Corel Photo-Paint Art Strokes: Impressionist



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

6. Impressionist

The Impressionist Art Stroke makes an image look like an impressionist painting. You can customize the dabs of colour or the brush strokes and specify the amount of light in the image.

Once again, the choice of your starting image is relatively important. The Impressionist Art Stroke does create quite impressive impressionist renditions of your images, though you may need to get the values 'just right' for each creation.

1. Start by opening your favourite image. Images without too much fine detail are best as much of the detail gets lost when using this effect. Images with large objects and single full face portraits also turn out pretty good with this effect. In the example shown here I have used 855070.WI from the Photos/Landscap folder on CD 3# of Corel Draw Suite 9. (Fig1).

2. Open the Impressionist dialogue box (Effects > Art Strokes > Impressionist). There are two main sections: Style and Technique. In the Style section you can choose between using strokes or dabs, while in the Techniques section you can adjust the values for Stroke, Colouration and Brightness. (Fig 2)

3. Once again, first start by pressing the Reset button on the dialogue box and observe the result. The default settings give a petty good result for many images not overladed with a lot of detail. (Fig 3).

4. Lets look at adjustments within the Stroke Style first. Try adjusting the Technique-Stroke value first. Smaller values make it easier to see more detail and make for a smoother image while larger values give a faster impressionist painting effect. (Fig 4)

5. Now reset the settings and adjust the Coloration setting. Increasing Coloration values increases the saturation of some of the brush strokes, and also increases the number and size of white strokes within the composition. (Fig 5).

6. Now try adjusting the Brightness values to see how they affect the result. At low values the image may be too dark but too light at high values. Choose reasonable values between the outer limits and you should be able to make some realistic impressionist creations. (Fig 6)

7. OK, now lets have a look at the Dabs Style. Click the Reset button and then choose the Dabs radio button from the Style type. Unfortunately Photo-Paint does not automatically reset the original Dabs settings when the reset button is pressed - just the Stroke Style settings. In case these have been changed, the default settings for Dabs are Size = 2, Coloration = 5 and Brightness = 50. (Fig 7).

I am not sure why these values were initially chosen because I think the effect looks much better with a larger Dabs value.

8. Increasing the Dabs value for the Dabs Style adds many more dabs and leaves much less white 'canvas' area in the image. (Fig 8)

9. Similarly to the Coloration adjustment for the Strokes Style, Coloration for the Dabs Style also increases the saturation of SOME of the dabs while also increasing the appearance of white canvas regions within the image.

10. Saturation for Dabs works the same way it does for the Strokes Style.

Here are some more examples of using the Impressionist Art Stroke but in combination with other effects:

Fig 9.

Duplicate the image. Apply a Stroked Impressionist Art Stroke to the original background image. Apply a Contour > Find Edges effect to the uppe duplicate and ten change the Merge Mode of the duplicate to Lightness.

Fig 10.

Duplicate the image and apply a Stroked Impressionist Art Stroke to the duplicate. Use the Eraser tool around the face and the woman to reveal the underlying image. Create a mask from the duplicate then invert the mask so that it now only surrounds the face and woman. Make copies of these objects using the original background. Motion blur these and use the Smear Tool with right sweeping strokes on these two new objects. Erase parts of these with a feathered eraser to reveal the underlying background image. Finally adjust the Merge Modes of the new objects.

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