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Gregg Vaughn
08-05-2007, 10:11 AM
I am making headway on engraving photos to marble and granite with the help of PhotograV. One technique I have seen is to soften the edges of a photograph after it has been powerclipped to an oval or other shape. This looks great, but how do you do it?

Greg

Stephen Beckham
08-05-2007, 12:26 PM
Greg - open source information on Epilog's website on the process.

http://www.epiloglaser.com/transparency_tool.htm

Gregg Vaughn
08-05-2007, 7:49 PM
Steve:

Thanks, I knew the answer had to be there ...

Gregg Vaughn
08-05-2007, 8:56 PM
Steve:

I watched the link and followed the steps ... Everything looked like it was fine, but the final image does not have faded edges. I tried it with both a bitmap image and a PhotograV image, neither worked.

The steps I followed were:

Create a circle
Copy it off to one side
Import a photo
Click EFFECTS and POWERCLIP
Click on one of the circles
Right Click on the image in the circle and EDIT CONTENTS
Right click on the image again and FINISH EDIT AT THIS LEVEL
Click Interactive Blend Tool and INTERACTIVE TRANSPARENCY TOOL
Click on the circle and drag the cursor to the center
Change the transparency type to RAIDAL
Bring the slide to the blue arrow
Click on the white box and bring it back 1/2 way
Select both circles with the PICK TOOL
Click ARRANGE, ALLIGN AND DISTRIBUTE, ALLIGH AND DISTRIBUTE
Click APPLY
Click Close

Now I have one circle with the clipped image, but it is not faded.

Where did I go wrong?

Stephen Beckham
08-06-2007, 11:10 PM
Gregg, sorry I missed your question till now...

I'll run through your steps tomorrow at the office and see what I can figure out - I'm not sure just looking at it.


It just dawned on me - which object do you have on top? Is it possible the faded circle is on bottom?

Steve

Gregg Vaughn
08-07-2007, 8:38 AM
Steve:

If the circles are someohow layered when you combine them, that may be the issue. How do I tell which one is on top?

Greg

Stephen Beckham
08-07-2007, 9:06 AM
Gregg,

I played with it here at the office - I can't seem to figure out that there is a difference of whose on top either. My juvenile experience with X3...

What I have found is that I have to color fill the circle that does the fading with white. What I did was put a huge blue box on the screen with my circle on top of that. Then played with the settings until the circle had a faded blue inside of it. Once there, I moved the circles together as stated. It gave me the faded appearance, but it wasn't quite like the example from Epilog...

Also what I have found is that clicking anywhere in the circle and dragging puts a new center block from that point outwards. It will give you an idea of what the faded area looks like. If you have your snap-to function set, it will allow you to snap to the center and drag outwards until you get the appearance you want.

Let me know if you have any luck.

Mike Null
08-07-2007, 11:31 AM
Try the vignette tool in PhotoPaint before taking it to Photograv.

It's under "effects, creative, vignette."

Then to CD to powerclip.

Peck Sidara
08-07-2007, 11:36 AM
Gregg,

I think there's two key steps you're missing. One that is noted in the tutorial, the other was an assumption our Corel expert figured most would know. I didn't know but had the luxury of walking down to his office and asking what gives....

Both circles needs to have a white fill (noted in tutorial)

Before aligning and distributing the image, you'll need to place the white filled box (one without image inside) to the front of the page. To do this, select the white filled box and cntrl home. (not noted in tutorial)

Once complete, select both circles and align and distribute.

That should do it.

HTH

Gregg Vaughn
08-07-2007, 3:16 PM
Thanks Peck ... I went back to the tutorial, went through each step word-by-word and caught the need to fill the circles with white. That, however, by itself did not fix my problem.

When I get home tonight I'll pull the "empty" white filled circle forward with a CTRLHOME, proceed with the Align and Distribute, and see if that does it for me ...

Thanks,

Greg

ps

Do you want to tell all of us what the phone number is for your down-the-hall expert?

Peck Sidara
08-07-2007, 3:31 PM
It's likely the 2nd thing Gregg. If you'd like to double-check to see if your steps regarding the transparency tool is working correctly, give it a black fill and you'll see the gradiation change. That will just confirm that it's set up correctly, from there change it back to the white fill, place it up front and drop the picture behind it.

Did I say there's a Corel expert down the hall??? I don't think he'd appreciate me forwarding his contact info out but I'll tell him his work is appreciated.

I'm sure you'll get it working properly.

Gregg Vaughn
08-07-2007, 6:18 PM
Peck:

Thanks! That got it ... I followed the steps on the Epilog tutorial to the letter with one additional step. PRIOR to using the Interactive Transparency Tool on the white circle I selected it with the SELECT tool then brought it forward with CTRLHOME.

I now have a picture with faded edges ...

Thank the CorelDraw Guru at Epilog for me and thanks for jumping in on the problem!

Greg

Gregg Vaughn
08-07-2007, 9:00 PM
For anyone following this thread ... I found out also that after the last step, when you close the ALIGN & DISTRIBUTE box, you then have your picture with the amount of fade you set. At this point you can click the INTERACTIVE TRANSPARENCY tool again and change your picture to exactly the amount of fade you want in it.

Thanks again to Peck at Epilog and everyone else that helped out ...

I'll post some pics of my efforts soon to get feedback ...

Greg

Gregg Vaughn
08-09-2007, 1:12 PM
After everyone's help and doing this so many times now, I could do it while asleep. However, one final question .... Can you fade the edges of a picture powerclipped to an oval equally all the way around the picture?

Greg

Mike Null
08-09-2007, 1:49 PM
You can edit in PhotoPaint and and powerclip it in Draw. That's the vignette tool I mentioned earlier.

Peck Sidara
08-09-2007, 3:42 PM
Gregg,

Do the process as a circle first. After it's complete, select the image and convert to a bitmap. In the convert to bitmap screen, check the "transparent background".

From there you'll be able to change the circle to an oval and keep the same amount of fade as you had originally.

Hopefully my quick 2 second instruction makes sense.



Peck Sidara
Epilog Laser

Gregg Vaughn
08-10-2007, 12:40 PM
Peck:

Thanks again ... I'll give it a try.

Greg

Abdul Baseer Hai
08-16-2007, 12:23 PM
One last question. I am getting perfect faded edges but when I invert the image for engraving on marble, i get the black box.
How do i get rid of it

Abdul

Peck Sidara
08-16-2007, 1:11 PM
Abdul,

You may try inverting the image first and doing any other editing before going thru the Corel transparency tool process. Play around with it, I'm certain you'll get it figured out. If not, let us know and we can take a closer look.

HTH

Abdul Baseer Hai
08-16-2007, 3:06 PM
Here is what i was able to manage. you were right. playing around with the file can produce unexpected wonders.

Abdul