How To Make Clouds That Fade In Corel Draw 8

Past Steve Bain

bitmap-031 With all the various ways yous tin work with digital images in CorelDRAW, you're eventually going to need (or want) to do a piddling cropping. Image cropping involves temporarily hiding – or even deleting – portions of a digital image. Information technology's generally done to modify the image proportions to fit a specific design need and/or delete unneeded pixels and reduce your file size. You can exercise it hands with whatever version of CorelDRAW and it's a relatively straightforward functioning.

In this tutorial, I'm using an older version of CorelDRAW to demonstrate. Simply y'all can apply these same techniques with virtually any version. Before we become started though, permit me clarify one potential defoliation bespeak. If yous're using a recent CorelDRAW version, you might understandably reach for the Ingather Tool.

crop-tool The Ingather Tool provides an automated style of cropping objects — including digital images. When information technology was first introduced (version 13) applying it to an object substantially deleted all content outside the cropping area you specified. Although this meant it was a great tool for cropping private objects, it prevented y'all from cropping objects already inserted or embedded into an existing arrangement or montage. If you're using version 15 and beyond, you lot'll discover this behavior has been stock-still. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

shape-tool The technique I'll cover in this tutorial is the transmission method that will enable you to crop at the vector level past manipulating the invisible path surrounding the digital image using the Shape Tool (F10). The Shape Tool method is more than involved and maybe less convenient than the Crop Tool, only it provides more than control and gives you the added bonus of being able to custom arts and crafts the bitmap boundaries to an unconventional shape if needed.

Unlike bitmap-editing applications, a digital prototype in CorelDRAW is substantially a bitmap-based object housed inside an invisible container called a as clipping path. This ways the clipping path contains the epitome and its boundaries decide the bitmap'due south overall shape. Although these containers are inherently invisible, they are an integral feature of each bitmap in your certificate. Control the shape of the container and you control the cropping of the bitmap it contains.

To shape a bitmap container, you'll need to utilise the Shape Tool to modify the position of the path nodes comprising it. Let's walk through at a typical rectangular-shaped cropping operation by following these brief steps.

To begin, yous'll need to have a bitmap at the gear up. Bitmaps may exist converted from vector objects using the Catechumen to Bitmap control, or brought in from an external source using the Import command (Ctrl+I). In one case on your folio, just click to select the bitmap itself.
If you choose to Import your bitmap, you tin crop information technology before it reaches your page by choosing Ingather from a driblet-downwards carte in the Import dialog (shown next).
After choosing Crop and clicking OK, the Crop Image dialog (shown next) will open enabling you to either utilise the Hand-fashion cursor to interactively set the rectangular cropping, or past entering values in the Height, Left, Width, and Height boxes followed by clicking OK. Doing this volition enable you to place a permanently cropped copy of your selected bitmap onto your page.
If the image yous wish to crop already exists in your document, and you wish to crop it, cull the Shape Tool (F10) and click to select the bitmap. Notice four nodes appear at the corners of the image (shown next). Dragging these points will cause the bitmap'south clipping path shape to modify, enabling yous to hide portions of the bitmap from view withoutdeleting the pixels.
Using the Shape Tool cursor, click one of these nodes and drag information technology toward the center origin of the image. Observe that later on y'all release the mouse, a portion of the image is subconscious (as shown next).
Drag the same corner node back to roughly its original position and notice that the hidden portion of the image is visible once more. Y'all have just performed the virtually basic of cropping operations.

Nigh digital images are usually cropped either vertically or horizontally to fit a foursquare or rectangular space. This requires moving the corner nodes while maintaining their alignment.

To perform a side, top, or bottom cropping operation on a bitmap, you lot'll need to accept at least two corner nodes selected at one time, and they must be moved either using nudge keys or by dragging. The dragging performance is a little trickier than you might recollect, since it involves selecting and moving two corner nodes while holding a modifier cardinal to constrain the drag movement.

To crop a bitmap past dragging, follow these steps:

Using the Shape Tool, click to select the bitmap. Determine which side you wish to crop, and select both corner nodes on the side by holding Shift while clicking in one case on each node, or click-elevate to select them with the marquee.
Once the nodes are selected, concord Ctrl equally the modifier central while dragging both nodes toward the eye of your bitmap. Holding Ctrl constrains your dragging motion, which keeps the sides in vertical and horizontal alignment.
Go on cropping any of the sides using this aforementioned process until the cropping operation is complete. The case shown next illustrates typical results of cropping.
Equally a terminal optional footstep, you can eliminate the hidden portion of the image using the Crop Bitmap command either by choosing Bitmaps > Ingather Bitmap or by clicking the Crop Bitmap button (shown side by side) in the Holding Bar using the Pick Tool and while a cropped bitmap is selected. Doing this volition permanently remove the image portions which are hidden from view enabling you to reduce your document file size.

Keep in mind that yous can too utilize this cropping technique to create non-rectangular cropping shapes past adding nodes to the bitmap container and manipulating the curve properties as shown beneath.

bitmap-11

The adjacent ii examples illustrate the benefits of careful photograph cropping. In these examples, a photo montage has been laid out without cropping and then improved through careful cropping and re-organisation.

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For more information on the design and aesthetic aspects of cropping images in different ways, see my tutorial on improving image impact.

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