After using a line tool to create a straight, freehand or Bezier line and setting its width, colour can be selected from any of the spot or process colour matching systems described earlier or indeed from any of the colour models or mixers. Using the HLS model, tints, shades or tones can then be applied. Macromedia Freehand makes the job of selecting tints even easier by providing a convenient tint option within its colour mixer box; the tint required can be applied by simply be dragging and dropping the required tint swatch on to the line to be tinted.
As well as providing means for colouring and tinting lines (a specific tinting dialog box is provided for Pantone spot colours), Micrografx Designer also allows the application of vector hatching, gradient, bitmap textures or object line fills to any line. As with lines, any closed shape can be filled with solid colour selected from a matching system, model or mixer; tints, shades or tones can be applied if required.
In addition CorelDRAW provides fill options in the form of two colour bitmap patterns, full colour bitmap patterns, vector patterns, textures, gradients or Postscript fills, but the designer has to be aware that these fills do not rotate with the object filled. Micrografx fills – as described for lines above – do rotate when the object filled is rotated. Freehand provides a selection of patterned, graduated and Postscript fills, but only the graduated fills rotate with the object; additionally,
Freehand provides a tiled fill using any object copied to the clipboard as the basis of the tile. Before a line is created in a photoediting or painting application, using any one of a variety of line tools, colour is first selected from any of the spot or process colour matching systems or colour models described earlier. Alternatively, a scratchpad – such as the one provided with Photoshop – can be used for mixing a custom colour before application.
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Using the HLS model, tints, shades or tones of a hue can be can selected before application. The opacity of a stroke can also be defined by adjusting an opacity slider. Using a pressure sensitive stylus, pressure can be set to control stroke width, colour or transparency, or a combination of these, creating strokes with smoothly changing properties.
