<-prev  |   INTRO | PART 1A | PART 1B | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | CLOSE |  next->
Copyright © 2001, David Mutch & Visionary Voyager Corp. P/L

Introduction

Most people love to apply fancy effects to text. This tutorial introduces some quite simple but effective effects you can use not only with text but with other objects as well.

These effects can be applied using any version of Corel Photo-Paint from version 8 upwards, and possibly even earlier versions with some modification. At the time of writing, I am now using version 10 all the time now and as I wanted to make these tuts available fairly quickly, I haven't spent a great deal of time referring back to version 8 (sorry) and so there may be some minor changes for version 8 users that I have missed. Please let me know if you find any problems and I will endeavour to fix them as soon as possible. Thanks.

Along with the tutorials themselves you will also find some handy TIPS pages here that may help explain some related matters such as different Fill commands and their use, Lock Transparency and Paint on Mask procedures. If you miss them while going through the tuts the links are list separately at the end of this introduction. I hope you find them helpful.

These tutorials are aimed at the beginner to intermediate level Photo-Paint user, but if you are more experienced you should be able to follow through the steps quite quickly simply by applying the title of each step and skipping past the more detailed explanations below the step titles.

Why do we need these effects?
In some cases similar effects exist under the effects menu in Photo-Paint but these are limited in scope and cannot natively provide the same depth of variation and control as those described here.

For instance, the Emboss Effect (under the 3D Effects submenu item in versions 9 and 10) only creates very harsh embosses. We sometimes need a much softer effect as shown here. Even if we apply a slight blur to the native emboss, we cannot achieve the same result with some soft and some hard edges.

 

Standard Emboss Effect Std. Emboss Effect with Gaussian Blur applied Std. Emboss with our soft emboss effect applied

 

 

However, even using this simple blur method, we CAN achieve a hard edged result using either lock transparency or masks (see Part 1A next).

------------------------------------

Here are some examples of what you will create using the methods described in this tutorial:

 

 

Credits:

Some of these ideas were originally shown on a web site created by Mario Catalano, but unfortunately that site no longer exists. I thank Mario for these ideas and for his brilliant site. Also, thanks to all the great folks on the Corel Newsgroups who are a never ending source of inspiration, information and fun. I love you all.

Additional TIPS Pages:
These handy TIPS pages may help explain some related matters such as different Fill commands and their use, Lock Transparency and Paint on Mask procedures.

<-prev  |   INTRO | PART 1A | PART 1B | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | CLOSE |  next->

Tutorials Home  |     |  Contact Me

Copyright © 2001, David Mutch & Visionary Voyager Corp. P/L