How to Further Enhance Images in Microsoft Expression Design 2 Video

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How to Further Enhance Images in Microsoft Expression Design 2

Now let's take a look at how we can further enhance our images by drawing with the Brush tools and also the Path tools here inside of Expression Design. I am going to first select the brush and I can do that simply by clicking the brush in the toolbar or hitting the letter B on my keyboard. Now once I have the brush, it's just like any other paintbrush you have ever seen. You have the ability to just draw freehand as you see here. As you do that, you get a live preview of what you are doing, but then also when you are finished, you get a live editable path that you can then adjust anchor points for. You can adjust the Fill color or stroke depending on what type of object you are drawing. Now here obviously, I don't need a Fill color on this, because I don't need all these little hills and valleys. So what we are going to do, we are going to take the Fill color off of this and we're just going to add a stroke. So let's go ahead now and we will scroll up inside of the Properties panel and what I am going to do, I am going to make sure that I have the Fill color selected here so that I am working with the Fill. Then let's go ahead and we will check None for Fill color. Now you will notice here that you can see, we have no color applied to this, but we still get that live preview of the path itself. So all those anchor points are still there and we have the ability now to add strokes or continue editing that path as we see fit. I am going to go ahead first and I am going to select the Stroke tab. Then we will go ahead and we will pick a color for this. I am going to stick with the current color scheme that I have here, just kind of this fall like color scheme, and we will go ahead and we will select maybe a nice orange color, like so. Now once we have that applied, you are not going to see any visible change, because the width, by default, is set to zero pixels. Now if you want to, you can come over here and simply use the Scrub to just move that forward like that. Once you let go off the mouse, it will automatically apply all of that to it. So you now have an 8 pixel stroke applied to that, and then you can also come in here and you can adjust the brush stroke itself. So you have a Favorites tab here at the top, and let's go ahead and we will just click this as an outline. It's just kind of a rough stroke that's going to applied to the outside. It's not exactly where I am going for here, I am looking more for like a Paintbrush type stroke. So let's go ahead and we will choose Coarse Round Brush from the top here. As you can see there, it creates a very nice swirled pattern, kind of following the same theme we are getting here in the bottom. So what we are going to do, we are going to stick with that and we are going to go ahead then and we are going to click back out of this and I am going to adjust the width on this a little bit more. Because once I have applied that, I realize that I want it to be a little bit larger. So all you had to do there is just simply click and drag as you know, to increase that. So let's go ahead, we will push that up maybe to about 55 pixels. Something like that, and we get a much bigger stroke on that object. Now if I scroll down a little bit here, you will notice that I have the ability to control both the Stroke Opacity and the Fill Opacity independently of one another. This is great, especially for those times when you are trying to create like a picture frame or something like that and you want to create a knocked out image or you don't see the center fill, but you see all of the stroke in full color. So you can control that independently of one another and it's really going to help with creating interactions between the images in your background. Now before I actually start to edit the opacity of the stroke, what I need to do first is unlink the Stroke Opacity from the Fill Opacity, you can do that simply by clicking this little Chain Link icon right here. As you can see it broke the link, so now I am able to take this down independently of the other value. So let's take this back maybe to about 85%, something like that. Now we are ready to start editing this path and changing it so it's more conducive with our design. So I am going to grab the Selection Tool first and I am going to position this somewhere inside the image, right about here, and then what we are going to do, we are going to give this a rotation, simply by coming down to the corner, rotating it up a little bit and we will extend it off a little bit as well. Now it's hard to see so I am going to first change the color of this a little bit, because after I position it where I needed it to be, I realize that it's not exactly a color that's going to fit in well with this section. So let's go ahead first, we will change this to maybe a blue, something like that. Automatically it's got the Blend Mode set to it as Multiply. It's inherited the Blend Mode that I was using earlier, so what I am going to do, I am going to change this Blend Mode so that it interacts a little bit better with these images here. Now I can try Difference, which is just going to create a really cool Neon effect and I think that's going to be the one that we are going to use for this particular demonstration. Now I am going to go ahead and start editing this path using some of the great path tools here inside of Expression Design. I am going to come over here and if you notice inside of the Pen tool, if you click and hold on that, you have several different tools that allow you to create and edit your path. So the first one that we are going to be working with here is going to be the Convert Anchor Point. So I am going to go ahead and select Convert Anchor Point and then what we are going to do, we are going to zoom in here, and we are just going to play around with some of these anchor points. So what I can do is just take this and I can actually start to move this around. As you can see, I get these control handles, I am able to control the way these paths move. I am able to control the direction that I go with these, how I bin them, how I convert them and I can create some really cool effects simply by clicking and dragging; no real expertise required to do this, it's very, very simple. Now I can hold down my Spacebar key and pan over just a little bit and we will continue to add a few more variations to this path. Now right here we have another handle that we can grab on to. We can simply adjust that upward like that if we wanted to, and it just keeps creating a lot of different interactivity, little joints and things that we have adjoining these paths. And all I am doing is simply clicking and dragging anchor points around. So you can see how very simple this is to do. I am going to zoom back out now, and let's take a look at how we can change this specific start and end point of a path to adjust the way that the stroke that we have applied actually flows. Notice here on the end, we have a little arrow that denotes exactly which way this path is currently flowing. Now what I am going to do is, I am going to actually reverse that. So I am going to go ahead and I am going to come up here to the Object menu and we can simply select Reverse Path or hit Ctrl+R on the keyboard. Now when I do that, it's going to reflow that stroke for me and it's going to make it so that it tapers off as it goes into my original image. So I am going to go ahead now, I am going to grab the Selection Tool and then I am going to move this up a little bit. I am going to pan over so I can see exactly where I am flowing it from. I want it to generate exactly from the same area that we had before. So I am going to go ahead and I am going to move that just like so and then we are also going to make sure that it extends off of the canvas as well. So let's go ahead and just drag that off, like so. That way it extends off the canvas just like these other ones and also flows back into the original image at the same point that those rainbow rays did earlier. Now let's go ahead and we will pan back over, and we will zoom out just a little bit. So now you can see we have created almost like a neon smoke

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Now let's take a look at how we can further enhance our images by drawing with the Brush tools and also the Path tools here inside of Expression Design. I am going to first select the brush and I can do that simply by clicking the brush in the toolbar or hitting the letter B on my keyboard. Now once I have the brush, it's just like any other paintbrush you have ever seen. You have the ability to just draw freehand as you see here.

As you do that, you get a live preview of what you are doing, but then also when you are finished, you get a live editable path that you can then adjust anchor points for. You can adjust the Fill color or stroke depending on what type of object you are drawing. Now here obviously, I don't need a Fill color on this, because I don't need all these little hills and valleys. So what we are going to do, we are going to take the Fill color off of this and we're just going to add a stroke.

So let's go ahead now and we will scroll up inside of the Properties panel and what I am going to do, I am going to make sure that I have the Fill color selected here so that I am working with the Fill. Then let's go ahead and we will check None for Fill color. Now you will notice here that you can see, we have no color applied to this, but we still get that live preview of the path itself. So all those anchor points are still there and we have the ability now to add strokes or continue editing that path as we see fit.

I am going to go ahead first and I am going to select the Stroke tab. Then we will go ahead and we will pick a color for this. I am going to stick with the current color scheme that I have here, just kind of this fall like color scheme, and we will go ahead and we will select maybe a nice orange color, like so.

Now once we have that applied, you are not going to see any visible change, because the width, by default, is set to zero pixels. Now if you want to, you can come over here and simply use the Scrub to just move that forward like that. Once you let go off the mouse, it will automatically apply all of that to it. So you now have an 8 pixel stroke applied to that, and then you can also come in here and you can adjust the brush stroke itself.

So you have a Favorites tab here at the top, and let's go ahead and we will just click this as an outline. It's just kind of a rough stroke that's going to applied to the outside. It's not exactly where I am going for here, I am looking more for like a Paintbrush type stroke.

So let's go ahead and we will choose Coarse Round Brush from the top here. As you can see there, it creates a very nice swirled pattern, kind of following the same theme we are getting here in the bottom. So what we are going to do, we are going to stick with that and we are going to go ahead then and we are going to click back out of this and I am going to adjust the width on this a little bit more. Because once I have applied that, I realize that I want it to be a little bit larger.

So all you had to do there is just simply click and drag as you know, to increase that. So let's go ahead, we will push that up maybe to about 55 pixels. Something like that, and we get a much bigger stroke on that object. Now if I scroll down a little bit here, you will notice that I have the ability to control both the Stroke Opacity and the Fill Opacity independently of one another.

This is great, especially for those times when you are trying to create like a picture frame or something like that and you want to create a knocked out image or you don't see the center fill, but you see all of the stroke in full color. So you can control that independently of one another and it's really going to help with creating interactions between the images in your background.

Now before I actually start to edit the opacity of the stroke, what I need to do first is unlink the Stroke Opacity from the Fill Opacity, you can do that simply by clicking this little Chain Link icon right here. As you can see it broke the link, so now I am able to take this down independently of the other value. So let's take this back maybe to about 85%, something like that.

Now we are ready to start editing this path and changing it so it's more conducive with our design. So I am going to grab the Selection Tool first and I am going to position this somewhere inside the image, right about here, and then what we are going to do, we are going to give this a rotation, simply by coming down to the corner, rotating it up a little bit and we will extend it off a little bit as well.

Now it's hard to see so I am going to first change the color of this a little bit, because after I position it where I needed it to be, I realize that it's not exactly a color that's going to fit in well with this section. So let's go ahead first, we will change this to maybe a blue, something like that.

Automatically it's got the Blend Mode set to it as Multiply. It's inherited the Blend Mode that I was using earlier, so what I am going to do, I am going to change this Blend Mode so that it interacts a little bit better with these images here. Now I can try Difference, which is just going to create a really cool Neon effect and I think that's going to be the one that we are going to use for this particular demonstration.

Now I am going to go ahead and start editing this path using some of the great path tools here inside of Expression Design. I am going to come over here and if you notice inside of the Pen tool, if you click and hold on that, you have several different tools that allow you to create and edit your path.

So the first one that we are going to be working with here is going to be the Convert Anchor Point. So I am going to go ahead and select Convert Anchor Point and then what we are going to do, we are going to zoom in here, and we are just going to play around with some of these anchor points.

So what I can do is just take this and I can actually start to move this around. As you can see, I get these control handles, I am able to control the way these paths move. I am able to control the direction that I go with these, how I bin them, how I convert them and I can create some really cool effects simply by clicking and dragging; no real expertise required to do this, it's very, very simple.

Now I can hold down my Spacebar key and pan over just a little bit and we will continue to add a few more variations to this path. Now right here we have another handle that we can grab on to. We can simply adjust that upward like that if we wanted to, and it just keeps creating a lot of different interactivity, little joints and things that we have adjoining these paths. And all I am doing is simply clicking and dragging anchor points around.

So you can see how very simple this is to do. I am going to zoom back out now, and let's take a look at how we can change this specific start and end point of a path to adjust the way that the stroke that we have applied actually flows. Notice here on the end, we have a little arrow that denotes exactly which way this path is currently flowing.

Now what I am going to do is, I am going to actually reverse that. So I am going to go ahead and I am going to come up here to the Object menu and we can simply select Reverse Path or hit Ctrl+R on the keyboard. Now when I do that, it's going to reflow that stroke for me and it's going to make it so that it tapers off as it goes into my original image.

So I am going to go ahead now, I am going to grab the Selection Tool and then I am going to move this up a little bit. I am going to pan over so I can see exactly where I am flowing it from. I want it to generate exactly from the same area that we had before. So I am going to go ahead and I am going to move that just like so and then we are also going to make sure that it extends off of the canvas as well.

So let's go ahead and just drag that off, like so. That way it extends off the canvas just like these other ones and also flows back into the original image at the same point that those rainbow rays did earlier. Now let's go ahead and we will pan back over, and we will zoom out just a little bit.

So now you can see we have created almost like a neon smoke

Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services