Advanced layering techniques in Corel® Painter™ IX
by Steve Szoczei and Gord Roberts

Corel® Painter™ IX lets you create complex images by using multiple layers. As you may know, Painter offers several kinds of layers, including the following:

• the Canvas layer – for painting directly on the canvas
• normal layers – for painting with any media except Watercolor or Liquid Ink brushes
• Watercolor layers – for painting with Watercolor brushes
• Liquid Ink layers – for painting with Liquid Ink brushes

To create unique effects, you can adjust how the layers interact by using the features on the Layers palette.

You can use the Layers palette not only to create, edit, and delete layers, but also to adjust their settings and tweak how they interact with each other.

Using masks to protect layer contents

A mask lets you change the look of a layer without actually changing its contents. In a layer mask, the white areas display the contents of that layer (hiding the layers below it), the black areas hide the contents of that layer (displaying the layers below it), and the gray areas provide partial transparency.

In this example, a layer mask for the butterfly layer is created based on its transparency.

To create a basic layer mask, click the Create Layer Mask button on the Layers palette.

Using composite methods to blend layers

By applying composite methods to layers, you can determine how the layers are combined without changing their actual content. The pop-up menus at the top of the Layers palette provide two types of composite settings:

• Composite Method – sets the standard composite method. For example, The Gel method tints the underlying image with the layer's color.
• Composite Depth – controls how a layer's image data interacts with depth information on the canvas and other layers. For example, the Add method combines depth information between layers, building up brush strokes on different layers where they overlap.

Painting with underlying colors

When painting on a layer, you can pick up colors from the layers below it by enabling the Pick Up Underlying Color check box on the Layers palette.

Adjusting layer opacity

You can adjust the opacity of a selected layer by dragging the Opacity slider on the Layers palette.

Preserving layer transparency

When painting on a layer, you can confine yourself to areas of the layer that already contain images by enabling the Preserve Transparency check box on the Layers palette. This lets you, for example, make subtle changes to an object without changing the shape of the object itself.

Using Dynamic Plug-ins to apply effects

Finally, the Dynamic Plug-ins button on the Layers palette lets you apply a host of dramatic effects to layers, such as the following:

• Brightness/Contrast – creates a layer that applies brightness and contrast adjustments to the images beneath it
• Bevel World – applies three-dimensional bevel effects to selected layers or areas
• Image Slicer – creates an Image Slicing layer that stores information about how your image is segmented and about how each slice should be exported
• Posterize – creates a layer that reduces the number of color levels in the images it floats over