Designing Better Information Graphics

By Steve Bain 

Before desktop publishing became just another job responsibility, producing graphically appealing information was a creative endeavor involving a number of creative and academic skills. In this tutorial, we’ll explore some of the basics involved in representing data in creative ways to add interest and engage the viewer. Although the techniques can be used with virtually any graphic application, the examples I’ll use to illustrate my points were created using CorelDRAW.

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:

 

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.

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.

Create Classic Masterpieces in Corel PHOTO-PAINT®

By Steve Bain

Looking to add a little magic to your digital images? Corel PHOTO-PAINT® provides many different ways to apply weird and wonderful creative effects to ordinary digital photos. One bitmap filter stands out as an excellent creative tool. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to use it and reveal the tricks to navigating and selecting the numerous options.

New Rules for the Pick Tool

by Steve Bain

If you’re a legacy CorelDRAW user peforming advanced design or illustration tasks or even basic vector drawing work, this may pique your interest. Since the release of version 12, there have been a couple of key changes to CorelDRAW’s Pick Tool default behavior. You can no longer manipulate object nodes using just the Pick Tool and you’ll need to pay closer attention when selecting unfilled objects.

Custom Sprayers Can Add Real Drawing Power

By Steve Bain

There’s nothing better than harnessing the power of your computer to create hundreds or even thousands of objects in the blink of an eye. CorelDRAW’s Artistic Media Tool sprayer enables you to do just that. You can ’spray’ objects onto any open or closed path and for amazing technical and creative effects. In this short tutorial, I’ll show you how to create your own sprayer effect and set options to control its appearance.

Create Cool 3D Chiseled Graphics (part 2)

By Steve Bain

In part 1 of this 2-part tutorial, we learned how to create the illusion of chiseled effects in CorelDRAW using very basic shapes. Now we’ll explore how to work with more complex shapes. We’ll also reveal how to add realistic color schemes to simulate various lighting levels.

Create Cool 3D Chiseled Graphics (part 1)

By Steve Bain

In this visit to the CorelDRAW toolbox, you’ll discover a technique you can use to create perfectly chiseled shapes. It’s an effect that will enable you to create the 3D illusion of shapes which appear either recessed into – or raised above - a flat surface. Your success will depend on your object’s shape, your skill at node editing and path commands, and of course how closely you follow these tutorial steps.