[Hall of tricks]

PhotoImpact 6.0 is filled with new features. One of them is the Wrap Gallery allowing you to repeat an object along a path. The object can be either a text or a path. Granted, most of you discovered this feature (because I've seen it in many site), but did you know that you can also edit the path along which the object is repeated?

Note: The following only works in PI 5.0 and 6.0.

To be able to repeat this effect, you need to be familiar with the Path Edit Tool. Here's the steps at a glance.

• Draw a small path or text object.
• Open the EasyPalette and click the + next to Wrap Gallery. Now select Path Repeat (Deform) (Simply Path Wrap in PI 6.)
• Double-click Repeat Oval (Path Wrap 30 in PI 6.)
• To modify the path click Path Edit Tool from the path button, and click anywhere on the oval.
• Drag the nodes to change the shape of the oval. When satisfied, click Path Drawing Tool.

For those who are learning PI, let's do a complete exercise from the beginning.

We'll start by creating something to repeat. For this we'll use the Text Tool.

• Click Text Tool, set the Size to 40 or so and click your image.
• Type a single o. I used a lowercase o. For better effect, choose a character with a nice 'bowl'. The following image illustrates what is the bowl of a character. The first two have a more or less accentuated bowl. As for the third one (Arial font) hardly use it in its shape.

• Set the font Size to a value between 12 to 20, you need a fairly small character. Depending of the font you choose, 12 or 20 points could have the same height.
• Select 3D Round from the Mode list.

Now that we have our link, we'll use the Wrap Gallery to create a path with the o repeating along that path. Here's the steps.

Click the EasyPalette button on the toolbar and make sure the Gallery button (the first one) is enabled. From the tree menu click the + next to Wrap Gallery and choose Path Repeat (Deform) (Path Wrap in PI 6.) Near the end of the thumbnails, double-click Repeat Oval (Path Wrap 30 in PI 6.) Here's what you should have: Now the last step. Edit the path to give it the shape you want. As you adjust the path, PI will add the necessary o's so that the path is always filled with links.

Click Edit Path Tool and select the chain. Each red dots around the oval (which is really an ellipse) are called nodes. Once you click on a node, it becomes selected. You can then change the shape by dragging the selected  node. The selected node also has handles. Drag a handle to change the direction of the node. Modify the shape of the oval. I you drag a handle away from the node, you're incrementing its strength. The image below  shows one of the node stretched to the right and a handle being dragged over to the right.

Here's a cool tip: As you edit the path, hold Shift while you click on the path to add a node. Hold Ctrl to remove a node. Might as well add to this tip that you can select a path between two nodes and use the Convert path to curve segment or Convert path to line segment buttons to do just that. 

Deform the path until you have the natural shape of a necklace left on a surface. Once satisfied with the shape of the path, exit the edit mode.

• Click Path Drawing Tool.

One very interesting aspect of the Path Wrap  is that the necklace is still a o (the letter). This means that you can still use the Text Tool to change the font, font size and color of the original character, even change the character used. Now to give it a nicer color:

• Make sure the path is still selected. From the EasyPalette, choose Material Gallery.
• From the tree menu select Metallic. From the thumbnails, choose a metallic color and finish (I like Copper 5 or Copper 6).

There you go, a beautiful gold necklace for free! If you want to do the pearl necklace instead, do the same steps with a small off- white circular shape. I did the background using the Linear Gradient Fill Tool, you could use any method you want. Just make sure that there is enough contrast to see the necklace.

The shiny glare was done with the new PI 5.0 or 6.0 Lighting command (bulb effect). The following image is one of my experiment.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.