Using patterns

You can paint, draw, or fill patterns to create interesting effects. Corel PaintShop Pro includes many patterns that you can choose from (such as bricks, stained glass, and zebra stripes). You can also create patterns from an image or part of an image.

Patterns add creative flair to your images. You can apply patterned brush strokes, create objects with patterned fills or edges, and create patterned text. You can use patterns to create stationery or to create tiled images for Web pages. Patterns are especially helpful for projects that require interesting backgrounds such as CD covers, calendars, or greeting cards.

Important! Patterns are available for grayscale and 16 million– color images only. For more information about increasing the color depth of an image, see Increasing the color depth of an image.

What is the difference between patterns and textures?

On the Materials palette you can select both a pattern and a texture as part of a material. What is the difference between the two?

A pattern is an opaque, repeated image with specific colors and details. A pattern is a style, just like a solid color or gradient. Patterns do not use the current foreground or background colors. For example, if you select the Bricks pattern and apply brush strokes with the Paint Brush tool, each brush stroke paints the brick pattern.

A texture gives the effect of having textured canvas or paper. Textures use the current style (such as a solid color). For example, if you select the Crumpled Paper texture and if the foreground color is yellow, each brush stroke paints yellow with the texture of crumpled paper.

Textures can be applied at the same time you apply a solid color, gradient, or pattern. This means that you can have both a pattern and a texture selected at the same time.

For more information about patterns, refer to the Help.

To apply the current pattern

Edit workspace

•

On the Materials palette, click the Pattern button

on the Style drop-list for the Foreground and Stroke Properties box or the Background and Fill Properties box.

The most recently chosen pattern becomes active.

To choose a pattern

Edit workspace

On the Materials palette, do one of the following:

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To choose a foreground pattern, click the Foreground and Stroke Properties box.

•

To choose a background pattern, click the Background and Fill Properties box.

The Material Properties dialog box appears.

Click the Pattern tab.

Click the Pattern drop-list to view thumbnails of the available patterns.

Choose a pattern.

The drop-list closes, and the pattern name appears above it.

Adjust the following controls:

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Angle — specifies the angle (or direction) of the pattern, from 0 to 359 degrees

•

Scale — specifies the scale (from 10 to 250) of the image’s actual size. At smaller values, the image is repeated more frequently throughout the pattern. At larger values, the image may be cropped, or may lose detail and become blurry.

Click OK.


You can also
Save this pattern as a swatch that you can access later	Click Add to swatches, type a name, and press Enter.
Access recently used materials	Right-click in a properties box on the Materials palette to open the Recent Materials dialog box.
Apply the current materials to all tools	On the Materials palette, mark the All tools check box. If you unmark this check box, the current materials are applied to the active tool only.

You can also change the angle of the pattern by dragging the control needle on the pattern in the Material Properties dialog box.

To use the active image or a selection as a pattern

Edit workspace

Open the image you want to use.

To select a part of the image as the pattern, make a selection in the image.

The pattern appears in the Pattern drop-list on the Pattern tab of the Material Properties dialog box.

To save an image as a pattern

Edit workspace

Create an image in Corel PaintShop Pro or another application.

Save the image file in the Patterns folder of the Corel PaintShop Pro program folder, or in the My Documents/My PSP Files/Patterns folder.

The pattern appears in the Pattern drop-list on the Pattern tab of the Material Properties dialog box.

To change the default location of pattern files, click the File Locations button

in the Pattern drop-list in the Material Properties dialog box. For more information about setting file locations, see Setting file locations.