Image Border - How to?

[lavaghman]

Hi,
I've imported a number of circular jpegs images into my CorelDRAW 8 Graphic and would like to put a thin white border around each...........can anyone tell me how to go about this? I'm sure it's fairly easy but i'm only starting out!!

Thanks, Lavaghman

 

[AjIsCoool]

if i understand you correctly

1- you could use Contour OR

2- Duplicate the line - make it wider (thicker)-

color it while - place it underneath

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[lavaghman]

I'm still a bit stuck......!

I want to put a photo image in the shape of a circle on my graphic so i have used PaintShopPro to create a circular selection from my photo. I then paste this into CorelDraw but Corel places a square white background around my circular photo. I want to place the photo on a blue background in my CorelDraw graphic so i don't want this white square, just the actual circular photo......any suggestions? Is there another way that i can take a circle selection out of my photo and place it in my graphic?

Secondary to that i just want to put a thin white border around the circular photo image so that it stands out on the blue background.....???

any help or suggestions much appreciated and my thanks to AjIsCoool for replying to the first part of my query

Lavaghman

 

[Pixelchik]

I haven't worked in Corel 8 for some time, and I don't have it installed on this computer,but I believe you can select the rastered image (your circle photo) and go to the "Bitmap" menu and select the bitmap colour mask rollup menu. Choose Hide and select one of the colour boxes and then click the eyedropper and move it onto the white background. That white colour will appear in the rollup, then adjust the tolerance for that white colour.

 

[QUILO]

I hope this helps

On Corel Draw, Draw a Square and fill it with the color of the back ground you want and then draw a Circle and put it on the center of the square and fill it with white and use the out line tool with white, then select both the square and the circle and use the combine tool that is on the arrange menu, they will change the color to white but just click on the square and fill it ones again with the back ground color you want, then import the picture you have and place it on the back of the square

QUILO

 

[javabearSTL]

JPGs are not circular, they're square/rectangular. All bitmaps are square/rectangular by their very nature. JPGs should not be used for print if at all possible as they are in a lossy format. JPGs also cannot hold any masking information in the file.

That said, probably the easiest way around this is to bring in your bitmap into Draw. Create a circle the size that you want and then PowerClip the bitmap into the circle. If you want a border on the circle you can either use the Contour feature or just create a slightly larger circle and center it beneath the PowerClip.

 

[AjIsCoool]

PowerClip is my choice of making outlines for bmp


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[lavaghman]

Thanks a million guys. I tried all suggestions but I think I'll go with the powerclip one as its quick and simple!
JavabearSTL mentioned that using jpeg images is not a good idea because of loss of quality.......what format should i use instead as i am scanning some of the images I'm using and could save them in another format??

My Thanks again to AjIsCoool,Pixelchik,QUILO and JavabearSTL as i've learned a little more from tring out what each of you suggested!

Lavaghman

 

[javabearSTL]

lavaghman, it depends on what your final product will be; i.e. are you just prining these out for home or sending to a service bureau? Personally, I always use the native CPT (Photopaint) format when ever possible as it is a non-lossy format (plus the fact that if in Photopaint you've made an "object" - masked something off and put it on a new layer - and it's in a non-square size, it will keep that transparency around the image when you import it into Draw (note, it may come in as "grouped" with the background so you'll have to ungroup it in Draw). And since you're going into Draw with these, there's no real reason to not use it. TIF is another non-lossy format, as is PSD (Photoshop). JPGs by their nature are lossy - i.e., when you put compression on a JPG file, it does things like "hey, let me see... I've got about 15 shades of blue in this part of the sky here. I don't need that many. I'll just delete about 5 or 6 of those shades of blue and replace them with whatever shade of blue is nearby." This permanently deletes data from your file - you cannot recover it. So if you're working on a JPG instead of say the native CPT file, every time you save during your tweaking process, you have the potential of deleting more and more data. You'll start to see more and more artifacting in the image, etc.

 

[lavaghman]

Thanks agaian javabearSTL. I have PaintShopPro so i might try and use the TIF format from now on.
Just one other thing......making an image transparent - I know this is a fairly simple procedure but the solutions i've tried so far give me a reduced quality of image than the original.

I sometimes download images from istockphoto.com where i can only save the image as a jpeg but i want to make them transparent so I don't have a white background in my CorelDraw graphic.
I've tried using the GIF optimizer Transparency tool in PaintShopPro but this conversion to GIF gives me a loss in quality. What is the easy/normal way of achiving transparency in an image.
From what you have already said I'd imagine my problem is that the images are saved as JPEGs and they cannot be make transparent in this format.

Thanks for taking the time to read my questions and offer such useful suggestions!
Lavaghman

 

[javabearSTL]

Correct - JPG does not support transparency at all. And I do understand that many of the "stock" photos may be in JPG format from the get-go... not much you can do about that except open it up and immediately save it to another format. I believe the PSP native format is also non-lossy, so I'd probably save to that. Now, in terms of transparency, if you're talking Print work... you'll want to create an Alpha Mask/Channel around what you want (feather the mask as needed) and then save it to the TIF format... TIFs support Alpha Masks which can create the transparency you want. GIFs should never be used for print anyway... unless you're talking about web stuff? I got the impression from this that you're doing this for Print. GIFs do support transparency, but only a single color can be transparent - to get the smooth edge for transparency you need to use an alpha mask of some sort. I haven't used PSP since v3 so I can't really give much input on that... but I do have a question to ask - If you've got Draw, why not try out Photopaint? It came with Draw so you already have it