Windows
Draw 6 or CompletePublisher'99
"Slicing"
a Digital Photograph
This tutorial explains how to use the "Slice" feature in Micrografx
Windows Draw 6, or, Sierra Complete Publisher for cropping a digital photograph
to a non-rectangular shape. For simplicity's sake, both programs are referred
to as "Draw" in this tutorial.
Editors Note: Originally published as Micrografx Windows Draw 6, the current version
of this program is published by Sierra as CompletePublisher'99. For all practical
purposes, they are the same program.
Being able to "Slice" a photograph in Draw is a great feature for computer
scrapbooking! Slicing crops a photograph into the shape of an object. Much more
than simple rectangles, you can use circles, ovals, stars, or other shapes too.
This can add a whole new range of design possibilities to your scrapbook pages!
Draw includes some special shapes with it but you're not limited to those. To
use a shape, the graphic must be a single object, like a star or a circle. Although
a little more involved, you can also slice a photograph into a word that could
be used as a headline or topper for a scrapbook page.
"Slicing" requires 2 objects; the object that you want to slice (the
digital photograph), and, a simple vector graphic object that is the shape you
want the sliced object to be. It works pretty much like a cookie cutter. Your
photograph is the cookie dough and the shape is the cookie cutter.
Note: The slice shape (cookie cutter) must be a single object graphic. It cannot
be a graphic that is made up of multiple objects or Draw will not know which individual
shape to make the slice with. Most vectored clip art graphics contain multiple
objects within the graphic. If the image is grouped, it may appear like it's one
object when it really isn't. A graphic like this cannot be used to slice a photograph.
To follow along you'll need to have:
- Either Micrografx Windows Draw 6 or Sierra's CompletePublisher'99.
- A digital photograph to slice. This can be a photograph you have scanned, taken
with a digital camera, or from a computer disk with your photographs that you
got from a photo lab.
(For the purposes of this lesson, working with a low resolution photograph will
be easier and take less computer processing time, so, if you have a low resolution
photograph, practice this tutorial with it instead of a high resolution image.)
Lets get started!
For this tutorial, we'll take a digital photograph and put it into the shape of
a circle.
1. Start a new layout in Draw and make sure the Visual Toolbar is active.
2. From the INSERT menu, select the PICTURE command. This will open a standard,
Windows file dialog window. Navigate to the hard disk or drive and folder where
you have your digital photograph. Double-click on the name of the photograph you
want to use and the photo will be imported into your layout.
3. On the Visual Toolbar, click on the Create Shapes button and select Circle.
When you do this, the mouse pointer will change to look like a cursor with a little
circle next to it.
4. Next, move the cursor over on top of the layout and draw a circle by clicking,
holding down the mouse button, and dragging down and to the right. As you drag
the cursor a circle will be drawn on your layout. You want the circle to be a
little smaller than the size of the photograph, so, when you have the circle to
about that size, release the mouse button.
5. When you clicked on the Circle creation tool, a little window also opened up
that says "Circle". We only need one circle for this tutorial, so click
on the Finished button in the circle window.
6. Next, click on top of the circle and drag it on top of the photograph. (If
you need to adjust the circle's size you can by clicking on one of the squares
in a corner of the circle and dragging the little square.)
7. Once you have the circle over the top of your photograph, you're almost ready
to slice. It's important to remember that the circle (your cookie cutter) does
have to be on top of the photograph (your cookie dough) because when you do a
slice, the program is going to use the shape of the top object to cut the shape
out of the bottom object.
8. The final thing you have to do before you make the slice is to select both
of the objects; the photograph and the shape. You have to do this so that the
program knows what objects is going to use for the slice.
9. There are a couple of ways to select multiple objects. You can click and drag
a rectangle around the outside of just those two objects, or, you can click on
one object to select it, then hold down the shift key and click on the second
object. (Holding down the shift key lets you select additional objects without
deselecting what you already have selected.)
10. OK, both objects selected?
11. From the Tools menu select the Slice Object command.
12. At first it will appear as though the circle just disappeared but nothing
else happened. Don't panic! The program did cut the shape! It may look like nothing
happened but what you're seeing on the screen is actually two objects, the new
shape and the left over piece of the photograph.
13. So, the final thing you need to do is to click on a corner of the photograph,
or, anywhere else on the photo that's outside of where the circle was. When you
click on it, it's selected. Now press your delete key. The extra cookie dough
disappears and your left with....
Your shape!
