Quick links to procedures on this page:

 
 
 


Working with special effects

Corel PHOTO-PAINT special effects let you change the appearance of an image. You can apply a special effect to the entire image, or you can use a mask or a lens to transform only part of an image.


Applying special effects

The following are all the categories of special effects available, each of which includes several different effects:

 
3-D effects
 
Color transform
 
Distort
 
Art strokes
 
Contour
 
Noise
 
Blur
 
Creative
 
Texture
 
Camera
 
Custom
 

When you apply a special effect, you can adjust its settings to control how the effect transforms an image. For example, when you use a vignette effect to frame an image, you can increase the offset value and decrease the fade value to decrease the size and opacity of the frame. With a watercolor effect, you can decrease the size of the brush to show more image detail or increase the size of the brush for an abstract effect.


Applying special effects to part of an image

You can apply special effects to part of an image by defining an editable area. For information about editable areas, see “Working with masks.”

You can also use a lens to apply a special effect to part of an image. The following special effects are also preset lens types:

 
Jaggy despeckle
 
Scatter
 
Invert
 
Smooth
 
Pixelate
 
Posterize
 
Soften
 
Add noise
 
Threshold
 
Psychedelic
 
Remove noise
 
Solarize
 
Sharpen
 
 

When you use a lens, changes are not applied to the image; instead, they are seen on the screen through the lens. For information about lenses, see “Working with lenses.”


Repeating and fading special effects

You can repeat a special effect to intensify its result. You can also fade an effect to diminish its intensity, and you can define how the effect is merged with the image. For information about repeating and fading a special effect that you’ve applied, see “Undoing, redoing, repeating, and fading actions.” For information about merge modes, see “Understanding merge modes.”


To apply a special effect

Photo Paint btnbacktotop Working with special effects
1.
 
Click Effects, choose a special effect category, and click an effect.
2.
 
Adjust the settings of the special effect filter.

Photo Paint note Working with special effects

 
If the image contains one or more objects, the special effect is applied only to the background or the selected object.

Photo Paint tip Working with special effects

 
When you preview the special effect in the image window, you can press and hold F2 to hide the special effect dialog box.
 
Some special effects can affect the shape of the object they are applied to. You can retain an outline of the object’s original shape by enabling the Lock object transparency button Photo Paint pgx lock transparency Working with special effects on the Objects docker. The areas which remain between the outline of the original shape and the new shape of the object are filled with black. If the Objects docker is not open, click Window Photo Paint onestep Working with special effects Dockers Photo Paint onestep Working with special effects Objects.

To apply a special effect to an editable area

Photo Paint btnbacktotop Working with special effects
1.
 
Define an editable area.
2.
 
Click Effects, choose a special effect category, and click an effect.
3.
 
Adjust the settings in the dialog box.

To repeat a special effect

Photo Paint btnbacktotop Working with special effects
 
Click Effects Photo Paint onestep Working with special effects Repeat, and click one of the following:
Repeat [last effect] — repeats the last applied effect
[Last effect] to all visible — repeats the last applied effect to all visible elements in an image
[Last effect] to all selected — repeats the last applied effect to all selected objects in an image

Working with special effects