This tutorial is an extension of the basic explanation how to create soft edged objects in CorelDRAW easily with the use of two shapes, the interactive blend featureand transparency. You can read this tutorial here:
http://coreldraw.com/wikis/howto/creating-shadows-and-soft-edged-objects-using-only-vectors.aspx
Here in this tutorial I want to provide additional tips for improving a workflow where the soft-edge vector usage is used mainly. The possibilities of this technique are limitless, only restricted by the time one will need to create two shapes, to blend them and to make the underneath shape transparent. If this procedure is needed several times in a design or illustration, shortcuts would be welcome in most cases. So here we go:
1. Create a circle with any fill. If you want to adapt the soft-edge-vector technique for soft blendings (in a portrait for example), it would be necessary to choose the fill color of the underlying shape, which you want to highlight or darken or colour or whatever.
2. Convert the circle to curves (Ctrl+Q). This is necessary cause it remains parametric if not, and we need some more nodes later.
3. Go to "Edit Nodes"-mode by pressing F10 on your keyboard and select all nodes.
4. Now we will increase the node count by pressing the "add nodes"-icon for 1 or 2 times.
5. Duplicate (Ctrl+D) the circle and resize it to a smaller size, overlapping the first circle (Holding The "Shift" key while dragging the corner handle will keep the circle at its position). Fill it with your desired color which you want to blend to.
6. Apply an interactive blend from one to another shape and adjust the blend options as you need them.
7. Aplly a uniform transparency with a value of 100% to the bottom shape.
8. And now... we additionaly apply an envelope effect to the whole thing. Select the top shape first, with the envelope tool active, then the bottom shape. That makes sure you can edit two envelopes independently.
9. To use this very handy prop more times, put this construction on a separeate layer and duplicate it. Use the duplicate to fit this cool blend to your desired shape. You only need to give a new fill for the control shapes of the blend. I used The envelope to strech and deform the construction, so that it fits to my needs, in this case a soft highlight on the cheek of a face.