CorelDRAW Classes @ LVS Online
LVS Online ~ Where Learning is Fun!

Time to register for May classes at LVS

April 28th, 2008 Val

My apologies for being absent so long from the blogosphere. I was out of town for a while, then came down with a nasty stomach virus. Fortunately, I’m starting to feel more human again. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get my house ready for sale so we can move in June AND write a new Introduction to CorelDRAW X4 class for September. Meanwhile, here’s a reminder that the May session is coming at LVS!

Registration for the May LVS session is closing soon, but there is still time to register for the Intro to CorelDRAW classes at LVS. We have self study intro classes for CorelDRAW 9-12 and an instructor led
class for CorelDRAW X3. I wrote the version 12 and X3 classes and can promise you’ll get your money’s worth.
http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=186

If you’ve already taken that class and want more, try the CorelDRAW - Continuing the Adventure class. It’s always a small class, so you get lots of individual attention.
http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=208

I’ll have a class on the new CorelDRAW X4 coming in September for anyone who has upgraded!

Also, new last session I’ve created a new Intro to Windows Vista class. It’s aimed at those who are brand new to computing, but just about anyone who has used Windows, even for years, can benefit from
the class.
http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=255

And don’t forget the FREE Intro to Windows class for Windows 98,ME, and XP. It’s a bit outdated, but if your first computer (or your mother’s first computer) is an older model, you certainly can’t beat
the price.
http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=68

All instructor led classes are $25 US, $20 for returning students. This includes all instructional materials, (not the CorelDRAW or Windows software, of course) a message board to ask questions and post
assignments to, free webhosting for your class assignments if needed, and the ability to ask the instructor any questions you want for six weeks plus a little.

Self study classes are $11.50 US and are just as good, but you don’t get the instructor. The exception is the Intro to Windows 98-XP class which is not only FREE but I also pop in to answer any questions
you may have.

All contain six downloadable lessons jammed packed with information you can save or print out for you to use after the class is over.

Of course, if you’ve taken all of my classes, do check out the other classes offered by LVS. There is sure to be something you’ll want to learn!
http://www.lvsonline.com/schedule.shtml

Have fun!

Val P.
Instructor, LVS Associates - Where Learning Is Fun!
Authorized Corel Training Partner

Posted in CorelDRAW, CorelDRAW Continued, CorelDRAW Intro, Windows Vista | No Comments »

Windows XP Soon to be a thing of the past?

March 7th, 2008 Val

Rumor has it that Windows XP will be disappearing from the store shelves this summer. That means that more and more hardware manufacturers are going to be tayloring their wares to Vista.

I haven’t seen this on the Microsoft site, but I have seen it several other places, so it’s likely to be true. If you haven’t upgraded yet, it’s probably only a matter of time.

It looks like the Introduction to Vista class may soon be very busy. It also looks like the new CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 has taken the right track in taking advantage of the Vista interface.

Have fun!

Val P.

Posted in CorelDRAW, Windows Vista | No Comments »

Happy Leap Year

February 29th, 2008 Val

It’s February 29th. Day before yesterday, it snowed for almost 24 hours, but nothing stuck. Today it’s supposed to rain. This weekend the temps will be near 60 degrees F (about 15 C). Monday they say we’ll either get more snow or tornado weather - or both. Such is winter in upper Alabama.

To take my mind off the weather, I took a picture of one of my daffodils that is trying to brave the weather and decided to

make a little graphic out of it for you.

1. I brought it into PhotoPaint and used the magic wand to select all the yellow bits. I reversed the mask to fill the background with a solid color so I didn’t have to worry about the hundreds of shades of green and brown that might be behind my flower in the next steps.

2. I then brought the whole thing into CorelDRAW. Inside CorelDRAW, I used PowerTRACE to change the image into vectors. I had started out with a rather large image, so PowerTRACE offered to resample it down to a smaller image to make it easier to work with. In this case, I let it do that by clicking the “Reduce bitmap” button. I used the Outline trace, High quality image option.

3. Inside the PowerTrace window:

On the Settings Tab I checked Remove background color and used the eyedropper to ensure that the proper background color really did get picked. I checked “Merge adjacent objects of the same color”. Set detail very near the + end of the slider, smoothing at about 15, and corner smoothness at 0, though it probably could have been set higher for this particular image.

On the Colors Tab, I set the colors to RGB since the image was destined for the web, and gave it the maximum number of colors. Finally, I OK’d out.

I ended up with a group of 320 objects in about 120 shades of yellow. I played with the Effects/Adjust/Color balance a bit to bring some redder shades into the shadows and give a bit more contrast to the final image.

Now, here’s why I did all this as vectors rather than simply using a bitmap to start out with. My original image at screen resolution actually didn’t fit on my 21 inch screen. Had I simply resized to what you see above in a bitmap program like PhotoPaint, I probably would have lost a lot of detail and not had much control over the process. (Actually there are ways to do it, but I’m lazy.) Now that I’ve got a good looking, if very large vector, I can simply resize it. I shrunk it all the way down to about 1/2 inch square - so it could end up the size you see here.

The last step is to export to GIF. I set the dpi to 100, and the size to 100%. I used the 8 bit RGB palleted option, and kept anti-aliasing checked. I kept smoothing set to 0, chose an Optimized palette and set dithering to None. I kept the full 256 colors and set color range sensitivity to the fully saturated yellow in the forground of the flower.

I chose the white background in the Transparency dialog and OK’d out to finish.

In this particular case, I was using CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4, but you could do about the same sort of things in most previous versions of CorelDRAW. In version 12 and previous, you’d have to use Corel TRACE rather than PowerTRACE, and the older the version, the more work you’d need to put into it to get something usable.

Don’t despair people, Spring is coming!

Remember, registration for the March/April session at LVS ends March 5. If Spring is being delayed in your part of the world, take a course and have fun while staying out of the weather.

Have fun!

Val P.

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Spring is coming! (and so is the Spring session of LVS!)

February 22nd, 2008 Val

This is just a friendly reminder that registration for the March session of LVS will be coming to a close on March 3. That’s right around the corner!

LVS has some great new courses this session, including my own Intro to Windows Vista. http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=255

And of course, many of the oldies but goodies are back again, including CorelDRAW X3 Intro

http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?cPath=1_12&products_id=186

and CorelDRAW - Continuing the Adventure.

http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?cPath=1_12&products_id=208

Every course is six weeks long. You download one lesson each week, then use a discussion board for questions and participation in class and there’s a free webhosting service for students to upload their assignments each week. Work at your own pace and log into the message board at any time of day or night to get help. (OK, I won’t be checking the boards 24/7, but I usually do check them several times a day.) You get six PDF lessons to download and use on your computer or print out as you wish. Each lesson is between 20 and 40 pages with plenty of screenshots to help you through. All of this is only $25 US - a bargain at twice the price! Returning students get a discount.

Be sure and tell all your friends to check out http://www.lvsonline.com for all sorts of great courses. We have over 200 courses and our excellent instructors and students are from all over the world and span all age brackets. Besides our full instructor led courses, we also have self study courses and a good handful of free tutorials.

Hope to see you in the “halls” of LVS, Where Learning Is Fun!

Val P.

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New Intro to Vista Course

February 18th, 2008 Val

Right now I’m madly finishing up the new Introduction to Vista course for LVS. If you’ve just upgraded to Vista from XP or if you or someone you know is just getting started with a computer running Vista, this course is for you and your friends and family. The lessons are written specifically for the first time computer user - like your mother or aunt. For instance, I explain all those strange computer terms, and go into detail on how to use a mouse. However, even if you’re a long time Windows user, you’ll more than likely learn something you didn’t know in the first couple of lessons.

Check it out here:

http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=255

What? You haven’t upgraded to Vista and don’t know anyone who’s using it but still need help with Windows XP? LVS has a FREE Introduction to Windows course that covers Windows 98, ME, and XP. Even though that course is a bit outdated and TOTALLY FREE, I’ll still be there to help in the friendly class discussion boards.

Sign up for the free class here:

http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=68

Registration is open right now for the LVS six week session starting March 3. Don’t wait!

Remember, one of these two classes is a prerequisite for taking any of the CorelDRAW classes and most of the other classes at LVS. Now, what are you waiting for???

Have fun!

Val P.

Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »

Cleaning up poor artwork using Corel PSP and CorelDRAW

February 13th, 2008 Val

This week, I was given the challenge by some folks starting a new preschool at our church to turn a very tiny, very compressed and artifacted JPG image into something they could use for a sign to be posted by the road.

There were two images, but I’ll only post the one. Note, I have no idea where this clipart came from, they only assured me they had the rights to use it. Whoever saved it in JPG form did it a major disservice since with it’s block colors it really should have been a GIF or PNG image. It doesn’t look too bad at this size, but if you zoom in on it, you’ll find all sorts of problems.

I began by using Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and the Noise removal/Jpg artifact removal tool to help cut down on the artifacts. Obviously, this image had been saved and resaved several times and this only gave me a start to cleaning it up. I then resized the image 300%. I used the smart resize option and turned smoothing way up to cut down on a few of the jaggies. I then selected the brush tool and painted over all the black outlines giving them a nice smooth and solid black. (I could have just as easily traced over these lines with the pen tool in CorelDRAW or the brush tools in PhotoPaint.)

Once I had nice solid black boundaries, I used the magic wand tool to select what should have been solid blocks of color and fill them with the main color in each area. Once that was done, I went back with the brush tool and no selections and made sure the edges between the colors and the black were smooth and solid.

At this point, I exported the file as a GIF and imported it into CorelDRAW X3. (My copy of X4 was having problems at the moment due to an improper restart of the computer and I was running out of time to do another restart.) Right clicking on the bitmap, I chose Trace Bitmap/High quality bitmap. Obviously this isn’t a high quality image, but the options in the High quality range are closer to what I wanted for the final result. I set Smoothing to 25, ran detail almost up to the top of the + end, chose CMYK mode since the sign company wanted CMYK output. I used the maximum number of colors - in this case 26 - checked Delete original image, and Remove Background. It automatically chose the white background, which was fine. I didn’t want the white eyeballs or shoes removed, so those stayed put by not checking Remove color from entire image.

Clicking OK gave me a pretty good trace result. I had to do some minor color tweaking - notably on the girl’s back hand, and node editing around the car tire and lights areas. At that point, it was ready to send off to the sign company who was happy to receive a CDR file. I did back-save it to version 12 since I wasn’t sure which version of the software the sign company was using.

Posted in CorelDRAW | No Comments »

NEW! Introduction to Windows Vista Class at LVS

February 13th, 2008 Val

This is a beginner-level class for those who didn’t grow up using a computer, but you may learn a few things even if you did! During this class, we’ll take a look at Windows Vista and its features, including saving files, creating folders and subfolders and setting up your desktop and Start menu. We’ll also cover creating task bar links, using Windows Search and Windows Explorer, how to install new programs on your computer system, and much more!

These lessons are written specifically for someone who is totally new to computers in general, and Windows Vista in specific. If you’ve been using computers all your life and just updated to Vista, or even if you’ve been using Vista for a while now, I can almost promise that you’ll still learn something you didn’t know. Computers open up a very large new world to those who know how to use them. Our hope is that what you learn here will be helpful to you and a good base to start using your computer.

The information and images of the screen in these lessons are based on Windows Vista Home Premium. If you have Windows Vista Home Basic, you may want to also glance through the free Intro to Windows class, since some of the screen captures for the Windows XP class will may more familiar looking to you. If you have Windows Vista Business or Ultimate versions, you will also benefit from this class, though answers to questions may be limited.

For more information, see http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=255

Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »

CorelDRAW - Continuing the Adventure Class

February 6th, 2008 Val

Continue the adventure we started in the Introduction to CorelDRAW class! In this class we’ll slow down and take few more in depth looks at some things we didn’t have time for in that class. We’ll customize our workspace, take a look at several new dockers, take a spin through scripts, do some creative cloning, meander through a few menu items we didn’t get to in the first class and even more! Each week there will also be a creative challenge for you to practice your developing skills from the previous class.

For more information and to register, follow this link: http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=208

Posted in CorelDRAW Continued | No Comments »

CorelDRAW X3 Intro Class

February 6th, 2008 Val

Get up and running with CorelDRAW X3 while creating fun images and practical text layout projects. You will learn the user interface, all the basic tools and options and some of the many uses for this versatile graphics program. We’ll cover some of the exciting new tools in version X3 of CorelDRAW. By the end of the course, you’ll be shaping text and objects with node editing and creating multi-page documents with ease.

This course is geared for the absolute beginner, but just as applicable to those who have recently updated to version X3. Much of the material is the same as the version 12 class with updates and additions to cover many of the new features of X3. Whatever your experience level, you are sure to find something new in this jam-packed set of lessons.

For more information and to register, follow this link:  http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=186 

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Registration is open at LVS Online Classes!

February 6th, 2008 Val

Registration for the March 2008 session is open at LVS Online ~ Where Learning Is Fun!

For more information, go to http://www.lvsonline.com/update.shtml

For a complete list of all available classes at LVS Online go to
http://www.lvsonline.com/schedule.shtml

Instructor-led classes begin March 8th so head on over to LVS Online Classes to enroll now! http://www.lvsassociates.com/register

Posted in CorelDRAW, CorelDRAW Continued, CorelDRAW Intro, Windows Vista | No Comments »