At our shop, we superimpose sign layouts overtop of photos of buildings or vehicles.  The nice thing about CorelDRAW® is that you can design to scale.  Let's say you are working on a sign layout for a building.  One way to resize your photo to scale is to take a measurement of some part of that building while you are on site taking the photo, let's say the width of the entrance door.  When you are back at your computer and have imported that photo into CorelDRAW, create a vector box overtop of the door in the photo.  Next, resize that box to the measurement you took on site. You will notice that the Scale Factor percentage of that shape has changed.  The Scale Factor percentage can be found on the properties bar.  Copy the Scale Factor percentage of that resized shape, and then select your photo.  The photo should be at 100%.  Change it to the new percentage you copied and presto!  Your photo is now to scale.

Provided by Joe Diaz, CorelDRAW  Master, Graphic Designer and Sign Artist.