Digitalize It! : (Modification of images with tools such as Adobe CS and Corel)

Then it was a choice among crayons, paints and palettes for an artist and designer to create art. It was a box of crayons that make one happy designer during his early years of formation.

Nowadays, designing has gone to the new age of advanced technology that utilizes computers and programming. As a designer used to handling tangible products such as the ever reliable crayons, computer technology is oftentimes scary and heart palpitating. With all that computer code and HTML tags and styles, it's no wonder that most designers break out in cold sweat every time they are forced to put computer code around a text in a Word document to get the layout they want.

To help designers and artists alike to make their lives simpler, Adobe offers a complete package that brings designs straight from concept to the online world. On the other hand, Corel has also introduced new programs to help ease the burden of creating works of art with the use of the computer.

The new applications ensure that every designer's nightmare will be gone, helping him/her to sleep more soundly at night. These programs can help designers utilize simple sites quickly and effectively.

The CS Advantage…

The new Adobe Creative Suite combines Adobe's graphics applications and an efficient workflow that answers the needs of nearly every creative professional, from conceptualization to implementation, from print to Web. Not only do designers get one program at a time; rather, a whole suite of the latest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and GoLive software. It also includes the new Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional software to Acrobat Professional.

The Creative Suite is Adobe's attempt to bind the applications together. Now, Adobe's creative products use not only the same graphics engine but also the same type and color-management engines. Files that are created in one application can open easily in others with all their features intact. With a consistent user interface, moving from one application to another is easy.

And holding it all together is the new file-management and version-tracking technology Version Cue. The Version Cue lets you create and publish content for print and the Web faster, more easily, and more affordably. That's why Adobe is introducing this one whole package as "the complete design environment for print and Web publishing".

 Adobe Photoshop for image editing- easily manage your images with the improved File Browser, quickly share design variations with Layer Comps, and instantly improve contrast with Shadow/Highlight correction; perform more precise editing and retouching with expanded support for 16-bit images and monitor changes to your image in the Histogram palette, which dynamically updates as you make adjustments.

 Adobe Illustrator for drawing and vector graphics- with powerful new 3D features, advanced typographical controls, and a host of groundbreaking new design tools, this powerful upgrade from Illustrator 10 delivers the performance you need to make the most of your creativity; import Photoshop image compositions directly to Illustrator- or create drawings in Illustrator and import them directly into Photoshop; create native Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files using settings and options consistent with Adobe Acrobat Distiller software and get fast, consistent print results with features like Fit to Page, Print Preview, and support for Print Settings.

 Adobe InDesign for page layout and design, and Adobe GoLive for Web layout- import your native vector and bitmap artwork directly into InDesign CS software for sophisticated print layouts or into Adobe GoLive CS software for powerful web pages. With the support of Adobe PDF and XML, you can easily output your pages to both print and the Web.

The Corel Advantage…

With the introduction of Corel Painter IX, commercial designers, photographers, and professional artists are able to use their natural talents and techniques to create breathtaking works of art. Corel ensures that the new program is a must-have software for creative professionals, whether they're in film making, game development, commercial design, illustration, photography, or even fine arts.

With regards to performance and productivity, the Corel Painter IX boasts of significantly improved speed, new and enhanced Brush Control Palettes, Frames-per-Second Control, and Customizable Shortcut Keys. Professional users can extend their creative possibilities with new enhancements that include Artists' Oils Painting System, Snap-to-Path Painting, improved Digital Watercolor, and Quick Clone.

What is exciting about this new software is that the Corel Painter IX is more compatible with other professional technologies, providing enhanced support to Adobe Photoshop, Wacom (including the Wacom Intuos3), and Color Management.

What's more, getting started is easier than ever. Corel has provided various support guides to help end-users control their fear of tackling a seemingly intricate world of softwares and programs. Corel has provided a revitalized User Guide, the Painter IX Handbook that includes tutorials from leading creative professionals, access to free training videos, and academic courseware specifically designed for educators.

With powerful applications such as the Adobe CS and Corel, artists and designers alike can now combine both worlds of traditional art and sophisticated technology. The intricate tones of traditional art skills and techniques they've developed during their formation years as artists can be integrated with the incredible benefits that digital media can provide. Every creation can now be worthy of the exaltations and awe reserved for those found in galleries and exhibits. In addition, these art forms are now made at a faster and quicker rate than their original counterparts.

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Quick Tip: Creating Vector Halftones in Corel Draw

Halftone dots look fantastic in comic illustrations and graphic design. In today’s Quick Tip you will learn some techniques on how to use vector halftones in your work, and some great tips for both Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. Let’s Begin!

As you can see from the title, the software used in this Quick Tip will be Corel Draw. However, the principle described here remains valid for all vector programs. I will separate the Corel technique from the universal theory behind it. If you are a Corel user you can read the entire Quick Tip or just the technical part. If you use other software – you can read only that part of each step – which explains the principle behind it. After that it will be up to you to find the equivalent technique in your software. So, illustrators from everywhere, gather around! Here we go!

In the world of printing and design the word ‘halftone’ has more than one meaning. It was first used in 1850 by William Fox Talbot who is considered to be the inventor of halftone printing. (If you want to learn more about it – read this article on Wikipedia.)

What we will be talking about here though is not the printing technique but that cool design effect bearing the same name. You know – the one which depicts objects, gradients etc. through the use of dots. There are many creative ways in which you can use halftones, but the most popular is in drawing retro style images. For example, Ben Mounsey, his use of halftones is superb.

Here are also some of my own works with halftones.

There are more than one ways to create this effect. Lets take a quick look at them.

You can create the effect in a raster editing software and then trace the result in your vector software. All good raster software like Adobe Photoshop or Corel Photo-Paint have the halftone effect implied. Even some vector programs like Corel Draw have the halftone effect included, but again as a raster effect. You still need to trace the result into vectors. The good side of this technique is that it is quick and easy. The bad side is that, just like everything traced, the end result is usually far from perfect. Instead of circles your dots will often look more like rough stones with a lot of redundant nodes and some very odd angles. Sure, you can manually fix your traced halftone. Just prepare to take a holiday from your job, cause you will need that much time to do this.

You can use a plug-in to create halftones: That is if your software of choice has such. Illustrator users – you are lucky, because as far as my knowledge goes the best plug-in for creating halftone effects is for Adobe Illustrator. It is called Phantasm CS. Corel users, you can check for a plug-in called SimpleSeps. I must warn you though that it is a plug-in for printers: It treats halftone as the boring printing technique that it actually is, and not as that funky retro effect that we like so much. For all other vector software – I honestly don’t know. Sorry.   

The third way is the one that I use. It is to create your own halftone patterns, frames and objects manually. The big minus here is that this is the most time consuming of all 3 methods. Especially if you want something complicated. One of the benefits is that unlike those plug-ins it is free. Yeah, you will lose some precious hours experimenting and creating your own clip art library of halftones. But after you make it – you can use it time and time again for the rest of your life.

That’s what I did. I sat one day, learned the main principle behind the halftone effect, and then created some halftone clip art for me. Now, when I need a halftone pattern, I just open my file with halftones and pick one. As a matter of fact I even sell some of those in sites like graphicriver.net, so other people can use them too. Here they are.

But you don’t need to buy those, cause I am about to teach you how to draw your own.

For the purpose of this tutorial I will separate the halftone effects in 3 groups:

The first group I shall call ‘Uniform Halftones’ (But if you have better ideas for the name – feel free to use them). Those consist of dots – equal in size. The distance between each dot and its neighbors is the same.The second group will be called ‘Linear Halftones’. Those are the ones that start with big dots which get smaller with the distance. At the end they completely disappear.The third group I name ‘Shaped Halftones’. Those are the ones that follow the form of shapes. Like waves and angles for example.

The Theory: The most important thing to remember about the so called (by me) ‘uniform halftones’ is that they should be boring. Yep, you read it right – boring. Just some equally sized dots – covering a given area, and each dot placed on the same distance from its neighbors as all the rest. See for your self:

The thing is that this type of halftones may look boring before you import it in your illustration, but when used properly – it looks great. For some good examples you can check the portfolio of a guy named Joe Snow who is another great vector artist using halftones.

The key is to take that pattern of dots and treat it like a single object. Cut it, trim it, carve stuff off of it. Just use your imagination and use the pattern to fill in shapes. Now is the right moment to mention about the 2 variations of the uniform halftone when used in illustrations. Take a look at the next image! For this example I took this simplified version of a symbol that I use as an avatar here and there. From it (and from the halftone pattern) I derived the 2 halftones above it. You probably see the difference already: In the second halftone all the dots that were ‘damaged’ by the intersection were deleted. In the first – they are not. That’s it. Which type you are going to use for a given project is up to you to decide.

How to do it: There are many ways to create a uniform halftone pattern. Here is a quick one for the Corel Drawers: Set A3 as paper size. Somewhere in the upper left corner of the page draw a gray circle with size 3 millimeters. Select the circle and press Control + Shift + D. This will open the ‘Step and Repeat’ menu. First set the parameters like shown in the first part (The one marked with "A") in the following screenshot and press Apply.

Next, select all the dots in the page, set the menu like shown in the second part of the screenshot (the one marked with "B") and again press Apply. Now select all dots and group them together. Voila! You have a uniform halftone pattern. You can change the distance between the dots, the size of those circles or their number. Experiment and see what you like best.

For this part I’ll start directly with the example. It will be easier for me to explain the principle by showing. For the Corel Draw users I’ll give additional technical instructions, separated by brackets (like this).

So, the first step is to draw a circle with the ellipse tool. Mines is 10 mm in size. Now clone it (press +). Now move the new circle up (while holding Control). Scale it a lot. Mines is 1 mm. Make sure there is enough space between the two circles for some more dots. Now create those dots by blends. My blend have 12 steps which makes a total of 14 circles. Yours can have as many as you want. The important thing here is that some of the bigger dots must intersect/cross each other. How many? Lets say between 1/4 and 1/3 of this halftone line must consist of intersecting dots. To do that you have 2 options: You can either raise/shorten the number of dots (by adding more steps to the blend), or you can raise/shorten the distance between the first and the last dot. In both cases the goal is the same – to make around 1/3 of your circles intersect. These intersecting dots will later become the more saturated darker side of the halftone.

In my case I had to shorten the space between the dots by moving the smallest circle down towards the biggest one. When 4 of the big dots crossed each other I stopped. Now break the blend group apart (Control + K), and then group all circles together. Group them, don’t weld them. For the purpose of this tutorial I will call this group of dots – ‘halftone line’. This halftone line is a basic element of the halftone that you are about to create.

Now do the following. Draw a square between the centers of 2 neighboring dots. (Use the rectangle tool while holding Control.) I stress on the word ‘centers’! This is important. You’ll see why in a minute. The size of this square is the distance between the centers of those 2 circles. But what’s more important for us is the diagonal length of our square. How to see it. Just rotate the square in 45 degrees. Now the size of the square changed (according to Corel Draw) even though you did not scale it. This is because Corel and probably all vector software consider an objects size to be the distance between the 2 farthest points of that object. And in our case the farthest points happened to be the diagonals. In my case the diagonal is 10.906 mm but yours is most likely different. Just pay attention to your number and not mine. And don’t worry if you are not sure that your squares size matches ‘precisely’ the distance between the 2 centers of those dots. We are not architects here, so nobody dies if a number is not perfect. Just make sure it is as close to perfect as possible. This will work.

Ok now select your halftone line and rotate it in 45 degrees. Now all you have to do is clone that inclined group of circles horizontally. The important thing here is to use the length of that diagonal as ‘distance’ between the clones. And you need to set that distance to be measured by ‘Offset’ and not by the ‘Spacing Between the Objects’. How many clones to make? However you like. Just make sure that distance remains the same. In my case I cloned the original 39 times. 39 clones + 1 original = 40 lines in my halftone.

So there you have your linear halftone. Later you can weld all dots, or at least group all of them together, and then you can crop your halftone so it becomes flat from 3 sides. But for now leave it the way it is. You will need it like that for the next step.

(How to clone your halftone line in Corel Draw: Select it first, then press Control + Shift + D. In the ‘Step and Repeat’ menu that just opened type 39 or as many as you want as a number of copies. For ‘Horizontal Settings’ select ‘Offset’ and then set the size of that squares diagonal as ‘Distance’. For ‘Vertical Settings’ – No offset. Press Apply.)

Note: You can also create a linear halftone without rotating your halftone-line. Check the backgrounds of the first 2 illustrations above (those with the super heroes) to see what I am talking about. In this case you wont use the size of that squares diagonal, but the size of its side for distance between those clones centers. In short – don’t rotate the square if you won’t rotate that halftone-line.

In this step I will show you how to create 2 types of halftone shapes: angle and wave. After you learn how to do those 2 – you will be able to create your own shapes.

So lets start with the angle. You already have the linear halftone from Step 2. Select the last clone of the halftone line. Now clone it upwards using that same offset distance (the diagonal of the square) between each clone. I made 19 clones. You do as much as you want.

(Corel users do this: Control + Shift + D. In the Step and Repeat menu set these parameters: Number of copies = 19 or as much as you want. Horizontal Settings – No offset, Vertical Settings – Offset. Distance – the length of that square diagonal)

You have the angle.

Want to do one in the opposite direction? OK, select the last clone of that new extension of your halftone. The one that is on top. Now clone it horizontally. You already know how.

For the wave we will need another helpful tool. So lets create it. Take that square from the previous step. If it is not rotated at 45 degrees – rotate it. Now you need to clone it horizontally (lets say 49 times) without leaving any space between the clones. Their edges need to touch. After you create this line of squares – select them all and clone them 49 times again, but this time vertically. Now select all those squares that you created and group them together in one big grid. Change the color of the grid to some light shade of gray. If you want you can move it to another layer and lock it, so you wont move it accidentally. It is not necessary though. (Corel Drawers do this: Select your rotated square. Press Control + Shift + D. For ‘Number of copies’ type 49. Horizontal Settings: ‘Spacing between objects’ – 0.0 mm. Direction – Right. Vertical Settings: No offset. Press Apply. Now select all new squares and clone them again, this time vertically: Number of copies’ – 49. Horizontal Settings – No offset. Vertical Settings – ‘Spacing between objects’ – 0.0 mm. Direction – Down. Press Apply. Now group all objects together.)

Over the grid draw the curve that you want your halftone to fallow. Mines is an S shaped curve. See the last screenshot. Now take a halftone line, from those that you cloned so much earlier. It’s time to create that halftone already. This time we will do it manually. A little help from the software will be appreciated though. Like that cool function "Snap to Objects". If your software have such – activate it. (Corel Users – Alt + Z). Now place your halftone line somewhere near the beginning of your curve. The smallest dot (the one on top) of the halftone line should be placed over the crossing point of the grid that is closest to the beginning of your curve.

The center of the point should be exactly in the point of crossing of 2 diagonals of the grid. Or in other words – where the edges of 4 squares meet. You just drag it around that crossing point and the function ‘Snap to Objects’ will do the aiming. See the next screenshot. When you are done – clone the first halftone-line one time and move it to the right – above the next diagonal of the grid. Then again use the center of the smallest dot to move the entire group of circles. Aim that center again in the closest cross-point to your curve.

Each new clone should be placed on the next grid-line on the right, and each smallest dot should be over the cross-point that is closest to your curve/shape. Continue doing that until you reach the end of your curve. (Corel Drawers I have a tip for you: In the end of your property bar you have a ‘Duplicate distance’ menu. Now for the X distance set the size of that square diagonal, which is now the size of your grid cells too. For the Y distance type 0. Now select your halftone-line and press Control + D. This will place the new clone – on your grid where it should be. You will still have to move it up or down towards the curve though.)

And remember – don’t move your clones straight upwards or straight downwards. Slide them over the grid diagonals instead. Imagine that diagonal to be a railway and your halftone line is the train. It should not leave the railway.

Delete the curve and the grid. 
We are almost done with the halftone. What’s left is to take care of that space below the big dots of the halftone. Use the bazier tool to create a shape, like the dark-blue one on the screenshot. Then weld everything together. Finally – crop your halftone from 3 sides, so they become flat. That’s it.

Just like everything in drawing vectors and in art as a whole – there are many ways to get the same result. Those methods above are the ones that I use, but they are most likely not the only methods for creating halftones. I hope I helped you get the main idea behind it though. And then you can come up with better technique for doing this. When you do – please share! I want to know. Also if you use another vector software but you like my way of creating halftones – feel free to "translate" this Quick Tip for the users of your software. 

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Quick Tip: Microstock Illustrations with Corel Draw, Tricks and Tips

With the vector software Corel Draw you are able to draw everything you can imagine. However, if you are using it to create illustrations for the microstock agencies – there are some issues that you must take into consideration. The problem comes with the industry requirement to provide an EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) file, which is mandatory for almost all agencies. See, EPS is Adobe standard and Corel developers don’t like Adobe standards very much. And because they did a poor job with it – you will have to save your EPS 8 files from Illustrator. See how here: Quick Tip: Saving Files from Corel Draw for Microstock Agencies

What’s interesting is that even Adobe developers say that the EPS format has no future, and they prefer to concentrate their efforts on the AI and PDF file types. Nevertheless, for one reason or the other – the microstock industry loves it, and we must accept this, no matter which vector software we are using. By the way, to make things even more complicated, agencies now accept EPS 8 and EPS 10. But for now let’s concentrate on EPS 8.

The EPS standard was created by Adobe in the mid 80's. Yeah – that’s the previous century. Life was simple back then. I was still an infant, and the special effects in vector software weren’t even developed yet. Some time later things changed. Transparency, meshes and some other effects appeared and made the vector world even more exciting. Too bad that the EPS 8 standard does not support them, for the simple reason that it is obsolete. In short – the problem is that the EPS 8 standard is older than some effects, and therefore it was not made to support them.

By the way this Quick Tip is being written from the perspective of Corel Draw users, but they are not alone in facing this problem. No matter which vector software you are using – you will still have to conform with this tedious issue, only in different way.

No need to panic though. You can still draw what you want. You will just need to use other ways to do it. For example, if you want to create a transparency effect – you will need to simulate it.

The way to do that is identical in all vector software. Since a lot has been written on the subject – I won’t get into details here. But basically here is how you do this. Let’s say you want to create shiny spots like on the bottles below.

Usually you would draw the shape of the shiny spot, then color it in white, and then add some transparency to it. Right? Well, the other way is to draw the shape and then color it like the rest of the bottle, only brighter. For example – select the shape of the spot, place it over the bottle (or your shiny object), then color it in exactly the same color, then, while the shiny spot is still selected hold Ctrl and click over the white color in your palette a couple of times. This will brighten the original color, just like a transparent white object would do. But instead of playing with the transparency options, here you will play with the colors.

If you are used to working with transparency and you are not sure exactly what the color of the shiny spot is, you can do this. Draw your illustration with transparency, then clone it and remove the transparency from the duplicated objects. Now color the shiny spot in the same color it is in the original image with the transparency effect. In order to do that just use the Eyedropper tool, placing it over your shiny transparent spot. The color will appear on your status bar. From there you drag it to your cloned shiny spot. That’s it!

Well, not exactly. There is one more thing, and that is – what you do if your shiny spot covers more than one object. In one example the spot covers both the pale yellow label and the brown glass. Since you have two different objects covered – you will need to slice the shiny spot in two parts. If it was to cover three objects it will be divided in three parts. Get it? As much the covered objects, as many the objects for the shiny spot. In the end they should look like one though. To accomplish that you will need to use the shaping tools a lot. It is irritating, I know. However, as a reward for your efforts you will have an illustrations that is compatible with the EPS 8 requirements and can be viewed in all vector software.

Gradients are the reason why many Corel Draw users switch to Illustrator when they do microstock illustrations. Or they draw the shapes in Corel and then edit the gradients in Illustrator before saving the final file. Oh, if they only knew that there is a way to avoid this and do everything in Corel.

Here is "the big secret". Your gradients will look perfect in any software IF you use them in the right way. And the right way is to use horizontal or vertical linear gradients with Edge Pad = 0. Before I explain this – see the following illustration.

Those robots were done only by simple linear gradients. All you need to remember is that they must be exactly horizontal (0 or 180 degrees) or vertical (90 or -90 degrees) and the Edge Pad must be “0? every time. The last thing is also very important. If your Edge Pad is not 0 – I can’t guarantee that your gradients won’t change in AI.

The number of colors you use doesn’t matter. You can use as many as you wan. If you use Radial gradients they will look good in AI, but when you save your EPS 8 file from there and open it in Corel – they will become slightly brighter. Now isn’t that awkward: You create something in Corel, save it as EPS 8 in Illustrator and it looks perfect there. But when you open it in Corel again – it is not as good any more, even though it was "born" here! Well, that’s how it is. I am not sure why exactly is that so, but I don’t bother myself thinking about it any more. I just use linear instead of radial gradients. If I really need to create a radial gradient – I use blends instead. And if I need some really crazy radial effects – I combine linear gradients with blends. Those 2 simple tools can produce some astonishing effects when used together. They can also replace the radial gradients and save you some time and nerves.

When you work with gradients in Corel Draw my advice is to close your illustration when it is done, and then open it again and check if the gradients are OK. Some times the numbers on the gradient options may move on their own. This happens mostly when you place your gradient in an object and then clone that object or mirror it. Your illustration will look good, but the next time you open it – the gradients in those cloned shapes will be changed in the exactly opposite direction or they will have Edge Pad different than 0. So, as I said, close the file when it is done, open it again, and if a gradient has changed its options – fix them and save. They will not change a second time. To me this happens rarely and only when I save files in older versions (From Corel Draw X4 to Corel Draw 9.0 for example). Maybe it is a bug, and maybe there is some update or plug in to fix this. I don’t know. If somebody knows more – please share in the comments below.

Another thing that I must warn you about are the reviewers who check your work when you submit it to some agencies. You see, some sites don’t like blends very much.They think that you have made complex illustrations with blends, when you can use gradients instead. Almost all of them use Illustrator, and they still haven’t read this Quick Tip, therefore they don’t know we are doing this for the sake of compatibility. So when you save an EPS 8 file containing blends, tell them why you have. You can say "I used blends instead of radial gradients, so the illustration can look the same in all vector programs." Your reviewer will understand.

Alright, first of all, meshes are not exactly a pure vector tool. They are something like a mixture between bitmap and vectors. They are also not supported by the EPS 8 standard. So if you want to create photorealistic illustration you must find another way. The closest that I know of is by using blends again. I don’t have any photorealistic illustrations of my own, but you can google Aleksey Oglushevich and see for yourself what can be done by just using blends.

I have to say that he often mixes blends with transparency, but you don’t have to. You will be able to create great photorealistic illustration with just blends and no transparency. This method is more time consuming than using meshes, but according to Aleksey "It is a more creative vector technique." Plus it is EPS 8 friendly.

I can think of four different ways to create shadows without using transparency. First with blends, second with gradients, third with blends and gradients, and fourth with just a simple shape in uniform color. It all depends on the style of the illustration, and what type of shadow do you want. The good news is that in those four ways you can draw whatever shadows you imagine. They will look great in EPS 8 and will remain the same in all vector software.

But, there is bad news as well. And it is that your shadow is not a real shadow. It only looks like one. Take a look at those bottles above again! Do you see the shadow? Well, I used blends to create it, so the illustration is an EPS 8 file. But if you decide to replace the white background with another color the shadow will look awful. It is not transparent, remember? So the steps of the blend will remain fading to white, while your background is no longer white. Since you know that you will do well if you pay attention to how your illustration will be used, and consider it when drawing the shadow. For example, lets say you are drawing a set of vector icons over white background. When I do that I try to avoid intersection between icons and their shadows if possible. See the heart icons below!

Instead I make them float over their shadows. Why? Because people probably won’t use the shadow anyway. Or, if they want to export a raster file from your EPS 8, they will want to apply their own shadow in Photoshop in order for it to be suitable with their own background. So in this case the shadow is only an accessory used to make the composition look cooler. It should not stand in the way (intersect) with the main subject, which is the icons.

When you are drawing an object over a white background your composition won’t suffer if the object casts no shadow – skip the shadow. Skip it every time it has no impact on your artworks overall look. If you are drawing a closed composition (and not an isolated object) like a natural landscape for example – you can draw all the shadows in the world.

So, in short. When you are drawing objects isolated over white – skip the shadow if this will not affect the coolness of your work. If you are drawing icons – make sure that the shadows (created by blends) don’t intersect with the icons. And if you are drawing a closed composition – do whatever you want.

In order to create 3D looking objects you are free to use the Extrude effect in Corel Draw. Just make sure that in the end everything is in vectors. The EPS 8 standard doesn’t have any problem with the Extrude tool.

Usually you would probably create a reflection this way. You mirror the object that you want to cast a reflection, then you add transparency or masks and place this over the reflecting surface. Something like that, right?

Well, here is the new, EPS 8 compatible way: You mirror the object, place it over the reflecting surface, then while holding Ctrl you click on the color of the surface in your palette (the object or group of objects stays selected all the time). If it is not a uniform color, but a gradient, you select the closest uniform color in the palette (in the case of this example it is baby blue) and click on it until your reflection is good.

This process of clicking on a color while holding Ctrl, when an object or a group of objects is selected, will fade them to that color step by step, or should I say click by click.

If you want the reflection to get more pale with the growing distance away from the source object, you will have to play with those linear gradients some more. The color (on your gradient) of that farthest side should be the same or close to the color of the reflecting surface.

As you very well know, in every good graphics program, no matter if it is Corel Draw, Illustrator, Photoshop, 3D Studio or whatever, there is always more than one way to express your ideas. The better you know your software, the more ways you will find to do the same thing. Some of them will be quick and easy to apply. Others, like some of those 6 above, will be good mostly for the purpose of maximum compatibility. At the end the technique that you will be using depends on the purpose of your artwork and the knowledge you poses about your software of choice. Those are most of the tricks that I use to simulate effects when I create clip art illustrations for the microstock agencies with Corel Draw. If you know more on the subject please share in the comments section. It will be great to know how you do those things.

Note: All illustrations in this tutorial and in my entire portfolio are saved in EPS 8 and compatible with all vector software.

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