It’s important to be able to show clients not only a proposed design, but how that design would appear in real life – for instance, a label on a bottle, a sign installed on a building, or the engraving on a plaque or trophy. I have found this helps my clients visualize what the final product will look like. What continues to amaze me is how closely the finished product matches the mockup. I often photograph the final installed sign, for instance, and it is difficult to tell the difference between the mockup and the photo of the installation.
My method utilizes both CorelDRAW for the initial design and PhotoPaint to merge the design into a photo, say, of the location where the sign is to be installed. I save the design as a bitmap file or JPG and then open it in PhotoPaint, along with a photo of the location/container, etc. With the vector graphic converted to a bitmap image, I select the design and copy and paste it into the photo showing the intended location. With the pasted image on a layer above the destination photo, I then position, resize, and distort it as necessary so that it fits in a way that is accurate and believable. With the image of the artwork on a layer above the image of the location, slight adjustments can be made to the color, brightness, sharpness, etc. so that it matches the background image. The layers are then flattened to form the final image.
However, CorelDRAW has now added an Add Perspective button under Effects in the menu bar. With a destination bitmap image open in CorelDRAW, you just select a bitmap image of the final artwork and click the Add Perspective button. The markers around the selected image can then be moved independently, positioned appropriately over the destination image, and adjusted so that the size and perspective of the artwork matches the size and perspective in the destination image. This makes quick work of the process described above. In some cases, merging of images might be better resolved using that method, but in general, the Add Perspective button should do the job in record time.
-Jim Sadler
