february 2017 rrp $5 - corel down under...corelunder, no.94, february 2017, 5 next page 4. change...

Issue 94

February 2017 RRP $5

Treasurer:

03) 9008 8218

0418 382 965

Membership:

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

03) 9893 1029

[email protected]

03) 9729 5419

David Mutch

Darryl Howman

Lance Fishman

President:

Vice President:

[email protected]

Geoff George

Richard Crompton

[email protected] 9720 2913

03) 9876 9161

Secretary:

Fred Jones

Library:

Jenette Youngman

Corelunder Editor:

[email protected]

No. 94 February 2017

CDU Meetings 2016

Tuesday – March 21

Tuesday – February 21

Tuesday – April 18

Tuesday – May 16

Tuesday – June 20

Tuesday – September 19

Tuesday – July 18 (AGM)

Tuesday – August 15

Tuesday – November 21

Tuesday – October 17

This Month’s Cover & Member’s Gallery

By David Mutch

Cover photo: Sunrise in the Thar desert, far NW India near the Pakistan border, west of Jaisalmer.

Postal Address: Corel Down UnderPO Box 627, Heathmont 3135

12-13 Our Gallery

Phone: 03 9876 9161

Playing with Blends in CorelDRAW4

Using the Polygon Tool in CorelDRAW9

Facebook has Changed Again.15

16 Have we had Enough Technologial Progress.

19 What will happen to People…

21 The Dreaded Double Spaces…

Corelunder, No.94, February 2017, 3

Well here we are again in a brand newyear! Welcome back everyone.

Corel will have many exciting new prod-ucts coming out over the next year.Already CorelDraw are working on theBeta versions of X9. I would expect allgoing well we will see this sometime inthe first half of the year. One wonders ifit will be called X9 or will they change itto 2017 as they have done with many ofthe other products?

Talking of which, Corel have released 15new brushes for Painter 2017. For allyou Painter enthusiasts check out thenew ‘Blend’ brush. For something reallydifferent maybe you would like the new‘Creepers’ brush. All of these are avail-able to buy direct from Corel on theirweb site.

In case you are not aware, Corel now hasan Australian reseller. Aquion operatesout of Sydney and you can contact themon 02 8036 8068. If you feel you wouldrather buy from an Australian agentthen over the internet from overseas,give Aquion a call and Morgan or Tinnywill be only be too happy to help you.

I want to give a special thanks to ourmagazine editor, Jenette Youngman,who despite some health issues stillgives up her time to make the magazinework. There is a lot of work in laying thisout and I’m sure you will all agree withme that we really appreciate the workthat Jenette does.

As promised last year, David Mutch didtravel off to India and beyond into thewilds of China. And he took plenty ofvideo. David will give us a demonstrationof Video Studio at the February meeting,and I have the feeling we are going to notonly see how the program works, butalso be privy to some very interestingvideo of the sub-continent.

Until next time…

Darryl HowmanFebruary 2017

4 Corelunder, No.94 February 2017

You will learn about:

●Blending vector shapes to createtransitions

●Using blends to simulate 3Deffects

●How to use “map nodes” to shapeyour blends in the way you want.

The Blend tool is one of the oldest andmost useful features of CorelDRAW.Blending objects means transformingone object into another, following aprogression of shapes and colours. Butthe results are very interesting.

1. Draw a straight line, and choose“hairline” (on the Property Bar orpress F12 for outline properties)

2. Draw a second line. You canduplicate previous, with the leftmouse button while moving, orpressing the + key on the numerickeypad and moving the line, orCopy/paste (Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V), orDuplicate (Ctrl+D). Then, set thewidth to “2 points” (on the Property

Bar or press F12 for outline proper-ties)

3. Select the Interactive BlendTool, on the Effects tools flyout.Then drag the tool from one line tothe other (the order is not relevantat this point). The result should be agradient of lines.

- from the Corel Discovery Center.

The Blend tool is one of the oldest and most useful features of CorelDRAW. Blend-ing objects means transforming one object into another, following a progression ofshapes and colours. In this tutorial, Ariel Diaz explores some of the possibilities.


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4. Change the color of each line(left click on the Color Palette). Nowit becomes a gradient of colors andwidth.

5. On the Property Bar change thenumber of the steps. The moresteps, the more an object will ‘melt’in the other.

6. You can Blend a lot of vectorshapes, including text, for creatingattractive transitions. For example,draw a Star and a Polygon, and fillwith different colors.

7. Then drag the Blend tool fromone object to another. Choose lesssteps (according the objects size) tosee how Blend works.

8. Blend also allows you to simu-late 3D effects easily. For example,blend a thin line with a thick line…or just two rectangles with roundedcorners.

9. If you use two shapes, such as athin and a thick circle, you cancreate amazing results too.

10. The Blend is really made fromone node to other. If the Blenddoesn’t follow the direction youwant, you can choose the nodes youwant to have this relationshipwithin the Blend. On the Propertybar, select “Map Nodes” then select


the two nodes (one on each shape)with the black arrow.

11. “Map Nodes” allows you tocreate smooth results and moreperfect Blends, since you have more

control of the results.

12. Let’s have some fun withblends. Draw a square (hold downCtrl while dragging with therectangle tool), then change outlinecolor (ie Blue). Make a duplicate(click on the + key of the NumericKeypad or copy/paste), then changethe color of the new square (ie toCyan).Now, select both squares andgo to Effects/Blend, that will openthe Blend Docker. Click on theApply button without changing

anything from default values. Yes,you didn’t notice any change! That’sright, since both objects are thesame size and are aligned. but now,select only one of the squares androtate it 180º (on the property bar).Although it’s supposed that rotatinga square 180º shouldn’t change it, itactually changes the direction of the

blend since it changes the positionof the nodes).

Yes, you didn’t notice any change.That’s right, since both objects had thesame size and are aligned. but now,select only one of the squares androtate it 180º (on the property bar).Although it’s supposed that rotate 180ºa square shouldn’t change it, itchanges the direction of the blend

because it has changed the position ofthe nodes).

13. Select again the same squareand choose “Mirror” Horizontally.

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Now, always selecting the same

square, change the rotation to 270°.

And, always selecting the samesquare, choose “Mirror” Horizontallyagain.

Now, select the Blend group. On the

Blend docker, change “Blend direc-tion to 180º and activate “loop”,then click on the “Apply” button.

Select the same square again andchange rotation to 180º. Yes, wehave a circle now!

14. Select the Blend group again,and go to the Blend docker. Change“blend objects” to 100 steps (bydefault this is 20) and change the“blend direction” to 360, then press

“Apply.


Different values will create differentresults. And still we have only twosquares.

15. Until now, we are using bothsquares at the same size, but whathappens if the size is not the same?Change values to 50 steps and 360ºwith loop, then Apply. Later, selectone of the squares and enlarge orreduce it.

16. Do you want to see anexample using another shape?,ok, let’s use a Ellipse (F7), then use

the Shape tool (F10) to create an arcfrom the ellipse. Once again, let’sduplicate (using the + key ofnumeric keypad or copy/paste),then change colors to better identifyeach object.

Choosing 150 steps and 360º with

Loop, we will have… a donut!

Changing Blend direction to 180ºthe result is very different.

Rotating, mirroring or moving one of

the objects creates new shapes andeffects.

The only limit is our imagination.�

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Drawing basic polygons

Converting sides to curves

Applying color fills

This was one of the first tutorials everpublished on www.CORELCLUB.org,then known as “Anna’s CorelClubSpain”, back in 1996.

From that point forward, its successamong the “CORELian” audience ledme to include it in several books. I havealso taught this technique in a numberof CorelDRAW courses and workshops.

But the moment has come to dust it offand make it more widely accessibleon-line.

It’s a simple tutorial that shows crea-tive results using three basic Corel-DRAW tools: the Polygon tool, the Picktool and the Shape tool.

CorelDRAW allows you to create poly-gons in a very intuitive way. When thePolygon tool was first introduced inversion 6, the always faithful Corel-

DRAW users were quite impressed withhow versatile and interactive it was.

Even though the Polygon tool does notseem like a very creative tool at a firstglance (it simply allows you to createmultiple-sided polygonal shapes),following this tutorial you will besurprised of all of its capabilities.

FIG1.

To start, the first thing we need to do isto draw a basic polygon. To do this,click the Polygon tool and drag thecursor in the drawing window until thepolygon is the size you want.

TIP: Keep the Ctrl key pressed to createa symmetrical polygon (same sizesides). Keep the Shift key pressed todraw the shape from its centeroutward.

By Anna María López López

This simple tutorial that shows creative results using three basic CorelDRAW tools:the Polygon tool, the Pick tool and the Shape tool.


Once the polygon has been drawn,select it with the Pick tool. You canchange the number of sides at any timeby typing a value in the Points or sidesbox on the property bar. Rememberthat you have to select the object withthe Pick tool if you want to makechanges to it.

In this tutorial, the polygon that wehave created has 8 sides (octagon).

FIG 2.

Once created, click on the Shape tooland draw a window around the entirepolygon.

FIG 3.

Two of its nodes will appear high-lighted, and the property bar will showoptions for editing nodes. Click on theConvert to Curves icon.

FIG 4.

You won’t notice much of a change atfirst sight. However, upon clicking oneof the nodes or paths of the polygonusing the Shape tool and dragging thecursor inwards or outwards, you willnotice that the sides of the polygonbecome curved. This allows you tocreate a variety of shapes. Take a look:

� Previous Page – Using the Polygon Tool

FIG 5 (animated GIF) to see the anima-tion you will need to check it out on the web/learn.corel.com/tutorials/using-the-poly-gon-tool/


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You can continue modifying the shapeof the polygon by clicking and draggingthe nodes and control handles.

You can also apply a colour fill to thepolygon. As you can see in thisexample, I have applied a black colourby clicking the appropriate colourswatch in the colour palette.

FIG 6.

The best thing is that the originalpolygon continues being dynamicthroughout this process, which meansthat you can change the number ofsides as many times as you want.

Every time you change the number ofsides, you will create a new shape.

Give it a try! Select your polygon andchange the number of sides by typing avalue in the Points or sides box on theproperty bar. Your polygon will betransformed automatically into newshapes like in this example.

FIG 7.

As surprising as it may seem, all theshapes in the image above have beencreated using this technique. You candownload the original file at(http://www.corelclub.org/tutoriales/practicas/ejercicio-tutorial-poligonos-corelclub.cdr)

This file is 31 KB and in .cdr format.Save it to your computer by rightclicking the link and selecting Save linkas. You can then open the file in Corel-DRAW.

You will be able to interact with eachpolygon in this file and see for yourselfall the possibilities and versatility ofthe CorelDRAW Polygon tool.


CDU Gallery Photos by David Mutch

Marwarfestival inJodhpurwith lotsofcolouredpowderbeingthrownabout.

One of thefour walls

leadingdown to astunningStep Well

(Baori) justousideJaipur.


A monkeyhigh in atree overa steepclimb tothetemple atthe thetop of themountainjustoutsidePushkar.Photo-graphtaken justafterdawnafter apunishingearlymorningclimb.

InsidetheAmberFort atJaipur.


� Page 11 – Using the Polygon Tool

FIG 8.

This tutorial has been produced byAnna María López López – multidisci-plinary designer, founder ofwww.corelclub.org and author ofnumerous digital design books such aswww.cursodisenografico.net.

Source:http://www.corelclub.org/tutorial-poligonos-coreldraw/


Did you know that Facebook quietly changedthe pixel dimensions for cover photos of Face-book pages a few months back? I didn’t realizeit at the time, though I did notice a small changein how things displayed. For reference, the oldsize was 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall.

There are now two sizes in use. On mobile de-vices (the majority of traffic) the size is 828 pix-els wide by 465 pixels tall. Desktop viewers willsee the same image, but the top and bottom arecropped so you see 828 pixels wide by 315 pix-els tall. Below is a PNG version of the templateshowing the two sizes. Dark blue is the mobileversion and the brighter blue is the desktop ver-sion.

Because of the areas at top and bottom, youcould include content that only your mobile vis-itors will see. Or you can leave that as “white”space that is just cropped out on desktop. I’vecreated a CorelDRAW X5 file you can use as atemplate. If that format doesn’t work for you,you can also use the PNG file displayed abovein your software of choice.

Note that this change only applies to the coverphotos on pages and not on personal profiles. Ofcourse I wouldn’t be shocked if the sizes forpersonal profiles are also change at sometime inthe near future.

Free Facebook Page Cover Photo Template for 2017 Dimensions

Foster D. Coburn III January 24, 2017

For those readers of CDU magazine who have facebook pages or set them up forfamily and friends here is a thumbs up form our friend Foster D Coburn III


When I was little, we got a whopping 3different TV channels and they signedoff after midnight. My grandmother’sTV was black and white and when theweather was bad you’d hardly be ableto see the ball during soccer matches.Every now and then an amazing Holly-wood flick was on and we all gatheredin front of the box in awe. What soundslike a relic from the past was little morethan 40 years ago. And it may serve toexplain why the entertainment industrywas initially leaping forward whilemuch of the latest technology has yetto catch on withcustomers.

In the 80s, there was aquantum leap: thenumber of availablechannels soared skyhigh and VCRs becamean object of craving forthe entertainmentloving masses. Evenkids with poor socialstatuses couldmassively increasetheir number of friendssimply by owning aVCR and a small moviecollection. 3D glasses

drew people to TVs by the millions,CRTs became as big as refrigeratorsand there was an outright hunger forentertainment technology. CDs andDVDs did the same for the audio andmovie sector and became breathtakingsuccess stories with sales in thebillions.

And it seemed to go on this way: HDwas another huge leap forward withbrilliant pictures on both TVs andcomputer displays and so was Blu-rayas a home cinema medium. It was an

With Sven Krumrey


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entrancing viewing experience,suddenly we could see every bit offacial expression in the actors andrecognize the poor quality of the masksworn by the zombies - it was a feast forthe eyes! But the plan to render DVDsobsolescent and motivate everyone tobuy their favourite movies again onBlu-ray failed. Customers are still goingfor the technically inferior but cheaperstandard and continue to use theirDVD players. When you look at video

stores, you'll find that DVDs still makeup about 50 percent of the sales area.Even 10 years after their launch, it'sunlikely that Blu-rays will fully replaceDVDs any time soon (even thoughDVDs quickly replaced video cassettesback in the days).

4K or Ultra-HD, the latest standard, istruly amazing but still struggling topick up speed. Though manufacturerscontinue to point out that sales arerising with utter conviction, there areno signs of a wide-spread hype (that’s

what new technology needs to spreadquickly). TV stations and streamingportals are slow to offer new contentand by then, retail Blu-ray playerswould be out of the game anyway.There are a couple of movie afficio-nados that revel in 4K brilliancewhether it be commercial movies orhome recordings (many cellphones andcams already support 4K) but they'refar from a mass movement.

Only recently, aproject thatreceived amplepraise inadvance wasquietly halted:curved TVs arealready fadingout of themarket whenjust a year ago,they wereadvertised asthe next bigthing promisingthat viewerswould feel fullyimmersed inthe action likethey were beingsucked into thescreen - not

really a nice thought, e.g. when youthink of parliamentary sessions. Inreality, bigger audiences quickly real-ized that this only worked for smallgroups of 2 to 3 people as the othermembers would literally be staring at ablank space. That's why industryleader Samsung is gradually reducingthe use of curved displays in new prod-ucts. The technology will most likelysurvive in the form of niche productsused by hardcore gamers as theyusually play alone anyway.


Even 3D (which I like very much) didn'thave the invigorating effect theindustry was hoping for. While thistechnology is present in many cinemas,it failed to gain greater traction withprivate consumers and 3D Blu-raydiscs are getting fewer and fewer. Thismay also be because viewers feeldeceived when they pay extra for 3Dand all they get is a traditional 2Dmovie with poorly added 3D effects.Charging a premium for badly sprucedup 2D content ruins the image of 3Dand various competing standardsdidn't make things better. Someviewers also strongly dislike 3D glassesor their eyes feel strained while wearingthem - not exactly the makings of a bigsuccess.

Producers are also slowly succumbingto despair asking themselves why

consumers aren’t warming up to theirinnovations. Where’s the excitement? Ibelieve they fail to see the reality. Thistime, there's simply less incentive tomake the switch which brings me backto my grandmother’s TV which wastruly bad. Today, most householdsalready own TVs with good enoughquality and those who don’t either can’tafford to buy new devices or are satis-fied with their existing equipment. HDlooks nice and there’s plenty of contentavailable both on discs and viastreaming services that are becomingever more popular and mostly rely onthis standard. You can even watchordinary DVDs without feeling thrownback to the dark ages, it seems themajority of consumers are simplycontent with what they have. Goodfor them, bad for manufacturers.

https://blog.ashampoo.com/en/2017-01-31/have-we-had-enough-technological-progress-by-now?

� Previous Page – Have we Had Enough…


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In the Terminator films, the centraltheme of the story was that themachines eventually took charge andhumans were facing an uncertainfuture. Today we are on the verge ofentering a post-human era of our own,but without the bleak outcome forhumanity that was portrayed in thosepopular movies.

In a world of automation and artificialintelligence, the physical manifestationof technology is changing. We havereached a point where our break-throughs and advances have removedhumans from the picture and repetitivetasks are being assigned to robots andcomputers.

Technology is also implementing andupdating itself while intermediaries aredisappearing and turning into aservice. Take a look at Kodak; thephotography giant followed the samepath as analogue photography and hasdisappeared, yet since then the numberof photos we take in this digital age hashit never-before-seen levels.

Even leading companies like Apple,Facebook and Amazon are taking aC2C (cloud to consumer) approach. Infact, retail stores are also transformingto be more reliant on technology. Onestore in Palo Alto is a space purely forcustomers to try new technologiesbefore buying directly from Amazonusing an iPad in-store.

Speaking of Amazon, the company hasdeveloped a new high-tech super-market where customers simply walkinto the store, scan their Amazonaccount barcode, and then just walkout with whatever they take off theshelf without waiting in a line or usinga checkout.

Well they can’t use the checkout,because there isn’t one. Amazon is ableto achieve this convenience usingcameras, sensors, computer vision anddeep learning. Yet another post-humanscenario.

That’s not all Amazon have concocted.The release of Amazon Alexa andGoogle’s similar voice-activated plat-


form, Google Home are becoming auniversal part of our homes. Whetheryou’re looking for music, to buy prod-ucts or seeking information, thesedevices are there to fulfill orders andconverse with you. Privacy doesn’tseem to be an issue for users as theytake advantage of the ‘disable micro-phone’ button to stop the device fromlistening.

However, as children take a liking tothese devices, parents are concernedthat it will not only deter their child’sattention away from the family, butalso away from manners and courtesyin their communication. Alexa andGoogle Home are not one to be offendedby a lack of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, infact, they respond best to straightforward demands.

And if children have taken a liking tosuch devices, just wait until they get asight of ‘Kuri’, the roaming, multi-pur-pose security cam that sports the lookof a Pixar character and has thepersonality to go with it. Kuri waslaunched at CES last week and is set toship in December 2017.

What will happen in the post-humanera was a riveting seminar topic at the2016 Integrate expo. The next expo willbe in August, 2017. Moving forward inthis post-human era, if you want to getahead, ironically you have to focus ontalent and services. Quality, talentedemployees will be able to deliver qualityservices. It is these services that willearn customer trust and result inloyalty and repeat business.

The jobs of the future will be all thethings computer, robots and artificialintelligence can’t achieve. Repetitivejobs in the automobile and textileindustry are under threat and alreadyfairly automated. Thankfully there are

still a lot of things robots andcomputers can’t do so if you’re a sani-tation worker, a greenkeeper, gardeneror police office – you’re pretty safe.

Industries where technology can workin harmony with people will also thriveby providing services that can only bedelivered by real people.

Have you ever become frustrated whentalking to an automated reply whileyou’re trying to resolve an issue, seektechnical support or make acomplaint? Often in this scenario,people are thinking how much betterand easier it would be to talk to a realperson. And if you could guaranteethis level of customer service andsupport, you will find that customerswill stick with you.

Focusing on service would be a greatway to start. Provide that human touchthat no robot or automation canprovide. Ideas and good design – twocreative traits that can only come fromthe wondrous human brain – will makethe difference. Selling services will alsobe a growth area in the post-humanera. Any area where creativity – anotherweakness for robots and computers – isneeded is also another safe direction totake. If you have software engineers,network specialists and user interfacedesigners in your business, you’re ingood shape.

If you have respect for your customersand never compromise on service –you’ll have no worries in the posthuman era.

http://integrate-expo.com/news


There are some memories from my

childhood that are very vivid. One of

those is sitting in a typing class and

learning how to work a typewriter.

While it probably didn’t seem impor-

tant at the time, that skill has helped

me as a writer.

There were a handful of things that

were pounded into our heads. One of

those is that we should always put

two spaces after a punctuation mark.

Fast forward a few years and I learned

that I shouldn’t ever put two spaces

after punctuation. Which one is

correct?

Typewriters used monospace fonts.

Every single character had the same

width. So a “w” and an “i” were the

same. Using two spaces after punctu-

ation was a way to put some separa-

tion between sentences. When was the

last time you used a typewriter?

For the last couple of decades (or

longer), we’ve been using computers to

handle the layout of words on a page.

Rarely do we use monospace fonts.

When using proportional fonts, the

space character has a defined width.

Using two of them just looks bad.

Look at the graphic above right. The

middle example of two spaces with the

proportional font looks absolutely

awful to me. I can spot that extra

space from far away. In the bottom

example there is only a single space

after the period and it looks much

better.

My fingers have been re-trained to

only type a single space. This

happened long ago. Not everyone has

As the editor/layout manager of several magazines over the years this is some-thing that has bugged me also. If find and replace is really good in whatever soft-ware used OK. But it does not always work so that means handling it manuallywhich can take loads of time if you are working with a long document. [EditorsNote]

Foster D. Coburn III February 6, 2017

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� Previous Page – The Dreaded Double Spaces

been re-trained. I can’t say

what will work for you, but

this is a habit that everyone

needs to break. When I have

to layout text for print, one

of my first steps is to do a

“search and replace” to get

rid of all those evil extra

spaces.

The same is true for text I’m

going to put on a Web site. I

spend a fair amount of time

removing all those extra

spaces. And yet someone

spent time to type them in

the first place. Let’s all save

time! You promise to never

type them again and I’ll not

have to spend time elimi-

nating them.

My Notes

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