Tracing With PainterWhen I discovered that I could actually use Painter Essentials and trace a photograph it was - well - liberating. Here is an example of my modest efforts ... (Mouseover to see before and
after)
 Of course the artistic folks among us will sneer at this mehtod of drawing but - who cares. It is easy to do, fun to do and it creates great results if you take your time and use a Wacom tablet (Bamboo or Intuos). As a matter of fact Corel Painter Essentials is included with your Bamboo Fun or Intuos 3 tablet. You can use Photoshop Elements and get similar results but Painter is a drawing and painting program and I believe you will get better results with Painter. This is how you do it ... Tracing with Corel Painter Essentials Open the photograph you would like to trace. Go to File > Quick Clone. A new window will open with your photograph dimmed out. The dimming is because Painter has put some tracing paper over the Photograph. You can adjust the opacity of the tracing paper and turn it off and on to see how you are doing. Ctrl-T or CMD-T - toggles the tracing paper on and off.  You can change the opacity of the tracing paper if you click and hold on the right side of the small box (the white area) and if you click on the black portion of the block it will turn the tracing paper on and off. Go to the tools and select the 2B pencil tool. You can leave the opacity at 100% or lower it slightly so your lines won't be completely black. With a Bamboo or Intuos installed the opacity of your pencil strokes will change with the pressure you apply and this makes all the difference in you finished product.  OK, now you are ready to start tracing your masterpiece. If you don't like something you have done simply flip over your pen and erase the offending line. If you find it difficult to draw nice neat lines in one direction (I can't draw horizontal lines) then spin the picture. Click and hold the hand tool in tool bar menu and a flyout will appear. Select the little arrow thing, put your cursor on the picture and drag it around in circles. To return to the normal view double click on the little arrow. A note about saving your file - if you cannot finish in one sitting then save the file as a Photoshop File (*.PSD). This will save the tracing paper and the underlying image. If you save as a jpeg or riff the underlying image will not be available when you re-load the file. Here is an example of the original picture and the end tracing - and some painting as well ...  That's really all there is to tracing with Painter Essentials. It's fun and you can create some nice drawings to amaze yourself and anyone who knows you! The Video Return to Home Page from Tracing page.
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