User Guide
Table Of Contents
- Featured artists
- Table of contents
- Welcome to Corel Painter IX
- The Basics
- Working with Documents
- Creating and Opening Documents
- Creating and Opening Templates
- Placing Files
- Understanding Resolution
- Zooming
- Repositioning Documents
- Rotating Documents
- Cropping Images
- Using Full Screen Mode
- Image Size Information
- Resizing the Canvas
- Rotating and Flipping the Canvas
- Saving Files
- Closing Documents and Quitting the Application
- Setting Preferences
- Working with Documents
- Layers
- Getting Started with Layers
- Managing Layers
- Editing Layers
- Painting on Layers
- Brush Methods and Painting on Layers
- Preserving Layer Transparency
- Working with Floating Objects
- Adding Drop Shadows
- Creating Patterns on Layers
- Working with Reference Layers
- Setting Layer Opacity
- Blending Layers by Using Composite Methods
- Adding Notes to a Layer
- Storing Images with the Image Portfolio
- Organizing Layers with Image Portfolio Libraries
- Color
- Getting Started with Color
- Working with the Mixer Palette
- Working with Color Sets
- Setting Color Variability
- Viewing Color Information
- Setting Color Expression
- Working with Gradients
- Textures, Patterns, and Weaves
- Using Paper Texture
- Using Patterns
- Using Weaves
- Painting
- Exploring Brushes
- Marking the Canvas
- Exploring Painting
- Working with Fill
- Watercolor
- Liquid Ink
- Impasto
- Image Hose
- Customizing Brushes
- Getting Started with the Brush Creator
- Managing Settings and Controls
- General Controls
- Size Controls
- Spacing Controls
- Angle Controls
- Bristle Controls
- Well Controls
- Rake Controls
- Random Controls
- Mouse Controls
- Cloning Controls
- Impasto Controls
- Image Hose Controls
- Airbrush Controls
- Water Controls
- Liquid Ink Controls
- Digital Watercolor Controls
- Artists’ Oil Controls
- Color Variability Controls
- Color Expression Controls
- Expression Settings
- Managing Custom Brushes
- Cloning and Tracing
- Image Effects
- Working with Surface Texture
- Setting Appearance of Depth Properties
- Using Paper to Create Texture
- Using 3D Brush Strokes to Create Texture
- Creating 3D Oils
- Using Image Luminance to Create Texture
- Using Clone Source Luminance to Create Texture
- Creating Embossing Effects
- Using Channels and Layer Masks to Create Texture
- Working with Reflection Maps
- Applying Lighting to a Texture
- Working with Surface Texture
- Mosaics
- Getting Started with Mosaics
- Placing and Customizing Tiles
- Using Shapes
- Animation and Video
- Creating Animations and Video
- Getting Started with Movies
- Modifying a Movie
- Rotoscoping
- Saving and Exporting Movies
- Printing
- Index
The Basics 27
Saving RIF Files
RIF is the Corel Painter native format, which retains special information about your
document. For example, a RIF file maintains layers so that you can return to the file to
re-access them.
It is a good idea to always save files in RIF format first. Think of RIF files as
“work-in-progress” files. When a file is ready for production, then save it to GIF,
JPEG, TIF, or another file format.
Corel Painter lets you compress files and save disk space with a lossless compression
method. When saving in RIF format, leave the Uncompressed option disabled to
minimize the file size on your hard disk.
Saving JPEG Files
Corel Painter supports the JPEG file format. Because of its small file size and high
quality, JPEG is commonly used to transmit files through a modem. Unlike GIF, the
JPEG file format displays a full range of colors.
The JPEG file format allows you to compress your file on a scale of Fair to Excellent,
where quality is directly proportional to file size. These quality settings will let you
achieve compression ratios of less than 10:1 to greater than 100:1. JPEG is a “lossy”
file format, meaning that a decompressed JPEG file will not be identical pixel-for-pixel
to the original. However, because the JPEG algorithm takes into account the
sensitivity of the eye to different colors, the higher-quality settings should achieve
visually satisfying results.
You can assign a URL to layers and placed images and then save the file in GIF or
JPEG format to produce an image map. For more information, refer to “Client-Side
Image Mapping” in the Help.
When you save a file in JPEG format, Corel Painter displays the JPEG Encoding
Quality dialog box, with the following options:
• The Quality options — Excellent, High, Good, and Fair — let you set the degree
of file compression.
The Excellent option compresses the least, but retains the most data. Fair
compresses the most, but loses the most data.
You can also use the Quality slider to adjust file compression.
• The Smoothness slider applies smoothing to the entire image. This is useful when
using the Fair option, to blur the edges of JPEG artifacts. The default is 0. Keep in
mind that using a high smoothness setting can cause blurring.