Corel Painter Essentials Instruction Manual

USER MANUAL

Corel® Painter™ Essentials User Manual

The contents of this user manual and the associated Corel Painter Essentials software are the property of Corel Corporation and its respective licensors, and are protected by copyright. For more complete copyright information about Corel Painter Essentials, please refer to the About Corel Painter Essentials section in the Corel Painter Essentials menu of the software.

Corel, the Corel logo, Corel Painter, and Natural-Media are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in Canada, the U.S. and/or other countries. Adobe, Photoshop, and PostScript are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Canon is a registered trademark of Canon Inc. EPSON Stylus is a registered trademark of Seiko Epson Corporation. Hewlett-Packard and DeskJet are registered trademarks of Hewlett Packard. Mac, Mac OS, Quick Draw, and Finder are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Minolta QMS is a trademark of Minolta Co., Ltd. Netscape Navigator is a registered trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation. Tektronix is a registered trademark of Tektronix, Inc. Wacom, Intuos, and ToolID are trademarks or registered trademarks of W acom Company, Ltd. Other product, font, and company names and logos may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Welcome to Corel Painter Essentials

What’s Included in Corel Painter

Essentials? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Streamlined User Interface . . . . . . . . . . 1

Why Upgrade to Corel Painter 8? . . . . . 2

About Your User Manual . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Corel Customer Support Services . . . . . . 6

The Workspace

Using Menus and Document Window . . 9

Workspace Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Using the Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Using Selectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Using the Property Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Using the Brush Selector Bar . . . . . . . . 15

Working with Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Exploring the Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Basics

Opening Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Working with Documents . . . . . . . . . . 22

Saving Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Closing Documents and Quitting the

Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Setting Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Wacom Intuos Support . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Using Textures and Patterns

Using Paper Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Using Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Color

Working with Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Changing Paper Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Using Gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Painting

Exploring Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Understanding Brushes . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Using a Stylus or Mouse . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Selecting a Brush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Brush Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Where You Can Paint . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Marking the Canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Painting with Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Painting with Airbrushes . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Filling Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Cloning and Tracing

Cloning Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Cloning a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Using Tracing Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Changing Clone Source . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Painting in the Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Using Auto Van Gogh . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Turning Other Brushes into Cloners . . 57

Using Layers

Layer Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Working with Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Creating Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Saving Files Containing Layers . . . . . . 62

Deleting Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Managing Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Editing Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Changing Layer Characteristics . . . . . . 67

Using Selections

Working with Selections . . . . . . . . . . 69

Creating Selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Editing Path-Based Selections . . . . . . . 72

Using Image Effects

Basics of Applying Effects . . . . . . . . . 75

Orientation Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Apply Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Apply Surface Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Other Surface Control Effects . . . . . . . 84

Esoterica Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Working with Text

The Text Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Applying Effects to Text . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Printing

Understanding Printing . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Setting Up Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Printing an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

The Image Hose

How it Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Using the Image Hose . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Controlling the Image Hose . . . . . . . . 88

Table of contentsii

Welcome to Corel Painter Essentials

Corel Painter Essentials is the leading Natural-Media painting application. Corel Painter Essentials lets you simulate a wide range of art tools, from acrylics and airbrushes to crayons and oils.

What’s Included in Corel Painter Essentials?

Corel Painter Essentials lets you experiment with a wide range of Natural-Media tools. A portfolio of features will help you expand your digital drawing and painting techniques.

Streamlined User Interface

Corel Painter Essentials features a streamlined user interface based on the following new elements:

Toolbox

The toolbox appears vertically and, by default, is docked to the top-left corner of the document window. The toolbox lets you access the tools in Corel Painter Essentials, as well as the primary and secondary colors, and provides easy access to the Paper, Pattern, Gradient and Nozzle libraries.

The toolbox can be undocked and moved anywhere inside the application window, or it can be turned off.

Property Bar

The property bar is context-sensitive depending on which tool is selected, providing commonly used controls for each tool.

The property bar is docked below the menu bar by default, but it can be undocked and moved to any location in the document window, or turned off.

Brush Selector

The Brush Selector lets you choose a brush category, using the Brush Category picker, and a brush variant, using the Brush Variant picker. The name of the selected brush category is displayed on the right side of the Brush Selector.

The Brush Selector is docked, by default, to the top-right corner of the document window, beside the property bar. It can be undocked and moved to any location in the document window, or it can be turned off.

Palettes

The palettes include the following feature:

• Expand/Collapse — You can expand or collapse palettes by

clicking the palette arrow in the top corner of the palette. When the triangle points down, the palette is expanded. When it points to the right, the palette is collapsed.

Brush Variants

Corel Painter Essentials includes an array of Brush variants. Brushes are included in the following 15 categories:

•Acrylics

•Airbrushes

•Artists

•Blenders

•Chalks

•Cloners

•Crayons

•Erasers

•Image Hose

•Oils

• Palette Knives

•Pastels

• Pattern Pens

•Pencils

•Tinting

Why Upgrade to Corel Painter 8?

Corel Painter 8 lets you experiment with the industry’s widest range of Natural-Media tools and includes all the features and behaviors of Corel Painter Essentials.

Corel Painter 8 includes a new Mixer palette that realistically mimics the traditional paint mixing experience. Digital water color, a new Sketch effect, and more than 400 new brushes all expand your creative potential.

You can create custom brush variants using the new Brush Creator, which includes the Randomizer, Transposer, and Stroke Designer. Corel Painter 8 also includes redesigned layer masks and channels that provide a smoother workflow and greater compatibility with Adobe Photoshop.

Info Palette

The new Info palette provides access to the following information:

Welcome to Corel Painter Essentials2

•Image size preview

• Document information, such as width and height

• X and Y coordinates and the cursor position

• Context-sensitive information based on the selected tool. For example, if the Eyedropper tool is selected, the HSV and RGB information is displayed.

• Unit information, such as pixels, inches, and resolution

Mixer Palette

The new Mixer palette lets you mix colors interactively. The Mixer palette contains a Brush tool and a Palette Knife tool for applying and mixing colors, mimicking the traditional experience of mixing two or more colors on a palette.

The Mixer palette also includes an Eyedropper tool for sampling specially mixed colors from imagery, as well as Zoom and Pan tools for easy navigation in the palette. You can choose to save your Mixer palette

settings for future use, and you can create a custom color set from the colors in the Mixer palette.

Digital Water Color

Digital Water Color is a simple, transparent medium that is ideal for hand painting line drawings, touching up photographs, or creating simple water color washes.

Sketch Effect

The new Sketch effect in Corel Painter 8 lets you convert images or photographs to simple pencil drawings, while providing controls for the amount of paper grain being applied, the heaviness of the pencil line, and the desired level of detail.

New Brush Variants

Corel Painter 8 includes over 400 new Brush variants. New brushes are included in the following categories:

•Acrylics

•Airbrushes

•Artists

•Blenders

• Calligraphy Pens

•Chalks

•Charcoals

• Colored Pencils

•Conte

•Crayons

• Digital Water Color

• Distortion

• Erasers

•Felt Pens

•F-X

•Gouache

•Image Hose

•Liquid Ink

•Oil Pastels

•Oils

• Palette Knives

•Pastels

•Pattern Pens

•Pencils

•Pens

Corel Painter Essentials 3

•Photo

•Sponges

•Sumi-e

•Tinting

• Water Colors

Brush Creator

Corel Painter 8 features a Brush Creator, which is designed to make the brush variant creation process easy and fun. The Brush Creator includes three key features:

• Randomizer — The Randomizer lets you choose an existing brush variant and randomize its properties to create a new variant. You can set the amount of randomization to determine how much of the original brush’s properties remain—a low amount will result in variants that are very similar to the original, while a high amount will result in variants that are radically different. To help you visualize how the new brush variants will look, the Randomizer

provides a brush stroke preview of each new variant.

• Tr an s po s er — The Transposer lets you change the properties of one brush variant using the properties of another. For example, you can choose the 2B Pencil and create brush variants that are mutated toward another variant, such as Charcoal. To help you visualize how the new brush variants will look, the Transposer provides a brush stroke preview of each new variant.

• Stroke Designer — The Stroke Designer lets you modify the properties of brush variants using advanced controls. The Stroke Designer has 16 different sets of controls: General, Size, Spacing, Angle, Bristle, Well, Rake, Random, Mouse, Cloning, Impasto, Image Hose, Airbrush, Water, Digital Water, and Liquid Ink. To make the brush creation process more visual and interactive, the Stroke Designer includes a live preview that

updates each time you make changes to the brush variant.

Industry-Standard Masks, Layer Masks, and Channels

Layer Masks: The redesigned layer masks let you hide and reveal areas of layers without making permanent changes to an image.

Channels: The Channels palette lets you use alpha channels to create and store masks to modify, separate, and preserve specific areas of an image.

And So Much More...

• Thumbnail previews for Layers, Layer Masks, and Channels

• Brush cursor preview that lets you see the size of the brush you’re painting with

• Enhanced keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to transition between Corel Painter 8 and other applications

• Enhanced file compatibility with Adobe Photoshop

Welcome to Corel Painter Essentials4

• New paper textures, patterns, Image Hose nozzles, brush looks, gradients, and more!

• Extra content CD, including 100 pictures from http://www.brandxpictures.com, hundreds of brushes, paper textures, and more!

About Your User Manual

You can find answers to most of your questions in the Corel Painter Essentials User Manual. Available as PDF, it provides information you need to get the most out of Corel Painter Essentials.

The Corel Painter Essentials User Manual is for both the Mac OS and Windows platforms. As a convention, Mac OS commands precede Windows commands in the text.

When a modifier key differs between the Mac OS and Windows, the Mac OS modifier is listed first, followed by the Windows modifier. For example, Command + I (Mac OS) or Ctrl + I

(Windows) means that Mac OS users would press Command + I and Windows users would press Ctrl + I.

Choosing a menu item from a menu follows the convention “Choose menu name > menu item.” For simplicity, the term “folder” refers to directories as well as folders. The Corel Painter Essentials interface for Mac OS and Windows platforms is identical, unless otherwise specified.

Registering Products

Registering products is important. Registration provides you with timely access to the latest product updates, valuable information about product releases, and access to free downloads, articles, tips and tricks, and special offers.

You can register a Corel product

• online—follow the instructions provided on the Corel Web site

• by mail—send the product registration card to the Corel Customer Service Center nearest you

• during installation—follow the instructions provided by the product setup

Before Calling Corel Technical Support

Before you call Corel Technical Support, please check out some of Corel's complimentary online support options. Please have the following information available to assist the Technical Support representative in helping you:

• a brief description of the problem, including the exact text of any error messages received and the steps required to re-create the problem

• the type of computer, monitor, pointing device (for example, mouse or stylus), printer, and video adapter (display adapter) you are using

• the type and version number of the operating system you are using

• the product information (version number, serial number from the

Corel Painter Essentials 5

product authenticity card, and PIN) of the Corel application you are using. To find the product information, choose Help menu > About Corel Painter Essentials in the application.

• a list of any applications loaded into RAM. Click the Start menu on the Windows taskbar, and click Programs > Startup to determine whether there are any other applications running.

Corel Customer Support Services

Corel Support Services can provide you with prompt and accurate information about product features, specifications, pricing, availability, services and technical support.

Corel Knowledge Base

kb.corel.com

The Corel Knowledge Base allows you to read, print and download documents that contain answers to many technical questions.

Newsgroups

www.corel.com/newsgroups

The newsgroups (peer-to-peer forums) llow you to exchange information, tips and techniques with other users of Corel products.

Downloads

www.corel.com/downloads

You can download product patches, updates and trial versions.

telephone support for this Corel product is available as a fee-based service only.

North America

• For pricing, purchasing, or general inquiries about Corel products, you can call Customer Service tollfree at 1-800-772-6735.

• To speak directly to a technician on a Pay-As-You-Go line please dial 1900-733-8780. To speak directly to a technician on a Pay-Per-Incident line please dial 1-877-662-6735. The hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, Eastern Standard Time (EST).

Outside North America

Online Support

For information about online support services, visit www.corel.com/support. Please note, some of the services are available only in English.

Welcome to Corel Painter Essentials6

Telephone Support

For detailed information regarding telephone support services please visit www.corel.com/support. Live

For pricing, purchasing, or general inquiries about Corel products, call Customer Service toll-free at the corresponding in-country number listed below.

Please note that these numbers may change as we adapt our services to fit user needs. Check the international support numbers page at www.corel.com/support for the most up to date contact details.

Contact Customer Service for pricing, purchasing, general inquiries, or replacement CDs. Contact Technical Support should you require technical assistance operating your Corel software.

Country Customer

Service

Argentina 0800 777 3203 57 1 523 1240

Australia 1 800 658 850 61 2 8844 4101

Austria 0192 89600 0192 89600

Belgium (Dutch) 0240 06733 0240 06733

Belgium (French) 0240 06777 0240 06777

Brazil 0800 14 1212 55 11 5696 5797

Chile 54 0800 777 3203 57 1 523 1240

China 10 800 610 2323 10 800 610 2673

Colombia 01 800 091 9370 57 1 523 1240

Czech Republic 0224 239645 0224 239645

Denmark 352 58008 352 58008

Finland 922 906040 922 906040

France 0170 706090 0170 706090

Germany 06922 2220288 06922 2220288

Hong Kong 800 964 514 800 964 515

Hungary 204 117089 204 117089

Indonesia 1 803 61 539 1 803 61 544

Ireland 0124 77724 0124 77724

Technical Support

Corel Painter Essentials 7

Country Customer

Service

Israel 44 1628 581601 44 1628 581601

Italy 0236 003600 0236 003600

Japan 81 3554 53274 81 3531 93013

Luxembourg 44 1628 581603 44 1628 581603

Malaysia 1 800 807 895 1 800 807 899

Mexico 1 800 1234 854 57 1 523 1240

Netherlands 0207 132700 0207 132700

New Zealand 0508 267 351 0800 908 592

Norway 229 71908 229 71908

Poland 071 3477279 071 3477279

Portugal 44 1628 581601 44 1628 581601

Singapore 800 6161 853 800 6161 854

South Africa 0860 223 388 0860 223 388

South Korea 82 2 3444 5166 82 2 3444 5166

Spain 0914 141500 0914 141500

Sweden 0856 610555 0856 610555

Switzerland 0158 03300 0158 03300

Switzerland 0158 03280 0158 03280

Taiwan 00801 61 1411 00801 61 1412

UK 0870 774 0202 0870 774 0202

Technical Support

Welcome to Corel Painter Essentials8

The Workspace

The Corel Painter Essentials workspace has been designed to give you easy access to tools, effects, commands, and features.

The workspace is organized across a series of menus, selectors, and interactive palettes. Some features are also available in the frame of the document window.

Using Menus and Document Window

Using the commands on the Corel Painter Essentials menu bar, you can:

• work with files and editing commands

• adjust and apply effects

• perform selection operations

• control the document window or the Corel Painter Essentials workspace

The document window lets you access the following features with the click of a button:

•tracing paper

•drawing mode

• navigation

Workspace Tour

Menu bar

Property bar

Toolbox

Canvas

Document window

Drawing mode icon

Brush selector

Colors palette

Layers palette

Navigation icon

The Workspace10

Zoom slider

Using the Toolbox

In the toolbox, there are tools to make marks, draw shapes, fill shapes with color, view and navigate, and make selections. There are also four selectors that let you choose papers, gradients, patterns, and nozzles.

time. Any tool that has a triangle in the bottom-right corner has one or more tools underneath it in a flyout menu.

The toolbox is open by default; however, it can be closed. You can move the toolbox around the document window, and you can dock the toolbox to the document window or to other palettes.

The toolbox.

Some tools of similar function share a space in the toolbox. The button for only one of these tools is displayed at a

The current tool can be modified by options on the property bar, which change as you change tools. For more information, see “Using the Property Bar” on page 14.

To access tools grouped in flyout menus:

1 In the toolbox, hold down the tool

icon whose flyout menu you want to open.

2 Choose the tool you want to use.

Some tools share a space in the toolbox. Hold down the tool button that’s displayed to open the flyout menu.

To close the toolbox

• Do one of the following:

• Click the Close button in the top corner of the toolbox.

•Choose Window menu > Hide Toolbox.

To open the toolbox, choose Window menu > Show Toolbox.

To move the toolbox

1 Place the cursor over the title bar of

the toolbox.

Corel Painter Essentials 11

2 Drag the toolbox to a new location

in the document window.

To dock the toolbox

1 Place the cursor over the title bar of

the toolbox.

2 Drag the toolbox to the edge of the

document window or a palette.

3 When the toolbox lines up with

the edge of the document window or palette, release the mouse button.

The toolbox will snap into place.

Navigation and Utility Tools

The Magnifier Tool

You can use the Magnifier tool to magnify areas of an image when you are performing detailed work, or to reduce areas to get an overall view of an image. For more information, see “Zooming” on page 22.

The Grabber Tool

The Grabber tool gives you a quick way to scroll an image. For more information, see “Repositioning Documents” on page 24.

The Rotate Page Tool

The Rotate Page tool lets you rotate an image window to accommodate the way you draw naturally. Refer to “Rotating Documents” on page 24 for more information.

The Crop Tool

The Crop tool lets you remove unwanted edges from the image. For more information, see “Cropping Images” on page 25.

Tools that Apply Color

The Brush Tool

You use the Brush tool to make marks on the Canvas or a layer. The Brush tool represents a category of marking tools. Within the Brush category are pencils, pens, chalk, an airbrush, oil paints, and more.

When the Brush tool is selected, you can choose specific brushes from the Brush selector bar. For more information about selecting brushes and tools, refer to “Selecting a Brush” on page 45.

On the property bar, you can set size, opacity and, depending on the brush variant selected, sometimes grain.

The Paint Bucket Tool

The Paint Bucket tool lets you fill an area. The property bar shows fill choices and fill color selections.

The Workspace12

Double-click the Paint Bucket tool to specify what color in the image to lock out of your fill. For more information on the Paint Bucket tool, refer to “Filling Techniques” on page 50.

The Dropper Tool

The Dropper tool lets you pick up a color from an existing image. When you select a color with the Dropper tool, that color becomes the current color on the Colors palette. For more information, see “Sampling Colors from Imagery” on page 41.

The Selection Tools

The Oval Selection Tool

You use the Oval Selection tool to create oval selections. Refer to “Using Selection Tools” on page 70 for more information.

The Lasso Tool

The Lasso tool lets you draw a freehand selection. Refer to “Using Selection Tools” on page 70 for more information.

The Adjuster Tools

The Selection Adjuster Tool

The Selection Adjuster tool lets you select, move, and manipulate selections created with the Rectangular, Oval, and Lasso selection tools.

Th e Te x t To o l

The Text tool creates text shapes. Use the property bar to set the font, point size, alignment and text color. For more information, see “Working with Te x t” o n p a ge 9 1 .

The Rectangular Selection Tool

You use the Rectangular Selection tool to create rectangular selections. Refer to “Using Selection Tools” on page 70 for more information.

The Layer Adjuster Tool

The Layer Adjuster tool is used to select, move and manipulate layers. Refer to “Using Layers” on page 59 for more information.

The Color Selection Box

The Color Selection box lets you choose primary and secondary colors. The front rectangle displays the primary color, and the back rectangle displays the secondary color. For more information, refer to “Understanding Primary and Secondary Colors” on page 40.

Corel Painter Essentials 13

The Color Selection box.

To change the primary or secondary color:

1 Double-click the primary or

secondary color rectangle.

2 Choose a color from the Color

dialog box.

Using Selectors

The selectors in the toolbox give you quick access to the libraries for the following Corel Painter Essentials elements: papers, gradients, patterns, and nozzles.

You can display items in selectors in a list with thumbnails.

To open a selector:

1 Click the flyout menu arrow on

the bottom-right corner of the selector you want to open.

2 Choose an item from the list.

Using the Property Bar

The property bar in Corel Painter Essentials is context-sensitive — it changes according to the tool you are using.

You can access settings and options for each tool, and you can change them according to your preferences using the boxes or pop-up sliders. Tool settings are retained when you switch from one tool to another. You can also use the property bar to restore the default settings of the selected tool.

The property bar is docked horizontally to the menu bar by default. You can move the property bar anywhere in the document window, dock it under the menu bar again, or close it.

The property bar for the Rectangular Selection tool.

To access tool settings on the property bar:

• Choose a tool from the toolbox.

Tool settings are displayed on the property bar.

To change tool settings on the property bar:

1 Choose a tool from the toolbox. 2 Do any of the following:

• Type a value in the box next to the control, or click the arrow next to the control and adjust the pop-up slider.

• Click a box to make a selection.

•Enable or disable the check box next to the option you want to use.

Note

•

Not all of these options are available for every tool. The settings change depending on the tool selected.

To reset the default tool settings:

• Click the Reset Tool button on the

property bar.

Note

•

The Reset Tool button on the property bar has the same icon as the selected tool in the toolbox.

The Workspace14

To move the property bar:

• Point to the bar on the right side of the property bar, and drag it to its new location.

To dock the property bar:

• Point to the title bar of the property bar, and drag it under the menu bar.

The property bar snaps into place.

To close the property bar:

• Do one of the following:

•Choose Window menu >

Hide Property Bar.

• If the property bar is undocked,

click the close button on the title bar.

Tip

To show the property bar, choose

•

Window menu > Show Property Bar.

Using the Brush Selector Bar

The Brush selector bar lets you choose from a variety of brush categories and variants. Brush categories are groups of similar brushes and media. Brush variants are specific brushes and brush settings within a brush category.

The name of the selected brush category appears at the top of the Brush selector bar. The name of the selected brush variant appears under the brush category name.

The Brush selector bar.

To display the Brush selector bar:

• Choose Window menu > Show Brush Selector Bar.

To choose a brush from the Brush selector bar:

1 On the Brush selector bar, click the

Brush Category arrow and choose a brush category.

2 Click the Brush Variant arrow, and

choose a variant.

Previewing Brushes

The Brush Category selector shows you a preview of the currently selected brush category and lets you choose a new brush category. The Brush Variant selector does the same for brush variants.

You can preview brush categories and variants in lists with thumbnails.

To display brush categories and variant lists:

• On the Brush selector bar, click the Brush Category or Brush Variant arrow.

Corel Painter Essentials 15

Items in the Brush selector bar can be displayed as lists with thumbnails.

Brush Selector Bar Menu Commands

The Brush selector bar menu restores either one or all brush variant defaults.

Moving and Docking the Brush Selector Bar

The Brush selector bar is displayed at the top-right of the property bar by default. It can be moved to a new location in the document window, or it can be docked to the edge of the document window or other palettes.

To move the Brush selector bar

• Point to the title bar of the Brush selector bar, and drag it to its new location.

To dock the Brush selector bar

1 Point to the title bar of the Brush

selector bar, and drag it to the edge of the document window or a palette.

2 When the Brush selector bar is

lined up with the edge of the document window or palette, release the mouse button.

The Brush selector bar snaps into place.

Closing the Brush Selector Bar

You can close the Brush selector bar to hide it from view.

To close the Brush selector bar

• Do one of the following:

•Choose Window menu >

Hide Brush Selector Bar.

• If the Brush selector bar is undocked, click the close button on the title bar.

Working with Palettes

The interactive palettes in Corel Painter Essentials let you access the commands, controls, and settings available when creating documents.

Showing and Hiding Palettes

You can show or hide a palette by choosing its name from the Window menu.

To show or hide a palette:

• Choose Window menu, and choose the palette you want to show or hide.

Tip

•

You can hide a palette by clicking the

close box on the palette title bar.

To show or hide all palettes:

• Choose Window menu > Show/ Hide Palettes.

The Workspace16

Exploring the Palettes

Navigating Palettes

Docking Palettes

As you work with Corel Painter Essentials, you’ll use the following palettes:

The Colors Palette

•The Colors palette lets you choose primary and secondary colors for painting in Corel Painter Essentials documents. You can also use the Clone Color option on the Colors palette . For more information, see “Working with Color” on page 39.

The Layers Palette

•The Layers palette contains thumbnail previews of all the layers in a Corel Painter Essentials document. You can use the buttons on the Layers palette to add, arrange and delete layers. You can use the slider to adjust the opacity.

When a palette is displayed, it must be expanded for you to access its settings. You can collapse palettes to save screen real estate, while keeping them displayed in the application.

To expand or collapse a palette:

• Click the palette arrow in the top corner of the palette.

When the triangle points down, the palette is expanded. When it points to the right, the palette is collapsed.

To scroll through the Layers palette:

• Do one of the following:

• Use the scrollbar on the right

side of the palette to scroll through the palette.

•Press Option + click (Mac OS)

or Alt + click (Windows), and drag vertically inside the palette. The cursor changes to a hand and the palette scrolls as you drag.

You can save valuable room on your screen by docking palettes.

This handy feature of Corel Painter Essentials lets them be docked into place when they get close to the top or bottom edge of another palette. In addition to tidying up your workspace, this feature can help keep a palette from being covered up by another palette.

To dock palettes:

1 Place the cursor over the title bar of

the palette you want to dock.

2 Drag the palette to the top or

bottom of a second palette.

3 When the first palette lines up

with the second palette, release the mouse button.

The palette will snap into place.

To undock palettes:

1 Place the cursor over the title bar of

the palette you want to undock.

2 Drag the palette to another

location in the workspace.

Corel Painter Essentials 17

Basics

The Corel Painter Essentials application provides a digital workspace in which you can create new imagery or alter existing imagery using the Corel Painter Essentials Natural-Media tools and effects. Your working image is known as a document and is displayed in a document window—this document window includes navigation and productivity features to help you work efficiently.

As you create an image, you can save your document in a number of different file formats: RIFF (Corel Painter Essentials native format), JPEG, and TIFF, to name a few. Corel Painter Essentials also lets you open/ import images in many file formats.

Every artist works in a unique way, and every computer system has its own configuration of memory, disks, printers, and accessories. Corel Painter Essentials preferences let you customize the program for your own

work style and optimum performance on your particular system. You can also optimize the features of your tablet and pens in Corel Painter Essentials.

Opening Documents

The first step to creating an image in Corel Painter Essentials is opening a document. You can open a blank Canvas by creating a new document, work with an existing image by opening a file, place a file into a document, or acquire an image from a scanner or digital camera to place directly into a document.

Creating New Documents

The New command creates a blank, untitled document based on the specifications you set in the New dialog box.

• Canvas Size shows the RAM requirement for creating the document at the specified width, height, and resolution. This number does not reflect the file size for the saved document. A saved Corel Painter Essentials file is usually 25% to 50% of the size of the working document, depending on the number of colors it contains.

• Width and Height determine the dimensions of the Canvas. You can change the unit of measurement using the menu. Choose from pixels (the default), inches, centimeters, points, picas, and columns (2" wide).

• Resolution is the number of pixels per inch (ppi) or centimeter that make up an image. In the New dialog, setting the document’s pixels per inch is the same as setting its dpi. Refer to “Understanding Resolution” on page 21 for detailed information about document, screen, and print resolutions.

• Paper Color lets you select a background paper color—or Canvas color—when you create a new document. The default is white.

To create a new document:

1 Choose File menu > New. 2 In the New dialog box, enter

values for the width, height, and resolution of the document.

Change the unit of measurement by choosing an option from the menu.

3 Click in the Paper Color box to set

the document’s background to a color other than white.

Choose a color from the system color picker that appears.

4 Click OK.

A new document appears in the workspace.

Opening Existing Documents

You can open documents from other graphics applications and use Corel Painter Essentials to add brush

strokes, tints, or paper textures. Or, you can clone a document to re-create it in a different medium.

Corel Painter Essentials lets you open the following file formats:

• RIFF—Corel Painter Essentials native format (RIF)

• TIFF (TIF)

•Mac PICT (PCT)

•Windows Bitmap (BMP)

• GIF—Corel Painter Essentials does not convert GIF animations to frame stacks.

• JPEG (JPG).

Note

•

Corel Painter Essentials does not

support LZW compressed TIFF file format. Only uncompressed TIFF files open into Corel Painter Essentials.

To open an existing document:

1 Choose File menu > Open. 2 In the Select Image dialog box, use

the dialog controls to locate the file you want to open.

Basics20

Corel Painter Essentials lists every image’s file size, file format, and dimensions in pixels. In addition, files saved in Corel Painter Essentials include a thumbnail image for browsing purposes.

3 Click Browse.

The Browse dialog box shows thumbnails for all the RIFF files in a folder.

4 Double-click the file name, or

select a file and click Open.

Tip

The File menu also offers you a

•

shortcut to previously opened documents. Before choosing Open in the File menu, check the recently opened files list at the bottom of the File menu.

Acquiring Images

You can acquire images for Corel Painter Essentials directly from an external device—such as a scanner or digital camera—if the device provides a TWAIN driver (Windows)

Before acquiring images:

• Make sure your TWAIN driver is properly installed.

Understanding Resolution

When working with images in a digital workspace, it is helpful to understand the concept and applications of resolution. Resolution refers to how Corel Painter Essentials measures, displays, saves, and prints images—either as small squares of color known as pixels or as mathematical objects known as vectors.

A document’s resolution affects both its appearance on your computer screen and its print quality. You can specify a document’s resolution when you create a new document, acquire an image, and save/export a file.

Resolution and Screen Appearance

Most monitors have a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch). Because of this, the Corel Painter Essentials display default is 72 ppi (pixels per inch). This

means that each pixel in the Corel Painter Essentials image occupies one pixel on your monitor. The display resolution does not affect the document’s actual ppi—only how the image is displayed on the monitor.

For example, a 300 ppi document displays at approximately four times its actual size. This happens because each pixel in the Corel Painter Essentials image occupies one pixel on your monitor, and the monitor’s pixels are four times the size of the image’s pixels. Put another way, at 300 pixels per inch, your document will be approximately a quarter of its on-screen size when printed. In this example, if you want to view the image at actual size, set the zoom level to 25%.

Keep in mind that if you leave the dimensions in pixels and then change the pixels per inch (resolution), the actual printed size will be affected by the change. If you set your document size in inches, centimeters, points, or picas and change resolution, the dimensions will not be affected by the change.

Corel Painter Essentials 21

Resolution and Print Quality

The resolution of output devices (printers) is measured in dpi and, in the case of halftones, lines per inch (lpi). Output device resolutions vary depending on the type of press and paper you’re printing on. Generally, a photograph will be output at a crisp 150 lpi if printed on glossy magazine stock and at 85 lpi for more porous, and therefore more forgiving, newspaper stock.

If you are using a personal laser printer or inkjet printer, set your document size in inches, centimeters, points, or picas at the dpi specific to your printer. Most printers will produce excellent output from images set to 300 ppi. Your file will be output correctly, at the best resolution for your laser printer and at the proper size. Increasing the file’s ppi setting does not necessarily improve the output, and can make for a larger and sometime unwieldy file.

If you are using a commercial printer or a more sophisticated output device, the dimensions of the image should always be set to the actual size it will

appear in the printed piece. For the resolution, a good rule of thumb is to set your document’s pixels per inch to twice the desired lpi. So, when lpi is 150, the pixels per inch should be twice that, or 300; if the lpi is 85, the pixels per inch should be 170. It’s a good idea to check with your service bureau if you have questions about output device resolution.

Working with Documents

Viewing Documents

You can change your view of an image by changing its level of magnification (zooming in or out), repositioning the document in the Corel Painter Essentials workspace, or rotating the document. You can also change the characteristics of the document window by changing the screen mode, and by selecting options from the Canvas menu.

Zooming

By default, Corel Painter Essentials opens a document at 100% magnification, but you can change the level of magnification by zooming. You can zoom in and out using the Magnifier tool, reset magnification and zoom to fit the screen. You can even zoom in and out while working with other tools.

The Magnifier tool lets you zoom in and out by clicking in the document window.

To zoom in:

1 Do one of the following:

Basics22

• Choose the Magnifier tool in the toolbox.

•Hold down Command + Spa-

cebar (Mac OS) or Ctrl + Spacebar (Windows).

The Magnifier cursor shows a plus sign (+) — indicating you are increasing magnification (zooming in).

2 Click or drag in the document

window.

• Clicking magnifies the image to the next level, as defined in the Zoom Level menu on the property bar.

• When you drag, Corel Painter Essentials chooses the magnification level that most closely conforms to the selected area and centers the screen view on that area.

The percentage the document is magnified appears in the document window’s title bar.

To zoom out:

1 Do one of the following:

• Choose the Magnifier tool and hold down Option (Mac OS) or Alt + Ctrl (Windows).

• Hold down Option +Com-

mand +Spacebar (Mac OS) or Alt + Ctrl + Spacebar (Win-

dows).

The Magnifier cursor shows a minus sign (-) — indicating you are decreasing magnification (zooming out).

2 Click in the document window.

Each click reduces the magnification to the next level, as defined in the Zoom Level menu on the property bar.

Tip

•

You can also zoom in or out by moving the Scale slider, typing a value in the bottom left corner of the image window, or choosing an option from the Zoom Level pop-up menu on the property bar.

To zoom using the Magnifier tool

1 In the toolbox, click the Magnifier

tool.

2 Choose a zoom level from the

Zoom Level pop-up menu on the property bar.

To reset magnification to 100%:

• Double-click the Magnifier tool.

To zoom to fit the screen:

• Do one of the following:

•Choose Window menu >

Zoom to Fit Screen.

• Double-click the Grabber tool in the toolbox .

Corel Painter Essentials generates a view of the entire document to fit the size of your screen.

To access the Magnifier tool while any other tool is selected:

• Press Command + Spacebar (Mac OS) or Ctrl + Spacebar (Windows) and click to zoom in; press Command + Option +

Spacebar (Mac OS) or Ctrl + Alt + Spacebar (Windows) and click

to zoom out.

Corel Painter Essentials 23

Repositioning Documents

The Grabber tool allows you to reposition a document in the Corel Painter Essentials workspace and view different areas of an image.

To use the Grabber tool:

1 Activate the Grabber tool by doing

one of the following:

• Choosing the Grabber tool .

• Holding down the Spacebar. The cursor changes to the Grabber

tool and the property bar shows the zoom level. You can change the zoom level from the property bar.

2 Do one of the following:

• Drag in the document window to scroll through your image.

• Click once in the document window to center the image.

To access the Grabber tool from any tool:

• Hold down the Spacebar.

To size your image window to fit the screen area:

• Do one of the following:

• Double-click the Grabber tool.

•Choose Window menu > Zoom to Fit.

• Click Fit on Screen on the property bar.

Tip

•

To return the image window to center, click once with the Grabber tool or click Center Image on the property bar.

Rotating Documents

The Rotate Page tool lets you rotate an image on the screen to accommodate the way you draw naturally.

You can access the Rotate tool by clicking on the small arrow at the lower right corner of the Grabber tool. Select the Rotate tool from the flyout menu that opens. It will then appear in the toolbox.

• Clicking it in the toolbox .

• Holding down Option + Spa-

cebar (Mac OS) or Alt + Spacebar (Windows).

The cursor changes to a hand with a pointing finger.

2 Drag in the document window to

rotate the image. Move the cursor clockwise to rotate

the image clockwise. Move the cursor counter-clockwise to rotate the image counter-clockwise.

The new rotation angle appears on the property bar.

Tip

You can also rotate an image by

•

specifying a rotation angle on the property bar.

To rotate the page:

1 Activate the Rotate Page tool by

doing one of the following:

Basics24

2 Do one of the following:

• Click once in the document window.

• Double-click the Rotate Page tool.

• Click the Reset Tool button on the property bar.

To constrain rotation to 90° increments:

• Hold down the Shift key while rotating.

Cropping Images

You can remove unwanted edges from the image with the Crop tool. You can adjust the ratio of the cropped image, and choose to maintain the aspect ratio.

You can adjust the rectangle by dragging a corner or any of its edges.

3 When you’re ready to execute the

crop, click inside the rectangle.

To constrain cropping to a square:

• Press Shift + drag while defining the rectangular area with the Crop tool.

To adjust the ratio of the cropped image:

1 Click the Crop tool in the toolbox. 2 On the property bar, type ratio

values in the boxes.

3 If necessary, enable the Ratio check

box to maintain aspect ratio when cropping the image.

Rotate a document to accommodate the way you naturally draw.

To return an image to its original orientation:

1 Activate the Rotate Page tool .

To crop an image:

1 Click the Crop tool in the

toolbox.

2 Drag inside the image to define the

rectangular area you want to keep.

Using Full Screen Mode

Full screen mode allows you to hide your computer’s desktop and view the document window without scroll bars. When full screen mode is on, the document window is centered over a solid background. All Corel Painter

Corel Painter Essentials 25

Essentials features—except the buttons on the document window— work when using full screen mode.

To toggle the full screen mode on and off:

• Press Command + M (Mac OS) or Ctrl + M (Windows), or choose

Window menu > Screen Mode Toggle.

Tip

•

You can position the image window

anywhere on the screen by holding down the Spacebar and dragging with your mouse or stylus.

Resizing the Canvas

If you want the same image at a different scale, you can resize the canvas. You can also change the size of the drawing area, and you can crop the canvas.

the current and new size by width, height, and resolution.

2 Enter a new value for width,

height or resolution. For more information on these

values, refer to “Creating New Documents” on page 19.

3 The Constrain File Size option lets

you choose how to deal with dimensions relative to resolution.

When Constrain File Size is enabled, you can change the height and width of the image together. The resolution will change accordingly.

When Constrain File Size is disabled, you can change the height and width independently of the resolution, and vice versa.

If you choose Pixels or Percent as the unit and enter a value, Corel Painter Essentials automatically disables the Constrain option.

4 Click OK.

2 In the Canvas Size dialog box,

specify the number of pixels you want to add to any side of the canvas.

Enter negative values to reduce the canvas size.

To crop the canvas:

1 Display the image at a scale where

you can see all of it.

2 In the toolbox, choose the Crop

tool .

3 Drag in the image to describe the

rectangular area you want to keep.

4 Adjust the rectangle by dragging a

corner or any of its edges. To constrain the cropping

rectangle to a certain aspect ratio, enter values for the width and height aspect, and enable the Ratio option on the property bar.

5 Click inside the rectangle to

perform the cropping operation.

To resize the canvas:

1 Choose Canvas menu > Resize.

Corel Painter Essentials displays the Resize dialog box, which shows

Basics26

To resize the drawing area:

1 Choose Canvas menu > Canvas

Size.

Drag-and-Drop Features

Dragging Between Documents

You can copy selections and layers between Corel Painter Essentials documents by dragging from one window to the other. When you drag a selection to a new document window, Corel Painter Essentials automatically turns the selection into a layer. When you drag a layer to a new document, the layer keeps its original properties.

Dragging Between Programs (Mac OS)

Corel Painter Essentials supports drag-and-drop functionality between applications on Mac OS. This can be a quick, convenient way to acquire or export imagery.

Raster imagery that you drag into a Corel Painter Essentials document window becomes a layer. You can drag a PICT file from the Finder to a Corel Painter Essentials document. The PICT image becomes a layer.

You can also drag layers out of Corel Painter Essentials to another application or to the Finder; the exported imagery is in PICT format, supported by most applications. When you drag out one of these objects, it will automatically rasterize a shape or dynamic layer (at its current settings) to become a PICT.

Note

Though dragging and dropping

•

between programs is not supported on the Windows platform, computers running on either Mac OS or Windows platforms support copying and pasting between Corel Painter Essentials and other programs.

Saving Files

Corel Painter Essentials provides several options for saving files.

To save a file in its current format:

• Choose File menu > Save.

To save a file with a different name or format:

1 Choose File menu > Save As.

2 In the Save Image As dialog box,

use the controls to specify a file name, location, and format.

Saving RIF Files

RIF is the Corel Painter Essentials native format, which retains special information about your document. For example, a RIF file maintains layers so you can return to the file to re-access them.

It’s a good idea to always save files in RIF format first. Think of RIF files as “work in progress” files. When a file is ready for production, then save it to GIF, JPEG, TIF, or a n o t h e r f i l e format.

Corel Painter Essentials lets you compress files and save disk space with a lossless compression method.

When saving in RIF format, leave the Uncompressed option disabled to minimize file size on your hard disk.

Corel Painter Essentials 27

Saving JPEG Files

Corel Painter Essentials supports the JPEG file format. Because of its small file size and high quality, JPEG is commonly used to transmit files through a modem. Unlike GIF, JPEG displays a full range of colors.

JPEG allows you to compress your file on a scale of Fair to Excellent, where quality is directly proportional to file size. These quality settings will let you achieve compression ratios of less than 10:1 to greater than 100:1. JPEG is a “lossy” file format, meaning that a decompressed JPEG file will not be identical pixel-for-pixel to the original. However, because the JPEG algorithm takes into account the sensitivity of the eye to different colors, the higher quality settings should achieve visually satisfying results.

You can assign a URL to layers and placed images and then save the file in GIF or JPEG format to produce an image map.

When you save a file in JPEG format, Corel Painter Essentials displays the JPEG dialog box, with the following options:

• The JPEG Encoding Quality options—Excellent, High, Good, and Fair—let you set file compression on a scale of Excellent to Fair.

The Excellent option compresses the least, but retains the most data. Fair compresses the most, but loses the most data.

• The Quality slider adjusts the quality.

• The Smoothness slider applies smoothing to the entire image. This is useful when using the Fair option, to blur the edges of JPEG artifacts. The default is 0. Keep in mind that using a high smoothness setting can cause blurring.

•The JPEG preview window displays any changes you make to the image as you work.

• The Progressive JPEG option creates a progressive JPEG file. Progressive format is useful when

using a file on the Web. As the name implies, progressive format displays an image in stages—as a series of scans—while the file downloads. The first scan is a low quality image; the following scans improve in quality. This allows the user to see the whole image very quickly.

It is best not to decompress and recompress a file multiple times. Although JPEG can compress and discard data not visible or obvious, the degradation of the data can affect the condition of your file.

When a file has lost a significant amount of data, block patterns can appear in areas of the image. If you try to use the Apply Surface Texture feature on a JPEG file, you may find it will accent the block patterns.

Saving GIF Files

Corel Painter Essentials allows you to save documents in GIF file format. GIF is an 8-bit (or less) file format commonly used to display graphics on the Web.

Basics28

When you save a file as a GIF, you can choose from 4 up to 256 colors. You can choose how your colors will be displayed and what part of your image will be transparent.

An Imaging Method determines how your 24-bit Corel Painter Essentials document will be converted to the limited number of colors that GIF uses. If you choose Quantize to Nearest Color, Corel Painter Essentials picks the color nearest to that of each pixel. If you choose Dither Colors, Corel Painter Essentials will apply a pattern to the colors chosen to generate a more accurate, less banded result.

Closing Documents and Quitting the Application

To close a document:

• Do one of the following:

• Click the current window’s close box.

•Choose File menu > Close.

•Press Command + W (Mac OS) or Ctrl + W (Windows).

To quit Corel Painter Essentials:

• Do one of the following:

• (Mac OS) Choose Corel

Painter Essentials menu > Quit Corel Painter Essentials .

• (Windows) Choose File menu > Quit.

Tip

•

You can also quit Corel Painter Essentials by pressing Command + Q (Mac OS) or Ctrl + Q (Windows).

Setting Preferences

Corel Painter Essentials has two preference dialog boxes: General and Brush Tracking.

Use the General Preferences dialog box to customize your application.

General Preferences

To access General preferences:

• Do one of the following:

• (Mac OS) Choose Corel

Painter Essentials menu > Preferences > General.

• (Windows) Choose Edit menu > Preferences > General.

Corel Painter Essentials 29

Tip

To make changes to other preferences

•

before closing the Preferences dialog box, choose the other preference type from the pop-up menu.

Cursor Setup

Corel Painter Essentials gives you several choices for the appearance of your cursor.

Cloning Preference

When you clone an image, Corel Painter Essentials uses the color information from the original as you fill in your clone. If you would like Corel Painter Essentials to display what part of the original you’re cloning, check the box next to Indicate Clone Source With Crosshairs While Cloning.

• To choose whether the cursor will be a brush or a single pixel, check an option in the Drawing Cursor area.

• To determine the direction the cursor will point (depending on your design and your preferences), click the appropriate option in the Orientation area. This option is only available with the Brush cursor type.

• To set the cursor to show the brush size and shape, enable the Brush Ghosting option. Brush Ghosting gives you immediate visual feedback on the cursor, showing you the shape and size of the selected brush.

Basics30

When you use a brush with “Enable Brush Ghosting” enabled, the cursor shows the shape of the brush.

Temp File Volume

Choosing the temp file volume selects the disk volume that Corel Painter Essentials will put its temporary file on and use to access virtual memory. Choose the volume name (Mac OS) or letter (Windows) from the Temp File Volume pop-up menu.

Units

The Units preference lets you choose units of measurement used by the application’s various sliders and other measurement options.

Draw Zoomed-out Views Using Area-Averaging

When looking at an image at under 100% magnification, screen draw is faster if you leave this option unchecked, and slower but more accurate if checked.

Display Warning When Drawing Outside Selection

Checking this box enables the warning that appears when you draw outside a selection.

Show Commit Dialog When Converting to a Layer

Enable this checkbox if you want to reinstate the Commit dialog after you have selected the Don’t Ask Again button in the Commit dialog.

Brush Tracking Preferences

a pencil brush variant, then set tracking for more pressure when you switch to an oil paint variant.

Corel Painter Essentials saves Brush Tracking between sessions, so whatever tracking sensitivity you set will be the default next time you open the application.

When you draw with traditional media, the amount of pressure you use with a tool determines how dense and how wide your strokes are. Using a pressure-sensitive stylus with Corel Painter Essentials gives you this same kind of control. Each artist has a different strength or pressure level in a stroke. The Brush Tracking preference lets you adjust Corel Painter Essentials to match your stroke strength. This is particularly useful for artists with a light touch. If a light stroke leaves no color on the Canvas, you should use Brush Tracking to increase sensitivity.

You might also change brush tracking between phases of a project. You could use a light touch when sketching with

To set Brush Tracking:

1 Do one of the following:

• (Mac OS) Choose Corel

Painter Essentials menu > Preferences > Brush Tracking.

• (Windows) Choose Edit menu

> Preferences > Brush Tracking.

2 Drag in the scratch pad in a

“normal” stroke. Use the pressure and speed you

prefer when drawing or painting. For specific adjustments, you can move the sliders.

Use the Brush Tracking dialog to customize how Corel Painter Essentials responds to your stylus pressure and speed.

Multiple Undo can use a significant amount of disk space. If you perform multiple operations on the entire image, the whole image must be saved for each undo step.

Using Two Monitors

The Corel Painter Essentials user interface can be displayed across two or more monitors. You can drag the Corel Painter Essentials palettes, the property bar, and the toolbox to any

Corel Painter Essentials 31

monitor; however, each palette must be displayed entirely on one monitor at a time.

If a palette straddles two monitors, it will automatically snap to the nearest vertical edge of the monitor with the largest portion of the palette. If the palette is displayed equally on both monitors, it will snap to the vertical edge of the left monitor.

For best performance, make sure both monitors are set to the same resolution. In Windows, you must stretch the application window to straddle both monitors, then redesign your workspace.

For information on configuring your system to display across two or more monitors, refer to your operating system documentation.

Wacom Intuos Support

Corel Painter Essentials supports the Wacom Intuos tablet, pen, and airbrush technology.

Painting with an Intuos Tablet and Pen

The Intuos tablet provides 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity to help you create smooth curves, gradual transitions, and precise brush strokes. Corel Painter Essentials allows you to take advantage of tilt and bearing input from an Intuos pen in new and exciting ways.

Note

•

The mouse mode option in the Wacom controls panel—which causes a stylus to behave like a mouse—is not compatible with Corel Painter Essentials. Always use pen mode when painting with an Intuos tablet and pen.

Brush Tracking

Every artist uses a different pressure when drawing on an Intuos tablet. The Corel Painter Essentials Brush Tracking preference helps you customize your Intuos tablet to meet your pressure sensitivity needs. Refer to “Brush Tracking Preferences” on page 31 for more information.

Using the Intuos Airbrush Wheel

The Intuos Airbrush—the first true computer airbrush—provides fingertip media flow control. Corel Painter Essentials airbrushes respond to angle (tilt), bearing (direction), and flow (wheel setting) data from the Intuos stylus, allowing for a truly realistic brush stroke. For example, as you tilt your stylus, specks of media land on the paper in a way that reflects that tilt. Corel Painter Essentials airbrushes create conic-sections that mirror your stylus movements. Corel Painter Essentials airbrushes take advantage of the Intuos airbrush stylus wheel control. Like the needle control on a real airbrush, the Intuos wheel control adjusts airbrush flow, or how much medium is applied. For more information about using the new airbrushes, refer to “Painting with Airbrushes” on page 49.

Basics32

Using Multiple Intuos Pens

All Intuos pens—both standard and airbrush—feature ToolID, which allows you to configure and work with multiple pens during a Corel Painter Essentials session.

For example, let’s assume you have two Intuos pens: Pen 1 and Pen 2. Pen 1 is set to an Oil brush variant; Pen 2 is set to an Artists variant.

Every time you bring Pen 1 into the tablet’s proximity, Corel Painter Essentials automatically changes the active brush to the Oil brush. Every time you bring Pen 2 into the tablet’s proximity, Corel Painter Essentials switches to the Artists brush. If you’ve adjusted the tool assigned to a pen’s size or other settings, Corel Painter Essentials remembers those changes for the next time you use that pen.

Corel Painter Essentials 33

Using Textures and Patterns

In Corel Painter Essentials, paper textures, gradients and patterns can all be applied to your image. You can brush some of them on, get them to interact with each other, spray them and smear them. Best of all, you never have to run to the store in the middle of creating to get a new tube of paint or the right kind of paper.

You’ll use these items in several ways:

• to load a Brush tool with media for painting

• to fill selections with the Effects menu > Fill command or the Paint Bucket tool

• to control certain image effects, like Apply Surface Texture

This chapter explains how to select textures and patterns.

Using Paper Texture

In the real world, a marking tool has different results when applied to surfaces with different textures. Corel Painter Essentials allows you to control the texture of the canvas to achieve the results you’d expect from Natural-Media on a given surface.

Of course, some brushes, like the Airbrush, don’t reveal paper texture in their strokes. This follows the behavior of the natural tool.

Note

The terms “paper grain” and “paper

•

texture” are used here synonymously.

Choosing Paper Textures

The Toolbox includes the Paper Selector, which is a drop-down window where the five Corel Painter Essentials paper textures are stored.

Tip

Corel Painter Essentials uses the

•

currently selected texture, so you can make a few strokes, then change the paper and make a few more strokes with different results.

Using Patterns

A pattern is a repeating design. The smallest unit of a pattern is known as a “tile.” When you fill an area with a pattern, the tile is repeated across the selected area.

Most of the brushes interact with the current paper texture.

Paper textures are useful in many ways. The brushes interact with paper “grain,” just as natural tools react with the texture of the surfaces beneath them. Paper grains are useful in applying Surface Texture and other Effects. You can select different paper textures and modify them.

In Corel Painter Essentials, brushes that react with paper texture have a “grainy method.”

Using Textures and Patterns36

The Paper Selector.

To choose a paper texture:

1 Click the Paper Selector to display

the drop-down window.

2 Choose a paper texture from the

Paper Selector.

The Toolbox includes the Pattern Selector, which is a drop-down window where the five Corel Painter Essentials patterns are stored. With patterns, you can:

• fill selections with imagery

• paint patterns directly onto your image

• paint using a cloning brush

• control image effects

The Pattern Selector.

To choose a pattern:

1 From the toolbox, click the Pattern

selector.

2 Choose a pattern from the Pattern

selector.

Corel Painter Essentials 37

Corel Painter Essentials offers many ways to apply color to your image, from changing the paper color, to choosing colors for your brush strokes, to applying gradients to an entire image or selection.

Color

Working with Color

You can select colors in several ways. You can use:

• the Color picker on the Colors palette

• the Dropper tool, which samples color from the image

• the Use Clone Color button on the Colors palette, which pulls color from a source

The Colors palette is one place you can select a color to add to your image.

To display the Colors palette:

• Choose Window menu > Show Colors.

Changing Paper Color

You can change a document’s paper color—the color of the background Canvas—at any time. This color appears when you delete a filled area or use the eraser to remove color.

To change the existing paper color:

1 Choose a primary color from the

Colors palette.

2 Choose Canvas menu > Set Paper

Color.

3 To expose the new paper color, do

one of the following:

• Make a selection, and cut or delete it.

• Use the eraser brush to erase part of your image.

For more information about choosing colors, see “Using the Color Picker” on page 40.

Using the Color Picker

Corel Painter Essentials provides a standard Color picker that has a hue ring and a color triangle. Within the triangle, colors are organized by value and saturation.

• Values span the triangle from top to bottom, with the top of the triangle being the highest value (white), the bottom the lowest value (black).

• Saturation levels go from left to right. Dragging or clicking to the right produces the purest color within the predominant hue. Dragging or clicking to the left reduces the level of color saturation, giving “muddier” or grayer colors.

To choose a hue and color from the standard Color picker:

1 Choose Window menu > Show

to display the Colors

Colors

palette. If the Colors palette is not

expanded, click the palette arrow.

2 Drag the circle on the color ring to

select the predominant hue. You can also select a hue by

clicking once anywhere on the ring.

The triangle displays all the available colors within that selected hue.

3 Select a color on the triangle by

dragging the circle or click the color you want.

Understanding Primary and Secondary Colors

The color you select appears in one of two overlapping rectangles displayed on the Colors palette. The front rectangle represents the selected primary color. The back rectangle shows the selected secondary color. By default, black is the primary color and white is the secondary color. Most of the time you’ll work with the primary color.

Color40

Overlapping rectangles display the current primary and secondary colors.

Don’t confuse the secondary color with what other graphics programs call “the background color.” In Corel Painter Essentials, the “background color” is the paper color.

The secondary color is for multicolor brush strokes, two-point gradients, and Image Hose effects. It’s used when more than one color is applied.

To choose the primary color:

1 Choose Window menu > Show

to display the Colors

Colors

palette.

2 Click the front rectangle. 3 Choose a color using the Color

picker.

To choose the secondary color:

1 On the Colors palette, click the

back rectangle.

2 Choose a color using the Color

picker. If you usually work with the

Primary color, you might want to re-click the front rectangle so that it will be selected the next time you go to the color picker.

Click the back rectangle to set the secondary color.

To swap primary and secondary colors:

• Click the swap icon .

Sampling Colors from Imagery

To use the Dropper tool:

1 Click the front or back rectangle to

select a primary or secondary color.

2 Click the Dropper tool in the

toolbox.

3 Move the cursor to the color you

want to pick up, and click it. The color picker updates to display

the color you’ve selected.

Note

•

The Dropper tool picks up visible color only. You can’t select a hidden color with the Dropper tool.

Tip

You can quickly get the Dropper tool

•

by pressing D on the keyboard.

To access the Dropper tool from other tools:

• Press Option (Mac OS) or Alt

(Windows).

Click the front rectangle to set the primary color.

In addition to choosing colors on the Colors palette, you can use the Dropper tool to select, or “pick up,” a color from an existing image.

Note

•

The Dropper tool doesn’t work with all tools.

Corel Painter Essentials 41

Cloning Color

The Clone Color option is another way to choose color. This feature lets the brush pick up color from an original (source) image. Brushes using dab-based Dab Types take an average based on samples of color from the clone source, resulting in an approximation of the original color. Brushes using rendered Dab Types sample several colors, loading each into individual bristles of the brush, allowing for startlingly realistic results. For more information about cloning, refer to “Cloning Imagery” on page 53.

To set up a clone source

1 Choose File menu > Open, and

choose the file you want to use as a clone source.

2 Choose File menu > Clone. 3 Choose Select menu > All, and

press Delete (Mac OS) or Backspace (Windows).

Now you can work in the new file, taking data from the original source file.

To use clone colors:

1 Set up a clone source.

If you don’t set a file as the source, Corel Painter Essentials uses the current Pattern.

2 Choose a brush from the Brush

selector bar.

3 Choose Window menu > Show

Colors

to display the Colors

palette.

4 Click the Clone Color button

on the Colors palette. Enabling the Clone Color option

disables the color picker. This is a reminder that your color information is coming from the clone source.

5 When you paint in the clone file,

Corel Painter Essentials uses colors from the clone source image.

Using Gradients

A gradient is a gradual transformation from one color into another. Sometimes they are called blends or

fountains. Corel Painter Essentials provides two types of gradients: linear, and conical.

To select a gradient

1 Choose the Gradient selector from

the toolbox.

2 Select a gradient from the drop-

down list.

Color42

Painting

Corel Painter Essentials lets you draw and paint, as you might in the real world. In your studio, you use brushes, pencils, chalk, airbrushes, and palette knives to make marks on a canvas or piece of paper. With Corel Painter Essentials, an infinite variety of marks are possible. Like a fully stocked art store, Corel Painter Essentials supplies you with many different brushes and drawing tools.

Exploring Painting

Many of the Corel Painter Essentials pre-built brushes (known as brush variants) are digital equivalents of real-life brushes you might already use.

The result of any single mark or stroke you make with a Corel Painter Essentials drawing tool depends on:

• the brush category (or drawing tool) you choose. Refer to “Brush

Categories” on page 44 for more information.

• which brush variant is selected within the brush category. Refer to “Selecting a Brush” on page 45 for more information about selecting a specific brush variant.

• controls such as brush size, opacity, and how much color penetrates paper texture. Refer to “Brush Settings” on page 45 for more information.

• the current paper texture. Refer to “Choosing Paper Textures” on page 36 for more information about selecting paper.

• the color, gradient, or pattern you select to use as media. Refer to “Painting with Color” on page 48 for more information about choosing media to apply.

Understanding Brushes

The Brush tool represents a wide variety of tools you can use to mark on your document, including oils, pencils, and chalk. Brush strokes are created when you use the tools to drag on the canvas.

On the Brush selector bar, pre-built brushes (brush variants) are arranged into recognizable categories. Corel Painter Essentials brushes are built to emulate Natural-Media tools. This lets you select a tool with a reasonable expectation of how it will behave. In an art store, if the tools in one aisle don’t produce the results you want, you can try a different aisle. Similarly, with Corel Painter Essentials, you can try different brush categories to find the tool you want.

Most Corel Painter Essentials brushes apply media (a color, gradient, or pattern) to an image. Some brushes, however, do not apply media. Instead, they make changes to pixels already in the image.

Brush Categories

On the Brush selector bar, you can choose from a list of brush categories. Brush categories are designed with real media in mind, so you can select a tool with an expectation of how it will behave.

Using a Stylus or Mouse

When you reach for a wide, flat brush, you expect the stroke you make with it to be dependent on how you hold the brush. A stroke using the face of the brush comes out wide. A mark using the edge is narrow.

Paint with the face of a flat brush for a wide stroke; use the edge for a narrow stroke.

Corel Painter Essentials produces realistic brush strokes that fade in and out; change width, tilt and angle; or penetrate based on the stylus input. Brush variants that use computed brushes, such as the Smeary Flat variant in the Oils category, also react to stylus tilt (how vertical the stylus is held) and bearing (the compass direction in which the stylus is pointing).

Tilt can significantly affect brush strokes. If you get unexpected results, especially with bristle-type brushes or airbrushes, try reducing the tilt of your stylus. Extreme tilt angles are usually undesirable.

Many Corel Painter Essentials brushes also respond to stylus pressure (how hard you press with the stylus). Depending on variant settings, greater stylus pressure can increase the width of a brush stroke, the penetration of color, or the degree of other effects. The Corel Painter Essentials airbrushes also respond to the fingerwheel on the Wacom Intuos airbrush, simulating a needle control that adjusts how much ink is sprayed.

Painting44

In theory, a mouse has no pressure information. A mouse button is either “on” (button down), or “off ” (button up). Corel Painter Essentials introduces mouse controls that let you simulate stylus pressure, tilt, bearing, and wheel settings.

If you are using a mouse with Corel Painter Essentials, you can compensate for the lack of pressure information by adjusting size, opacity and grain on the property bar. For example, reducing opacity or grain can produce the same results as pressing more lightly with a stylus.

Selecting a Brush

To show the Brush selector bar:

• Do one of the following:

• In the toolbox, double-click the Brush tool .

•Choose Window menu > Show Brush Selector Bar.

To choose a brush:

1 On the Brush selector bar, choose a

brush category from the Brush selector.

2 Choose a variant from the Variant

selector.

The Brush selector lists the brush categories.

Brush Settings

Basic brush controls for size, opacity, and grain are located on the property bar. The property bar may also contain additional controls for the selected brush category.

When a brush is selected and positioned over the canvas, the cursor changes, by default, into a “ghost” of

the brush—mirroring size and shape—so you can see the area that you’re about to paint. This is a handy way to see if a change in size is required.

Setting Brush Size

The size slider on the property bar determines the size of a single brush dab. The text field next to this slider lets you enter a specific size (in pixels).

To set brush size:

1 Choose the Brush tool from the

toolbox.

2 Choose a brush. 3 On the property bar, type a value

in the Size box, or adjust the popup slider.

Corel Painter Essentials may need to rebuild the brush after you resize it. Automatic building of modified brushes is the default in Corel Painter Essentials. Expect a short delay while this happens.

Corel Painter Essentials 45

To use the resize shortcut:

1 Hold down

Command+Option+Shift (Mac

OS) or Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows).

2 With the Brush tool, drag in the

image window. A circle representing the brush size

is displayed beside the pointer. When the circle is the size you want, release the mouse button.

3 Click the image to reactivate the

Brush tool.

A handy way to set brush size is to use the keyboard shortcut.

Adjusting Opacity

The Opacity slider controls the degree to which a stroke “covers” or “builds up” on the underlying pixels.

80% opacity (top), and 20% opacity (bottom).

To set opacity:

1 Choose the Brush tool from the

toolbox.

2 Choose a brush. 3 On the property bar, type a

percentage in the Opacity box, or adjust the pop-up slider.

When Opacity is set low, the applied color is thin, allowing you to see through to the underlying colors. When set high, color being

applied covers underlying pixels more completely.

Setting Grain

The Grain slider controls how much color penetrates into the paper texture. Lower settings show more of the grain.

89% grain (top), and 12% grain (bottom).

To set grain:

• On the Brush property bar, type a percentage in the Grain box, or adjust the pop-up slider.

Move the slider to the left to reduce penetration and reveal more texture. Move it to the right to

Painting46

increase penetration and reveal less grain.

Freehand vs. Straight Line Drawing

Where You Can Paint

You can paint on the Canvas or on a layer above the Canvas. When a layer is selected (highlighted on the Layers palette), it is the target for your brush strokes.

When you have an active selection, painting is confined to the selection by default. Refer to “Working with Selections” on page 69 for more information about selections.

In all cases, your brush strokes go to the selected target, so make sure of the destination before starting to paint.

Marking the Canvas

You mark the canvas by dragging in the document window with a Brush tool that applies media. Each time you drag, you create a brush stroke.

You can draw unconstrained lines, called freehand, or you can draw straight lines. Options on the property

let you choose the drawing style.

bar

With the Freehand drawing style, you can drag with any motion or in any direction. The stroke follows your drag path.

Drag to create strokes using the Freehand drawing style.

With the Straight Lines drawing style, Corel Painter Essentials connects points with a straight line.

Click to create the first point. Click or drag to create a stroke using the Straight Lines drawing style.

To draw freehand lines:

1 On the Brush property bar, click

the Freehand Strokes button .

2 Drag on the canvas.

Tip

•

You can use shortcut keys to toggle between freehand and straight line drawing styles. Press B to choose freehand style, or press V to choose straight line style.

To draw straight lines:

1 On the Brush property bar, click

the Straight Line Strokes button

2 Click the canvas at the point where

you want to start your line.

Corel Painter Essentials 47

3 Do one of the following:

• Click at the point where you want to end the line.

• Drag to place the end point exactly where you want it.

Corel Painter Essentials connects the first and second points with a straight line.

4 To continue drawing from the

second point, click or drag to create additional points on the canvas.

Corel Painter Essentials connects each point with a straight line.

5 To end a line, do one of the

following:

• Press Return (Mac OS) or Enter (Windows) to close the polygon. The final point is connected to the origin with a straight line.

• Click the Freehand Strokes button to return to the freehand drawing style without closing the polygon.

• Press V to end the current polygon, so you can begin a new one.

Undoing Strokes

If you make a stroke you don’t like, you can use the Undo command to remove it. Repeat the command to remove previous strokes. You can undo five strokes.

To undo a stroke:

• Choose Edit menu > Undo.

Tip

•

You can also undo a stroke by pressing Command+Z (Mac OS) or Ctrl+Z (Windows).

Fading Strokes

Sometimes you apply a stroke, but want it to be less opaque, or faded.

To fade a stroke:

1 Choose Edit menu > Fade. 2 Set the undo amount for the

opacity you want.

The preview shows the results of

your selection.

Painting with Color

Before actually painting, you must choose what media to apply. Most often, you’ll probably choose to apply a color, but selecting a color is just the beginning. For more detailed information about using color, refer to “Working with Color” on page 39.

To paint with color:

1 Select a brush that applies media

to a document. If the Colors palette is not

displayed, choose Window menu > Show Colors.

Use the Colors palette to choose a color for painting.

Painting48

2 Drag or click in the ring to select a

hue.

3 Drag or click in the triangle to pick

the saturation. The color you select is displayed in

the front rectangle below the color ring. This is the primary color. The back rectangle shows the secondary color. The secondary color is not the canvas color; it is used to create two-color brush strokes and two-point gradients. Refer to “Understanding Primary and Secondary Colors” on page 40 for more information.

To paint with a color already in the image:

1 Select a brush that applies media

to a document.

2 Hold down Option (Mac OS) or

Alt (Windows), and click a color in

the image. The Brush tool toggles to the

Dropper tool . The color is “picked up” by the Dropper tool and becomes the primary color. Refer to “Sampling Colors from Imagery” on page 41 for more information about using the Dropper tool.

Troubleshooting

• Opacity—check the Opacity setting on the property bar and, if necessary, adjust the pop-up slider to increase opacity.

• Drawing mode—if you have made a selection, the drawing mode determines what part of the selection is protected. Refer to “Selecting a Drawing Mode” on page 69 for more information.

• Layers—are you drawing on the canvas with a layer blocking your view of the brush stroke? On the Layers palette, close the visibility eye of each layer to see only the canvas.

Drag in the ring to select a hue. Drag in the triangle to pick the saturation.

Why doesn’t your brush stroke appear? What to check:

• Primary color—on the Colors palette, what color is the Primary Color (front) rectangle? Is it a color that will show up when applied to your image? Click the Primary Color rectangle to be sure it’s selected, and then set the correct color.

Painting with Airbrushes

The Corel Painter Essentials computed airbrushes are so realistic, you feel as though you’re using the real thing.

The best way to get used to the Corel Painter Essentials airbrushes is to play with them. Select each variant and spray paint onto the Canvas, without worrying about running out of

Corel Painter Essentials 49

compressed air. Computed airbrushes can paint with color, patterns, or variants. There’s a variant that blows hair-like strokes, as well as a variant that just blows existing paint around on the Canvas, like using the hose without an airbrush attached.

Conic Sections

Previously, digital airbrushes projected a thin mist of dots (or paint dabs) onto the Canvas. The Digital Airbrush variant is included in the default brush library. With a digital airbrush, dots are laid down, or sprayed, within a circular area, like the circle thrown by a flashlight that is perfectly perpendicular to a piece of paper. The area of application remains circular, regardless of tilt, bearing, or stylus pressure. Density, or flow, adjustments can be mimicked with adjustments to the Opacity setting.

Painting50

Previous airbrushes sprayed a thin layer of dots within an area that was always circular, like a circle of light from a flashlight that’s perpendicular to a piece of paper.

Now, airbrushes respond to angle (tilt), bearing (direction), and flow (wheel setting) data from a stylus, allowing for a truly realistic brush stroke. For example, as you tilt your stylus, specks of media land on the paper in a way that reflects that tilt. Imagine, again, the circle of light thrown by a flashlight. The moment the flashlight is no longer perpendicular to the paper, the shape of the cone of light changes, creating a “conic-section.” In the same manner, Corel Painter Essentials airbrushes create conic-sections that mirror your stylus movements.

Angle and tilt determine the shape and size of the conic-section created by Corel Painter Essentials airbrushes, like a circle of light from a flashlight that is no longer perpendicular to the paper.

Extreme tilt angles affect large areas of the canvas. This can slow the brush down, as it tries to squirt paint too far from the stylus.

Filling Techniques

Filling an Area with Media

You can fill an area of an image with a gradient, pattern, or color.

What about filling with paper? The paper is a texture; it has no color by itself. However, you can get texture

into an image with various image effects. Many surface control effects let you use paper as the control medium. For more information about surface control effects, refer to “Apply Surface Texture” on page 82 and “Other Surface Control Effects” on page 84.

Note

Corel Painter Essentials uses the

•

current color, pattern, or gradient. Before filling, choose the media you want from the corresponding selector in the toolbox.

Filling Images Based on Color

To fill an area of an image:

1 Do one of the following :

• If you want to fill only part of an image, make a selection.

• If you want to fill a layer, select the layer on the Layers palette.

• If you want to fill the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

2 Choose Effects menu > Fill or

press Command+F (Mac OS) or

Ctrl+F (Windows).

3 In the Fill dialog box, enable one

of the following to fill with:

• Current Color

•Pattern

•Gradient

4 Adjust the Opacity slider.

You can use the Paint Bucket tool to fill image areas based on pixel color. This method can be used on the canvas. Corel Painter Essentials fills areas based on color boundaries.

To fill an image based on color:

1 Choose the Paint Bucket tool

from the toolbox.

2 Click the Fill Image button on the

property bar.

Corel Painter Essentials 51

Cloning is a feature that can help you create art, quickly and easily. Cloning is the process of taking imagery from one area or document (the source) and re-creating it in another area or document (the destination).

Cloning is a two-step process: First, you set a clone source, then you work in a destination area. The source and destination can be in separate documents or in different areas of the same document.

Cloning and Tracing

Cloning Imagery

Cloning-method brush variants are the most common way to develop imagery in a clone destination. These variants re-create the source imagery while they effectively “filter” it, reproducing it in an “artistic style,” such as oils or pastels.

Cloning allows you to “filter” source imagery to create Natural-Media renderings.

Corel Painter Essentials offers interesting ways to take advantage of clone source/destination relationships, like the Corel Painter Essentials imaginary “light box” method, Tr a c i n g P a per.

This chapter begins with basics, introducing you to simple cloning techniques.

Cloning a Document

One way to use the Corel Painter Essentials cloning feature is to clone an entire file, creating a clone source/ destination relationship between two documents.

The clone of the file is more than a copy. It maintains a pixel-for-pixel correspondence with its source document. For this reason, the source must remain open while you work in the clone.

Here are some ways you can take advantage of a clone source/ destination relationship:

• Trace the source imagery using Tracing Paper (like using a “light box”). Refer to “Using Tracing Paper” on page 54 for more information.

• Paint source imagery into a destination area using Cloner brushes. Refer to “Painting in the Clone” on page 56 for more information about painting with Cloner brushes.

• Load a brush with color taken from a clone source. Refer to “Cloning Color” on page 42 for more information.

• Add three-dimensional effects after setting up a clone source/ destination relationship.

• Control brush features for painting using variant settings from the source image.

• Develop a selection. Refer to “Using Selections” on page 69.

To clone a document:

1 Open an image file.

This will be the clone source. A good clone source document contains well defined imagery.

2 Choose File menu > Clone.

Corel Painter Essentials creates a duplicate of the original document. This is the clone. It appears in its own document window, with the words “Clone of ” preceding the original document’s name in the title bar.

Using Tracing Paper

You can use cloning to help you trace the source image by using Tracing Paper, the on-screen “light box” in Corel Painter Essentials. When Tracing Paper is in use, you see a faded out version of the clone source, as if it were displayed on top of a light box, underneath real tracing paper.

As you trace, brush strokes appear at 50% opacity. When you finish tracing and turn Tracing Paper off, the faint source image disappears and your brush strokes appear at 100% opacity.

Note

•

To use Tracing Paper, the source and

clone documents must be the same size.

To trace an image:

1 Choose File menu > Clone to

create a clone of the original document you wish to trace.

2 With the clone selected, choose

Select menu > Select All.

3 Press Delete (Mac OS) or

Backspace (Windows) to clear the

entire canvas.

4 Do one of the following:

Cloning and Tracing54

• Click the Tracing Paper icon in the vertical scroll bar.

•Choose Canvas menu > Tracing Paper.

•Press Command + T (Mac OS) or Ctrl + T (Windows).

A 50% ghost of the source image shows through the tracing paper.

5 Trace over the image using any

Corel Painter Essentials brush variant.

Brush strokes appear at 50% opacity when Tracing Paper is turned on.

Use the Tracing Paper feature to view the clone source for tracing.

When you turn Tracing Paper off, you can see what you’ve traced.

Click the Tracing Paper icon to toggle tracing paper on and off.

To turn tracing paper off:

• Do one of the following:

• Click the Tracing Paper icon again.

•Choose Canvas menu >

Tracing Paper.

•Press Command + T (Mac OS) or Ctrl + T (Windows).

The faint source image disappears and brush strokes appear at 100% opacity.

To resume tracing:

• To resume tracing, turn Tracing Paper back on.

The faint source image returns and you can continue tracing.

Changing Clone Source

For more flexibility in setting up cloning relationships, Corel Painter Essentials lets you set any open document as a clone source. You can

Corel Painter Essentials 55

do this to re-establish a source/ destination relationship between two files. You might also do this to choose special source imagery for controlling an image effect.

To set an open document as the clone source:

• Choose File menu > Clone

Source

and select which of the

open documents is the clone source.

Note

•

If you lose track of which document is the clone source, choose File menu > Clone Source. The file with a check beside its name is the clone source.

To make an open file the clone source for the next file you open:

1 Hold down the Command (Mac

OS) or Ctrl (Windows) key.

2 Choose File menu > Clone. 3 In the Open dialog box, choose a

file to use as the clone source.

Painting in the Clone

Painting with a Cloner brush is similar to painting with any Corel Painter Essentials tool, except that Cloner variants take their color information from a clone source, instead of from the Colors palette

When you paint with a Cloner brush, it picks up color from the clone source, while you control the size and direction of brush strokes. It’s a great way to get Natural-Media renderings from photographic source material.

The Corel Painter Essentials brushes that have buildup methods, like pencils, build toward black. If you clone with one of these brushes in a dark area of your image, you may not achieve the desired results. Use the Opacity slider or text box to control how rapidly these brushes build up to black. You can also choose chalk or one of the other tools that cover underlying colors.

To paint with Cloner brushes:

1 Create a clone of the document

you wish to paint.

2 With the clone selected, choose

Select menu > Select All.

3 Press Delete (Mac OS) or

Backspace (Windows) to clear the

entire canvas.

4 Choose a Cloner brush from the

Brush selector bar. On the property bar, adjust size,

opacity, and grain penetration, if available.

5 Paint in the image.

Note

If you don’t set a clone source, Cloner

•

brushes paint with imagery from the current Pattern.

Tip

•

Some artists use Edit menu > Fade after clearing the Canvas to bring back some of the imagery.

Using Auto Van Gogh

You can have Corel Painter Essentials place directional brush strokes to produce a Van Gogh–like rendition of cloned imagery.

Cloning and Tracing56

For more information about using Auto Van Gogh, see “Auto Van Gogh” on page 300.

Auto Van Gogh is an effect that places directional strokes based on clone source.

Using Clone Color

You can turn almost any brush into a Cloner with the Clone Color option. Clone Color causes a brush to pick up color from the source image, while staying true to its own stroke nature. The Clone Color option is useful for creating mosaics and tessellations based on source imagery.

To use Clone Color

1 Choose Window menu > Show

Colors to display the Colors

palette. If the Colors palette is not

expanded, click the palette arrow.

2 Click the Clone Color button .

Turning Other Brushes into Cloners

Corel Painter Essentials offers a way to get other brushes to act like Cloners by using the Clone Color button on the Colors palette.

Note

•

Be sure you reselect Clone Color if you

change brushes while cloning imagery.

Corel Painter Essentials 57

When you open a new document and create an image, your work appears on a background layer known as the canvas. You can add additional layers to a document, which allows you to manipulate the visual elements in the image independently of the canvas.

Layers provide one of the great advantages of creating images in a digital workspace—the freedom to experiment with different compositions and effects without risking an unwanted, permanent edit. The Corel Painter Essentials RIF file format preserves layers when you save a document, so you can easily make changes at a later time. There’s no need to re-create the entire composition—just modify one or more layers. The result is a dynamic and flexible design environment.

Using Layers

Think of layers as sheets of clear material, such as acetate. Painting on a layer obscures the image below it. Areas of a layer that don’t contain imagery remain transparent.

Layer Basics

In Corel Painter Essentials, layers are objects that contain image data. Because each layer is a distinct object, you can move it around and edit it without interfering with the image data on the canvas or other layers. Likewise, you can work on the canvas without interfering with any of the other layers.

Layers contain pixel-based images. Layers in a document have the following characteristics in common:

• They are listed on the Layers palette. The Layers palette manages the hierarchy of layers and includes controls for selecting, hiding, deleting, naming, and grouping layers.

• You can cut, copy, paste, move, and align them using the Layer Adjuster tool.

Pixel-based Layers

You can create pixel-based images on a layer using any brush variant.

You can also create pixel-based images on a layer by pasting or placing an image.

Working with Layers

When you work with layers, you use the Layers palette and the Layer Adjuster tool.

The Layers Palette

The Layers palette lists all the layers in a document and provides options for managing them.

You can access layer functions and commands using the buttons at the bottom of the palette.

The Layers palette displays icons next to each layer to indicate the layer’s type and characteristics.

Pixel-based layer

Grouped layer

Expanded group

Visible layer

Hidden layer

On the Layers palette, you can set layer opacity. For information about layer opacity, refer to “Setting Layer Opacity” on page 67.

To display the Layers palette:

• Choose Window menu > Show Layers.

If the palette is not expanded, click the palette arrow.

The Layer Adjuster Tool

With the Layer Adjuster tool, you can select and work with layers.

Creating Layers

You can create new pixel-based layers directly from the Layers palette. You can duplicate layers and copy layers between documents.

You can also create a layer based on a selection. This copies or converts the contents of a selection to a new layer. For information about creating selections, refer to “Creating Selections” on page 70.

Using Layers60

To create a new layer:

• Click the following button at the bottom of the Layers palette:

•New Layer

To duplicate a layer:

1 Choose the Layer Adjuster tool

from the toolbox.

2 On the Layers palette, select a

layer.

3 In the document window, hold

down Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows), and click the layer.

Corel Painter Essentials duplicates the layer in place. Select and move the new layer to reveal the original layer in the document window.

Note

•

For more information about selecting

layers, refer to “Selecting Layers” on page 62.

To copy a layer between documents:

1 With the Layer Adjuster tool,

select a layer on the Layers palette.

2 Do one of the following:

• In the document window, drag the layer to another document.

•Choose Edit menu > Copy, display the other document, and then choose Edit menu >

Paste.

Tip

•

You can also paste a copied layer from the Clipboard to a new document by choosing Edit menu > Paste Into New Image.

To create a layer based on a selection:

1 Make a selection. 2 Do one of the following:

• To convert the selection, choose Select menu > Float or click the selection with the Layer Adjuster tool.

• To convert and move the selection, drag it with the Layer Adjuster tool.

• To copy the selection, hold down Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) and click the selection with the Layer Adjuster tool.

• To copy and move the selection, hold down Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) and drag the selection with the Layer Adjuster tool.

Tip s

•

You can also convert a selection to a layer by rotating, scaling, or flipping a selection. Refer to “Orientation Effects” on page 77 for more information.

•

You can also create a new layer by copying or cutting, and pasting, a selection.

Naming Layers

Corel Painter Essentials assigns each layer (or group) a default name when you create it. This name references the object’s type and creation order.

For example, pixel-based layers are titled Layer 1, Layer 2, and so on. As you add more layers and groups to a document, it can become difficult to remember what image data each layer contains. By assigning layers and groups descriptive names, you can easily keep track of the separate pieces of an image.

Corel Painter Essentials 61

To name a layer or group:

1 On the Layers palette, select a layer

or group.

2 Do the following:

• Double-click the item on the Layers palette, or select an item and press Return (Mac OS) or

Enter (Windows).

3 In the Layer Attributes dialog box,

type a new name in the Name box.

Note

•

You cannot change the name of the

canvas layer.

Saving Files Containing Layers

You can save your Corel Painter Essentials document in the RIFF format with “live” layers—the layers continue to function when you reopen the file. RIFF is the only format that preserves layers in their original state.

For information about grouping layers in Corel Painter Essentials, refer to “Grouping Layers” on page 64.

If you save a file to a file format other than RIFF, the layers drop (or merge) into a single background image.

Deleting Layers

To delete a layer:

1 On the Layers palette, select the

layer.

2 Do the following:

• Click the Delete button at the bottom of the Layers palette.

Note

•

You cannot delete the canvas.

Managing Layers

Selecting Layers

Selecting a layer lets you make changes to it. If no layers are selected, any changes you make apply to the canvas.

To select a layer:

• Do the following:

• Click a layer on the Layers palette.

Tip

•

You can also press the F key to activate

the Layer Adjuster tool.

To select multiple layers:

• Do one of the following:

• On the Layers palette, Shift+click each layer you want to select.

To deselect layers:

• Do the following:

• On the Layers palette, click Canvas (the last item in the list).

Deselecting all layers automatically selects the Canvas layer.

Viewing Layers

You can control your view of an image in the document window by changing layer visibility settings. This is helpful both in compositing an image and

Using Layers62

applying effects. You can hide one layer to gain better visibility of the layer below it.

Use layer visibility settings to create different states of an image. In the top example, the layers containing the background are hidden; in the bottom example, the layers containing the background are showing.

Layer visibility settings stay active when printing or saving to some file formats. In other words, the content of hidden layers does not print and is not saved. However, RIF file formats preserve hidden layers as part of the

document. Refer to “Saving Files Containing Layers” on page 62 for more information about how layers are saved in different file formats.

To show or hide a layer:

• Click the eye icon next to the layer name on the Layers palette.

When the eye is shut , the layer is hidden in the document window. When the eye is open , the layer is visible in the document window.

To show or hide the canvas:

• Click the eye icon next to Canvas on the Layers palette.

When the eye is shut, the canvas is represented by a checkerboard. When the eye is open, the canvas is visible in the document window.

If the palette is not expanded, click the palette arrow.

Changing Layer Hierarchy

The hierarchy of layers determines how the layers in a document interact. When you create a new layer, it

appears on top of the existing layers (when the canvas is selected) or on top of the selected layer. Depending on its transparency, the layer will obscure or otherwise affect the underlying layers.

A document’s layer hierarchy is reflected on the Layers palette. The bottom layer is always the Canvas.

Change the hierarchy of layers to create different effects.

Corel Painter Essentials 63

To change a layer’s position in the hierarchy:

• Drag the layer to a new position in the Layers palette.

• Click the Layer Commands button , and choose Group.

The layers are collected under a group item on the Layers palette.

Tip

•

You can create a nested group by dragging a closed group to the open destination group.

Grouping Layers

Grouping layers enables you to control them as a unit. A group can contain any combination of layers.

You can move, rename, hide, and show a group just as you do a single layer. However, you cannot paint across layers in a group.

To work with individual layers in a group, you must open the group. Close the group to regain control of the group as a unit.

Collapsing a group reduces its contents to a single layer.

To create a group:

1 On the Layers palette, select the

layers you want to group. Refer to “Selecting Layers” on

page 62 for more information about selecting multiple layers.

2 Do the following:

Note

•

If you select non-sequential layers (layers not next to each other in the list), Corel Painter Essentials creates the group at the position of the top-most layer.

To open and close a group:

• On the Layers palette, click the

triangle icon to the left of the

group.

When the arrow points down

and you can see the group items,

the group is open. When the arrow

points to the right and the

names of the group members are

hidden, the group is closed.

To add a layer to a group:

1 On the Layers palette, open the

destination group. 2 Drag a layer to the group.

To remove a layer from a group:

1 Open the group. 2 Drag the layer out of the group.

To ungroup layers:

1 On the Layers palette, select the

group. If the group is open, click the

triangle icon to close it.

2 Do the following:

• Click the Layer Commands button , and choose Ungroup.

To collapse a group:

1 On the Layers palette, select the

group.

2 Do the following:

• Click the Layer Commands button , and choose Collapse.

Using Layers64

Merging Layers with the Canvas

Dropping a layer (or group) merges its contents with the canvas. Once you drop a layer, you can no longer access the layer’s content separately from the canvas.

When you drop a layer, you can choose to create a selection based on the layer contents. For more information about selections, refer to “Working with Selections” on page 69.

To drop specific layers:

1 On the Layers palette, select the

layers (or groups) you want to drop.

2 Do the following:

• Click the Layer Commands button , and choose Drop.

Editing Layers

Painting on Layers

When a layer is selected, you can use the brushes to paint, draw, erase, or clone in a layer. When painting on layers, keep the following points in mind:

• You can’t paint across grouped layers—you must collapse the group first.

• You can protect areas of a layer from painting by creating a selection. For more information, refer to “Creating Selections” on page 70.

To paint on a layer:

1 Select a layer. 2 On the Brush selector bar, choose a

brush category and variant.

3 Paint on the layer in the document

window.

This is because the canvas has edges, but layers do not—they are unlimited in size. If you shift a pattern on a layer, the pattern does not wrap around.

Refer to “Using Patterns” on page 36 for more information.

Moving Layer Content

When a layer is selected, you can move its content anywhere in the document to create a new image layout.

You can edit a layer’s content by applying effects to it, transforming its dimensions, or painting on it. You can also move layer content to change the overall image layout.

Creating Patterns on Layers

You can use the same pattern-making techniques on layers as you do on the canvas. However, a pattern’s wraparound features do not apply to layers.

Corel Painter Essentials 65

Repositioning layer content helps you achieve the optimal image composition quickly and easily.

Think of a layer’s content as being contained by an invisible bounding box. This bounding box is a rectangle that marks the left, right, top, and bottom edges of the layer’s content. When you move or align a layer, you work with the dimensions and position of this bounding box, not the entire area of the layer. This allows you to easily position the contents of a layer in relation to the canvas.

This layer contains a brush stroke. The content area is defined by an invisible bounding box.

To move a layer:

1 On the Layers palette, select the

layer (or group) you want to move.

2 Choose the Layer Adjuster tool

from the toolbox.

3 In the document window, drag the

selected layer.

To nudge a layer:

1 On the Layers palette, select the

layer (or group) you want to move.

2 Press the arrow keys to move the

selected layer one pixel at a time.

To move a layer to a specific location:

1 On the Layers palette, select a layer

or group.

2 Do the following:

• Double-click the item on the Layers palette, or select an item and press Return (Mac OS) or

Enter (Windows).

3 In the Layer Attributes dialog box,

type values in the following boxes:

• To p —distance in pixels from the top edge of the canvas to the top edge of the layer’s content. Increase to move the layer down, or decrease to move the layer up.

• Left—distance in pixels from the left edge of the canvas to the left edge of the layer’s content. Increase to move the layer to the right, or decrease to move the layer to the left.

Note

•

If you use negative values, or values larger than the canvas dimensions, the layer is placed partially or wholly outside the canvas.

Using Layers66

Changing Layer Characteristics

Setting Layer Opacity

You can adjust a layer’s opacity to create different levels of transparency. The opacity slider covers a range of 0% (completely transparent) to 100% (completely opaque).

To change a layer’s opacity:

1 Select the layer you want to

change.

2 On the Layers palette, do one of

the following:

• Move the Opacity slider.

• Type a percentage in the Opacity box and press Return (Mac OS) or Enter (Windows).

The top example shows the background layers at 100% opacity. The bottom example shows them at 50% opacity.

Corel Painter Essentials 67

Using Selections

A selection marks off areas of the canvas for “special treatment.” It can either protect an area from change or designate the area that you want to change.

Working with Selections

Corel Painter Essentials provides a variety of tools and commands for creating selections in a document. Each time you create a new selection, Corel Painter Essentials deactivates the old one.

You can use selections in several ways:

• To constrain brush strokes. You can protect the area inside or outside the selection.

• To isolate an area of the canvas for applying an image effect. Corel Painter Essentials applies the effect only to the selection. You can also set different levels of protection

within a selection to create partial intensity of the effect.

• To choose the area of the canvas you want to cut or copy.

• To choose the area of the canvas that you want to move or copy to a new layer.

• To apply a brush stroke along a selection border.

Selecting a Drawing Mode

The drawing mode determines whether the inside or outside of a selection is protected when you paint on an image.

To select a drawing mode:

1 Point to the Drawing Mode icon in

the bottom-left corner of the document window, and hold down the mouse button.

2 Choose one of the following

buttons:

Draw Anywhere disables protection based on the selection—brush strokes are allowed anywhere on the canvas. The selection is still active for applying effects and using the Cut or Copy command.

Draw Outside protects the area inside the selection.

Draw Inside protects the area outside the selection, similar to using a stencil. Only the selected region accepts brush strokes.

Turning Selections On and Off

To turn off a selection:

• Choose Select menu > None.

Tip

•

You can also turn off a selection, or

“deselect” it, by clicking outside the selection with the Oval Selection, Rectangular Selection, or Lasso tool.

Note

This command is available only if you

•

have turned off a selection.

Inverting the Selection

Inverting a selection switches the selection area. For example, if you have an image of a boat on the water and you’ve created a precise selection of the boat, you can select everything but the boat by inverting the selection.

In this image, the flower is selected.

After inverting the selection, everything but the flower is selected.

A pixel-based selection can have 256 values in it, like a grayscale image. Inverting a pixel-based selection is equivalent to the negative of a grayscale image. For example, a pixel that has 80% luminance will have 20% luminance when inverted.

To invert a selection:

• Choose Select menu > Invert.

Creating Selections

Using Selection Tools

To re-activate a selection:

• Choose Select menu > Reselect.

Using Selections70

The Rectangular Selection, Oval Selection, and Lasso tools create pathbased selections. With these tools, you

can create a new selection, add to the current selection, or subtract from the current selection.

3 Draw a freehand border around

the area you want to select in the document window.

You can also select the entire canvas.

To select an oval or rectangular area:

1 Choose the Rectangular Selection

tool or the Oval Selection tool

from the toolbox .

2 On the property bar, click the New

Selection button.

3 Drag in the document window to

select an area.

Tip

•

To constrain your selection to a square or a circle, hold down Control+Shift (Mac OS) or Ctrl+Shift (Windows) while making your selection.

To select a freehand area:

1 Choose the Lasso tool from the

toolbox . 2 On the property bar, click the New

Selection button.

Note

If you draw an open path, Corel

•

Painter Essentials connects the endpoints with a straight line before creating the selection.

To add to a selection:

1 Choose a selection tool from the

toolbox.

2 Do one of the following:

• Click the Add to Selection button on the property bar, and select the area you want to add.

• Hold down Shift, and select the area you want to add.

Adding to a path-based selection.

To subtract from a selection:

1 Choose a selection tool from the

toolbox.

2 Do one of the following:

• Click the Subtract from Selection button on the property bar, and select the area you want to subtract.

• Hold down Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows), and select the area you want to subtract.

Corel Painter Essentials 71

The selection is “cut out” from the current selection.

Subtracting from a path-based selection.

To select the entire canvas:

• Choose Select menu > All.

Editing Path-Based Selections

You can use the Selection Adjuster tool to make changes to your selection. The Select menu also has several options for editing selections.

Unless otherwise noted, the procedures in this section are possible only with path-based selections.

Using the Selection Adjuster Tool

The Selection Adjuster tool lets you move selections. You can also scale, rotate, and skew path-based selections.

To move a selection:

1 Choose the Selection Adjuster tool

from the toolbox.

2 Drag the selection.

Note

•

You can move a pixel-based selection with the Selection Adjuster tool; however, if a portion moves off the canvas, it is subtracted from the selection.

Tip

You can also move a path-based

•

selection by nudging it with the arrow keys. With the Selection Adjuster tool, click the selection, and then press an arrow key a few times.

Drag a selection with the Selection Adjuster tool to move it.

To scale a selection:

1 Choose the Selection Adjuster tool

from the toolbox.

2 Click the selection. 3 Do one of the following:

• Drag a corner handle to scale in two dimensions. If you want to constrain the aspect ratio, hold down Shift while you drag.

• Drag a side, top, or bottom handle to scale in one dimension.

Using Selections72

Drag a side handle to scale horizontally.

To rotate a selection:

1 Choose the Selection Adjuster tool

from the toolbox.

2 Click the selection. 3 Hold down Command (Mac OS)

or Ctrl (Windows), and drag a corner handle.

Rotating a selection.

To skew a selection:

1 Choose the Selection Adjuster tool

from the toolbox.

2 Click the selection. 3 Hold down Command (Mac OS)

or Ctrl (Windows), and drag a side handle.

Skewing a selection.

Feathering Selections

You can feather both path-based and pixel-based selections to soften the transitions between selected and un-selected areas. If you feather a path-based selection, it is converted to a pixel-based selection to allow varying levels of protection at the edges.

To feather a selection:

1 Choose Select menu > Feather. 2 In the Feather Selection dialog

box, enter the number of pixels you want to feather.

3 Click OK.

Corel Painter Essentials 73

Using Image Effects

The Corel Painter Essentials image effects let you do everything from applying lighting and surface texture to creating a woodcut effect.

The effects range from practical tools, like the orientation and focus effects, to artistic expressions like Auto Van Gogh.

Traditional artistic methods inspire many of the Corel Painter Essentials effects.

Basics of Applying Effects

You apply most of the Corel Painter Essentials effects in the same manner:

• Select where to apply the effect.

• Choose a specific effect.

• Set effect options and click OK to apply it to your image.

Each effect can have several options and parameters that might require you to use other features such as selections, layers, colors, paper textures, and gradients.

You can get the most out of the effects if you understand more about application methods and the Fade feature.

Selecting Where to Apply Effects

You can apply special effects to a selection, a layer, or the entire image.

• If there is no selection, the effect is applied to the entire image.

• If you want to apply an effect to a region of the Canvas, select that area before choosing an effect command. You can use any of the selection tools, including the Rectangular Selection tool, the Oval Selection tool and the Lasso.

For more information about these tools, refer to “Creating Selections” on page 70.

• If you want to apply an effect to a layer, select that layer before choosing an effect. Corel Painter Essentials applies the effect to the entire layer. For more information about selecting a layer, refer to “Selecting Layers” on page 62.

Using Fade with Effects

The Fade command lets you undo a percentage of the last effect applied to the image. You can use this feature to control the intensity of an effect.

Use the Fade dialog to undo a percentage of your last effect.

To experiment with Fade:

1 Open a new document. 2 Paint a colorful image or fill it with

a pattern.

3 Choose an effect, adjust the

settings, and click OK to apply the effect.

4 Choose Edit menu > Fade. 5 In the Fade dialog box, drag the

slider. The image in the preview window

changes.

6 When you are satisfied with the

settings, click OK to apply the effect.

If you change your mind, choose Edit menu > Undo.

Recently Used Effects Commands

At the top of the Effects menu, Corel Painter Essentials displays the last two effects you applied. This lets you quickly re-apply frequently used effects.

About the Using Menu

Many of the Corel Painter Essentials effects dialog boxes have a Using popup menu that lets you specify a source, or method. The source determines how an effect is applied to different areas of an image; a larger degree of change is applied to light areas of the source, and a smaller degree of change is applied to dark areas. For example, when you use the Paper method, the effect is applied based on the light and dark areas of the selected paper texture.

Using Image Effects76

The choices in the Using pop-up menu vary between effects. In Corel Painter Essentials they include:

•Paper

• Image Luminance

The sections explaining the different effects describe these options.

In most cases, you can see the results of choosing different options in the Preview window of an effect’s dialog. The best way to see how these options affect your images is to try them.

Orientation Effects

You can change the orientation of part or all of your image by rotating, scaling to a larger or smaller size, or flipping horizontally or vertically.

canvas. For more information, refer to “Merging Layers with the Canvas” on page 65.

Rotating Images

The Rotate effect lets you rotate all or part of an image.

Sometimes the rotated layer does not fit within the canvas area. You can change the canvas size so you can see the entire rotated image. For more information, refer to “Resizing the Canvas” on page 26.

To rotate an image:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to rotate the entire image, select nothing.

2 Choose Effects menu >

Orientation > Rotate.

3 Do one of the following:

• In the document window, drag a corner handle of the selection. The Rotate Selection dialog box displays the rotated angle in degrees.

• In the Rotate Selection dialog box, specify the rotation angle in degrees. A positive number rotates counterclockwise; a negative number rotates clockwise.

4 Click OK to apply the effect.

Corel Painter Essentials applies orientation effects to layers only. Therefore, when you rotate, scale, or flip an image or selection, Corel Painter Essentials first converts it to a layer. The image or selection remains a layer until you merge it with the

You can rotate part of an image.

Scaling Images

The Scale command lets you change the dimensions of part or all of an image.

To scale an image:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

Corel Painter Essentials 77

If you want to scale the entire image, select nothing.

2 Choose Effects menu >

Orientation > Scale.

3 Do one of the following:

• In the document window, drag a handle of the selection. The Scale Selection dialog box displays the horizontal and vertical scale percentages.

• In the Scale Selection dialog box, specify the horizontal and vertical scale percentages.

4 Enable any of the following

options:

• Constrain Aspect Ratio— maintains the selection’s proportions. Disabling this option lets you change horizontal and vertical measurements independently.

• Preserve Center—enable this option to keep the image or selection anchored in its location, based on the center of the image.

5 Click OK to apply the effect.

Flipping Images

You can flip all or part of an image horizontally (from left to right) or vertically (from top to bottom).

To flip an image horizontally:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to flip the entire image, select nothing.

2 Choose Effects menu >

Orientation > Flip Horizontal.

Original image

Image flipped horizontally

To flip an image vertically:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to flip the entire image, select nothing.

2 Choose Effects menu >

Orientation > Flip Vertical.

Using Image Effects78

Image flipped vertically

Brightness/Contrast

The Brightness/Contrast dialog adjusts the brightness and contrast of the overall image in RGB.

Before and after Brightness/Contrast.

To adjust RGB brightness and contrast:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

2 Choose

Effects menu > Tonal

Control > Brightness/Contrast.

The Brightness/Contrast dialog appears.

3 Drag the upper slider to adjust

image contrast. Drag the lower slider to adjust image brightness.

The image is adjusted when you release the mouse or stylus.

If you want to reset the sliders to the default settings, click Reset.

4 Click Apply.

Equalize

The Equalize effect improves contrast, adjusting black and white points and distributing the brightness levels throughout the entire range of available levels.

Before and after Equalize.

Corel Painter Essentials lets you equalize an image by creating a histogram showing the number of

Corel Painter Essentials 79

pixels for each brightness level value and then allowing you to adjust those values.

Equalize also allows gamma adjustment, which lightens or darkens an image without changing highlights or shadows.

The histogram is represented by the silhouette. Each peak shows the number of pixels for a brightness level. You can adjust white and black points by dragging the triangles.

To equalize colors:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

2 Choose Effects menu > Tonal

Control > Equalize.

Corel Painter Essentials automatically adjusts the image or selection so that the lightest color is white and the darkest color is black.

3 In the Equalize dialog box, adjust

contrast by dragging the black and white markers under the histogram.

Any values in the image located to the right of the white marker become white; any values to the left of the black marker become black.

4 Adjust the gamma by doing one of

the following:

• Move the Brightness slider to the right to increase gamma, making the image darker.

• Move the Brightness slider to the left to decrease gamma, making the image lighter.

Changing the gamma adjusts only the midtones of an image and leaves the black and white areas untouched.

5 Click OK to apply changes.

A preview of the changes is applied to the original image, but is not

final until you click OK. If you want to revert to the original image, click Cancel.

Tip

If you made a selection and you want

•

to equalize the entire image, enable Apply to Entire Image in the Equalize dialog box.

Apply Lighting

The Apply Lighting effect lets you shine one or more light sources on an image.

Apply Lighting is like hanging your artwork in a gallery and adjusting colored spotlights to illuminate it.

Before and after Apply Lighting.

Using Image Effects80

Applying Preset Lighting Effects

The Lighting library contains three preset lighting environments.

The Preview window shows the current position of each light source and the angle of its projection.

The three steps to create custom lighting are:

To apply preset lighting effects:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

2 Choose Effects menu > Surface

Control > Apply Lighting.

3 In the Apply Lighting dialog box,

click a preset thumbnail. The lighting effect is displayed in

the preview window.

4 When you are satisfied with the

settings, click OK to apply the effect.

Creating Custom Lighting

You can use the controls in the Apply Lighting dialog to add, delete, and position light sources. You can also set light properties to create unique lighting effects.

• Adding or deleting light sources

• Positioning lights

• Setting light properties

Adding and Deleting Light Sources

The lighting effect is created by applying light from different sources to the image. You can add or delete as many light sources as you wish. Your only limit is your system’s memory.

When you add a light source, a new indicator appears in the preview window. The small part of the light indicator is the origin (the point from which the light is shining). The large part of the indicator is the point the light shines toward.

Light source indicator

To add a light source:

• Click anywhere in the preview window.

To delete a light source:

1 Click an indicator. 2 Press Delete.

Positioning Lights

The type of lighting effect you create is determined by the position of light on the image. You can use the light indicators to move and direct light sources.

Corel Painter Essentials 81

To move a light source:

• Drag the large end of the indicator to the point where you want the light to originate.

To change the direction of a light:

• Drag the small end of the light indicator until the light is pointing in the desired direction.

Setting Light Properties

You can set light properties such as brightness and color.

Light properties have a cumulative effect.

To change a light’s brightness :

1 Click an indicator to select it. 2 Adjust the Brightness slider:

• Brightness is like a dimmer

knob. Moving it to the left turns down the light source; moving it to the right increases brightness.

2 Click the Light Color icon, and

choose a color from the color picker.

3 Click the Ambient Light Color

icon, and choose a color for the surrounding light from the color picker.

Apply Surface Texture

The Apply Surface Texture effect lets you add a three-dimensional surface texture to your image. You can use this feature to apply a paper texture across the image or to give depth to the brush strokes of an oil painting.

There are two methods for creating texture:

• Using a paper texture

• Using image luminance

Examples of effects created with Apply Surface Te x t u r e .

To change light color:

1 Click an indicator.

Using Image Effects82

Setting Appearance of Depth Properties

The surface texture you apply is made up of a material. That material can be subtle and blend with the original image, or it can be highly reflective or shiny, distorting the original image.

The Appearance of Depth slider on the Apply Surface Texture dialog lets you control material properties.

• The Amount slider controls how much surface texture is applied to the image. Moving the slider all the way to the right applies the maximum amount.

Creating Texture Using Paper

When you create a texture using Paper, the current paper texture is applied to your image. If the Papers selector is open, you can choose different papers and change their scale to try different textures.

The Preview window is updated automatically to reflect paper changes.

Texture created using Paper grain.

To create surface texture using paper:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

2 Choose Effects menu > Surface

Control > Apply Surface Texture.

3 In the Apply Surface Texture

dialog box, choose Paper from the Using pop-up menu.

4 Adjust the Softness slider to

control the amount of distortion created by the texture.

Increasing softness creates more intermediate steps, which produces a smoother distortion.

5 Adjust the Appearance of Depth

slider. Refer to “Setting Appearance of

Depth Properties” on page 83 for more information.

6 Adjust the Light Controls slider. 7 Click OK to apply the effect.

Creating Texture Using Image Luminance

When you create a texture using the Image Luminance method, the current image’s luminance, or lightness, determines where surface texture is added. Light parts of the image create dents; darker parts create raised areas.

The overall effect gives an embossed look to the edges of the imagery.

Corel Painter Essentials 83

Texture based on Image Luminance.

Increasing softness creates more intermediate steps, which produces a smoother distortion.

5 Adjust the Appearance of Depth

sliders. Refer to “Setting Appearance of

Depth Properties” on page 83 for more information.

6 Adjust the Light Controls sliders. 7 Click OK to apply the texture.

create a visual effect similar to a custom halftone screen, like a mezzotint or line screen.

To create surface texture using image luminance:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

2 Choose Effects menu > Surface

Control > Apply Surface Texture.

3 In the Apply Surface Texture

dialog box, choose Image Luminance from the Using popup menu.

4 Adjust the Softness slider to

control the amount of distortion created by the texture.

Using Image Effects84

Other Surface Control Effects

The Surface Control effects let you manipulate paper, color, and light to produce a variety of interesting visual effects. Many of these effects also let you add texture to an image, producing the illusion of paint on a canvas or paper.

Express Texture

The Express Texture effect generates a high contrast version of an image in grayscale. With this feature, you can

The Express Texture effect.

To apply express texture:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

2 Choose Effects menu > Surface

Control > Express Texture.

3 In the Express Texture dialog box,

choose a method from the Using pop-up menu.

You can base the effect on the current paper texture or image luminance.

4 Use the following guideline to

adjust the slider:

• Gray Threshold determines

where the threshold is, between pure black and pure white.

5 Click OK to apply the effect.

Tip

If you want to restore some of the

•

original color to the image after applying this effect, choose Edit menu > Fade. Fade restores some or all of the original colors.

Woodcut

The Woodcut effect is useful for creating woodcut or linoleum block prints of photographs.

The Woodcut effect.

To apply woodcut effects

1 Choose Effects menu > Surface

Control > Woodcut.

2 In the Woodcut dialog box, enable

any of the following check boxes:

• Output Black—output the black part of the effect. Disable this option if you want to output in color only.

• Output Color—output the color part of the effect. Disable this option if you want to output in black and white only.

3 Adjust the N Colors (number of

colors).

4 When you are satisfied with the

settings, click OK to apply the effect.

Sharpen

This effect heightens contrast by intensifying highlights and shadows.

Using the Sharpen dialog to sharpen the focus.

To sharpen focus:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

Corel Painter Essentials 85

2 Choose Effects menu > Focus >

Sharpen.

3 Use the following guidelines to

adjust the sliders:

• Amount determines how much of the edge of an element is affected.

• Highlight determines the intensity of the bright areas. Move the slider to the right to brighten the highlights.

• Shadow determines the depth of the shadows. The higher the percentage, the darker the shadows.

4 Click OK to apply the effect.

2 Choose Effects menu > Focus >

Soften.

3 Adjust the Amount slider.

The farther the slider is to the right, the more steps there are between image elements, which creates more blurring.

4 When you are satisfied with the

settings, click OK to apply the effect.

Esoterica Effects

The Esoterica Effects menu holds an interesting and specialized effect called Auto Van Gogh.

Using Auto Van Gogh.

The effect requires two passes. The first pass determines the angles of the brush dabs. The second pass applies the dabs. The image is then rendered in a set of directional brush strokes.

Soften

This effect increases the transition from one part of your image to another, enhancing the anti-aliasing of strokes.

To soften focus:

1 Select a layer or area of the canvas.

If you want to apply the effect to the entire image, make sure there are no selections.

Using Image Effects86

Auto Van Gogh

The Auto Van Gogh effect works with the Auto Van Gogh variant of the Artists brush. This algorithmic approach to placing directional brush strokes results in a Van Gogh-like rendition of an image.

To apply Auto Van Gogh to an image:

1 Select the image you want to use. 2 Choose

File menu > Clone to

create a clone.

3 On the Brush selector bar, choose

Artists from the Brush selector.

4 Choose Auto Van Gogh from the

Va r ian t sel e ct o r.

5 Choose Effects menu > Esoterica

> Auto Van Gogh.

The Image Hose

The Image Hose is a milestone in the evolution of art tools. Instead of painting with color, the Image Hose paints with images—and not just one or two images at a stroke, but a variety of changing images.

The images flowing from the hose change as you make a brush stroke. By changing the direction of the stroke, you can change the angle of the images.

The Image Hose feature allows you to paint with images.

The Image Hose deposits 24-bit images with an 8-bit mask. The mask enables you to layer the images gently, without aliased edges or artifacts.

You can load the Image Hose with flowers, butterflies, stones, fish— images of any description. When you paint with these image elements, you can build them into coherent shapes—a garden, a cobblestone street, an underwater world.

How it Works

The Image Hose is a brush. To use it, you must first load it with images. The images are kept in special nozzle files.

On a garden hose, you attach a nozzle to control the flow of water; in Corel Painter Essentials, you attach a nozzle to the Image Hose to control its medium—images.

A nozzle file can contain any number of images. Usually, the images are similar and form a logical series—that is, the images progress along some order. For example, the images might increase in size, or advance in angle.

It is not necessary for images to progress in a logical series, but the Image Hose is more effective when they do.

2 On the Brush selector bar, choose

the Image Hose from the Brush selector.

3 Click the Variant selector and

choose a variant. Each variant delivers the images

differently.

4 In the toolbox, click the Nozzle

Selector and choose a nozzle.

5 Make a brush stroke on the canvas.

The Nozzle selector in the toolbox.

Using the Image Hose

The Image Hose is easy to use.

As with other Corel Painter Essentials brushes, the Image Hose has several variants. These built-in variants combine nozzle control factors with brush settings to create different hose effects.

The Image Hose88

Linear refers to the placement of images in relation to the stroke. Linear variants place images directly on the stroke path. For more information, refer to “Controlling the Image Hose” on page 88.

You can use these variants as a starting point and then adjust the brush and nozzle controls to hose the images just as you want them.

To select a nozzle and use the Image Hose:

1 Choose the Brush tool from the

toolbox.

Controlling the Image Hose

Boxes on the property bar give you three components of control. Click on the arrows to display sliders to adjust Size, Opacity and Grain.

Adjusting Opacity and Color

You can use the property bar to adjust the opacity of nozzle images or to mix them with a secondary color.

The Opacity slider allows you to make nozzle images semi-transparent. If you move the slider all the way to the left, the images become invisible.

You can change the opacity of Image Hose strokes. Top=100% opacity, bottom=20% opacity.

The Grain slider allows you to mix the secondary color with the nozzle images. If the slider is set to 100%, the nozzle images remain pure. As you move the slider to the left, more of the secondary color appears in the images. If the slider is set to 90%, Corel Painter Essentials mixes 10% of the secondary color to 90% of the image. This is a handy way to adjust the shading of image elements.

For information on selecting a secondary color, refer to “Understanding Primary and Secondary Colors” on page 40.

You can turn down the Grain to mix in the secondary color. Top=100% grain, bottom=39% grain.

Scale

You can control the size of the nozzle images using the Size slider on the property bar.

To adjust the scale

Do one of the following:

1 Click on the arrow to open the

Size slider and adjust the scale.

2 Type a value in the Size box.

Corel Painter Essentials 89

Working with Text

Corel Painter Essentials lets you position and manipulate editable text on your image.

The Text Layer

A text layer holds a single text block. When you create a new text layer with the text tool, that layer becomes visible on the Layers palette, and is represented by a T icon. With the text on a separate layer, you can work with your image without changing any text attributes. You can select the text layer and edit it at any time. Your text remains fully editable until you drop it onto the canvas.

To create text:

1 Choose the Text tool from the

toolbox.

2 Click anywhere in the document

window, and type.

Dropping Text

While you are working with text, it resides on a layer and is not yet a part of the image. When a text layer is dropped, it integrates with the canvas and can no longer be edited.

To drop a text layer onto the canvas:

1 On the Layers palette, select a text

layer. If you want to select more than one

text layer, highlight several layers and group them.

2 Click the Layer Commands button

at the bottom of the Layers

palette, and choose Drop.

Applying Effects to Text

Before you drop a layer, with the Text tool selected, you can apply any of the effects available on the Property bar. The Property bar contains all the tools

and controls you’ll need to set text appearance and flow. You can change the text color, font, size, and position.

Font

You can select a font on the Text palette.

To select a font:

1 Choose the Text tool from the

toolbox.

2 On the Property bar, choose a font

from the Font drop-down menu.

Tip

•

To display a list of all available fonts, choose Other Fonts from the Font dropdown menu.

To change point size:

• On the Property bar, choose a

point size from the drop-down

menu.

Color

To fill text with color:

1 Choose the Text tool from the

toolbox.

2 Click anywhere in the document

window, and type.

3 Choose Window menu > Show

Colors to display the Colors palette.

4 Choose a color on the Colors

palette.

Tip

•

You can also choose a color before you

type any text.

Note

•

If the Text layer is not selected, the color will not be applied to the text. For more information about the Text layer, see “The Text Layer” on page 91.

Alignment

A text block can be left, right, or center justified. The text baseline origin is used as the reference point for the text alignment.

To align text:

1 Choose the Text tool from the

toolbox.

2 On the Property bar, enable one of

the following buttons:

• Align Left

•Align Center

•Align Right

Stretching, Rotating, and Skewing Text

Stretching text affects both the horizontal and vertical size. As you stretch vertically, the text appears thinner and taller. As you stretch horizontally, the text appears flatter and shorter.

Rotating text pivots the text from the end point of the text block. Depending on the alignment of the text, it pivots from the bottom-left corner, bottomright corner, or center. You can also skew the text by slanting the text to the right or left.

You can fill your text with color from the Colors palette.

Working with Text92

To stretch text:

1 Select text using the Layer

Adjuster tool .

2 Drag the corner handles in the

direction you want to stretch the text.

To rotate text:

1 Select text using the Layer

Adjuster tool.

2 Hold down Command (Mac OS)

or Ctrl (Windows), and drag one of the corner handles.

2 Hold down Command (Mac OS)

or Ctrl (Windows), and drag one of the center handles on either side of the text.

Rotated text.

To skew text:

1 Select text using the Layer

Adjuster tool.

Corel Painter Essentials 93

Printing

You can print Corel Painter Essentials images on a wide variety of printers, including PostScript, Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI), and Quick Draw printers, and highresolution imagesetters.

Understanding Printing

Even if your final goal is to print highquality color prints, it’s a good idea to first print proofs on any printer you have available.

You can use a black and white printer to check page size and placement of images on the page. If you have a color printer, you can print proofs to get a general impression of what your image will look like. Keep in mind that the proof is not an accurate representation of a final print produced by an offset printing process. The print process, inks, and paper types combined will affect the final output.

Printing Composited Images

Having many layers in a document increases printing time. Printing a fully composited version of the image is much faster.

Instead of creating a composited version by dropping all the layers in the image, you can clone the file, and then print the clone. Keep layers in the saved RIF file so you can return and make changes. For more information about cloning documents, see “Cloning a Document” on page 54.

Setting Up Printing

Options for setting up your file for printing depend on several factors— the output device, color versus black and white printing, and whether you are printing separations.

Mac OS options are located in the Page Setup

dialog box.

Windows options are contained in the Print Setup

To access print settings:

dialog box.

• Choose File menu > Page Setup.

Image Size and Printing

If you want to print an image that is larger than a selected page size, you can size the image to fit the page. For example, when this option is enabled, a 12” x 12” image would be resized to fit on an 8 1/2” x 11” page.

To size an image to fit your page:

1 Do one of the following:

• (Mac OS) Choose File menu

> Page Setup.

• (Windows) Choose File menu

> Print.

2 Enable the Size to Fit Page check

box.

Note

•

If an image is larger than the page size and you haven’t enabled Size to Fit Page, your image will not print.

Printing an Image

Once you have chosen options in the Page/Print Setup dialog box, you are ready to print.

To print an image:

1 Choose File menu > Print to

open the Print dialog box. The top half of the dialog box

contains the standard print commands.

2 Select one of the four printing

methods that Corel Painter Essentials supports.

• Check Color Quick Draw/GDI Printing if your printer is not a PostScript printer. Some common examples are the HewlettPackard DeskJet, the Canon Bubble Jet, and the EPSON Stylus. You cannot print separations to non-PostScript printers.

• Check Color PostScript if you plan to print to a color PostScript device. The Minolta QMS ColorScript and Tek-

tronix color thermal printers are examples of color PostScript printers.

• Check Separations to print separations. The output consists of four pages, one each for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. You can print separations from Corel Painter Essentials with any PostScript device, including high-resolution imagesetters.

•Check the B & W PostScript option if you are printing on a black and white PostScript laser printer.

Corel Painter Essentials places a color bar, registration marks, and color name on each of the four separated plates.

Printing96

Corel Painter Essentials Instruction Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Contents

Welcome to Corel Painter Essentials

What’s Included in Corel Painter Essentials?

Streamlined User Interface

Why Upgrade to Corel Painter 8?

About Your User Manual

Corel Customer Support Services

The Workspace

Using Menus and Document Window

Workspace Tour

Using the Toolbox

Using Selectors

Using the Property Bar

Using the Brush Selector Bar

Working with Palettes

Exploring the Palettes

Basics

Opening Documents

Working with Documents

Saving Files

Closing Documents and Quitting the Application

Setting Preferences

Wacom Intuos Support

Using Textures and Patterns

Using Paper Texture

Using Patterns

Color

Working with Color

Changing Paper Color

Using Gradients

Painting

Exploring Painting

Understanding Brushes

Using a Stylus or Mouse

Selecting a Brush

Brush Settings

Where You Can Paint

Marking the Canvas

Painting with Color

Painting with Airbrushes

Filling Techniques

Cloning and Tracing

Cloning Imagery

Cloning a Document

Using Tracing Paper

Changing Clone Source

Painting in the Clone

Using Auto Van Gogh

Turning Other Brushes into Cloners

Using Layers

Layer Basics

Working with Layers

Creating Layers

Saving Files Containing Layers

Deleting Layers

Managing Layers

Editing Layers

Changing Layer Characteristics

Using Selections

Working with Selections

Creating Selections

Editing Path-Based Selections

Using Image Effects

Basics of Applying Effects

Orientation Effects

Apply Lighting

Apply Surface Texture

Other Surface Control Effects

Esoterica Effects

The Image Hose

How it Works

Using the Image Hose

Controlling the Image Hose

Working with Text

The Text Layer

Applying Effects to Text