Curocur Photopaint Tutorials

List of helpful Corel Photo-Paint keyboard shortcuts

2007-09-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

During the course of my extensive use of Photopaint there are keyboard shortcuts that are a big help. I made a list for you of my favorites:

1. Ctrl+N: Make a new image.

2. Ctrl+D: Copies and pastes the image on your clipboard.

3. Ctrl+Z: Undo the last action.

4. Ctrl+O: Open an image/file.

5. Ctrl+S: Save

6. Letter Shortcuts:

O: Object Pick Tool

P: Paint Tool

F: Fill Tool

X: Erase Tool

T: Text Tool

Z: Zoom Tool

D: Crop Tool

R: Rectangle Mask Tool

E: Eyedropper tool

7. Shift+Ctrl+Down Arrow: Merge all objects into one.

That’s it; you’ll most probably discover more and have a set of your own favorites. From my experience as a self-taught Photopaint user I generally ignored the shortcuts specified on each icon but as I progressed I learned their value but for now I advise you to familiarize yourself first with the icons, their locations and uses. Pretty soon you’ll be confident enough to use the shortcuts above without thinking twice.

Image credits: wowacom of Stck.Xchng

How to place border on an image or picture using Corel Photo Paint

2007-09-16T04:27:00.000-07:00

Photos look nicer if we put borders on it. Corel Photo Paint easily allows you to put borders on your pictures. Let's say I want to place borders on this image of happy people:

Here's what I need to do:
1. Launch Corel Photo Paint
2.Open an image
3. Check the FOREGROUND COLOR in your TOOL BOX located in the farthest left of your Photo-Paint window.
This is your TOOL BOX, and I've boxed in red the FOREGROUND and BACKGROUND COLOR:

Here's a close-up:

4. Make sure that your FOREGROUND COLOR is white. Just like in the photo above. If it is not white, go and click with your mouse the white color in your COLORS PALETTE, located to the farthest right. This is how your COLORS PALETTE looks like:

Click on white color.
5. After that, go back to your TOOLBOX, and click on MASK TOOL:

Here's a close-up of the MASK TOOL:

6. Now let's drag a square in the center of your picture, making sure you leave a bit of edges:

I've encircled the mask in progress, and above is how it looks depending if you start to our left or right side.
And when I'm finished masking what I want with this tutorial, here's how it looks:

Notice the red edges? That's where I didn't put a mask, I masked the picture except it's fringes. Whew! If you're confused with what just happened, just practice a couple of times the MASK TOOL. Don't be scared, you can always click on the UNDO button in your STANDARD TOOL BAR just below your MENU BAR ^_^ . Here's what your UNDO button looks like:

In effect, if you drag while your MASK TOOL is chosen inside your photo and you let go, the colored part is unmasked. LOL. Just practice for a while.
Just remember:
Colored red: UNMASKED
No color: MASKED.
7. Now we need to do a couple more things and after that we're actually right into bordering the photo, geez hehe.
Look above, and on your MENU BAR we're gonna click once on MASK.

8. A fly-out will appear, click once on INVERT.

9. Now take a look on your picture in progress:

What we actually did is flipped the MASK so that the edges or fringes is the thing MASKED. Tongue twister anyone? Anyway, we're now gonna place the border, for real!
10. Back on your MENU BAR, click once on EDIT.

A fly-out menu appears, click once on FILL.
11. A FILL mini-window appears, tick the choose button of FOREGROUND COLOR.

12. Click OK or hit ENTER on your keyboard.
13. Hit CTRL + R simultaneously on keyboard to remove MASK on picture.
Voila! White border on your picture!
From:

To this:

You're finished with this tutorial, but if you want other kinds of borders, continue below with this tute.

If you want a Black & White border, here's what we do:
1. Again, MASK your edges (STEP 6) and invert your mask (STEPS 7 & 8).

2. On your MENU BAR above, click once on IMAGE:

3. A fly-out will appear, mouse-over on ADJUST:

4. Another fly-out appears, click once on HUE SATURATION LIGHTNESS:

5. A HUE SATURATION LIGHTNESS mini-window appears:

Look for the slider of SATURATION, the one encircled in red. Drag it all the way to the left:

Once done, click OK or hit ENTER on keyboard.
6. Hit CTRL + R simultaneously on keyboard to remove MASK on picture.
Result:
From:

To this:

Yup, another trick up my sleeve ^_6. Ready for more?
1. MASK your edges (STEP 6) and invert your mask (STEPS 7 & 8).

2. On your MENU BAR, click once on EFFECTS and a fly-out appears.

3.Mouse-over on ART STROKES and a fly-out appears, click once on IMPRESSIONIST. An IMPRESSIONIST mini-window appears, follow settings on photo:

4. Click OK or hit ENTER on keyboard.
5. Hit CTRL + R simultaneously on keyboard to remove MASK on picture.
From:

To:

TIP: While picture is masked, play with your EFFECTS and see different results. ^__^

Placing Text On An Image with Photo-Paint

2007-09-15T06:28:00.000-07:00

Just like in Photoshop, Corel Photo-Paint allows you to place text in an image. For example I want to place a Happy Birthday text on this photo:

Here are the simple steps:
1. Launch your Corel Photo-Paint
2. Open your image
3. Now notice your TOOL BOX, located on the farthest left of your Corel window.

Notice the Black & White colors below? Those are your foreground and background color.

The Black before the White is your FOREGROUND COLOR and the Black square below them is your FILL COLOR. For now we won't take notice of the FILL COLOR. These are set by default. Now if I put text on a picture, the text will be a black color because my FOREGROUND color is on black. The color that appears with TEXT is directly related to FOREGROUND COLOR. Since I want to place a Happy Birthday text on the picture, BLACK is not the appropriate color for me. So I find my COLOR PALETTE, located on the farthest right of Corel window.
4.
I want to have a jolly red text, so I click on RED in my COLOR PALETTE.

And I now have RED as a FOREGROUND COLOR.

5. Next I'm going back to TOOL BOX, the bar on the farthest left of my Corel window. This time I'm going to click my TEXT TOOL.

TEXT TOOL:

6. After I clicked TEXT TOOL, above in my Corel window:

Look closely, there should be a little blue arrow in the FONT box. I'll click that and a fly-out appears, with the list of available fonts. I'll choose the font I want.
7. After choosing the font I like, I'm now going to choose the FONT SIZE.

Right beside the FONT box, there's the FONT SIZE BOX. I'll click on the little blue arrow, and a fly-out will also appear, with numerical values. I will choose the size that fits the photo.
8. I'm finished choosing the font and size, and I chose Comic Sans with size 48. And now I'm ready to type. I'll type Happy B-day!

Oops, the text is not centered and the exclamation point exceeded the photo. I can remedy that by playing around with the nodes of the text.
9. But first I click on the center of the text, then with my mouse I drag my text towards left.

I've underlined the area in the text with a horizontal line where you can click and afterwards drag the text towards any direction. For me, I want the text to go to the left direction until it fits.

And now I'll drag the text to the left.
10. After doing that, I want my text to be a bit bigger than I thought. So I look for the square nodes of the text:

Can you see them? I've encircled them in red. Any one of these nodes, when dragged with a mouse will influence the size of the text.
Here's what it looks as I try to make my text bigger:

10. And when I'm satisfied, I hit CTRL + SHIFT + Arrow Down simultaneously. I'm doing this to merge my text and picture.
11. SAVE.
And here's the result:

Image credits: cstavridis of Stock.Xchng

Covert your photos into Black & White using Corel Photo-Paint

2007-09-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a photo becomes more dramatic when it is on Black & White. Let's convert this photo into one:

1. Launch your Corel Photo-Paint
2. Open your image
3. Click on IMAGE in your MENU BAR:

4. A fly-out menu will appear, mouse-over to ADJUST:

5. A sub fly-out will appear, click on HUE/SATURATION/LIGHTNESS:

Close-up:

6. A HUE/SATURATION/LIGHTNESS mini-window will appear:

Notice that I've encircled the slider of SATURATION, this is the only thing that will concern us in turning a photo into Black & White. Drag it all the way to the left. It should look like this:

After that, click OK or hit ENTER in your keyboard.
We're done!
From:

To this:

Image credits: canjosh of Stock.xhng

How to sharpen your image

2007-09-15T02:19:00.000-07:00

We sharpen an image to show the details of a picture better. It will take you less than a few minutes to fix your photos that you think are too blurry.
Let's sharpen this pretty photo:

1. Launch your Corel Photo-Paint
2. Open your image
3. On your MENU BAR click on EFFECTS:

4. A fly-out should appear, mouse-over to SHARPEN:

Here's a close-up:

5. A sub fly-out will appear, click on SHARPEN:

6. A sharpen mini-window will appear.

I've encircled the SLIDERS, these directly affects the look of your photo. Manipulate them according to how your pictures will look better. Now take notice of the PRESERVE COLORS tick box. I've put it in a box. Here's a close-up:

If you noticed, it's unchecked. Check the tick-box.

After manipulating the sliders of EDGE LEVEL and THRESHOLD while the PRESERVE COLORS is ticked (checked), click OK.
7. And here's the result:
From:

To this:

NOTE: If you're not satisfied with the result, click UNDO above in your PHOTO-PAINT window and repeat steps until you're pleased.
Image Credits: omster-com of Stock.Xcnhg

Brighten your photo

2007-09-14T22:16:00.000-07:00

With Corel Photo Paint, you can fix your photos that are too dark with the Brightness Contrast Intensity of Image>Adjust found in your MENU BAR. Let's say this photo is a bit too dark for you:

We can brighten it up a bit by doing these:
1. Launch your PHOTO-PAINT.
2. Open your image.
3. Notice your OBJECT DOCKER at the right-most section of your PHOTO PAINT window right before your PAINT PALETTE.

It says Background.
4. Now hit CTRL+D simultaneously on your keyboard. Look at your OBJECT DOCKER again.

Noticed that there's now a DUPLICATE of your original photo? You're probably wondering why I asked you to duplicate your picture, you'll see why very soon. ^_^

Also with your duplicate image there are now nodes. Oh noes what are these? Don't be bothered by them, just don't do anything with those nodes. Before we continue, I want you to make sure that your duplicated image or OBJECT 1 is highlighted in your OBJECTS DOCKER, meaning it's blue. Exactly just like the image:

5. Now on to the fun stuff. On your MENU BAR above, click IMAGE.

6. A fly-out should appear, now scroll over ADJUST, another fly-out will appear:

7. Now click on BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST/INTENSITY:

8. A mini-window should appear.

There are sliders in the mini-window, drag according to how it looks on the image and how it suits you. You can actually move the mini-window by dragging it through the blue tab with the title Birghtness/Contrast/Intensity so that you can peek at your photo, how the adjustment looks on your picture. Like so:

As you can see, while you drag the sliders you see the changes. ^_^
When you're happy, click OK.
9. And here's the result:

DON'T SAVE YET! But what if you doubt it if looks better than the original? Remember earlier I asked you to DUPLICATE your image by CTRl+D? Now look again at you OBJECTS DOCKER.

Noticed that EYE I've enclosed in a red box? Click on it. Now look back on your PHOTO-PAINT window.

Whoa, that's your original photo right? So maybe you get it now? That if you click or unclick on that EYE, you get to see immediately the difference to your image, if your adjustment made the photo better or not. ^_^ If you want to see again your adjusted image, click on the EYE again to make it visible. The advantage of this is that you can re-adjust your image to suit you while comparing it to the original image because of your OBJECT DOCKER.
10. If you're now satisfied, hit these simultaneously:
CTRL+SHIFT+ ARROW DOWN. These will combine or merge the objects in the OBJECT DOCKER into one. Since there where two objects because of your original photo and your duplicated photo, we have to merge them into one object before you save.
11. You should be finished now, and you can save your image.
Here's what I have:
From:

To this:

You can do the opposite with your brightness adjustment window if you want to darken your image, like this:

Image credit: stock.xchng

How to crop an image with your Corel Photo-Paint

2007-09-14T21:59:00.000-07:00

Let's say you have this photo:

And what you want to do is just have the face of the girl. What you can do is crop the image to get rid of the unwanted parts of the photo. Here's what you do:
1. Launch your Corel Photo-Paint
2. Open your image.
3. At the left-most section of your Corel Photo-Paint window, you'll find your TOOL BOX. Get your CROP TOOL by clicking on it once.
Here's the TOOL BOX:

Here's your CROP TOOL:

4. Now go to your image and crop the section you want by dragging your CROP TOOL.

Let go of your mouse, and you'll see nodes in your enclosed section. You can manipulate these by dragging forward or backward. Just like this:

5. Don't worry too much if you think you'll make a mistake, once the cropped photo does not please you there's always the UNDO button at the top for you to repeat and crop all over again.
Now right-click on your mouse and choose Crop To Selection.

6. And here's your cropped image.

Image by stock.xcnhg

How to resize an image using your Corel Photo Paint

2007-09-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

Let's say this picture is just too big or small for you. We can remedy that through your Corel Photo-Paint.

First launch your PHOTO-PAINT, then OPEN your photo.

If we're going to make the photo smaller or bigger, here's what we do:
1. Always sharpen your image before resizing, this ensures that your photo's quality won't suffer.
2. Then on the MENU BAR, click on IMAGE:

3. A fly-out will appear, click on RESAMPLE:

4. A RESAMPLE mini-window will appear:

Notice that drop-down menu above, the one I've enclosed in a box. For a clearer view:

That's a value of measurement of your image, and by default it's on INCHES. That's not good, we want a PIXELS value.
5. We click on the drop-down arrow, and a list will appear:

Click on PIXELS.
6. Make sure your MAINTAIN ASPECT RATIO is ticked. You can find it at the near bottom right, I've highlighted it for you:

A close-up view, make sure it's check-box is ticked:

7. Now type numerical values on the Width or Height Boxes. You'll notice that if you type on WIDTH, the HEIGHT value follows along. That's why I asked you to tick MAINTAIN ASPECT RATIO earlier. This ensures that the size adjustment you're doing preserves the original look of your photo.

What you type depends if you want your image to be bigger. If originally your photo size is 400 PIXELS, and you want it smaller, you'll probably type 250 PIXELS. And if you want a larger image than you're original, then you do vise-versa.
Here's a result for what we did.
From this:

To this: SMALLER

Or this: BIGGER

And we're finished for now.
Image Credit: lonniehb of stock.xchng

How to open an image

2007-09-14T05:10:00.000-07:00

1.On the MENU BAR click on FILE.

2. A fly-out should appear, choose OPEN.

3. A pop-up window will appear, locate where your photo is stored in your computer. For example, if your photo is stored on your MY DOCUMENTS folder, on that mini-window go to MY DOCUMENTS. If you don't know how to locate a file stored somewhere in your computer, it will not be covered in this site. Please Google for a tutorial on locating your files.
Anyway moving on, if you have located the folder where your image is stored, this is the pop-up mini-window I was telling you previously:

Yikes! What are those unreadable thingies?! Don't panic, there's a quick remedy for you to see the particular image you want.
4. Look closely on the image:

Click on that mulit-colored square (it's called a VIEW MENU), then click Thumbnails.
5. Voila! Now look for the image you want, in my case I'm looking for the one with pretty balloons.

So I double-click on that picture, or you could click it once then click on the OPEN button found at the bottom right.
6. And here's the picture on my PHOTO-PAINT window:

We're about finished with this tutorial, but I want to say something that might make it easier for you to open images in the future. There is actually an easier way, if I want to open a photo, I just type simultaneously:
CTRL+O (alphabet, not number). This is a short cut, but I want you to be comfortable working with PHOTO-PAINT first so we're doing things the longer way. This is because I don't want to flood you with short cuts while you're still being comfy with PHOTO-PAINT.
Now we're finished with this tutorial! ^_^

Familiarize yourself with Corel Photo Paint tools and functions

2007-09-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

Just in case your PHOTO-PAINT window is not working like how it should be, like you accidentally closed a tool window, just exit from PHOTO-PAINT, then launch it again BUT hold down on F8 key. A window will appear, asking you to overwrite current workspace to factory default. Click on yes and your PHOTO-PAINT standard settings will be restored.
I assume you already know how to launch Corel Photo-Paint. If that's not the case yet, have a look at this quick tutorial.

We start this tutorial by launching your Photo-Paint software. If this is the first time for you to use it, you'll probably notice this pop-up window after it loads:

Every time you use Photo-Paint, this window appears. If you choose not to see it, un-check the small box that says Show the Welcome Screen at startup.

Remove the check in this small box. Then close the Welcome Screen.

You'll now see the Corel Photo-Paint screen:

We're going to briefly discuss the key elements of the Photo-Paint screen.

TITLE BAR
At the very top of your Photo-Paint screen, the TITLE BAR displays COREL PHOTO-PAINT and to the right is the name of your opened image:

If for example the name of your photo is Apple.jpg, then you'll see exactly just that. However, if you have a new image you haven't saved yet, then the name of that image is new-1.cpt, until you save that document like naming it red with a file type of JPEG, then you'll see at the title bar the name red.jpg.

MENU BAR

The Menu bar is placed right below the TITlE BAR where you locate your commands, dialog boxes, and submenus. If for example you want to adjust the size of your opened image, then you click on MENU BAR's Image, then a submenu will come out, then you choose Resample and so and and so forth.

Look at the highlighted letters of the MENU BAR, when you press ALT and a highlighted letter, you're actually using a shortcut instead of pointing at it with the mouse. See what I mean by pressing ALT and F simultaneously in your Photo-Paint window.

TOOLBOX

The TOOL BOX is located at the left-most section of your Photo-Paint window. These are probably the most useful tools aside from the MENU BAR in Photo-Paint. If you look closely, some of them have a teeny-tiny arrow at their bottom. Like this Paint/Brush Tool.

Now if I click on that tiny black arrow, this happens:

A flyout with options appears. It means once I need another tool, I click on that and I get to use it's function. From the brush tool of TOOL BOX, I clicked on the black arrow and chose effect tool.
From this:

To this:

Now go ahead and explore your TOOL BOX and study what the small black arrow of other tools have to offer.

STANDARD TOOL BAR

This is enabled by default and placed right after the Menu Bar. These are icons of commonly used functions or commands such as opening a new image, UNDO, new image and so forth.
Below is a list of the icons or buttons found on STANDARD TOOL BAR and their functions.
1. To create a new image:

2. To open an image/photo:

3. To save your image:

4. Print your image:

5. Cut chosen or selected objects to the clipboard

6. Copy selected objects to the clipboard

7. Paste clipboard contents to an image

8. Undo last action

9. Redo last action

10. Import an image

11. Save a duplicate of image to disk.

12. Change the zoom level

13. Full Screen Preview; F9 to exit.

14. Show/Hide the image slicing grid

15. Show/Hide the mask marquee

16. Show/Hide the object marquee

17. Clear a mask

18. Invert Mask

19. Launch other Corel application

PROPERTY BAR
The Property Bar is found right after the STANDARD TOOL BAR. For now I've decided to skip this feature.

COLOR PALETTE

This is located at the right-most section of your Photo-Paint window. Let's say I want to draw a check on this photo
using the PAINT TOOL . I click with my mouse the color I want, in this case a shade of red then I "paint" a check shape.

And if for some reason I want to add an X, I click again in the COLOR PALETTE the color that I want and draw another shape on my photo.

Well, for now we're finish with this tutorial. The best way I can tell you how to be comfortable with using Corel Photo Paint is to practice, practice, practice. If you've got any question regarding this tutorial, just post your comment here.
NO SPAM PLEASE!

Starting Corel Photo-Paint

2007-09-13T22:42:00.000-07:00

We now begin working with Corel Photo-Paint by first locating the program and then making a desktop shortcut for easy access whenever you will work with Corel Photo-Paint again. If you already know how to do this, you may skip this tutorial.

LAUNCHING PHOTO-PAINT
1. Click START

2. Mouse-over (point) to PROGRAMS

3. Mouse-over to COREL DRAW GRAPHICS SUITE 12

4. Mouse-over to Corel-Photo Paint

5. Now we'll make a desktop shortcut. We're doing this to save you time whenever you need to work again with Photo Paint by just clicking on the Photo Paint icon next time, rather than having to begin with Start of Windows.
Right click while your cursor is still pointed on Photo-Paint. Click on CREATE SHORTCUT.

6. Go to your desktop or main window, and you shall see your icon, it should look like this.

Now we can start with the rest of the tutorials by launching your Photo Paint. Go ahead and double click on your new icon, the Corel Photo-Paint program should start loading after you double clicked the icon.

What is Corel Photo Paint?

2007-09-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

Corel Photo Paint is an image editing software wherein you can do really basic things with your photos like:
1. Resize an image
From:

To This:

2. Crop an image where you take a section of the photo you want
From:

To This:

3. Sharpen an image to enhance the details of a blurry image
From:

To This:

4. Improve the brightness of your photos
From:

To This:

5. Turn your photos easily from color to black & white
From:

To This:

6. Place a border on your image
From:

To These:

Black & White border

White border

Blocks border
7. Place text on your image
From:

To This:

8. Play with your original photo's background
From:

To This:

There are still limitless stuff you can do with your Corel Photo-Paint, but for now we'll stick to the basics.
All images are courtesy of stock.xchng.

Working with Corel Photo Paint

2007-09-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

This is a test post.

Tutorials on basic stuff you can do with Corel Photo Paint

2007-09-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

This is a test post.

Oh yes I know your pain

2007-09-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

You're probably like me who searched and searched for a tutorial regarding Corel Photo Paint and found some sites, but they are too advanced for you who are still clueless where the crop tool is, and what it's for in the first place. Believe me, IBDT (I've been there, done that).

Worst, we see thousands of sites for Photoshop, and seeing anything that has something to do with Corel is like looking for Mr. Right. <.<

This is my first post, so let's all hope and pray I'll finish here what I've set out to do, by the way welcome to my blog.