Jeff Harrison

Jeff Harrison is a media "Jack-of-all-trades", familiar with most of the major media applications on the Windows platform. Whether it's 2D/print, 3D, audio, video, or web-related - he's working on mastering everything that comes his way. He's a past Alpha and Beta tester for Corel, and has instructed students from all over the world. He runs the popular MacroMonster.com site, the #1 place for CorelDRAW macros. Also check out his youtube page, and his gallery at coreldraw.com.

Faster access to popular tools/features

One of the first things I did when customizing my workspace was make it much faster to access some of CorelDRAW’s most powerful features. On many devices, you can have one-click access to all of these buried tools. Watch the animation for how to do the...

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Let Us Spray

Here’s another example of spraying objects, in this case droplets. I added a fancy secret touch… Someone was so impressed with how this looks that they paid me 10.00 USD to get a copy of it! Maybe I should put it on macromonster.com…

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How PNG’s open in Photo-PAINT

Some users prefer the old way found in Photo-PAINT, version 12 and lower. (Initial release of X3 worked like this too, but not after service packs). In old versions, the PNG would open, and user could see that the masked area defined the transparent area. Nothing in...

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GIF Animation using Swish Minimax

Some simple things can be animated in Photo-PAINT directly. However, for smoother results, that comes from keyframing. This is when software generates the intermediate steps automatically. Basically, you move an item from point A to point B, and determine how long it...

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Linked bitmap resolution adjustment

Some of us hope for an overhaul for the handling of linked bitmaps. In the meantime, there are some fun things to play with in the Windows Registry. Some of us discussed this back in 2008. This isn’t for the faint-hearted. If you don’t know what...

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Scaling nodes

Hopefully most CorelDRAW users realize that the Property Bar changes, depending on what’s going in the document area. For example, if you double-click on a curve shape, you’ll see some functions that are specific to node manipulation. A user at in the...

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Alexander Penkin’s Effects for Cut updated

New features: Slicing: by size with overlapping The length of curves with separation by color Trim for lightbox (with overlap) Search for ‘thick’ lines and converting them into an object Search for small objects Search for intersection Search for...

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Fastest way to get a color scheme for a project

I tend to design projects around the dominant hues found in the bitmaps used in that particular project. Put down that Twinkie and pay attention! I once charged huge sums for this info. CorelDRAW might still have a bit of a bad reputation due to some of the early...

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Fastest way to fade an image

Sometime I see other users suggest convoluted ways to fade images. I propose that CorelDRAW’s Interactive Transparency Tool is the fastest way to get the job done. Note that this method is also non-destructive. In this example, I simply selected the bitmap, then...

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