Using Tracing Paper in Corel® Painter™ IX.5
by Steve Szoczei and the Corel Documentation team

Corel® Painter™ IX.5 lets you create interesting effects by cloning images. When you clone an image, you create a copy that maintains a pixel-by-pixel correspondence with the original.

After you have cloned an image, you can trace it by using Tracing Paper, the on-screen "light box" in Corel Painter IX.5. When Tracing Paper is in use, you see a faded-out version of the clone source, as if it were displayed under real tracing paper on top of a light box.

For Corel Painter IX.5, you can now set the opacity level at which you want to display brush strokes as you trace. When you finish tracing and turn Tracing Paper off, the faint source image disappears, and your brush strokes appear at 100% opacity.

Let's take a closer look at the Tracing Paper feature!

To begin, you must choose an image and create a clone of it. The easiest way to do this is to use the Quick Clone effect, which automatically clones the image, deletes its contents, turns on Tracing Paper, and selects the last Cloner brush you used. To use Quick Clone, simply open the image you want to clone, and then choose File menu > Quick Clone.

In this example, we've started with a picture of a lighthouse. For added interest, we've applied a vignette effect to the original image by using the Underpainting palette.

After you've cloned your image, you're ready to trace over it by using any Corel Painter brush variant. At any time, you can check your work by turning off Tracing Paper; just click the Tracing Paper icon in the vertical scroll bar, choose Canvas menu > Tracing Paper, or press Command + T (Mac OS) or Ctrl + T (Windows).

Here, we've used the Cloner Spray brush to simulate an airbrushed image. To see the image as it would appear in final form, we've turned off Tracing Paper.

The beauty about the Painter IX.5 enhancements to the Tracing Paper feature is that you can now set the opacity of the Tracing Paper. Just click the Tracing Paper icon, hold until the Tracing Paper Opacity selector appears, and choose the desired opacity.

Previous versions of Corel Painter locked the Tracing Paper at 50% opacity, but Corel Painter IX.5 lets you set the opacity at 10%, 90%, or any other 10-percent interval in between.

You can experiment with the Tracing Paper opacity until you find a level that works for you.

In our example, 10% opacity doesn't display much of our cloned image...

...but 90% opacity displays a near-final version that still gives us a hint of the original image. By changing the opacity level as you work, you can more easily determine if there are areas in the original image you'd like to highlight.

As you can see, the enhanced Corel Painter IX.5 Tracing Paper feature gives you added control when tracing cloned images. Try it out for yourself!

For additional insights into Corel Painter IX.5, please see the Help file.