contour cut question

[Stormyj]

Hi all,
Im trying to figure out how to place a contour cut around an object and anywhere else there is a transparent color. I have attached a corel file with a helmet on it. The background is placed just so you can see where the transparent should be. I know you can do it, because I did it before, but now I cant remember how to do it. The contour line should go around the helmet, inside the face mask and ear hole. If you could give a step by step procedure I would appreciate it.
Jim

 

[Stormyj]

btw this is for personal use only. having a small party and my wife wants a sticker on the wall.

 

[neato]

There's a couple ways in Corel to do this. The cleanest is to just trace it all by hand. The other way that I use a lot is duplicate the image, convert it to a black and white bitmap adjusting the tolerance levels until the entire object you want outlined is black. Then auto trace that image.

 

[bob]

There's a couple ways in Corel to do this. The cleanest is to just trace it all by hand. The other way that I use a lot is duplicate the image, convert it to a black and white bitmap adjusting the tolerance levels until the entire object you want outlined is black. Then auto trace that image.

Tracing by hand is far from the cleanest and most certainly not the fastest method. It should be used as a last resort with nasty, low resolution, pixelated images of simple objects. Those cases where you know what the object looks like even if the image does not.

The second method, copying the image, converting to black and white, etc. takes but a few mouse clicks and, given an image of sufficient quality, reproduces all of the nuances that can and will be missed with a manual trace job. In this case there's a bit of white that's part of the image such that it might prove helpful to edit the copy image with PhotoPaint filling in those light areas with something a bit darker. It doesn't matter a whit what color you choose, just that it meet the black/white threshold for black when you convert the image to black and white.

Regardless of any touch up required, the second method is vastly preferred over the first.

 

[neato]

I actually prefer hand tracing whenever it's as simple as this one. This took a total of 8 minutes.

I do think this is cleaner than an auto trace. I think you end up with less nodes doing it by hand.

 

[reQ]

Agree with tracing by hand. Always gives best results, but takes more time.

 

[Schickworks]

+1 for hand tracing. i have yet to see any computer that can do better job than i can by hand. Faster yes. better no. client and price will dictate which i do.

 

[blufftonsignguy]

I purchased a program from Digital Art Solutions a month ago that works great with this. its like a plug in for Corel, and it sort of acts like flexi for creating contour cuts. Its called Smart Designer Pro. I know this reply is late for what you wanted, but I thought I would pass it on. From what Iv'e seen of it so far, its a pretty good addition to Corel X6 and up.