Create Beautiful Bevels Fast with CorelDRAW

By Steve Bain

Applying bevels to graphics with older versions of CorelDRAW® was certainly not simple and easy, and the results were arguably less than impressive. However, all that changed with the introduction of the bevel effects in version X3. In recent versions of the program, you can now add a third dimension (see below) and customize your bevels with depth, color, and lighting options.

 

Master Close-Cropping with PHOTO-PAINT’s Cutout Lab

By Steve Bain

The Cutout Lab introduced in Corel PHOTO-PAINT® X3 enables you to extract or copy photo elements from any digital image with precision and relative ease. Much more than just a quick selection tool, the Cutout Lab accurately detects almost any shape and preserves the fine details of an image. It automatically applies transparent edge-feathering, and it enables you to decide whether your cutout will be an object without a background, an object on top of the original image, or a clip mask attached to the original image.

Draw Smarter with This Clever CorelDRAW Tool

By Steve Bain

Has anyone ever known you well enough to finish your sentences? Well, that’s sort of how one of the most intuitive drawing tools in CorelDRAW works. The Smart Drawing tool was first introduced in CorelDRAW 12 to give freehand sketching the benefit of a kind of artificial intelligence. You can sketch a shape freehand-style on screen and end up with a precise vector object as a curve, native object or Perfect Shape.

You’ll find the Smart Drawing tool (shown below) located in the Toolbox between the curve tools and the rectangle tools—or you can press the S hotkey for speedy selection.

Get Snapping with CorelDRAW’s Object-Snapping Features

By Steve Bain

If you’ve ever fumbled around trying to align your cursor to something, you can bid this frustrating task farewell. Object snapping was improved in version 12 to include new modes to give you maximum snapping control that works together with the program’s new Dynamic Guides feature.

You can instantly snap to text baselines, object nodes, edges, midpoints, centers and ellipse quadrants; or snap to ellipse tangents, perpendicular angles or angles specified as Dynamic Guide paths. For example, you can snap the baseline of a text object to a rectangle, like this:

 

Test-driving CorelDRAW’s PowerTRACE Features

By Steve Bain

In the publishing world, it happens all too often. Someone sends you a low-qualitly logo image at the last minute, when what you really need is a digital vector file — preferably in the proper colors. If you’ve run into this scenario before, you may already know how time-consuming the manual-conversion process can be. In this tutorial, I’ll build on my previous PowerTRACE installment by showing you how easily PowerTRACE can convert pixels to vector shapes.

We’ll tackle a bitmap-tracing project that will enable you to quickly produce an accurate two-color vector version of a logo design. Along the way, you’ll learn how to use many of the powerful new features engineered into PowerTRACE that make the process fast and efficient.

Turn Digital Images into Vector Artwork with PowerTRACE

By Steve Bain

Recent versions of CorelDRAW include powerful new onboard tracing tools you can use to quickly trace your digital images into vector artwork. In this tutorial, I’ll highlight the value of using CorelDRAW’s revamped bitmap-tracing tools and demonstrate the results of using various tracing options.

PHOTO-PAINT’s Image Lab Fixes Photos Fast

By Steve Bain

If you’ve ever found the task of fixing digital photos a slow and frustrating exercise, this tutorial will interest you. The tools and options available in PHOTO-PAINT’s Image Adjustment Lab make it easy to correct common digital photo problems. Let’s explore how to use this relatively new resource available in version X3 or later.

Design Your Own Picture Frames in Corel PHOTO-PAINT

By Steve Bain

Whether you use the majority of your digital photos for personal scrapbooking or albums or whether you’re a professional layout artist, you can add interest and creative flair to your digital images by applying frames. You can do this quickly and easily in Corel PHOTO-PAINT by using a simple filter effect. To demonstrate the effect, I’ve used the tragically cute candidate shown here.

Cool Tricks with Paragraph Text in CorelDRAW

By Steve Bain

These days, there’s no excuse for churning out plain-looking text layouts. Using recent versions of CorelDRAW, there are so many ways you can make text more interesting to read, it’s a shame not to take advantage of them. In this tutorial, we’ll explore a few tricks that you can use with paragraph text to produce more visually appealing and professional-looking text layouts. Although this tutorial depicts a previous CorelDRAW release version, these tips are valid throughout virtually all recent versions of the program.

Dynamic Guides May Change the Way You Draw

By Steve Bain

Once in a while, you discover a drawing feature that’s so innovative, it has the potential to completely change the way you draw. The dynamic guides in CorelDRAW will do just that. In fact, after using dynamic guides for a while, you’ll wonder how you ever did without them. In this tutorial, I’ll reveal just how great these convenient guides really are.