Corel Draw Tutorials

See Through Text Tutorial - Corel CorelDraw 9 Tutorial

Creating "see-through" text on images can be a stunning effect and is really sim
ple to accomplish in most image editing applications. Although the steps to achi
eve the effect are different for each application. As you will see below this af
fect is easily achieved in CorelDRAW 9.
For this tutorial I used a JPG image 250 X 166 pixels in dimension. After openin
g CorelDRAW 9 I set up my canvas and CorelDRAW 9 as follows:
Tools>Options>Edit
Uncheck - Auto-Center new PowerClip centers
Set the canvas size to custom
Set the width of the canvas to 1.11"
Set the height of the canvas to 0.737"
Now I'm ready to start working. Import the image you want to use (Fig. 1) - File
>Import. As you can see it doesn't cover the whole canvas but that is not an iss
ue. I set the size of the canvas to save memory as I worked.
Fig. 1
Deselect the background by hitting the escape button.
Select the text tool. For the text I used Bauhaus 93 set to 14. It doesn't matte
r what color the text is. Position your cursor over the image and type the text
you want on the image (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2
Select the Interactive Transparency Tool and set it to Uniform>100% (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3
Now the only thing showing to let you know your text is there are the handles su
rrounding the transparent text.
Deselect the text by hitting the escape button and select the background. Rememb
er where your text is. Then go to Effects>PowerClip>Place Inside Container. When
you do this a bold arrow will appear when you place your mouse over your image.
Place that arrow over where you text is and left click. You should end up with
something similar to Fig. 4.
Fig. 4

We need to "raise" the flat text from Fig. 4 to add some dimension to it. This i
s easily accomplished using the Drop Shadow tool.
With the text still selected, select the Interactive Drop Shadow Tool. With your
mouse on the left side of the text, hold down the left mouse button and drag to
the right side of the text. While you are doing this you should see an outline
of the text move across the original text. Line this up with the text as you dra
g the mouse.
I used the following settings for the shadow:
Angle - 0
Feather Direction - Average
Perspective Type - Left
Feathering - 10
Opacity - 100
As you implement the above settings you can see the shadow adjust. I didn't feel
there was enough depth so I copied the altered text a couple of times to darken
the shadow more and add depth. To do this all you need to do - making sure the
text is still selected - hit the "+" key on the numeric keypad twice. Each time
you hit the plus key on the numeric keypad you will see the shadow darken. Once
you have done this your text should appear something like Fig. 5.
Fig. 5
We don't have to move the text at this point but it does make it easier. Because
we want to move it and we want all three layers of text we just created to move
at the same time, we need to group them. Go to Edit>Select All>Text. Then go to
Arrange>Group. Now we can drag the text to the bottom of the canvas or even off
the canvas temporarily. Next I imported the background image again and then mov
ed the text back up where it belongs. When you do this you will notice that you
can't see the text. The reason you can't see it is because it is behind the back
ground layer. With the text selected go to Arrange>Order>To Front. That will mov
e the text on top of the background and your image should now look similar to Fi
g. 6.
Fig. 6
I felt I could leave the image as is but I wanted to lighten up the text a littl
e bit. To do that, deselect the text and select the Text Tool. Select white as t
he color for the text and type your text again. Align the newly typed text on to
p of the original text. Your image should now be similar to Fig. 7.
Fig. 7
With the newly typed text still selected, select the Interactive Transparency To
ol and set the transparency to Uniform. It automatically sets the transparency t
o 50%. Your image should now be similar to Fig. 8.
Fig. 8

You can now set the transparency to whatever you want to get the desired effect.
You don't have to use white for the text. You could use any color that would gi
ve you the desired effect. I felt the white was blocking a little too much of th
e background image so I set the transparency to 75% to give me the final image b
elow.