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.

Better High-end Color Support for Interactive Blend and Contour Effects

By Steve Bain

If you work with high-end color, you’ll be pleased to know that since version X3 both CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT include high-end color features that can help you unleash your wildest design and illustration energy. These new tools and resources also let you accurately reproduce your ideas in your digital workflow and confidently meet the most demanding print production requirements.

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.

Finding Gold in the New CGS Digital Content Collection

By Steve Bain

As loyal users have come to expect, the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite comes with a substantial stockpile of digital content that you can use and abuse as you see fit. What you may not realize is that when version X3 was released Corel revamped the entire collection. It isn’t just a few new fonts and images added for good marketing, it’s a complete overhaul. Browse through these highlights and you’ll see what I mean.

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.

Customize CorelDRAW to Fit Your Workflow

By Steve Bain

If you like the convenience of having quick access to just the right tools or commands exactly when and where you want as you work, you’ll love the customization features built into the CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite.