What's improved and what's new in CorelPHOTO-PAINT 7.0
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): From one upgrade to another, CorelDRAW has always been a Pandora's box. Well, the big difference is that the box, according to Greek mythology, contained all the ills that would plague humankind. On the contrary, CorelDRAW contained all the tools and tricks that, when used creatively, could certainly wow people who saw the results.
Two weeks ago, we briefly reviewed the latest generation of CorelDRAW 7.0. This time around, we'll have a quick look at some of the cool features in its image-editing sibling, CorelPHOTO- PAINT 7.0.
The good news is, like the vector image-based CorelDRAW 7.0, the performance of CorelPHOTO-PAINT 7.0 has improved noticeably. There are two reasons for this. First, it is now a true 32-bit application. Second, its native file format contains a new internal memory management that significantly increases the speed in loading and saving images.
If you click on the Option command under the Tools menu item, you'll be able to set two swap disks and the amount of RAM reserved for images you are editing. As you already know, working with bitmap files requires a lot of RAM.
Furthermore, to accommodate graphics designers who are now working on Web pages, CorelPHOTO-PAINT 7.0 allows us to select a Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer color palette. This command allows you to load the colors from the Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer palette into the on-screen Color Palette.
Tools
By the way, if you ever get stupefied by the terms that graphics designers use, such as "anti-aliasing", "messa drop- off", and "spread", take heart. Just start your CorelPHOTO-PAINT, press F1, then go down the list that appears until you find "Reference". Click on it, and then click on "Glossary". You'll see "CorelPHOTO-PAINT Glossary". When you click on this one, you'll get a fairly comprehensive list of terms used in this program. Keep this source of information in mind, since you will need it once in awhile.
One of the highly welcomed tools in this upgrade includes the Undo and Redo List commands, which you'll find under the Edit menu item. Using the Undo List, you can select which one of your previous actions you want to cancel. In case you accidentally undo too many of your actions, you can open the Redo List and select the ones you actually didn't want to cancel.
In the Memory section of the Options, you can also set how many levels of Undo you want recorded. The trade-off is, the more Undo levels you specify, the more system resources get allocated to keep track of the actions you take.
Ever wonder how you could create a script to automate your job in CorelPHOTO-PAINT or CorelDRAW? Just save the series of actions found in either of these lists and give it a name. Bingo! To replay the script file, just go to the Tool menu item, click on "Scripts" and then "Run". You can edit the script files to eliminate unwanted actions. You can also play back the scripts in a batch to save even more time when working with multiple script files or images.
Guides
As in real life, I like guides. I usually use guidelines to ensure precision when aligning objects on the page. Guidelines are nonprinting lines that we can position anywhere on the page, and we can make our objects or masks automatically snap to these lines. In the previous version, CorelPHOTO-PAINT only allowed us to create grids, which are essentially guidelines that appear at regular intervals. In the new upgrade, we can create both grids and guidelines. We can create new guidelines by dragging the mouse from the rulers, which can be activated from the View menu item. Or, we can use the Guidelines Setup dialog box that you can see on the bottom right-hand corner of the accompanying picture. In this dialog box, we can specify the coordinates of the lines precisely. If you use inches as your unit of measurement, even six digits after the decimal point can be specified. That's way too precise for most of our jobs. We can also hide the grids and guidelines as we wish.
Talking about masks, we can now float a mask on a new layer without affecting the background. When we "defloat" it, the mask will be pasted on the background. We can reuse the mask with the Mask Transform tool.
I found that nudging, or slowly moving a selected object or a mask with the arrow keys, was a nuisance in the past. If I had set the nudge distance too high, the object jumped too far. If I had set it too low, the object would crawl and I would lose my patience. Now, in CorelPHOTO-PAINT 7.0, we can set a low value for the nudge distance. When we need to move the object farther and faster, we can press the Shift and the arrow keys together to use what Corel calls "Super Nudge". We can specify how far the Super Nudge moves an object or mask relative to the regular nudge. We can set, for instance, the Super Nudge to move it 30 times farther than the regular nudge.
What about the on-line guides that lead you step-by-step in creating cool effects? Just like in CorelDRAW 7.0, you can run the CorelPHOTO-PAINT Tutorial. The time you devote in going through each lesson will definitely be worth it.
Effects
No doubt about it, the new version also comes with improved effect tools as well as brand new ones. The Vignette effect, for example, now lets you choose from four vignette shape options: ellipse, square, circle, and rectangle. The preview area in the Vignette dialog box dynamically displays the result of using each shape, so that you can apply the effect more confidently to your image.
A new radiant blur that creates blurs radiating from a center point has also been added to the blur effects group. There are two types of this blur: zoom and spin. The first makes your image appear as if it is rushing toward a distant vanishing point, while the second makes it revolve around the center point as if you're looking at it through a glass plate.
A new texture section gives you the ability to create dramatic embossing effects on your image or across the RGB channels using up to 19 separate light sources. We explored this effect some time ago in our project of creating Windows wallpaper. In addition, Corel PHOTO-PAINT now offers four new wild effects filters (limited editions) from Kai's Power Tools as well as a set of image enhancement filters from Intellihance.
The drop shadow of the text "The Jakarta Post" that you see in the accompanying illustration was created automatically by applying the Drop Shadow command, found under the Object menu item. We can choose the horizontal and vertical offsets of the shadow, its direction and color. Again, the interactive preview area is very helpful in letting us know what the image will look like when we apply the effect permanently.
Transparency
Now you can fill an area with transparent textures, like the background on the accompanying picture. In this sample, I applied two different texture fills, each with its own transparency settings. You can adjust the transparency direction and level interactively, thanks to the dynamic preview area.
Is it still easy for you to lose a whole day's work when the power suddenly goes out and you never save your work? Perhaps not anymore. You can tell CorelPHOTO-PAINT to automatically save your work at regular time intervals. Each time, you'll be prompted by the program and you decide whether you want to save it after the specified time has elapsed. If you don't like these regular interruptions, you can always disable the warning. Now, why on earth did they wait so long to add this nice feature?