Corel Photo-Paint Art Strokes: Water Marker



		Introduction
		Charcoal
		Conté Crayon
		Crayon
		Cubist
		Dabble
		Impressionist
		Palette Knife
		Pastels
		Pen and Ink
		Pointillist
		Scraperboard
		Sketch Pad
		Watercolour
		Water Marker
		Wave Paper

14. Water Marker.

The Water Marker Art Stroke makes an image look like an abstract sketch created with colour markers. You can change the brush strokes by selecting different modes. You can also specify the size and colour variation of the brush strokes.

The Water Marker art stroke is completely different from the Watercolour art stroke even though their similar names may indicate a similar nature. The Water Marker acts like a water-based marking pen but with short dashed strokes.

This effect, like some other art stroke effects, tends to lose detail from images rapidly. This effect probably reduces image detail the most out of all the art strokes in PHOTO-PAINT. Therefore images with large bright foreground objects and low detail backgrounds are probably best here.

1. Open up a suitable image. I have used image 836054.WI from the Photos/Cultural folder of Core Draw Suite 9. This image has a large simple foreground object with a nondescript background. (Fig 1).

2. Open the Water Marker dialogue box (Effects > Art Strokes > Water Marker). It has three control parameters: Variation, Size and Colour Variation. (Fig 2)

3. Click the Reset button and observe the result created using the default settings. As you can see, quite a lot of detail is lost, even when the size of the brush is set to the lowest setting. (Fig 3)

4. Try changing the Variations. The Default setting gives fairly clear, individual strokes at similar angles. The Order setting creates more 'noise' with many tiny dots and uneven strokes giving the result a more painted appearance. The Random setting is similar to the default except that the strokes are uneven, both in size and angle (Fig 4).

5. OK, now look at the Size parameter. This one seems t change the result more than the others, with increases in size rapidly depleting any visual detail within the image. In images with a lot more detail than the example shown here, the result can be difficult to interpret. For the example here I have used the Random variation type as this demonstrates this aspect of the effect quite clearly. (Fig 5)

6. The Colour Variation parameter adjusts the brightness of the white areas and strokes within the image as well as increasing brightness and saturation of coloured areas. It has little effect on darker areas. The colour variation parameters works the same way for each of the three different main variations of tis effect. I have used the default variation here. (Fig 6).

7. Other Examples:


Fig 7. Duplicate original and apply an Order watermarker effect to the duplicate. Create triangular masks and cut out sections of the duplicate so the original shows through. Add a black drop shadow then split off the shadow. Apply an opposite direction green drop shadow to the split shadow object. Finally apply an original colour emboss effect to the water marker duplicate.		Fig 8. Duplicate the original. Apply a random water marker effect to the original. Create a large feathered oval mask and copy/paste the duplicate to create a third object. Change the merge mode of the second object to Subtract and the topmost object to Logical OR.

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