paint bucket fill, how to, beginner that used to use photoshop

[mintintegral18]

hi, I was wondering if someone could help me to fill a closed are with a color. Kind of like the Paint Bucket that I remember using with Photoshop or was it Microsoft's Paint. The purpose is to color things I drew on paper, that I've scanned and then made black and white. I've also heard it call "color flatting," but to me, I'm not sure what color flatting is yet, and it seems to come from the Photoshop world. I've tried clicking on a color and dragging it into the area.

The only way I get Xara to fill with color is if I redraw a new object on an above layer and then I can toggle fill color using the color bar. As I've searched and found this helpful youtube guide: https://youtu.be/U17gPcT9RnA

I also have gotten a few errors using Xara something about the area does not exist for the color to fill....I screen-shot one of the errors. I think it has something to do with how I'm using a white background layer and then a line layer. One one layer, I've also Added Shapes into one and I think much earlier, to simplify one layer where I drew a bunch of lines. And I converted the lines to all shapes at another point in time. Thank you.



Thank you!

[Egg Bramhill]

Can you attach your .web / .xar file Minti?

[mintintegral18]

yes. let me attach a different project. the other one has been lost, unfortunately, perhaps something to do with how Onedrive situated My Documents, which is cool, cuz it's supposed to back them up, but somehow I've lost it. Here is a .xar project file, which is started from a png file. any tips? I've just discovered "Sketch Mode" toolbar button, which lets me draw without filling in colors, which has nothing to do with this task at hand. I am also starting to think, perhaps tracing the drawing is wasteful and perhaps I can start coloring right away on the black and white scan, or on new layers. I am also using a stylus, digital pen with this laptop and Xara. But knowing how to fill a closed area, I cannot do it with this new project. I've tried setting the bucket mode to flat fill, from the default linear. Thank for checking it.
miker2.xar

[gwpriester]

Your black outline is not a closed shape. This is your problem.

Select the black outline then select the Shape Tool.

Press the Tab key once to select the beginning control point.

Press Enter.

And now you have a closed shape (the status bar lower left corner of the screen) shows 1 Shape Selected. Previously it showed 1 Line Selected.

[mintintegral18]

sounds good, but I zoomed in and saw every black line connecting, no tiny gaps. I'll try these steps again, maybe I missed something. But once I get into a closed shape. how do I fill it with a color? Thank you.

[gwpriester]

It looks like a closed shape which is why you select the shape, then switch to the Shape Tool and the press the Tab key one time. This goes to the first control point on the path. When you press Enter it automatically closes the shape.

Once the shape is closed, then select the shape and click any color on the color palette at the bottom of the screen.

You can edit the color in the Color Editor (click the tiny color wheel icon just to the left of the screen palette)

[handrawn]

you need to appreciate that, unlike a raster program such as photoshop, it is not sufficient to just close the gap 'visually' in a vector program such as xara; in xara that will just produce a line 'overlap' - you need to 'join up the dots', ie the line control points ['nodes'], as gary stated - once you have acheived this the shape will fill automatically and you can then recolour with the fill tool [or the status bar, or colour editor....]

[ss-kalm]

And I converted the lines to all shapes at another point in time.

In that case, that's your problem. If the line is a shape, then the line itself has a fill and an outline, rather than being an outline for a filled shape.

[handrawn]

well spotted keith - and thats not a reversable operation [mores the pity]

[gwpriester]

Yes, but... This is how we learn. We make a mistake, but in doing so we learn what not to do the next time.

Actually with the outlined shape in the attached XAR file that mintintegral18 posted, if you convert the line to shape, then Arrange > Break Shapes, you have a filled solid, filled shape.