Tutorial: AKVIS Chameleon

Time goes by like water: a photo collage in Corel Photo-Paint

Sunrises replace sunsets and time goes by like sand through your fingers...

To create a "philosophic" photo collage symbolizing the eternal beauty of nature and the fleetingness of the human life we have chosen two photos: a sunset photo and a stop-watch.

We will make the photo collage in Corel Photo-Paint using AKVIS Chameleon Plug-in in the Snapshot mode. Follow the instructions below:

• Step 1. Open the photos in your photo editor.
• Step 2. First open the image with the stop-watch and activate any selection tool, for example Magnetic Mask Tool.

  In the Options palette of the chosen selection tool deactivate the check-box Anti-aliasing.

• Step 3. Outline the stop-watch with the selection tool. Read more about Magnetic Mask Tool here.
  
• Step 4. Copy the selected stop-watch into the buffer by pressing the buttons Ctrl+C or by calling the command Copy -> Edit.
• Step 5. Activate the image with the sunset and call the command Effects -> AKVIS -> Chameleon (Take Snapshot) to take a snapshot of the image. We will need this snapshot the next time we call the plug-in. We use the Snapshot mode to make the background image visible through the pasted object. In this case we want the stop-watch to adapt its color range to the photo and to be semi-transparent.
• Step 6. Paste the stop-watch into the sunset photo by calling the command Edit -> Paste -> Paste as New Selection.
  
• Step 7. Do not remove the mask!
• Step 8. Select Object Pick Tool in the Toolbar and move the stop-watch to the left, just a little bit.
  
• Step 9. Call the command Mask -> Invert twice. This double command does not change anything visually but without it you won't get the plug-in working in Corel Photo-Paint.
• Step 10. Call the plug-in AKVIS Chameleon by selecting the command AKVIS -> Chameleon (Use Snapshot) in the menu Effects.
  
• Step 11. Remove the mask with the command Mask -> Remove. The photo collage is ready.