Full-Color Patterns

Because full-color images use the entire CMYK spectrum of colors, virtually any color can be represented in a full-color pattern. These are more useful for abstract work, where you want to use a more prominent background than a solid color. Figure 6.6 shows how one of these patterns could be used for a simple advertisement, and our example brings up an important point: sometimes these patterns detract rather than contribute. We like the cleaner ad better...

To create a new vector fill, use the Tools Ø Create Ø Pattern command in the same way as you do for two-color fills, but choose the Full Color option from the Create Pattern dialog before you marquee-select the area to be used for the pattern. You cannot change any of the colors in a vector pattern from the Pattern dialog. When making your own full-color patterns, you need to define all of your colors before you create the pattern.

FIGURE 6.6  Pattern fills can make striking backgrounds. Perhaps too striking...

NOTE Full-color vector patterns are saved as DRAW files, but with .pat instead of .cdr filename extensions. You can open and edit these files as you would any other DRAW file, or use any other existing DRAW file for a vector fill. The vector fill patterns supplied with DRAW are located in the Custom\Patterns directory. Any pattern you create within DRAW is saved there; any DRAW file that you create, name with a .pat extension, and place there will be available for pattern use.

Bitmap Patterns

Bitmap patterns are implemented like the other two pattern types, but they make it possible for you to place full-color photographs or other images within objects. You can import any bitmap image and use it as a pattern by using the Load button in the Pattern Fill dialog, but you cannot create bitmap patterns from selected objects. (Well, actually...you could export an object in DRAW to a bitmap file and then load that file back in.)

Although any external bitmap can be imported to use as a bitmap pattern fill, remember that all of DRAW’s supplied fills are designed to create a seamless effect when tiled. So if the design of your imported file is not symmetrical, it will not produce an attractive fill pattern.

We think that we improved our ad by using the bitmap pattern so in Figure 6.7.

FIGURE 6.7  Another try at a patterned background. Better...

PostScript Patterns

These sophisticated fill patterns are, in essence, little programs written in the PostScript page-description language. Although you cannot add your own pattern, you can alter the existing ones significantly using various controls provided in the PostScript Texture dialog.

Because DRAW has a built-in PostScript interpreter, you can preview PostScript patterns on screen, provided you switch to Enhanced view by going to View Ø Enhanced. This is a tremendous time-saver, especially for anyone who customizes PostScript patterns. And that’s not all: you can also output them to practically any printer, PostScript or non-PostScript.

Texture Fills

Texture fills are bitmap images that will display on any screen and print to any laser printer or imagesetter. Texture fill patterns are based on a library of bitmap images, all produced according to an engine that allows individual aspects to be adjusted with breathtaking precision.

	NOTE The Texture Fill dialog contains the same Tiling options as in the Pattern Fill dialog, including x- and y-axis controls; size, width, and height adjustments; skew and rotate angles; and percent row or column offset.

Figure 6.8 shows one of the more elaborate textures, a multicolored mineral fill, along with the dialog box that created it. Twelve individual properties make up this texture, and each component can be separately adjusted. The color selection buttons are gateways to the Select Color dialog.

FIGURE 6.8  This texture fill makes for a (warning, bad pun coming) rock-solid background.

Texture fills have a decidedly video-game nature, and the Preview button is intended as a random generator of different textures. Each of this dialog’s primary controls has a lock icon next to it, and this takes a bit of explaining. When you click on Preview, every element that is not locked will change randomly. The Softness % value might change from 83 to 17, the Brightness % from –22 to 60, the Texture # from 5742 to 28475, and the colors to just about anything in the spectrum.

But if you manually change a setting, the Preview button shows you the result of that change, without shuffling any other numbers. In other words, locking any element prevents it from being randomly changed, but you can always change an element manually, locked or not.

There are many different possible images for each texture. In the case of the mineral fractal, you can browse among 32,767 different variations.

Browse these textures for yourself, but we suggest you not get carried away. After all, let’s say you wanted to see every possible permutation of one of the simpler ones—say Aerial Photography, which has controls for just Texture #, Softness %, Brightness ± %, and Background and Foreground colors. Let’s see...32,768 textures, 0 to 100% for Softness, Brightness settings ranging from –100 to +100, and millions of possible values for the foreground and background colors. That’s about 11,892,928,546,860,000,000,000,000,000 variations for just Aerial Photography. And among DRAW’s various texture libraries, there are nearly 200 different texture fills, most of which have more permutations than this one. We think you can see our point...