Painter 8 Power Tip:
Creating Cool Painted Beveled Text

Jeremy Sutton

Text is fun to work with in Corel Painter 8. One of my personal favorite ways to use text is to paint on it and then add a nice smooth three-dimensional bevel and a subtle drop-shadow. This tutorial explains in clear step-by-step instructions how to achieve this effect. I have added some additional creative text tips and ideas as sidebars.

1. Open Painter.
2. Open a new blank white canvas (Cmd/Ctrl-N).
3. Make sure black is selected in the Colors palette.
4. Create your text layer using the Text tool in the Tools palette (shortcut “t”). You can modify the font family and font size in the Property bar or in the Text palette. Reposition the text using the Layer Adjuster tool. You will see your text layer listed in the Layers palette.
5. When satisfied with the text select File > Clone.
6. Select File > Save As and rename the “Clone of ..” file with “orig” at end of file name.
7. Select File > Clone Source and set the clone source to be the renamed “orig” file.
8. Go back to the file with the text layer in it. Make sure the text layer is highlighted and the Preserve Transparency check box is checked in the Layers palette. Choose "Convert to Default Layer" from the Layers palette pop-up menu.
9. Paint on your text.
10. When you are ready for the bevel choose Effects > Surface Control > Apply Surface Texture.
11. Choose Using > Original Luminance.
12. Adjust Softness and Amount sliders to get the desired effect. Softness between 4 and 10 gives varying degrees of bevel. The amount slider effects the intensity and contrast of the bevel shadows and highlights.
13. As a final touch you may wish to add a drop shadow by choosing Effects > Objects > Create Drop Shadow. This generates a group in the Layers palette comprising the beveled text layer with a shadow layer.
14. If you add a drop shadow and wish to move or change the opacity of the shadow relative to the text, open the group in the Layers palette by clicking on the open arrow next to the group, select just the shadow layer, move it with the Layer Adjust Tool, adjust the layer opacity slider to suit, and then close the group again.                                                                                ...and the final result:

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Manipulating Individual Letters                                 If you wish to manilpulate the orientation and scale of individual letters, independent of other letters in the same text layer, choose "Convert Text to Shapes" from the bottom of the Layers pop-up menu. Then, in the Layers palette, open the group of shapes and use the Layer Adjuster tool to distort and resize shapes (letters) individually. Use the Cmd/Ctrl key to convert corner control handles into rotate handles and side control handles into skew handles.

Photo in Text                      If you wish to have a photo appear in your text paste the photo in as a layer above the text and then, in the Layers palette, adjust the photo layer Composite Method from Default to Magic Combine.