Artistic Media and Scale Factor

Twelve wrote:
> I've got a few questions maybe someone has some answers to...

Whew! That's quite a lot of questions all at once. I can answer a few,
anyway. I'll intersperse my answers with your questions.
>
> Regarding Artistic Media:
>
> Presets: There is a kink in every one of them. Is there some way they
> can begin and end smoothly rather than have all these bends in them?
> Unless of course they're specifically designed for a use other than what
> I'm trying to achieve.

I don't get kinks unless I draw them in. Check your settings in
Tools/Options. From the left hand column check the
Toolbox-Freehand/Bezier Tool setting. Make sure the Freehand smoothing
is set up to a high number since you're drawing by hand. I generally
keep mine at 100 unless I'm tracing something. In that case, I'm not
using the Artistic Media tool (or I draw it with the Bezier tool, then
apply the Artistic Media tool to the already drawn line.)

If you want points on both ends, you've got to use the preset next to
the bottom of the list. The others aren't quite pointed on both ends.


>
> Brushes: Most objects I touch on with the artistic brush can be saved as
> such but sometimes the 'save' button doesn't let you save. ???


Make sure what you want to create as a brush is grouped if it is
multiple objects. Other than that, I can't tell you what's going on. Do
you have any idea what is different about the objects you can't save?


>
> Sprayer: Where is the 'make new spraylist' button? I can add to an
> existing list but not make new! I know there is a 'save' icon for
> creating new ones but it doesn't work. Or rather, if it did at one time
> I can't remember how long ago- true for version 10 too.
> The 'dabs/spacing of objects to be sprayed' doesn't make sense either.
> It's in inches only and I want to work in pixels or centimeters. It also
> doesn't show the values: I can type .5 but it won't show .5- just goes
> back to 1. Is there any way to set the values to pixels?


Yep, this one is all pretty much broken. You can create new spray lists.
Basically you put what you want in the list on one page and save the
file to where the current spraylist resides (sorry, can't look it up
right now.) It will be a new spraylist, and you can use it, sort of, but
the controls mostly won't work with it.


>
> Pen Pressure: the icon indicates that it should look like a brush
> stroke; a pointed start finishing off bluntly but in truth it starts and
> ends bluntly- is there a way to get it pointy to begin with? Actually,
> this feature barely works- I get very little variation in line width at
> all. Is it possibly that I just have a crummy tablet?


I get lots of variation with pressure on this one, and I'm using an
ancient Wacom PenPartner. The trick is to make sure that your tablet
driver knows you want to use pressure in CorelDRAW. Set that in the
Control Panel. There are a few tablet drivers that don't allow settings
to differ between programs. If that is your case, yep, it's either a
crummy tablet or you need to download a new driver.


>
> Custom media strokes are saved in 'application data' by default. It
> would be nice if this could be changed. ???


Can't help you there


>
> One more question regarding 'scale factor': what is that all about? I've
> been dickering around with various objects and sometimes scale shows
> 100% for certain objects while other identically sized objects have
> maybe 70% or (very often) the two values are different for width and
> height (pertaining to scale). How is this supposed to work?

The scale factor shows 100% only when an object is first created and not
resized or stretched afterwards. So if you create one rectangle that's
2x4cm and another that's 2x3cm, then stretch the second to 2x4cm, both
rectangles will look alike, but one will have a scale factor applied.

That's it!
If anything I said doesn't make sense, (it's late here and it's been a
long day) ask again or somebody else jump in and add your two cent's worth.

Have fun!
Val P.