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Corel Help

Anyone know how to do a feathered effect on a background? I've attached a photo of the effect I'm after. It's the brownish area above the Woody. I've tried using the transparency tool and the fountain fill tool, but I haven't gotten the results I'm after.

Thanks,

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Attachments:

Transp..JPG, 2.6 MB

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Permalink Reply by CYW on September 27, 2010 at 11:05pm

Kevin, there's plenty of stuff you can do right in Draw without having to navigate through PhotoPaint.
Give this a try:
[1] Make your oval with the ellipse tool.
[2] Color it black
[3] Convert to RGB bitmap (Bitmaps/Convert)
[4] Apply a Gaussian Blur of about 40 pixels (Bitmaps/Blur/Gaussian)
[5] Convert to Black/White and accept the defaults (Bitmaps/Mode/Black & White)

Now that you have a monochrome bitmap, you can go ahead and X out the background and change it to any color you want with a simple right click.
Here's what it looks like in front of a black rectangle.

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Dunning on September 28, 2010 at 7:36am

I learned something new; thanks. If I understand correctly, your suggestion seems to produce the same effect as using a drop shadow but does it using a bitmap instead of a vector. If so, what is the advantage of using the bitmap approach?

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Permalink Reply by CYW on September 28, 2010 at 9:51am

hey Dennis, I'm not sure what you're asking.
The Lens that Corel creates for Drop Shadows are bitmaps as well so I'm not sure how to answer you.

Maybe I'm missing something.......too early in the morning and not enough caffeine.
Try asking me again. In the meantime I'll go brew another pot of tea! (smile)

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Dunning on September 28, 2010 at 10:01am

You are correct, both create a bitmap; my bad. So, let me ask this. What, if any, is the difference in creating the oval with the blur tool and with the drop shadow tool since they both appear to produce the same effect with a bitmap? Just curious.

P.S. Thanks for your patience.

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Permalink Reply by CYW on September 28, 2010 at 10:33am

Ya' know, I'm not sure if 'technically' that lens is a bitmap or not, Dennis. I probably should have qualified my comment and said that the Lens effectively performs as a bitmap.
Can you tell I'm not a morning person?

I'm also not sure if there's an advantage or disadvantage to either method.
Probably all depends on what you've got sitting in front of you and where you want to go with it.
I do know that you probably have more options available if you use a Lens. It would be easier to manipulate and change effects.
On the other hand, for me anyway, using a Lens quickly gets complicated.
I'm forever trying to find the easiest/quickest solution.

Isn't Corel a beauty?
So many ways to achieve the same (or similar) result.
Part of it's charm.....and part of the reason it can get you crazy sometimes, huh?

Kevin............no apologies.
The way I look at it is that we all join these forums to help each other and learn from each other.
We all started from the same place. The beginning.
And somewhere along the way we all asked the same exact questions.

Monochrome bitmaps are nifty for a lot of reasons.
One of the coolest things is that they can be colored virtually like a single colored vector.
The trick is that it's backwards.
Whatever color you choose for a fill, will actually be your background.
Whatever color you choose for your outline, will actually be your foreground.
With the monochrome bitmap selected, click on the big "X" on one of your color palettes.
Your white background will disappear.
Now right click on any color you choose. Your mono bitmap will change to that color.
Cool beans, right?

HTH

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Hirata on September 28, 2010 at 11:27am

Damn, that's awesome. I normally like to try to understand the logic behind things in Corel, but I think I'll stop right here and go with the flow before I really get into trouble.

Thanks CYW

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Dunning on September 28, 2010 at 11:35am

You made at least two people very happy this morning. I just applied what you taught us.

Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Hirata on September 28, 2010 at 10:01am

Thanks CYW. I apologize for asking such a simple question, but how do you remove the white box around the oval?