Quick, do-it-yourself way to make image tile files<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Here's a question for fellow desktop publishers:
\nHave you ever found yourself scratching the back of your head
\nbecause you don't know what else to do to make your brochure or
\nleaflet design more eye-catching?<\/p>\n
Try using tiles. Tiles are actually image files. They may
\ncontain images of wood surfaces, such as the one you see in the
\naccompanying illustration; they can contain images of concrete
\nwalls, flower buds, clouds in the skies or anything else you can
\nimagine. Most paint programs now come with a handsome collection
\nof tiles, some of which are imaginative creations and some of
\nwhich resemble real things so closely that you wonder how people
\ncreated them in the first place.<\/p>\n
A good image tile file is the one that, when carefully placed
\nside-by-side with its own copies, merges seamlessly. In other
\nwords, when you put them on a grid, they will form a complete
\nunity and look as if they were one single image file. It's for
\nthis reason that tiles are good for background, including
\nbackground for leaflets.<\/p>\n
As a matter of fact, my favorite CorelPHOTO-PAINT! comes with
\na tile filter that lets you fill a space with a pre-specified
\nnumber of copies. But, this time, I'll share with you a quick and
\ndirty technique for producing a similar effect.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, you'll need a fast PC, a high resolution
\ndisplay, a lot of RAM and a lot of hard disk space to work with
\ntile files. For this particular project, I also used the CD ROM
\nversion of CorelPHOTO-PAINT! Plus.<\/p>\n
Background<\/p>\n
I came across the technique when I was asked, recently, to
\ndesign a leaflet for the research center where I work. On the
\nleft of the screen in the accompanying picture you can see the
\nlayout of the leaflet that I had created with Pagemaker 5.0.
\nBecause Pagemaker was not the active program on the screen at the
\ntime I captured it, the wood background appeared coarse.<\/p>\n
It was a letter-sized leaflet, 8.5 by 11 square inches. As the
\nbrochure had three panels, each panel was about 3.6667 inches
\nwide. We need to know the exact dimension of each panel because
\neach of them will have a separate background file made of tile
\nfiles and these files will have to be created in a paint program
\nand imported into our page layout program.<\/p>\n
I chose to create the background file in CorelPHOTO-PAINT!
\nbecause I still found this program the easiest to understand and
\nuse. Here are the steps that I took to create the background:
\nFirst, I created a new file 3.667 inches wide and 8.5 inches
\nhigh. I specified 32-bit CMYK as the color mode, as the printer
\nwhich was going to print the leaflet had requested this mode. I
\nfitted the entire canvas into the screen by pressing F4 or
\nclicking on View and then Zoom to Fit. You can see the program's
\nscreen on the right of the illustration.<\/p>\n
Then I imported one of tile files stored in Disc 2 of
\nCorelPHOTO-PAINT! Plus. The filename for the wood surface that I
\nused in the leaflet was CB025089.CPT, and you'll find it in the
\nsub-directory TILESVISUALS320. If you have this CD-ROM, you'll
\nfind 267 different tile files. In CorelPHOTO-PAINT!'s manual you
\ncan also see thumbnail pictures of all these tiles.<\/p>\n
In case you are wondering, CPT is the proprietary TIFF file
\nformat for CorelPHOTO-PAINT! To import the file into the canvas,
\nI used the command Paste from File, which is found under the menu
\nitem Edit. Remember that you can only use this command for this
\npurpose. With this command I placed a tile in the bottom left-
\nhand corner of the canvas, as shown in the picture.<\/p>\n
Then I enlarged the tile three times by holding down the Ctrl
\nkey and dragging its top right handle. By holding the Ctrl key,
\nwe ensure that the aspect ratio is maintained and the enlargement
\ncauses minimal loss of image quality. Having done this, I found
\nthat the enlarged tile was still not wide enough to cover the
\nentire width of the canvas, so I enlarged it further by dragging
\nits middle right handle to the right until its edge perfectly
\ncovered the right edge of the canvas.<\/p>\n
Once the tile completely filled the bottom of the canvas, I
\nproceeded with the Copy and Paste commands to create the other
\ntiles necessary to fill the entire canvas. Two things that were
\ncrucial after this stage were that the copies sat perfectly
\ninside the canvas and that their edges met intimately. In order
\nto achieve this, I zoomed in 100 percent and used the arrow keys
\nto nudge the individual tiles left, right, up or down. To make
\nthe job easier, I unchecked the Marquee Visible option found
\nunder the Object menu item. This turned off all the object
\nmarquees, which are not needed at this stage anyway.<\/p>\n
Save as TIFF file<\/p>\n
Once the 3.667 by 8.5 inch background was ready, without any
\nboundaries between tiles, I then saved the file in the TIFF
\nformat. In CPT, each of the tiles -- the original and its
\nidentical copies -- are still separate objects that can be
\nmanipulated individually. However, once the file has been saved
\nin the TIFF format, all the separate objects are merged with the
\nbackground so that we have one single layer and thus one object.
\nIn other words, once the file is saved in the TIFF format, it
\ncannot be edited piecemeal.<\/p>\n
Once the TIFF file of the background was ready, all I had to
\ndo was place it on my Pagemaker leaflet. As the original size of
\nthe background file was already very close to the size of the
\npanels in the leaflet, I hardly had to stretch it to fit my
\nlayout and could therefore prevent further image distortion.<\/p>\n
In Pagemaker, it is advisable to choose Gray Out as the option
\nfor displaying graphics on the screen, as it will speed up screen
\nredrawing tremendously. Only when you want to judge the impact of
\nyour overall leaflet design should you use the High Resolution
\noption. By the way, you can access these options in Pagemaker's
\nPreferences dialog box, which you invoke by clicking on
\nPreferences, found under the File menu item.<\/p>\n
One important warning, though: A background TIFF file of 3.667
\nby 8.5 inches, based on CMYK, can be as large as 11 MB by itself.
\nThe CPT file is usually twice as large. That's why you need
\nplenty of storage space for this kind of job.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, tiles are something that you can take advantage
\nof in order to add some spice to your page designs. They're free,
\nand they can be manipulated in any way you like. So, use them.<\/p>",
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