. See picture 5.

4. Adobe Illustrator – The Adobe Illustratorworkspace is categorized as Other (asshown in picture 1). The Other categorywill also include any custom workspacesyou create. See the Adobe Illustrator work-space in picture 6.

5. Illustration – The Illustration workspaceis new in X7. It’s designed for users whoare creating illustrations for print applica-tions. See picture 7.

6. Page Layout – The Page Layout work-space is another new workspace in X7. It’sdesigned for creating a variety of businessdocuments. See picture 8.

My Custom Workspace.

Picture 9 shows my custom workspace. It’sdesigned for my computer display whichhas a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1280.In my custom workspace I have…

1. Displayed some toolbars I nd useful.

2. Added commands to existing toolbars.

3. Docked some of the Dockers to the leftside of the screen.

4. Created and displayed a new customtoolbar.

Keep in mind, all workspaces are customiz-able.

Fig.9: My Custom Workspace

From CorelDraw Help MagazineJune 2014

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