Atul's Blog

Dear Members,

Let us try rotate command using blend. You will get an interesting effect.

• Open Corel DRAW.
• Draw square using rectangle tool. Fill it with red color.
• Draw another square using rectangle tool. Fill it with green color.
• Select both the shapes.
• Go to menu.
• Effects > Blend
• Change the rotate angle to 90.
• Keep the rest of the settings as they are.
• Press “Apply”
• You will get the blend effect.
• You will observe that the red square is gradually rotating during the intermediate steps at 90 degree angle till it reaches to Green Square.

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

Dear Members,

we will change the blend steps and see the difference in the effect.

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Draw circle using ellipse tool. Fill it with red color.
3. Draw square using rectangle tool. Fill it with green color.
4. Select both the shapes.
5. Go to menu.
6. Effects > Blend
7. Keep the default setting as it is.
8. Press “Apply”
9. You will get the blend effect.
10. The default blend steps are 20. Change the number of steps to 40.
11. Press “Apply”
12. You will notice that intermediate steps are increased and you get a sort of dense structure.
13. Now change the number of steps to 10 and press “Apply”.
14. You will notice that the intermediate steps are decreased.

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

Dear Members,

Let us try to blend the colors also.

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Draw circle using ellipse tool. Fill it with red color.
3. Draw square using rectangle tool. Fill it with green color.
4. Select both the shapes.
5. Go to menu.
6. Effects > Blend
7. Keep the default setting as it is.
8. Press “Apply”
9. You will get the blend effect.
10. You will notice that the red color is gradually changing to green along with the circle gradually changing to rectangle.

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

Dear Members,

We will try to blend two different shapes.

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Draw circle using ellipse tool.
3. Draw square using rectangle tool.
4. Select both the shapes.
5. Go to menu.
6. Effects > Blend
7. You will get the Blend docker attached to the right side. And the blend steps tab selected.
8. Keep the default setting as it is.
9. It may say number of steps 20 and rotate angle 0.
10. Press “Apply”
11. You will get the blend effect.
12. Circle is gradually changing to square using intermediate steps.

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

 Dear Members,

Let us start learning blending effect in detail.

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Draw circle using ellipse tool.
3. Hold Ctrl key to draw perfect circle.
4. Either duplicate the same circle or draw another circle.
5. Make the second circle bigger than the first one.
6. Select both the circles.
7. Go to menu.
8. Effects > Blend
9. You will get the Blend docker attached to the right side. And the blend steps tab selcted.
10. Keep the default setting as it is.
11. It may say number of steps 20 and rotate angle 0.
12. Press “Apply”
13. You will get the blend effect.
14. Both the circles are connected with the intermediate circles blending them smoothly with the number of steps mentioned earlier.
15. Please make a note that small circle is blended with the big one with intermediate gradually increasing bigger size circles.
    

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

Dear Members,

Let us find out how the color accelerate in contour effect using color acceleration separately. Go back to the position where you get orange rectangle inside the biggest red rectangle and the yellow rectangle inside orange. Yellow is the smallest one. Keep the object selected.

1. Select the last tab that is Contour Acceleration tab.
2. Uncheck Link Acceleration.
3. Please DO NOT move object acceleration.
4. Shift color acceleration slider to the extreme right.
5. You will find that middle orange rectangle become red.
6. Now drag the color acceleration slider towards extreme left.
7. This time, you will find that middle rectangle becomes yellow.
8. Both the time, object acceleration slider remained stationary as we unchecked link acceleration.
9. It means color acceleration changes the color to both the ends.
10. It accelerates to the red which is the outermost color.
11. And it accelerates to the yellow which is the innermost color.
12. So the color acceleration fluctuates between the ranges of colors used in the effect.

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

 Dear Members,

Let us try outside option.

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Draw rectangle using rectangle tool.
3. Effect > Contour
4. Select "Outside" option.
5. Change the steps to 10.
6. Keep the offset distance 0.1 inches.
7. Press "Apply"
8. You will get evenly spaced concentric shape outside the
   rectangle.
9. Please make a note that when you select "To Center" Option,
   the steps option goes blurred.
10. It's because the steps now will be determined by the Corel
    DRAW based on the offset distance.

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Draw rectangle using rectangle tool.
3. Effect > Contour
4. Select “To Center” option.
5. Keep the offset distance 0.1 inches.
6. Press “Apply”
7. You will get evenly spaced concentric shape inside the rectangle up to the center.
8. Please make a note that when you select “To Center” Option, the steps option goes blurred.
9. It’s because the steps now will be determined by the Corel DRAW based on the offset distance.
   

Dear Members,

Let us get into the details of Contour command. You can tryout lot of amazing effects using contour. Try to use colors and other option to get the maximum effect.

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Draw rectangle using rectangle tool.
3. Effect > Contour
4. You will get the docker to the right side.
5. By default, Contour steps tab may be selected.
6. With "Inside" option and 0.1 inch offset with steps 1.
7. Press "Apply"
8. You will get evenly spaced concentric shape inside the rectangle.
9. Since the step is 1, you get just one shape inside the rectangle.
10. The distance between the original rectangle and the inside rectangle is 0.1 as mentioned in the offset distance.
    
    

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

Dear Members,

Let us get into the details of Envelope effect. We will try straight-line option. Once you get the result you will automatically understand why it is called straight line. The effect is carried out using straight lines.

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Type the text, say “Corel”. Stretch it to make it bigger. Keep it selected.
3. Effects > Envelope
4. You get a docker to your right side on the desktop with the envelope options.
5. There are four icons above the drop down menu.
6. The first icon is “Straight Line” Click it.
7. Stretch top center node upwards.
8. You will notice that the text is stretched up in the middle and the envelope forms straight lines (in the form of dotted line) to both the sides of the center node, which you stretched just now.
9. Stretch any node and you will find the envelope is working with Straight lines only and it is not forming curve at any point.

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen

Dear Members,

There are readymade effect provided under “Add Preset” button.

1. Open Corel DRAW.
2. Type the text, say “Corel”. Stretch it to make it bigger. Keep it selected.
3.  Effects > Envelope
4. You get a docker to your right side on the desktop with the envelope options.
5. There is “Add Preset” button to the right side of the docker on the top near “Add New” button.
6. Click “Add Preset” button.
7. You can select any shape. We selected circle which is third in the first raw to apply preset.
8. Please make a note that when you select any shape in the preset, it does not get applied to the text.
9. It simply forms dotted outline of the envelope of that particular shape which you have selected.
10. If you select circle as we did, it will form elliptical outline in the text.
11. Click apply button, which is at the bottom of the docker.
12. The text is changed into the shape of the selected preset envelope.

 

With regards
Atul Thakur
Editor
http://www.insidegraphics.com
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points – Zen