Contents under pressure
Mastering Corel Photopaint's Image Sprayer. Part 3
by David Wiles
Placing your image objects in an image list.
OK, so you have got your new object, created by masking the first leave, and copied into the Windows Clipboard. Now you need to create a image or a "container", as I like to call it, to hold all the objects needed for the image list.
Judge the size of the object roughly and create an image using the File...New menu item. here are the settings that I used.
1. Now with the new image on your screen, (You should have 2 images opened in Corel PhotoPaint now, the first being your original picture of the leaves with the single leaf masked, and the second being your new clean white "container" image) press the Ctrl-C key or select the Edit...Paste...As New Object menu item to paste the object in the Windows Clipboard into your new "container" image. The result should look something like this:
Creating a drop shadow.
2. Now to give the leave a little depth and form, it is time to create a bit of a shadow. This will ensure that when you use the Image Sprayer, the images will have a layered or 3-D look to them. With the first leave object selected, (there should be 8 black blocks on the corners and the edges of the object) Select the Object...Drop Shadow... menu item. Use the following settings: (you can vary them for your own image lists)
3. So far so good. If you press Ctrl-F7 or select View...Dockers...Objects the Objects Docker window will appear on the left edge of your screen with 3 items listed in the Objects list, "Background", "Object 1" and "Object 1 Shadow". This step is merely to help you keep track of all the objects that will be appearing on the image list.
4. Move the first leaf object sitting in the middle of your new image list "container" to the top left of the image itself. That will give you some room to play with.
5. Now go back to the first image (with all
the leaves) and press the Remove Mask icon 
to remove the previous masking. Now go back to Part
2 of this tutorial and repeat Steps
1 through 6 on another leaf.
repeat Steps 1 through 5
of this page of the tutorial skipping the creation of the new image "container".
6. Your result, after all your hard work, should look something like this:
7. Now comes the tricky bit - saving the file as am image list.
Saving an image list.
One of the best ways of saving a picture as an image list is to leave the objects "floating" on the background as the separate objects. This will allow you to adjust the file afterwards, rearrange the order of the images, and give you a lot more flexibility.
1. Press Ctrl-F7 or select View...Dockers...Objects the Objects Docker window will appear on the left edge of your screen. This is an "Explorer" type of interface that lists all your images objects in a orderly format.
2. Now in order to include all the floating objects in the image
sprayer list, they must all be selected. There are two ways to do
this. The first way involves using the Object Picker Tool 
to draw a marquee around all the objects on the page to select them.
This can be difficult a lot of the times and you can never be sure
that all the objects are selected. I prefer the second way where the
Object Docker can be used to select the objects. The docker works
very much the same as Windows Explorer.
3. Using the scroll bar on the right hand edge of the docker, move to the top of the list. (1) Now click on the first object in the list. (2) Two items will be highlighted in blue. That is because the object and its associated shadow are grouped, and are treated as one object.
4. Now use the scroll bar to move to the last object in the docker list, hold down the Shift key, and click on the last object. All the objects including the first and the last will now be highlighted in blue.
5. Now without deselecting any of the objects move the Tool Bar on the left of your screen and (1) select the Paint Tool. (the bottom tool) Click on the flyout arrow on the bottom right of the button, and select (2) the Image Sprayer Tool.
6. Now with the Image Sprayer Tool selected, press the Ctrl-F8 key, to display the Tool Settings Rollup window if it isn't already displayed. Click on the small arrow button on the right side of the Tool Settings Rollup (1)and then select the Save Objects as Image List... menu item. (2) If the item is "ghosted" then you know that no objects are selected an you will have to reselect the objects again.
7. A requestor will appear in the default "ImgLists" directory of Corel PhotoPaint. Type in the name of your file and press Save. You could always save the image list in your own directory, but bear in mind that you may have to hunt for the file again as Corel PhotoPaint always defaults to the "ImgLists" directory when accessing an image list file.
Well done! You have now created your own image list. Experiment with the image sprayer settings like the Fade, and the Size. You can achieve marvellous effects with relatively simple images. This particular image list that you have created can be used to create a seasonal background, or used to create a forest floor of fallen leaves or... well, I will leave the rest up to you.