Hi friends and partners! Corel finally released a Mac version of its graphics software suite, along with a web-based version, CorelDraw.app, and several exciting updates to its Windows program. In graphics design software, Adobe tends to dominate the landscape, but CorelDraw also has a good reputation among designers.
Hi friends and partners! Corel finally released a Mac version of its graphics software suite, along with a web-based version, CorelDraw.app, and several exciting updates to its Windows program. In graphics design software, Adobe tends to dominate the landscape, but CorelDraw also has a good reputation among designers. I believe familiarity sometimes makes us more comfortable using one product over another. Not to mention, Corel has only been available to Windows users until now. However, there have been in the past discontinued Mac versions, but those disappeared many years ago.
- Cd Graphics Suite 2019 Mac Visit the Corel Store. 3.9 out of 5 stars 13 ratings. Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock. A true macOS design experience - developed with Apple users in mind, enjoy the design experience you would expect on your Mac. Control all aspects of your design journey, from.
- CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019 for Mac. CorelDraw is a comprehensive toolkit built for designing logos, textiles, illustrations, and more. It comes with photo editing, font management, and a way to lay out multi-page designs.
The new Mac version features an OS-native interface, including support for macOS Mojave dark mode and Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro, rather than being a part of the Windows application. It includes the full suite of vector and raster image-editing tools – CorelDRAW for vector graphic design, illustration, and page layout, Corel PHOTO-PAINT for photo editing, Corel Font Manager to index and organize font libraries and AfterShot for RAW processing.
What’s New in CorelDRAW’s Graphic Suite 2020
- Working with Variable Fonts
- Adding Depth with Shadows
- Improve the Size and Quality of Images
- PowerTRACE – Convert Bitmaps to Vectors with AI (Artificial Intelligence)
- Using Effects in Corel PHOTO-PAINT
- Using Masks in Corel PHOTO-PAINT
- Apply AI-based Effects to Bitmaps and Vectors
- AI-powered Bitmap Effects in Interactive Lenses
- Understanding CorelDRAW’s Collaboration Workflow
- Working with Annotations and Comments in CorelDRAW
- Design Review and Approval in a Web Browser
- Create a Pixel Art Illustration
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Enhanced Features
AI-assisted Corel PowerTRACE – delivers cutting-edge image-optimization options that help improve the quality of a bitmap as you trace it.
Tips on how to use it:
- Use high-quality source bitmaps.
- If your image has low resolution, try upsampling it. Click the Adjustments tab in the PowerTRACE dialog box, and choose an upsampling mode. Based on the analysis of a large number of artistic images and photographs, the two artificial intelligence methods, Illustration and Photorealistic, use neural network algorithms to reduce noise and pixelation and maintain color. With its low-level blurring and sharpening techniques that create cartoon-like effects, the Illustration method is great for images such as logos, drawings, illustrations, and paintings created in graphic design software. The Photorealistic method works well for resizing photos.
- If dithering or JPEG compression was used in the source bitmap, the bitmap may contain additional noise. To remove artifacts and noise from a bitmap, click the Adjustments tab in the PowerTRACE dialog box, and enable the Remove JPEG artifacts check box.
- For best results when you use the Centerline Trace method, convert the bitmap to the black-and-white color mode before tracing. Note that in this case, you cannot adjust detail. When tracing technical illustrations and sketches with faint lines, you can improve the results by applying the Find edges special effect to the source bitmap. To do this, Click Effects>Contour>Find Edges.
- For outline tracing, reduce the color depth of the bitmap by changing the color mode, and then adjust the color and contrast. You can adjust the traced results at any time (including during a trace) by changing the PowerTRACE settings.
- To preserve detail in bitmaps that have fine details, thin lines, and no anti-aliasing applied, choose Line art from the Image type list box on the Settings page. Try applying the AI-powered Art Style effects to a bitmap Effects>Creative>Art Style before vectorizing it with PowerTrace.
New Upsampling options – AI-powered upsampling options help enlarge images without losing detail, as well as deliver better image upscaling and enhanced bitmap tracing. Using machine-learned models, these additions preserve clean edges, sharpness, and fine details in upscaled files. You can change the resolution and size of a bitmap at the same time. Upsampling adds more pixels to an image. CorelDRAW lets you enlarge images without losing quality and detail. You can choose from several upsampling modes: The Bicubic method adds new pixels between existing pixels and interpolates them based on the colors of neighboring pixels. This method produces smooth tonal gradations. The Nearest neighbor method replaces every pixel with the nearest pixel in the upsampled image, which results in multiple pixels of the same color. This method preserves sharp details, however, it can also produce jagged edges instead of smooth lines and curves.
New JPEG artifact removal – New advanced machine-learning techniques remove compression artifacts and recover color details, eliminating tedious manual editing allowing you to revive some of your older photos.
New Art Style FX – New Art Style effects use artificial intelligence to modify an image or object to produce a stylized version while preserving the original content. The Art Style effects Effects>Creative>Art Style use neural net techniques to transfer the style of one image to the content of another. Based on the analysis of a variety of source style images, including textures, patterns, colorful mosaics, and paintings by well-known artists, the artificial intelligence presets take the semantic content of your image, apply a style transfer to it, and create a styled image that simulates the textures, colors, visual patterns, and aesthetics of the reference image. Since there are so many effects to choose from, the best way to see what they do is just by experimenting with them as you go.
New Bitmap effects lens – Using AI technology, CorelDRAW 2020 lets you apply bitmap effects as lenses. Moving or manipulating the lens gives you the freedom to position the bitmap effect with precision in your design. Bitmap effects can also be applied as lenses in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. Lenses change how the object area beneath the lens appears, not the actual properties and attributes of the objects. You can apply lenses to any vector object, such as a rectangle, ellipse, closed path, or polygon. You can also change the appearance of artistic text and bitmaps. When you apply a lens over a vector object, the lens itself becomes a vector image. Likewise, if the lens is placed over a bitmap, the lens also becomes a bitmap. You can use a lens to apply bitmap effects to image areas. After you apply a lens, you can copy it and use it with another object. To apply a lens: Select an Object. Click Effects>Lens. Choose a lens type from the list box in the Lens docker. Specify the settings you want.
New Vector feathering – The new Feather effect gradually increases the transparency in the edges of vector and bitmap objects to make them blend seamlessly into a design. You can customize the effect by specifying the width of the feathering and transparency of the gradient. Feathering gradually increases the transparency along the edges of objects making objects blend perfectly into the background.
New Local inference – All machine-learned models in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2020 allows you to work by only using your computer’s hardware, so there’s no need for an Internet connection.
New Variable font support – CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2020, offers the flexibility of OpenType variable fonts, which let you interactively fine-tune a font’s appearance. A single variable font file offers a range of looks that used to require multiple fonts. A property of a variable font that varies is known as an axis of variation. You can change a variable font along one or more axes of variation such as width, weight, and slant; or along custom axes specified by the font designer. The named design variations along an axis are known as instances. On the weight axis, Light and Bold are at the opposite ends of the axis; on the width axis, Condensed and Wide are at the opposite ends.
Variable fonts are OpenType version 1.8 fonts that use OpenType Font Variations mechanisms. You can use variable fonts to format text for optimum readability. For example, you can format headings of different sizes in different weights or data-dense text in narrow widths. When used on web pages, variable fonts can often help reduce the size of font data, thus decreasing the page load times. The continuous range of style variations can also help with responsive design.
Enhanced Lists – customizable multilevel bulleted and numbered lists in paragraph text. The ability to include sublevels in both bulleted and numbered lists ensures that you can clearly convey information in your drawings and layouts. In addition, you can customize one or more levels in multilevel lists. CorelDRAW lets you edit bullets and numbers by changing their size, position, and distance from the text and text frame. By default, the first level in lists inherits the font properties of the paragraph text. However, you can change the font of bullets and numbers, and you can choose from a wide array of glyphs to use as bullets. To customize the number formatting, you can choose from numerous preset styles, and you can specify a suffix and a prefix for the numbers. This is wonderful news. I find it very frustrating when you only have the standard bullet and formatting options without any means to change it. You can even adjust the spacing between the lines.
Enhanced Text roundtripping – CorelDRAW 2020 and CorelDRAW.app offer a seamless text workflow so there’s never any discrepancy when viewing a design on your desktop or the web-based application.
New Collaboration workflow – Upload your design created in CorelDRAW to Corel Cloud, Google Drive, or Office 365; or capture design ideas in the CoreDRAW.app. Next, share a link with the stakeholders for review. Reviewers can open the design in CorelDRAW.app and add comments and annotations. You are notified when changes are made to the design file. Reviewers can also open a PDF file of the design and add their comments and suggestions to the PDF file, or they can open the CDR file in CorelDRAW. New annotation tools allow adding a note icon, marking up a document with arrows, rectangles, ellipses as well as straight and free-form lines, and as a final note adding a comment to clarify each markup.
Enhanced Brush performance, Perspective and Radial Blur effects, Lens performance, and PowerClip objects – work faster with drawings that contain lots of PowerClip objects. Faster and smoother editing of complex designs. Elimination of refresh issues when applying lenses to large bitmaps. The Radial Blur and Perspective effect are smoother and more responsive. Tools like the Brush, Healing Clone and the Eraser are much more fluid, especially when using larger nib sizes.
New Inner Shadow tool – Apply inner shadows to design elements to give them 3D depth. The new Inner Shadow tool lets you simulate light falling on an object in a click and then fine-tune the inner shadow with intuitive property bar controls.
Enhanced Find and Replace – New time-saving options for simultaneously finding and replacing the color or color model of an outline or fill, including mesh fills.
Enhanced Object distribution – The new Distribute by Spacing option simplifies defining a specific dimension between objects when distributing them.
If you have always been a Windows user, you have probably already used many of Corel’s products so you will definitely be excited about all of their enhancements. On the other hand, you may use a MacOS and are wondering what all the buzz is about so lets do a little comparison.
Differences between CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator
CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator have many similarities and share some basic drawing and design capabilities which makes it easy to move from one application to the other. There are some key differences in the terminology used between CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator though.
For instance, artwork is often referred to as “drawing” or “document”, and there are pages instead of artboards in CorelDRAW. You can have multiple pages in a document and you can easily switch between them.
The space above the document window is called the “property bar”. Similar to the control panel in Adobe Illustrator, this toolbar contains commands that are related to the active tool or object.
On the left side, the collection of tools is called the “toolbox”. Just like the Tools panel in Illustrator, the toolbox is a toolbar with tools for creating, filling, and modifying objects in a drawing. You can move the toolbars around by right-clicking any toolbar including the toolbox or the property bar, and unchecking Lock toolbars. The dashed lines on the toolbox and the property bar show that they are unlocked.
Let’s take a look at some of the tools that are available in CorelDRAW. The Shape tool is similar to the Direct Selection tool in Adobe Illustrator. With the Shape tool, you can edit the shape of objects. Path objects are referred to as “curve” objects in CorelDRAW. The anchor points are called “nodes”, and the directional points are called “control handles”.
In Corel’s Object Properties docker, the object’s stroke is called the “outline”. Moving along to the Fill Properties, you can apply various types of fills to the object. Gradient fill is referred to as “fountain fill”.
The tabbed windows on the right side of the application window are called “dockers”. Similar to the panels in Adobe Illustrator, these are windows containing commands and options that you can use while working on your document. For example, the Object Properties docker is like a combination of the Stroke, Gradient, Character, Paragraph and Transparency panels in Illustrator.
Right beside the dockers is the color palette, which is similar to the Swatches panel in Adobe Illustrator.
![Graphic Suite For Mac Graphic Suite For Mac](/uploads/1/1/8/3/118357298/937208752.jpg)
At the bottom of the screen is the status bar, which is slightly different from the status bar in Illustrator. It contains information about object properties such as type, size, color, fill, and resolution.
CorelDRAW includes a workspace that has the look and feel of Adobe Illustrator. This workspace can help you find menu commands and tools more easily. To access the workspace click Window>Workspace>Other>Adobe Illustrator.
Terminology Transition Table (CorelDraw vs Adobe Illustrator)
Differences between Corel PHOTO-PAINT and Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop and Corel PHOTO-PAINT also have many similarities which makes it easy to transition from one application to the other. Corel PHOTO-PAINT includes a workspace that has the look and feel of Adobe Photoshop with key terminology differences.
The workspace in Corel PHOTO-PAINT is identical to that of CorelDRAW with the toolbox, dockers, property bar and color palettes to complete your tasks.
In Corel PHOTO-PAINT, layers are referred to as “objects”. Object properties are similar to layer options, and accessible by double-clicking the object’s name in the Object Manager docker.
Adjustment layers are called “lenses” in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. With lenses, you can view the effect of a correction through a lens without permanently changing the underlying pixels.
Blend modes are called “merge modes”. Merge modes determine how the selected paint, object, or fill color combines with other image colors.
The Rectangle Mask tool is similar to the Rectangular Marquee tool in Adobe Photoshop. It lets you define rectangular editable areas or selections in your document. The combination of editable areas and protected areas are called “masks” in Corel PHOTO-PAINT.
Clip masks are equivalent to layer masks in Adobe Photoshop. Clip masks let you edit an object’s transparency level without affecting the pixels in the object.
Under the Image menu, the Image Size command in Adobe Photoshop becomes the Resample command in Corel PHOTO-PAINT both change the resolution and dimensions of an image.
The Paper Size command in Corel PHOTO-PAINT equates to the Canvas Size command in Adobe Photoshop.
Terminology Transition Table (Corel PHOTO-PAINT vs Adobe Photoshop)
The CorelDRAW 2020 Workspace
The collection of specialized workspaces are designed to help you increase your productivity by making more accessible the tools that you use most often in specific workflows or tasks. Available workspaces include Default, Touch, Lite, Illustration, Page Layout, and Adobe Illustrator.
Quick Access Tips
Many of the tools in the CorelDRAW toolbox are organized in flyouts. To access such tools, click the small arrow in the lower-right corner of a button.
Lines – The drawing tools from the Curve flyout let you draw curved and straight lines, and lines containing both curved and straight segments. The line segments are connected by nodes, which are depicted as small squares.
Complex Shapes – You can use the tools on the Object flyout to draw polygons, grids, spirals, and two types of stars: perfect and complex. Use the property bar to change the number of polygon sides, star points, grid columns, or spiral revolutions.
Parallel Lines – CorelDRAW allows you to simultaneously draw multiple parallel curves while controlling the distance between them. You can also add parallel lines to an existing line.
Text – There are two types of text you can add to drawings: paragraph text (1) and artistic text (2). You can also import existing text from an external file or paste text from the Clipboard.
Fit Text to a Path – To fit text to a path, Select the text, and Click Text >Fit Text to Path. Move the pointer over a path and use the dynamic preview to position the text. Click to attach the text to the path. To type text on a path, click the Text tool and point to a path. When the pointer changes to a Fit to Path pointer, Click to add text.
Drop Shadows and Inner Shadows – Drop shadows and inner shadows simulate light falling on objects, adding 3D depth for a more realistic appearance. Drop shadows appear behind or below objects; inner shadows appear inside objects. You can adjust shadow attributes such as color, opacity, offset, and feathering.
RAW Camera Files – When importing RAW camera files, you can view information about file properties and camera settings, adjust image color and tone, and improve image quality. You can also download Corel AfterShot 3 HDR at no extra cost from within CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT to correct and enhance your RAW or JPEG photos.
The Cutout Lab in Corel PHOTO-PAINT – This feature (Image >Cutout Lab) allows you to isolate image areas and preserve edge detail, such as hair or blurred edges while cutting out image areas from the surrounding background.
Image Adjustment Lab – Consists of automatic and manual controls, which are organized in a logical order for image correction, starting in the upper-right corner. It is best to crop or retouch any areas of the image before beginning the color and tone corrections.
Corel focuses on boosting productivity in the creative arena. It empowers users with app-wide workflow and under-the-hood innovation and performance enhancements. Although not evident from its name, CorelDraw is a full-fledged page-layout application too. It’s like having InDesign and Illustrator in the same program. Corel’s majority user base: service bureaus, graphics professionals in vinyl and signage, fabrication and garment industries, office workers, and non-Macintosh enterprises around the globe continue to praise and swear by CorelDRAW. It’s a divided graphics world where previous loyalists are now using both, but my research has found that each application has its favorites which can be traced back to a favorite operating system as well. If you are a designer who grew up with a Mac, attended typically a Mac-only design school, or simply have a bias toward Macs defend and swear by Illustrator. But maybe you are missing out. Please take the time to share this forward if you found value in this post.
Until next time,
Mac Office Suite
Patricia