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How to make your Virtual Quilts look real

by Sue Wilkins

Here are the first steps:

1. Whenever possible I unclick the outline patches & outline blocks in EQ. Paste Quilt to Clipboard.
2. In Corel Photo-Paint click on file and see if you have the *New from Clipboard*. If not, then open the other way and paste.
3. Increase your viewing resolution to the higest (1600% is what I can go to)- You now will see each individual square.
4. To make it easy scroll up/down-left or right to find a row of pure black squares which will be one of those border lines.
5. Click on the eyedropper tool in your toolbar. Use it to click on the colour you want to change the line to.
6. Pick out the *paint* tool you want to use (I like the pencil, or ballpoint pen one). Your cursor arrow will turn into a circle.
7. Position this over the black square and left click on your mouse. A shot of paint will go over the square. It will also give a slight coverage to the rows on either side, and this is good as it diffuses the colour so you aren't just replacing a heavy line with another one. It makes it very soft and subtle.
8. You can then just hold the mouse button down and pass over the length of the line. If you dock it up to the edge of the screen then the path will stay straight.
9. Go back to a 100% view to see how it looks.
10. Sometimes you may want to pick up a second colour and pass it over the first.

Once you have all the heavy lines taken care of you can then add the texture. I would suggest that you save it at this stage as a base graphic. That way if you want to try a variety of different finishing effects you don't have to go back to square 1 and change all the line colours again. (Time Saving Tip big time!)

SHORTCUT (Create the shadowing in EQ): Change the thread color to the black/gray/dark color you wish to use. Begin placing duplicate stencils on the quilt, next to the dark stencils of the same size. Color these new stencils a white/light color. Choose your lighting direction. Move these new stencils a "smidge" to the right/left/top/bottom of the dark stencil, to achieve the lighting direction you wish. Use the Export Snapshot tool to now take the quilt to your graphic editing program.

To Use the Mask tool. You can start out with the rectangle and do the same as I've described below in steps. I often use the one that looks like a freeform shape. You just click and drag around the shape you want.

1. Every time you change direction just do a click and it sort of acts like a pivot point.
2. Double click to close the shape. This area is selected. However if you want everything except the shape you selected then go to "Mask" on the tool bar and select "invert". For later reference you will also see "remove" to clear the mask.
3. If you want to add the texture to this area then go to effects and choose your texture. There are many so you really do need to experiment. If you want to add stipple effect then what you need to do first is to go back to Coreldraw and use the freeform drawing tool to do your squiggles. I change the line colour to a grey. Then save it as a bitmap file.

One word of advice here.....I use Snagit to capture just my drawing and you will have to experiment so you have a filled area without white area around it (imagine quilting right to the edge of your quilt) because when you use "tile" the white space shows up and breaks up the pattern so it looks like there are margins.

To use this in Corel Photo Paint you have to go to 1. Effects , then Custom, then Bumpmap. You will see a little file folder click on that and you will see "load bumpmap". This will import your saved special effect. Again, you will need to play around with the other things like lighting direction etc. however it automatically gives you a preview of what your graphic looks like so you can play till you find what you like.

I would suggest you first try things like canvas (linen), stone, elephant skin, & in the bump map try the ripple effect and change the embossing on any of these. Once you feel comfortable then try making your own bitmap lines.

SHORTCUT: If your exported images are larger than the finished image size you want, do not worry about blurring the dark and light lines. The lines will become pixelated when you size the image down. Add any texturing, blurring, lighting techniques. Size the image to the size you need. Save it as a JPEG, and you now have a picture of your "real" virtual quilt.

Oh and I discovered an incredible tool.....I actually found things in the manual of all places.

LOL.
Sue Wilkins
www.quiltseeds.com