User Guide

Textures, Patterns, and Weaves 123
When painting with a pattern, keep in mind that direction matters.
Corel Painter flips the pattern you’re painting when you change directions, so
apply strokes in the same direction for a uniform effect.
Creating and Capturing Patterns
Corel Painter offers three ways to create patterns:
• Define the current image as a pattern, then add it to the Pattern library.
• Create a rectangular selection, then capture it as a pattern. For more information
about creating selections, see “Creating Selections” in the Help.
• Make a fractal pattern, then add it to the library. For more information on creating
fractal patterns, see “Creating Fractal Patterns” on page 126.
After creating a pattern tile, you’ll probably want to refine it so that it tiles seamlessly.
Refer to “Creating Seamless Tiles” on page 128.
Images that you turn into patterns and save in RIF format maintain their pattern
characteristics even after being saved and reopened. To keep the Pattern Selector
manageable, it’s a good idea to keep libraries small. Use the Patterns Mover to create
new libraries and delete unwanted patterns. You can switch libraries whenever you
want to use a different set of patterns. For more information about movers, refer to
“Creating a Library” in the Help.
If a pattern preview isn’t detailed enough or you want to edit an existing pattern, you
can open the pattern tile in its own window. By loading a pattern as a file, you can
view the pattern closely and modify it.
Once a pattern becomes a tile, you can paint off one side of the canvas and watch your
stroke appear on the opposite side of the canvas, automatically wrapping to the other
side. Refer to “Creating Seamless Tiles” on page 128 for more information about
editing pattern tiles.
You can also create masked patterns to use with the Pattern Pens Masked brush
variant.
To create a pattern
1 Open the image file you want to use in creating a pattern.
2 Choose Window menu > Library Palettes > Show Patterns
to display the Patterns
palette.
3 Click the palette menu arrow, and choose Define Pattern.