Corel PaintShop Pro Help | Using patterns

Using patterns

To use the active image or a selection as a pattern

You can paint, draw, or fill patterns to create interesting effects. PaintShop Pro includes many patterns that you can choose from (such as bricks, stained glass, and zebra stripes). You can also create patterns from an image or part of an image.

Patterns add creative flair to your images. You can apply patterned brush strokes, create objects with patterned fills or edges, and create patterned text. You can use patterns to create stationery or to create tiled images for Web pages. Patterns are especially helpful for projects that require interesting backgrounds such as CD covers, calendars, or greeting cards.

Important! Patterns are available for grayscale and 16 million–color images only. For more information about increasing the color depth of an image, see Increasing the color depth of an image.

What is the difference between patterns and textures?

On the Materials palette you can select both a pattern and a texture as part of a material. What is the difference between the two?

A pattern is an opaque, repeated image with specific colors and details. A pattern is a style, just like a solid color or gradient. Patterns do not use the current foreground or background colors. For example, if you select the Bricks pattern and apply brush strokes with the Paint Brush tool, each brush stroke paints the brick pattern.

A texture gives the effect of having textured canvas or paper. Textures use the current style (such as a solid color). For example, if you select the Crumpled Paper texture and if the foreground color is yellow, each brush stroke paints yellow with the texture of crumpled paper.

Textures can be applied at the same time you apply a solid color, gradient, or pattern. This means that you can have both a pattern and a texture selected at the same time.

To apply the current pattern

Edit tab

• On the Materials palette, click the Pattern button

on the Style drop-list for the Foreground and Stroke Properties box or the Background and Fill Properties box.

The most recently chosen pattern becomes active.

To choose a pattern

Edit tab

1 On the Materials palette, do one of the following:

• To choose a foreground pattern, click the Foreground and Stroke Properties box.

• To choose a background pattern, click the Background and Fill Properties box.

The Material Properties dialog box appears.

2 Click the Pattern button.

3 On the Pattern page, click a pattern thumbnail.

4 Adjust the following controls:

• Angle — specifies the angle (or direction) of the pattern, from 0 to 359 degrees

• Scale — specifies the scale (from 10 to 250) of the image’s actual size. At smaller values, the image is repeated more frequently throughout the pattern. At larger values, the image may be cropped, or may lose detail and become blurry.

5 Click OK.

You can also
Save this pattern as a swatch that you can access later	Click the Add to Palette button.
Apply the current materials to all tools	On the Materials palette, mark the All tools check box. If you unmark this check box, the current materials are applied to the active tool only.

You can also change the angle of the pattern by dragging the control needle on the pattern preview on Pattern page.

To use the active image or a selection as a pattern

Edit tab

1 Open the image you want to use.

2 To select a part of the image as the pattern, make a selection in the image.

The pattern appears in the Pattern thumbnails on the Pattern page of the Material Properties dialog box.

To save an image as a pattern

Edit tab

1 Create an image in PaintShop Pro or another application.

2 Save the image file in the Patterns folder of the PaintShop Pro program folder, or in the ...Documents/Corel PaintShop Pro/2023/Patterns folder.

The pattern appears in the Pattern drop-list on the Pattern tab of the Material Properties dialog box.

To change the default location of pattern files, click the More Options button , and choose File Location. For more information about setting file locations, see Setting file locations.