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Motivation:
Illustrate just the tip of the iceberg in brushes & effects
Software:
Corel Essentials
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The
before image |
The
after image |
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Alas the first edit is not a crop - once again defeating our formula for quick edits. Rather we concentrate on the clown's face which will anchor the image. So first we mask off the clown's face using the Lasso tool . Next Image | Adjust | Contrast/Brighteness/Intensity is the menu choice. Here the purpose is to bring out the colors and their edges - so the intensity and contrast are emphasized; not brightness. Again color cook to your own tastes - but not too elaborately because final adjustments will be done . Next, Mask | Invert protects the clown's face while working on the remainder of the image. |
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The lower right corner of the image is too dark and bland. To add interest streaking the corner with a variation on a claw brush using a light blue color is the first task. First select the Brush tool from the toolbar. Then, Windows | Dockers | Brush Settings. Then select the second of the two brush images. A dropdown will appear with dozens of brushes. Use the scroll bar to move down among the brushes until you find the claw as shown in the figure opposite. The brush customizing dialog is |
| so powerful in PhotoPaint one could spend 2-3 tutorials on it alone.Instead, just use two controls, the size control which allows quick resizing of the brush - from 60 to 123 pixels, Next, users can rotate the brushes orientation in the first window above Size. Just grab a blue dot and rotate. Do this while stroking in the right, lower corner of the image - we want to suggest a figure leaving the image. Finally choose another round brush from the dropdown. with some softness on its edges. Again using pastel light blue variation in color add fill streaks into the scene. | |
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Now comes the fun. PhotoPaint has many powerful and useful filters and effects - but for sheer fun and nifty effects choose Effects | Custom | Alchemy. Just below the Alchemy title in the dialog's title bar there are two preview buttons. Press them alternately and watch what happens to the dialog. Yes, you have a choice of three preview modes. Comparison preview is what is shown in the figure - with before and after thumbnails.. The Single Screen button produces just an after preview. And when no window appears in the dialog - then the effect is applied on a temporray basis to the full screen . This flexibility in previewing is a real strength of PhotoPaint. Now from the Style dropdown (it has Last Used as the prest option), select Colored Pencil - you will likely have to scroll to get to it as Alchemy has over 40 |
| preset effects. But what makes Alchemy especially powerful is that users can customize an effect and then save it as new effect, available for reuse at anytime in the future. For our purposes, the Angle tab is chosen to make sure the pencil streaks are slightly upward and to the right - you have to do a bit of fiddling, hence the comparison preview mode is preferred here. Try several previews until you get the right streaking. Then the last step is to Image | Adjust | Color Tone . This dialog is very helpful when the color and contrast are close and you want to do final adjustments to color saturation, contrast, and brightness. Again the Comparison preview mode is helpful . We chose to increase saturation and contrast with a little adjustment required for brightness. Voila - a clown pursuing his Mirth. | |
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