Corel gurus .. what did I do?

[Chuck Stone]

I did a pen box this weekend, but had problems with it. For some reason
I got some sort of grid lines in Corel.

It did warn me that I had rotated one of the images, (yeah, so? :confused: ) and
I wasn't sure why it warned me. When it burned, it started putting all these
lines behind the image. So I just did it in Photoshop instead.

I know *I* didn't put anything behind the image, and nothing was showing.
The only reason I did it in Corel was to use Trace to bring out the graphic.
It was somebody's avatar, a photo of a sign on their property. Thought it
would make a nice personal touch. I did a test run before I rotated it about
10 degrees.. never thought the rotating would do this.

Any ideas on where I go for a good (basic) tutorial on Corel? I haven't
used it since version 2 (came on a few 1.44 floppies!) and even then I
was using mostly PhotoPaint.. I need to learn this stuff for when I want
to vector..

[Frank Corker]

Chuck, there are a few things about Corel paint that I'm not too happy about and so I tend to shy away from it. In Corel Draw, what you should have done with this is used the 'trace' feature and convert it. Acting as an eps it can be rotated twisted and altered to suit your needs. I can't really explain what's happened with your image (albeit extremely ugly) but it will have been the image itself that has caused it. If you are rusty with Corel, first port of call for you should be YouTube. Ask about anything you are interested in and most likely there will be a great demo for you to view and learn from.

[Chuck Stone]

Thanks, Frank.

Yeah, I shy away from Paint, too. I've been in Photoshop since way back
so raster is what I'm used to.. and of course, I'm probably comparing every
other program to what I already know and that doesn't help.

FWIW, what I did is import the image and use Trace. That allowed me to
clean it up a little by adjusting the smoothness and detail.
Then I rotated it slightly and when I 'printed' it, those lines showed up.

Dunno.. :confused:

Found tons of You Tube demos, but they mostly seem to assume you
already know the basics. Maybe it's time to go out and buy the Corel bible.

[Dan Hintz]

Funny... I was at the bookstore the other day looking for toys to waste a gift card on ($25, doesn't buy much). I perused the computer book aisles and I found a whopping one book for Corel... at least it was for X4. I remember the days when Corel books would easily take up an entire shelf, sometimes two.

After handing the cashier a few extra bucks, I walked away with 4 magazines on home/hobby machining/CNC. I never knew they existed, and at least one of the projects had a real "WOW" factor to it.

[Mike Null]

I use Paint all the time as I don't have the more expensive substitute but I find it to be entirely satisfactory for the work I do.

One thing you might try after you bring the work into Corel is look at it in the wireframe view. It's under the view menu and will show all elements of the drawing including some that may be hidden in the enhanced view.

I have not experienced the issue that you've shown.

[Dee Gallo]

My guess is that the scan or pic had a very slight tone in the background which showed up in the trace as invisible but when rotated the lines appeared. Looks like it was enlarged too, which would make the lines thicker. If it was printed on a computer printer, those lines come from the printer head and on a trace they would outline the areas between lines. Looks like the printer is running out of ink, probably yellow.

To find out, ungroup the image and see if you can separate the good from the bad.

Anyway, my suggestion is to simply draw this image yourself...yeah, I know I sound like a broken record, but really this is a skill everyone should have. This particular image is simple enough to do for a beginner without taking a long time.

cheers, dee

[Chuck Stone]

Thanks for the replies, give me some things to think about.

I saved the file from someone's avatar. Opened it in Photoshop and cut
away everything but the sign, enlarged it and saved it.

Then created a new file in Draw, imported this file, used Trace to bring
out the letters and converted it to B&W, then added the text. Rotated
the image a little, but that was it. Simple, no?
Sent it to the laser and got the first image. When I didn't rotate it, I
got the second one.

I would have done it straight out of Photoshop, but sometimes when I
go to print, it shuts down Photoshop.

I really need to find a beginner's book..

[donald bugansky]

Chuck,

I had the same challenges when I bought my laser as Corel was new to me (being a Photoshop/Illustrator Mac user). So I needed to get acquainted with Corel quickly.

A few choices.
1) Corel X4 book Dan mentioned "CorelDRAW X4 - The Official Guide"

2) "Laser University" - has some great video/tutorials on Corel and using it with laser projects - easy to bring the 2 together.

3) "Advanced Artist Training" - 30 hours of video training (2 DVD's) for $50.

All 3 helped me a ton as I use item 1 for easy reading at night.

Item 2 has actual projects that take you from Corel directly to the laser which gave me some ideas and brought me up to speed on both the laser projects & Corel together.

And item 3 is just great for watching the examples from start to finish - over and over again - without an internet connection requirement.

Bugs

[Chuck Stone]

A few choices.
1) Corel X4 book Dan mentioned "CorelDRAW X4 - The Official Guide"
I wonder if there's a version X3 Guide out there, too?
99% of what I'm doing so far is raster, so I don't really see a need
to upgrade yet. This is strictly hobby.

Would the "Official Guide" be similar to the Photoshop Bible?
(except it's for Corel..)



And item 3 is just great for watching the examples from start to finish - over and over again - without an internet connection requirement.


"without an internet connection" .. isn't that blasphemy? :p

[donald bugansky]

Yes, it's similar to the Photoshop Bible. The CorelDRAW X4 is 892+ pages including index.


....Would the "Official Guide" be similar to the Photoshop Bible?
(except it's for Corel..)

"without an internet connection" .. isn't that blasphemy? :p

According to AT&T it is!

[Tom Bull]

Found it:

http://www.dafont.com/hoyle-playing-cards.font

Have fun.

[Linda Tetreault]

Graphics Unleashed has an E book for X3, it has loads of info & videos to go with the text. It has been like having an xtra right hand, especially for those things you do once in a while.