CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide part 48 ppt

You can click an unselected shape with the Interactive fill tool; it becomes selected, and then a second click-drag on the object by default applies the linear style fountain fill, makin

Ashape without a fill on your drawing page is like a brand-new coloring book To make

a coloring book—and your CorelDRAW artwork—more visually meaningful, you

need to fill your shapes with colors and textures CorelDRAW has more than a half-dozen

different types of fill you can apply to your shapes, and these types have hundreds of variations In computer graphics, you have over 16 million solid shades of color at your

disposal; imagine what you can do with blends of colors, colors in different patterns, and colored textures! The worst part of filling CorelDRAW objects will be deciding on a style of fill The best part, as you explore filling shapes in this chapter, is that it’s very difficult to

color outside of the lines

Download and extract all the files from the Chapter15.zip archive to follow the tutorials in this chapter.

Examining the Fill Types

Each type of CorelDRAW fill has its own special characteristics:

● Uniform fills apply flat, solid color.

● Fountain fills make a color transition from one color to another, in different

directions—sometimes also called a gradient fill You can also create a fountain fill

composed of more than two different colors CorelDRAW ships with a lot of preset fills that this chapter demonstrates how to pick and apply

● PostScript fills are good for repeating patterns Although PostScript is a printing

technology, you don’t need to print a CorelDRAW document to see a PostScript fill, and you can indeed export a PostScript filled object to bitmap format, and the fill will look fine PostScript fills support transparency and are ideal for exporting to EPS file format to use in desktop publishing programs And, naturally, a PostScript fill is valid for printing to a PostScript printer

● Pattern and texture fills can fill shapes with bitmaps, including photographs, and a

large supply of preset bitmaps is included with CorelDRAW

● Mesh fills take multicolored fills and present you with the option of “smearing”

colors within the fill, much like finger-painting

Every fill type is applied in a slightly different way through the use of onscreen tools, docker windows, or the Interactive fill and Mesh fill tools (see Figure 15-1)

Using the Color Palette

With color selection, the Color Palette is an excellent starting point, and to apply a uniform

(solid) fill to a selected object, you just select an object with the Pick tool and then left-click

a color on the Color Palette You can also drag a well (a color swatch) from the Color

Palette, drop it onto a shape (which does not have to be selected), and the object is filled

Perhaps one of the most interesting features in CorelDRAW is selecting not only a color

from the Color Palette, but also a shade or a tone of that color—in color theory terms, these

are called analogous colors To pick a shade of a color on the Color Palette, you first select

the object you want to fill, click-hold on a well color, and a small pop-up menu of shades

and tones of that color appears While holding the mouse button, drag to the exact shade you

want, release the mouse button, and the object is filled This pop-up menu features shades

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FIGURE 15-1 Fill your shapes in a composition with exactly the fill type that draws attention

to your design work

Uniform

Fountain

Full-color pattern

Bitmap pattern

Two-color pattern

Mesh

PostScript

Texture

that vary in hue from top to bottom, and in brightness as you drag your cursor from left to

right It’s like having 49 possible colors at your cursor tip when you choose one color

Uniform fills can also be assigned to all objects right from the get-go With no objects selected in the drawing window, left-click a color you want to use for all objects, artistic text, and/or paragraph text from now on CorelDRAW then displays a dialog, shown next, that asks what sort of object you want filled when it’s created from now on You can cancel out of this operation, but you can choose objects, text, or both

If you need to set the default fill for all documents you create in the future, go to Options | Document, where you can check Save Options As Defaults For New Documents, and then check Styles, which applies the fill you’ve chosen to Default Graphic (the properties for all new objects).

Selected shape Color Palette

Click-hold to choose analogous color.

From Uniform to Non-Uniform Object Filling

The quick way of applying any of the fill types is by using the Interactive fill tool, shown

here You’ll find it at the bottom of the toolbox; to quickly select it, pressG You’ll see a hint

here that the Interactive fill tool is also a selection tool—the cursor is an arrow cursor with a

paint bucket You don’t need to have the object that you want to fill selected when you use

this tool You can click an unselected shape with the Interactive fill tool; it becomes selected,

and then a second click-drag on the object by default applies the linear style fountain fill,

making a transition from black to white You can then change the colors used, or choose a

different fill type from the property bar by clicking the Fill Selector drop-down list

While you’re using the Interactive fill tool, the property bar displays fill options that

change depending on the type of fill you choose from the selector If your selected object

features no fill color at all, the selector displays the type as No Fill, and the property bar

displays no options The selector, shown next, is where you can choose from any of ten fill

types: Uniform Fill, four fountain fill types (Linear, Radial, Conical, and Square), two Color

Pattern fill types (Two Color and Full Color), Bitmap Pattern, Texture Fill, and PostScript

Fill In this section, you’ll learn to control every fill type using property bar options and the

control handles on the Interactive fill tool

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Interactive fill tool Interactive fill tool cursor

Fill Type selector

The technique you use to set angle and position (among other properties) of fills varies a little from fill type to fill type, so let’s run through the basics for a moment

Filling an Object, Setting Fill Properties

1. Select the object to fill, and then choose the Interactive fill tool (G) from the toolbox

2. If your object already has a fill (excluding a shade of a color well on the Color

Palette), the property bar automatically displays the fill type and the current properties of that specific fill

3. Use the Fill Type selector to choose a fill type As you do this, the object is filled with the selected style, and the property bar shows options for this style, which is applied with default color, direction, pattern type, and so on Your object will also display control handles for the direct manipulation of the current fill type

4. Use the property bar to define properties of your fill, which are instantly updated in the object in the drawing window

The following section covers the property bar options specific to the fill type when the Interactive fill tool is selected

Uniform Color Fill Options on the Property Bar

Uniform fills are like the paint chips at the hardware store; it’s a solid color, no variations, and a uniform fill floods an object within the boundaries of its outline with the color you choose The Color Palette is a fast, easy way to assign a uniform color; however, when you choose the Interactive fill tool, you have several different color models from which to choose See Chapter 17 for details on color theory—if you’re already familiar with the CMYK printing color model, the intuitive HSB color model, and others, you’ll feel right at home using the property bar to mix up color values (and better still, entering values a client might have telephoned to you for that big advertising job)

The following illustration shows the color models you can use the Interactive fill tool to choose when Uniform Fill is selected from the property bar Fill Type selector Most of us prefer to visually mix up a color So while the property bar displays fill options, click the Edit Fill button at the far left; this displays a palette in which you drag a marker and move sliders to specify the color you need, and then click OK to define it

HSB and RGB color models occupy the same color space, the extent to which a

color can be expressed onscreen Therefore, you can arrive at an identical color

using either color mode This means you can switch color models for a filled object,

and between RGB and HSB there will be no real color change.

Applying a Fountain Fill

Fountain fills can fill objects with a smooth transition between two (or more) colors, and

they come in various styles Many commercial pieces of artwork are created today that

imitate the traditional airbrush (popular in the mid–20th century) by using fountain fills You

can apply a fountain fill in different ways, and the following tutorial shows you the quickest,

most artistically satisfying way

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Copy Fill Properties

Edit Fill

Uniform Fill Selected

Uniform Fill Type Selector (Color Models)

Color Values Palette Uniform Fill Palette Color Color Tint (Spot Colors Only)

Hue Slider Saturation/Brightness Marker

Creating Fountain-Filled Objects

1. Select an object and then choose the Interactive fill tool (G) from the toolbox

2. Click-drag, beginning at one side of your object and dragging to the opposite side at any angle; try dragging from 10 o’clock to 4 o’clock, for example A default linear fountain fill is created using the object’s current fill color, making a color transition from the defined color to white, indicated by settings in the property bar If your object has no fill, a default black-to-white fountain fill is created

3. For a different fountain fill type, choose Radial, Conical, or Square from the Fill Type selector As you do this, the shape of your fountain fill (and the available property bar options) changes

4. Experiment with changing the appearance of the fill by dragging to move the color markers and midpoint slider control Notice how the position changes affect your fill

The midpoint slider is used to influence the point at which the From color and the To

color in the fountain fill are exactly a 50/50 mix of the colors So if, for example, you want to create a shaded sphere, you begin with an ellipse object, fountain fill it with the radial fill type, and then move the midpoint closer to the white marker than to the black to make a small, subtle, sharp highlight on the object: bingo, you have yourself a dimensional sphere!

Using these steps, your click-drag action specifies several properties The first click sets the From color position, and the drag direction defines the angle The length of the drag defines the distance, and the mouse release defines the To color position A series of interactive markers shows the position of each of these values It’s important to understanding how fountain fills are applied; other fountain fill operations are variations on this theme The following sections examine each fountain fill type in detail (see Figure 15-2)

● Linear This is the default fountain fill style and is most useful for shading rectangular shapes to suggest lighting on a dimensional plane or 3D object The color marker positions mainly control its appearance

FIGURE 15-2 A different fountain fill type can bring out the dimensional qualities of almost

any shape

● Radial This type makes a color transition outward in a circular style, terrific for

shading round objects and objects you’d like to soften in appearance During use of

radial fountain fills, the center offset controls where the fill begins

● Conical This might not be a fill type you use every day, but if you need to simulate the

look of the playing side of a DVD or an aerial view of a grain silo, Conical produces a

strongly shaded and unique transition between two or more colors The From color of a

conical fill is the beginning and the end of the conical fill, and the To color shades all the

in-between blend steps The center control handle can be used to increase the contrast of

the effect by dragging it toward the From color marker along the dotted-line arc of the

control handles; dragging the center toward the To marker creates less contrast and a

milder effect

● Square This style produces a look like a four-pointed starburst The center marker

controls contrast; the To marker sets distance and direction for the fill

Chapter 22 documents object transparency types Here’s advance notice if you haven’t

read this chapter yet: Fountain fill styles are also transparency styles—all four types of

fountain fills can make a transition between opaque and transparent You therefore can build

an elegantly shaded object by, for example, applying a radial fountain fill to an object and

then giving it a linear transparency property

Controlling Fountain Fills Interactively

The interactive fountain fill markers (hovering on top of an object you’ve drawn), combined

with the property bar, give you control over the look of your fill Among these, you’ll see

color selectors, a Midpoint option, Angle and Edge Pad options, and a Fountain Step Lock/

Unlock option, shown here:

Many of these fountain fill property bar options correspond to interactive markers

surrounding your object, but the marker positions can be changed to produce different looks,

according to the type of fountain fill Although the property bar offers precision, dragging

the markers is extremely intuitive and often is a preferred method to make a custom fill In

Figure 15-3 you can see the different interactive marker positions that appear around each

fountain fill type

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Edit Fill Linear Selected Color Selectors

Midpoint

Edge Pad

Angle Fountain Step Lock/Unlock

Copy Fill Properties

Moving any of the markers will change the fill appearance in different ways The following explains the purpose of options you’ll see in the property bar while dragging interactive markers and what the effect is on the fill:

● Color Markers Use these to set the position and colors in your fountain fill Each fountain fill type has to have at least two colors To change a color, click to select it and click a color well in your onscreen palette, or drag a color well directly onto a color marker To move a marker, click-drag it in any direction, which changes the properties of the filled object, usually relocating the center of the fountain fill

● Midpoint This slider control is available only while a two-color fountain fill is applied; if you use more than two colors for the fill, the midpoint marker goes away The midpoint marker is used to set the point at which the From and To colors are equal in value This value is measured in terms of percentage—by default, it’s

50 percent

FIGURE 15-3 Interactive markers surround each fountain fill type while you’re using the

Interactive fill tool

Linear

From color marker

Midpoint slider

To color marker

Radial

Center offset

Angle/Direction

Interactive fill tool cursor

Square Conical

● Angle The Angle value applies to linear fountain fills and is set in degree values

between 360 and –360 (a negative value) Positive angles rotate the fill counterclockwise,

while negative values rotate the fill clockwise

● Edge Pad This option sets the amount of contrast between the To and From colors,

expressed as a percentage The default setting, 0, creates smooth, even blends at the

slowest possible rate Increasing this setting causes colors to change more abruptly,

as shown next Edge Pad can be set within a range of 0 to 49 percent, and this can also

be adjusted in Object Properties (ALT+ENTER) and in the Fountain Fill dialog (F11)

Moving the color markers of a linear fill away from or toward your object’s outline

increases or decreases this value; try dragging the To and From color markers to

positions outside of the object, for example, to decrease the edge pad effect

● Center Offsets Radial, conical, or square fountain fills feature this marker; you

change the center position of the fill relative to your object’s center by dragging the

marker Dragging the center marker of a radial, conical, or square fill away from or

toward your object’s center also increases or decreases the edge pad value

● Steps This setting affects both the display and printing of fountain fills A fountain

fill is actually calculated by blending neighboring bands of color in succession, but

you don’t see this banding effect because so many shades of intermediate colors are

used between the To and From color The Fountain Steps option is fixed at the

maximum setting of 256 by default, but can be increased to a maximum of 999

However, you might be looking for a banding effect, to create shirt stripes or other

geometric patterns To lower this setting, click to unlock the Lock button Lowered

step values cause the color gradation in your fill to become unsmooth, as shown

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Edge pad 0 Edge pad 15 Edge pad 30