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ZonerDraw Project: CD LABEL

I started this exercise by scanning and then creating a layer over the scan. By turning the main layer on and off with the eye symbol in the layer box, I can see what has been done. Be careful to create the new layer or you will be working on the main layer and later you will want to discard this as it has all the faults built in.

The traced and filled image with background layers turned off for comparisons.

For a start you need to select the appropriate tool which is in the toolbar to the left and  looks like an S with a plus sign. If that is not apparent, then hold down the mouse on the third symbol down until the flyout box appears, and then select the one you want. If one of the little boxes in the toolbar has a small triangle in the bottom right corner, it means that there is a flyout with more choices attached to the tool.

Showing the relationship between the tool bar and the alternate toolbar.

You will note that as the tool is selected in the toolbar to the left, all the choices to do with the tool are to be found in the alternate tool bar above the text bar. Experiment with these choices to see what they do and when to use them.

The cursor changes to a cross when the drawing tool is selected. Place it where you wish to start the line and it will leave a small box shape called a node. Now go to the second point on your line, and this can easily be around a small curve. Don't try to do large curves until you know how to use the tool.

Now, when you place the cursor on the second point, drag the mouse away from the point without letting the left mouse button go. You will find you can move this handle in any direction and it will affect the shape of the line between the two points. When you are happy with the position of the line, release the mouse.

These handles are adjustable later too, by selecting the black arrow tool with the bezier curve symbol. Using this and holding the Shift key down will allow re-positioning of the handles, and consequently, the line.

Once you are happy with the shape and position of the line, click Shift and the handle in front of the point you just made will vanish. The next move is to re-situate this handle so that the line will follow the new direction. You do this by touching the cursor a little in front of the node in the direction the next section of line is to follow.

Now make your new point and drag as needed. This is something that you need to get your head around when using this sort of program. It is a much more accurate method of drawing lines than using the mouse.

The first drag affects the line behind the node only. The next section must be set up independently.

You may notice that when you draw a line with a curve, the program joins the two ends together with a fill. This can be turned off until you have finished the complete object and then filled with the colour of your choice.

As can be seen in the layers drop down box, I used a number of layers to achieve my end result of the tracing and then added two more layers to give me the background fill that I wanted. The second of these uses the styles pallette with a gradient fill to give the shading .

The finished CD label.

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