Importing custom shapes into PhotoImpact

Custom shapes are one of the great features of PhotoImpact. Any shape you can dream of and create in a vector drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, Canvas, or Xara can be imported into PhotoImpact and applied with Material Presets or your own custom ones. Most of the time, the shape you need is easily found in the Custom Preset Shape dialog box. Or perhaps you have a huge collection of dingbats. Or you may even create a fairly simple shape with one of the Bezier tools. But what if you found yourself in need of a border such as the one above? The vector is very complex, and actually is a group of 42 separate objects created in Illustrator. However once the final shape is realized, it's no problem for PhotoImpact. All that needs to be done is save the shape in AI format (which most vector software programs can easily do), then import the shape.

So let's check it out. Say you've created a nice mandala shape in Xara. Now you want to apply some nice color and beveling so that it looks like this:

All you need to do is export the file as an Adobe Illustrator file.

If you would like to follow along with your PhotoImpact program as you read, you can download the AI shape file here. Remember where you save it!

Open a new document in PhotoImpact, any size you want, then choose the Path Drawing Tool (third tool under the arrow, or shortcut D). Since there are four options for this tool, make sure you select the one that is a filled circle and square. Also, be sure the color square on the Attribute bar is anything but your background color, otherwise you won't be able to see your shape in the next step. In the far left side of the Attribute bar, click the button under the word "SHAPE." If you wanted to create a simple square or circle or diamond you could choose one of those, but we're making our own, so click on Custom Shape. Here is a nice collection of preloaded shapes to choose from, but again, we want the mandala. At the bottom of the dialog box click Import, then navigate to the saved AI file. Double click it. Now your shape is one of the Custom Shapes and ready to use. Click OK

. In your document just click and drag to whatever size you want your mandala to be, and apply whatever Material presets you want. When you reopen PhotoImpact the next time your mandala will still be there to use again. Got it? Then go to Part 2 for something a bit more complex.

Home | Tutorials | Gallery | Free Stuff