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Dingbat
fun
By Deb DeHaven
Ulead Photo Impact Version 8,
but can be done in 5-8 (See notes for version 5 at the bottom of this
page.)
Level: beginner
needed items: a preset of
your choice, either for PI or Blade
pro
Dingbat
or black and
white image
Description: Use a dingbat or black and white
clipart to create a great image to use on stationeries or web sets. Uses
the colorize pen retouch tool. |
Here is a simple project
that is a good use for black and white clip art, dingbats, or shapes
that are solid, yet should be different colors such as a flower with
leaves. There is another way to get the different colors, but it is
much harder and more time-consuming.
You can use the material
presets or blade pro if you have it to add a three dimensional
aspect to the image. I'll show you how to do it with material
presets, and give some tips on using blade pro.
Any of the 101! Floral
Designs series would be good for this. Since this font creator
allows file sharing as long as the original zip from the site is
provided, I'm putting the one I'm using in the tutorial here for
download. The wildflowers and roses series are of the right
type for this project.
In order to use a font or dingbat in pi
you need to do one of two things before opening
PhotoImpact.
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1. Unzip the dingbat to any
folder on your hard drive. Open the dingbat by double clicking it. I
store many of the dingbats I have downloaded in a special folder in
my graphics folder. Then I open the one I want to use by double
clicking it. Then when I open pi it should be loaded.
Note:
prior to pi 8 I was able to open the dingbat or font after opening
pi but pi 8 seems to be a bit more picky about
this.
Or...
2. Copy the font to your
c:\windows\fonts folder. This is one sure way to know that the font
or dingbat will always be there and ready to use. However, if you do
this with too many fonts, it can slow down windows. So you may want
to reserve this method for fonts and dingbats you are sure to use a
lot. :)
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Open a
new canvas, 300 X 300 with a white background. Click on the text
tool, and choose 100! Floral designs 2 from the dropdown list. For
the size, type in 270. Click on the canvas, and type a capital s in
the window. If using a lower version of pi, a small dialog box will
open in which you will type. In Pi 8, you type right on the canvas.
You can choose any color if you will be using a material preset. If
you are using blade pro, most presets will work best if you choose
white. In 5-7, click the ok button to leave the text dialog box. In
pi 8, click on the pick tool.
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In your easy palette, double
click a preset from your material gallery, or use any downloaded
preset. Presets with plain colors or a very fine fill texture are
best for this. I am using my gel presets. If you use the gel presets, change the border depth
to the maximum, which is 99. In pi 8, you do this with the text
panel, 3d tab. Lower versions can set this in the attribute bar.
Since this dingbat should mostly be green because of all the leaves
in it, I chose the dark green gel preset. If you don't have a preset
of the appropriate color you can use any color. It will just mean
that you will have to do a bit more work later on.. but it's fun
work I promise.
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When you have set up your text
with the appropriate border and preset of your choice, right click
and click convert object type from text to image.
At this point
I chose to edit the resulting image with format/ highlight/ midtone
and shadow. In pi 5 and 6 you would use tone map instead. I set the
highlights to 15, and the shadows to -15. See how much brighter the
result is? I use this method a lot to shine up dull presets. :) I
find it a lot quicker than trying to tweak the lights in the
material box.
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Click on the arrow at the bottom
right corner of the retouch tool, and choose the colorize pen. In
the attribute bar, choose the color you would like to use. I chose
purple here. Now simply color the part that is the flower. :-) If
you chose a preset that wasn't green, you'll need to color the
leaves too.
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Using a black and white
image:
Use the magic wand to select the white background of the
image. Right click and click invert so that the black is selected
instead.
If you are using a material preset, go to edit/ trace
selection marquee. Accept the defaults and click ok. Then apply the
preset of your choice. You may find that you need to smooth out
parts of the image because there are obvious creases using this
method. I use the blur tool for this. For that reason I recommend
the gel presets if you are using an image. Since they don't use a
fill texture, you won't be blurring the texture away.
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Using Blade pro: With the image
selected, fill with white and go to effect/ flaming pear/ blade pro.
Choose any preset. It works best if the texture is small. Continue
on to use the colorize pen to color the image. |
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In pi 5: You will not have the
colorize pen in the retouch tools. So instead you can use the paint
brush. Double click the paintbrush icon to open the brush panel. In
the options tab, set the merge method to multiply. Try not to paint
over previously painted parts because that can cause smudges.
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