Other effects with extrusion

[Sark]

Sally.

I think I owe you two appologies.

I now realise why you are tracing manually. I appear to have confused you with the image I posted, which was a jpeg for attachment purposes only. The image was originally a vector. The path was created in Draw (no bitmaps involved). When I asked how to fill the spaces in an open path, I should have stated it was a vector path. Not sure whether a bitmap outline is classed as a path, or not? I think you basically knew the solution to this one. I guess it was so easy, you assumed it had to be harder. All I can say is, if you managed to go from a bitmap to a vector in 28 seconds, I'm mighty impressed. Of course timing isn’t important. I mentioned it more as a clue to the simplicity of the solution.

I asked this one because when I first started using Draw (V8), I remember quite a few new users struggling to understand why they couldn't just fill any apparently closed space with colour, just as you would with pencil and paper. Replies explained why it couldn’t be done, but never offered a solution. Even recently on the Unleash site I noticed a poster had failed to get a reply to the same question. Although it’s fair to say the Unleash forums are pretty much dead these days.

On to your challenge. To be honest, I had assumed you were thinking aloud regards my original post (due too it being placed between the two paragraphs). Sorry Will certainly give it a go tonight. Have an idea, or two already.

Grafixman

Although I now appreciate you were probably approaching this from a similar direction to Sally, I’m still baffled by where all your nodes are coming from. Maybe you’re working with Trace? If you start with a bitmap, converting to a vector in Trace gives acceptable results at the default setting. You do get a few border objects that need to be deleted because Trace doesn’t allow transparency. The outline/path is also just an object, but the vector shapes that make up the enclosed spaces don't have that many more nodes than the Outline to Object/Break Apart method creates when working entirely with vectors in Draw. Really can't understand why you get the strange black object in your example???

As for Draw, I’m the first to point out its faults. I mainly get frustrated with things that are fixed, but were never broken. It’s true, Draw is certainly not as efficient as Xara, but Draw is twice the program that Xara is. It also suffers from bad default settings. Bitmaps default to 300dpi, not 72dpi. This can seriously affect performance if working with Drop shadows etc. Also, in previous versions the Undo level was set to 99, which was crazy even for a vector app. Silly things like having to set the zoom ratio to Zoom Relative to 1:1 before pixels are matched to screen resolution at 100% zoom. This should be the default. Even the default Workspace is enough to put most people off. I have my own stripped down Workspace, and in use I still find it more efficient than Illustrator, due to the ease of use of its basic tools. The Shape tools, node editing and applying colour are all a breeze in Draw. Xara is very similar, and faster, but it seems a little dated to me. It hasn’t really been updated for quite a few years now.

I guess if you’re working commercially you can justify having a whole bunch of apps installed and using whatever does a particular job most efficiently. Since Sally informed me of Oberon’s AI Clipboard Macro, Draw does everything I need from a vector app, so for now I’ll put up with the few issues I have and continue to use it until Corel totally mess it up, or Illustrator is made more user friendly.

Sark

[sallybode]

I don't think Illustrator is going to become user friendly in the near future. Just more bloat to which the excuse always is: "Runs Great on a MAC!" -- my Aunt Susie's rear end it does!

So Illustrator--is to me--only used as a plugin. Or I use it mostly to analyse color problems I have when converting to .pdf out of DRAW.

And thirdlyly, for its brushes and I like the style that come with CS. CS at least has more things to own the program for.

With InDesign and Photoshop, Illustrator gets the leftovers. Although I do like the Live Paint, if you were going to turn something into a vector, however, why not do the hole thing and not piecemeal it to death. Bring on Inkscape, the fewer nodes the better and it gives you some real choice to make, and good ones instead of choosing between bad and worse right now in DRAW. DRAW has had the same Trace for years and needs to be updated like five years ago. Same with PhotoPaint. And PP can't do pressure sensitivity. But for what it does do brilliantly: chrome and gold and textures better than others, it is worth putting up with.

I started off on Adobe Illustrator and hated DRAW until I really had to use it. Hence I was really good and still am with Illustrator, but prefer DRAW in nearly every way now because it is so much more user friendly and efficient. DRAW had a good idea with giving the user so much information in its interface, it means you can alter things as you like to and not just one way. And shortcuts, all over the place.

Illustrator is a novelty to me now. I still haven't downloaded the latest trial to check out their spot color drop shadow. That could prove useful to me at work.

[Sark]

Hi Sally

Sally said....I started off on Adobe Illustrator and hated DRAW until I really had to use it. Hence I was really good and still am with Illustrator, but prefer DRAW in nearly every way now because it is so much more user friendly and efficient.

Compatibility with PS is of course a factor in Illustrators success, but when professionals invest time in learning a program, they’ll generally stick with. I learnt Draw first, so I’m more aware of how crude Illustrator is in some respects. If I had learnt Illustrator first I would have just accepted that was how things worked and it must be for a good reason.

Sally said....The problem with progress is that it takes someone producing software no longer tied to the past brilliance of a program.[/q]

This is why each new upgrade of a program just adds bloat. To justify the purchase, an upgrade has to be significantly different, but developers are frightened of changing the basic way in which things work. What you get are (often unnecessary) additions rather than improvements. Corel is more guilty here than Adobe, in my opinion. I do wonder where these programs can go in the future. What can they keep adding?

Now onto your challenge.

Firstly, I should point out that I don’t have Paint installed, and whilst I could use Draws Bitmap filters, these are way too slow. So, everything was carried out in PS (apart from creating the original Black path in Draw and exporting as a .png on a transparent background). Secondly, I’ve attempted this without simply applying a Metal effect Action or Style. I didn’t manage to match your result. I struggled with the mottled dirty look of the lead, and whilst I could have achieved something similar by just overlaying an effect, I’m guessing you achieved your effect in the process of creating the lead, rather than overlaying?

I created the image in two basic parts. The lead was created first. The glass was then created and placed below the lead stripping. After importing the Black path (.png) I carried out the following for the lead.

1...Duplicate Black path
2...Add white layer below duplicate & merge duplicate with white layer
3...Apply Spatter effect filter
4...Blur 6 pix
5...Duplicate and apply Difference mode to Duplicate
6...Offset duplicate 6 pix vertically and horizontally
7...Merge top layer down and invert
8...Apply levels to suit
9...Group with original Black path
10..Create merged copy
11..Apply Bevel and Emboss effect
12..Add layer below merged copy
13..Load selection from original Black path and expand by 4pix and fill with Black paint. Blur 3 pix
14..Link all and Create New Set from Linked


The Stained glass was created as follows.

1...Load original Black path as selection. Contract by 2 pix and Invert
2...Add new layer and Fill selection spaces with colour
3...Apply Bevel & Emboss
4...Apply Lens Flare filter several times
5...Apply Plastic wrap filter
6...Increase Saturation to +100
7...Create Merged copy of Glass layer only
8...Apply Ocean Ripple filter
9...Apply 1 pix Blur

The lead differs in look from your version, but looks OK. Just requires a bit of ageing, or dirtying up. Paint also clearly has a better Lens Flare filter than PS. I’ll be interested to see how you approached this. I’m guessing it was a lot quicker with potentially more consistent results, and maybe you worked with strokes?

Sark

[Grafixman]

The problem with Draw and Corel is that the people who develop it doesn't seem to love the program any more... They're just concerned with keeping up with the competition and adding more and more bell and whistles. Fundamental weakness in the program is not being remedied. So it gets weaker and weaker as it gets shinier and glossier on the surface.
I agree with your viewpoint totally, Sark.
BTW, I didn't use Trace for my failed conversion pic. It's just a vector line I created then I used the outline to object command. Draw seems to have trouble with it if your nodes are less than ideal. I used the freehand line tool for it, so it could have had some kinky nodes. Kinks in the line throws off the line conversion to object, it seems.

[sallybode]

Hi, Sark,
There are things that PhotoPaint does better than Photoshop and faster, so I use PP for that and PS the rest of the time. But it is worth having it installed if you need to do beveled type, it just offers more options that are not available in PS. Since people don't use PP as often, the unique effects it offers seem new because no one is using them that very often.

The extruded squiggle:

I started with my vector curve, colored the black lines 40% black, converted to Bitmap in RGB, did not import the fill at all to photopaint. I am used to working at 300 dpi, so that is what I used.

The process in PP is as follows:
Expand your canvas so you have an extra inch all four sides. Select white as the background color. It actually will give you a Nil fill.

Create a mask from object.

Then use Effects/Bevel Boss, with the inverted checked. I believe I used Mesa. I play with it until I get the Bevel I want,

Then most usually the next step is to under Effects/Texture/Plastic, adjust this filter. To roughen it a bit, I applied the Plaster effect in between Plastic, so I think I applied Plastic also after this. Plastic makes the bevel seem deeper. Now you should be in RGB not Grayscale or CMYK. Go to Image/Adjust/Tone Curve. This is where the fun comes in. You need to make often what will look like a letter "M", but alot depends on what is happening on the screen. This is going to give the embossed shape the metallic gleam. Now you can go Adjust/Color Hue and make it any other color you want, you'd do this to get to Gold for instance but I did not do this, because I wanted an aged Pewter look. All of this has been done with the mask still active and one more thing I do is to give it extra highlights/shadows at this point with the Dodge and Burn tools, additionally, the sprayer has a cool bruses called "Sparkle". Add a layer in Add mode and still with the mask selected add highlights and tone down the layers opacity if need be.

Now to add the background, add a layer, drag beneath and flood fill it a dark color, in my case a dark blue. Now invert your selection and go back to Effects/the Boss and uncheck invert and you will get a nice outward bevel. Note you do this not to the metallic object but to the solid colored layer beneath it.

Yes, there are many more lens flare effects in PP, and you can experiment with which layer your effects look best on, changing your merge modes if need be and opacity, duplicating and merging the layers till you get the effect you are after.

For the stained glass I used the selection tool and selected each cell one at a time in the add mode so that I ended up with all the glass areas selected. I did this on the main layer where the pewter metal shape is. I made a new layer and filled it with a contrasting color, light blue works, then using Bevel Boss and Plastic, I gave them dimension, adjusted opacity to allow some of the lens flare to show through. Added a bit of sparkle if I thought it needed it. Now I saved it, merged the layers and went back to draw. Since I am still at the same size, I alt selected my vector shapes and brought them to the front and gave them all transparency. I played with the modes and the colors until I got something that worked.

Then I converted all to an RGB bitmap and went back to PP. Here I did a bit of refining, softening edges, etc.

Then I optiimized for web and saved it either at 72 or 96 dpi.

I did all this in about 20 minutes.

The technique to create metal, once learned is not tedious, it is fun. And you get better at it with trial and error.

PP does not work very fast, but if you are patient with it, it pays off.

I use PS a lot but I have not been able to get the same touchable metallic effects using PS as with PP.

I love PS layer modes but there is a whole 'nother world in PP to explore.

I use programs like plugins, whatever achieves the picture I see in my head is combined with the program I am using to design.

I also like using PhotoImpact for some of my effects, and these don't have to be stock either, a item which has been chromes, saved as a .psd file since that is universal among bitmap programs, can then be imported into Ulead's PI. It has a ton of extra effects you can try, it is a lot of fun, though it by no means works like either PP or PS or any other program. It is unique but it is worth using. It does reflections like nobody else and reflection on bright shiny metal really do add realism.

The only one that comes close and actually surpases PI for this is CorelPainter 9. But it isn't easy to use, there is a learning curve, but it does cool stuff.

With PP, despite the crudity of the interface, it has some powerful tools.

But for post processing, I choose PI.

Here's some Jewelry.

Begun in PhotoPaint and finished in PhotoImpact.

[Sark]

Grafixman.

My guess is this is a version 11 issue. I do occassionally get these strange shapes, but only using strokes on tight paths, not with "outline to object. Will still see if I can recreate them in V12 tonight though, just to see.

Sally.

Bit pushed for time at the moment. Will read your approach tonight, install PP, and give it a go. Who knows I might even leave PP installed. The jewelery is terrific, but I don't think my system could handle quite so many apps installed

Sark

[sallybode]

Indulge yourself, Sark, in a major upgrade, computer prices are relatively low, not having to go with a top of the liner anymore, technology that is several years old makes still a good computer. Or buy one off the shelf.

I worked on an Athlon 1.0 gigahertz processor for years with a lot of RAM, at least it was a lot for those days, 500 MB. Now I am pushing 3.0, still running an Athlon but have 1 gig of RAM. We build our own, my kids are geeks, runs in the family.

You have both drive and talent, explore and develop that.

Lot's of people have a dedicated drive just to storing the data they create. And the other drive is Windows and their program files.

[Sark]

Hi Sally

I installed PP and have been messing around with it over the weekend. I tried your Stained glass effect, and whilst I didn’t match it exactly I got reasonably close. I started off on PP9, so I’m not unfamiliar with its interface. Having said that, I found it far from elegant then and still have reservations now. It clearly has a few more bells and whistles compared with PS, but where Draw is more elegant than Illustrator, the opposite is true with PS and Paint. Adobe’s Photoshop clearly wins here. I actually jumped to PS because of the number of forums dedicated to it compared with Paint, but now that I have more experience of graphics apps, I’m glad I made that decision.

Although a little clumsy, Paint will clearly do some things not possible in PS, or not as straightforward at least. I might even have been tempted to leave it installed, but for one issue. I’ve had Draw 12 installed for nearly 6 months now and ignoring the few irritations I’ve already mentioned, what has impressed me most is its stability. Not a single crash since installing. Why mention this? Because PP12 has crashed (rebooted) twice on me in two days. It happens when I close the program. I don’t lose anything (I might if I had other apps open), but it’s a real pain.

This may relate to my system, it’s an issue that has not been uncommon with users of Corel graphics suite’s in the past. And whilst some users find a particular version runs just fine, too many suffer serious problems. If I were working commercially I would probably be running a more up to the minute system and could possibly resolve the issues. This tends to be the solution those in the know offer. Upgrade your Graphics card, Ram, OS etc, etc. I’m not willing to do that for one program, so for now I think I’ll just stick with PS.

Incidentally, I purchased Painter 9 a few months ago. I sold it on ebay within a few weeks. I have no doubt this is a great program that can do some wonderful things, but way too sophisticated for my needs. Also, my system is not quite up to speed for some of the brushes. Because I’ve decided to get a larger Tablet, I’m going to get the Wacom that comes with Corel Painter Classic. I’m sure this will be more than enough for me and hopefully not require so much time to get to grips with it. Maybe later I’ll upgrade to the full version. It’s clearly a very exciting program. Right now, I’m just too lazy to invest that much time learning an app that offers much more than I require, or can fully exploit on my system. As for indulging myself, there’s only so much I can justify spending at the moment and I hope to be buying a digital SLR before the years out. I guess I could follow my brothers philosophy, “Never buy things you can’t afford…..unless you really want to”.

Sark

PS...Don't be offended if I don't reply to posts for a few weeks. Have family visiting. Will probably have to put my PC time on hold. Good to have a break from this thing now and then and catch a bit of daylight

Grafixman

I tried to get similar results to your failed “Outline to Object”, but couldn’t. The image below shows a deliberately chinked path with all node types. I was still able to get clean shapes from the internal spaces and no peculiarities occurred.

A...Is the Original path. I would normally use hairline thickness, but a heavier outline shows the stages off better.
B...Shows the result after “Outline to Object” (It would look just like A, but I’ve removed the fill and added an outline colour to everything to show the effect more clearly). The middle line is the outlines control path (this remains after conversion).
C...This is basically B after deleting the original outlines control path.
D & E...Shows the effect after “Break Curve Apart”. I’ve just dragged the outer path (E) aside to show the effect more clearly.
F...Shows the final desired result before pasting the original outline path on top of the shapes.

As you can see, everything is very clean. As much as I try, I can’t reproduce your effect. Maybe it’s possible, but it’s more likely a version 11 issue. As for nodes, larger shapes can have up to a dozen nodes, smaller shapes less than 6. I don't see that as a serious problem for the few times you might use this method in a document.

As for Inkscape, I can only agree with you regarding the developers. The list of names on the About dialogue is amazing considering those people are going to earn little, if anything (financially at least) from its development. You have to admire them for that. If only the paid developers at Corel had that level of enthusiasm and passion.

Sark