Corel Painter Help | Drawing lines and curves

Quick links to procedures on this page:

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Drawing lines and curves

You can draw straight lines or smooth, flowing curves by drawing freehand. You can combine the lines and curves to create shapes. The lines and curves that you draw are known as Bézier lines.

Shapes created with straight line segments.

Shapes created with curved line segments.

Working with Bézier lines

Bézier Lines can be straight or curved, and they consist of anchor points connected by line segments (or paths). When the path is a curve, "wings" extend from the anchor points. The wings are represented by a straight line and are tangent to the curve. The wings have control "handles" on them. By dragging the wing handle, you can change the curvature of the line segment.

Paths can be modified by using anchor points and wing handles.

Shapes can be open (with endpoints) or closed (without endpoints).

Open paths contain endpoints; closed paths do not.

Anchor points can be either smooth or corner points. A smooth point allows you to manipulate the segments on both sides of an anchor point by dragging a handle. A corner point restricts the manipulation of the segments to the one side of the anchor point that has a handle. You can also convert between smooth and corner points. For more information, see To convert a smooth or corner point.

An anchor point can be a smooth point (top) or a corner point (bottom).

You can easily adjust shapes after you create them. For more information, see Adding, deleting, and moving anchor points.

Clicking creates anchor points connected by straight line segments.

Dragging curves the segments between points.

To draw a line segment

Choose the Pen tool

in the toolbox.

On the property bar, click the Select Stroke Color button, and choose a color.

Perform an action from the following table:


To	Do the following
Draw a straight line segment	Click where you want to start the line segment, and then click where you want to end it. Corel Painter draws a straight line between the two points.
Draw a curved line segment	Draw a straight line segment, and then drag the endpoint to create a curve. The angle and length of the wing determine the curvature of the path. The farther you drag, the longer the wing and the deeper the curve.

Repeat step 2 as often as necessary, combining straight and curved segments until you have the shape you want.

Finish the shape by doing one of the following:

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Close the shape by clicking or dragging the first anchor point.

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Close the shape by clicking the Close Shape button

on the property bar.

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Hold down Command (Mac OS) or Ctrl (Windows) to temporarily access the Shape Selection tool

, and click outside the shape to deselect it.

You can constrain the placement of the points by snapping to the grid. For more information, see Using the grid.

Each click or drag adds to the path. If you unintentionally add to the path, press Delete (Mac OS) or Backspace (Windows) to remove the last anchor point.

To add to an open shape path

Click an endpoint with the Pen tool

Click or drag where you want to add an anchor point.

You can add to a path from an endpoint only. You cannot add to a closed path, or to the middle of an open path.

You can also select an endpoint by holding down Command (Mac OS) or Ctrl (Windows) and clicking the endpoint or dragging a marquee over it.

To draw a freehand shape

Choose the Quick Curve tool

in the toolbox.

On the property bar, click the Select Stroke Color button, and choose a color.

Click where you want to start the shape or line, and drag.

As you drag, a dotted line appears. When you stop dragging, the Quick Curve shape appears.

If you want to close the shape, finish at the same point where you began or right-click the shape and choose Close.

You can add to either endpoint of a Quick Curve shape by selecting the endpoint and dragging out from it. To select an endpoint, hold down Command (Mac OS) or Ctrl (Windows), and click the endpoint or drag over it.

Draw freehand shapes with the Quick Curve tool.

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