Creating a Wood Ornament Part 2

Open up CorelDraw and go to FILE (1) IMPORT (2). We are going to import the EPS we created in our previous tutorial.

You can leave your file type as “All” or select the AI format which encompasses the EPS format (1). Select the FIle (2) Click on Import (3).

Leave the Setting as Curves and Click OK

Here is our image in CorelDraw. Click on the Node Edit Tool and click on the wolf.

When we select the object with the node edit tool you will notice that all the nodes become active. What we have here is a vector outline and the vector outline is all the way around the wolf. Note: we could draw out this vector shape all around the wolf with the Bezier tool.

We now need to create our ornament. We need to draw a circle or an ellipse that will be the shape of our ornament.

Create the circle and place it around the part of the photo that you want to keep. You can quickly center the photo and the circle by pressing the “C” key. I am going to use this circle to create a powerclip.

We need to create a second circle that will be our outside cut. The easiest way to duplicate our circle is to select the original circle and start dragging outwards. Before you let go of the mouse press the shift key and drag the circle till it is where you want it. Holding the shift key creates an exact scale of the original ellipse. Before you let go of the mouse press the right mouse button and you will create a duplicate circle.

Before we proceed open up the Object Manager which is located in the TOOLS (1) | OBJECT MANAGER (2)

WIth the Object Manager open you can see the 2 Ellipse’s (1) and the Wolf (2)

We are now going to great an object using the smart fill tool. This object will become our cutout. The SmartFill creates an object between vectors. For an explanation on the smart fill tool click here or here

You will notice that cursor will turn into a “+” symbol. Click inside the area between your photo and the edge of the circle (1). Note: Because there is a clipping path around the wolf ( a vector outline) than the smart fill will work and create a filled object.

The blue area is my smart fill object. We now need to remove the fill. Select the blue fill area that has been created.

If we look in the Object Manager you will see that there is a new object called “Curve” (1) that has been created.

With the smart fill selected left click on the “X” (1) that is i in the colour palette located on the far right of your workspace

I now have an outline of the wolf and ellipse (circle). It is black so you can not see it but it is on top of the inside circle. As we did in a previous step you can see the outline as the curve in the Object Manager.

To change the outline colour of the object created by the smart fill right click on the Colour Palette (1). In this example I have made it blue

My outline is now blue so you can see what I have done. We will eventually use this to create the cutout that goes around the photo and the inside ellipse or circle. We will now create our powerclip.

Select the Wolf. Now go to EFFECTS (1) POWERCLIP (2) PLACE INSIDE FRAME (3).

When you start the PowerClip your cursor will turn into a big black arrow which you can see inside the green circle. Bring it over the inside circle and make sure that it is exactly on the line and click with your left mouse button.

Our image is powerclipped. You can see this in the Object Manager.

We need to now convert out image to get it ready to laser on wood. Click on the Edit PowerClip (1). This will allow us to edit the photo.

We can now edit the photo and do our adjustments.

If you can not select the image by just clicking on it ( i can by just clicking on the bottom right or left side of the photo where is it outside the inside circle) you can select it by clicking on it in the Object Manager.

Convert our Image to Grayscale by going to BITMAPS | GRAYSCALE.

Open the image in the Unsharp Mask. I have set the Percentage to 500 and the Radius to 7.

Here is our image after it has been sharpened.

We need to now convert out image to Black and White which we do by going to BITMAPS (1) MODE (2) BLACK AND WHITE (3)

I have selected the Jarvis Conversion

We are done so we can click on the Finish Editing the PowerClip (1)

Select the Ellipse Tool

Draw the First Ellipse. I made mine .25 inches and will be my inside circle (1).

I have created the second circle from the first.

The next step is to Combine the two circles together. Go to ARRANGE (1) | COMBINE (2)

With the circles combined they are one object as we can see in the Object Manager (1). Select the combined circles and the large outer circle.

With the objects selected you will see in the property bar the Weld command (1). Click on it.

Our Weld is done. The only problem is we have now is that we have the inside circle that is going to cut and cause the whole inside circle..

The best way to stop the inside circle from engraving is to remove the line attributes. First we need to select the inside line. The powerclip command has made it into a “PowerClip Ellipse” (1). You can click on it in the Object Manager.

With the inner ellipse selected we can remove its attributes. Right click “X” in the Colour Palette (1). This removes the attributes of the line and the software will not see it.

Our image is finished and we can now engrave it

Well here it is finished. We had to take a long way to get this. Although we could have done this a couple of other ways this way requires you to do a number of new techniques. I like it when I can do something that makes me do new things in Corel. It is how I get to know the software and the more you know the software the more you can do with it.