Fill Bucket Tool vs Edit > Fill.
What's the difference?
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Filling Objects.
You can fill objects several different ways in Corel Photo-Paint.
The two main methods are: using the Edit > Fill command from the menu, or by using the Fill (bucket) tool .
Each can be used to apply a fill in different ways.

First, lets have a quick review of objects.
An object can be all one piece so that no part is separated from another, like a square or a circle, even if it contains 'holes' (these are really transparent areas). Or, an object can be comprised of several seemingly distinct parts, like the letters of a word, where some parts don't touch other parts at all. It is this difference that will affect how we can fill an object and which method we use to fill it. In reality every object is the same size as your entire image (if fact larger - infinite in later versions of Photo-paint) - it just has some parts you can see (opaque) and other parts you can't see (transparent).

As noted previously in the description of the Lock Transparency feature in Part 1A of this tutorial, each object has a distinct boundary, which can be visualised when the Object Marquee Visible toggle is turned ON. The Object Marquee defines the object's opaque (visible) regions.

OK, now here's the crunch -
The Edit > Fill command will fill all opaque parts of an object all at once! This command does not automatically take the object boundary into account (by default, object transparency is not preserved!). However, if the Lock Transparency toggle is turned on, or the object is constrained by a mask the same shape as the object itself, the object's transparency IS preserved, and the Edit > Fill command is constrained to the object boundary. It will fill ALL opaque parts of the object at once.


Original: Text object showing the 'separated' object boundary around each letter.

After Edit > Fill
without Lock Transparency ON or mask present.
After Edit > Fill
with Lock Transparency ON or mask present.

The Fill (bucket) Tool however, DOES recognise the Object boundary automatically and therefore can be used to fill an object up to its boundary just by clicking inside the object. However, if the object is comprised of several parts in which the boundaries don't join, then the Fill (bucket) tool just fills until it reaches a boundary - it can't cross the boundary and fill a nearby part of the same object. Thus you need to click on each component of the object to fill each part separately. This gives quite a different effect, especially with fountain fills as shown here. Each letter is filled with the full width of the fountain fill. In the example above, the fountain fill stretches across the entire word.


Separate text letters of a single object filled using the Fill (bucket) tool

If the boundaries of each letter are joined however, even by the thinnest line, the Fill (bucket) Tool now fills the entire word with a single fill.

(a) The separated boundaries of the individual letters are now joined by a thin line. (b) The Fill (bucket) Tool will now fill the entire single, connected boundary area in one go and result in a similar fill to that obtained using the Edit > Fill command.
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