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PAGE 4

The key to making glass look shiny - and glassy - is highlights. Glass will always reflect the light things around is, and particularly the main source of light. This might be a candle or a lamp, but by far the easiest light source to use for this reflection is a window, so that is what we are going to do now.

In the layer palette, click on your top layer (wood) and add another layer above it. Do not rename this one, but make it the selected layer.

pic13.gif - 8kbSet up the Styles and Textures boxes as shown here, and then select the shapes tool, which is near the bottom of the vertical toolbar, and has a button like the one at the top left of the tool palette shown here. Set the tool palette as shown here. (The line style and width do not matter).

pic14.gif - 11kbNow draw a tiny little square over to the left. Although we shall want this over the glass area eventually, it is much easier to see what you are doing if the square is against the wood at this stage.

pic15.gif - 8kbNow copy this layer to the clipboard, and paste it as a new layer three times. Each little square will land right in the middle of your image, so drag it over and arrange them to look like a tiny window. The mover tool is selected when you paste as a new layer, so you have only to click and drag.

pic16.gif - 13kbGo to the layer palette and click on the little spectacles for the three layers you have renamed. This will switch them all off, and you will see the silk, shadow and wood disappear from your image, leaving only the white squares which you can barely see. Select one of their layers, right click and use Merge>Merge visible (NOT Merge all(flatten)). Then click on the three pairs of spectacles to switch the layers on again, and rename the top one, which is now called 'merged' 'window'.

pic17.gif - 9kbNow use Effects>Geometric effects>circle. Your little window will look like this.

pic18.gif - 15kbpic19.gif - 5kbClick on the deformation tool (shown highlighted in the picture on the left) and a box with square 'handles' on the corners and in the centre of the sides will surround your window. Click on the top centre handle and draw it upwards a little, so the window does not look quite so squashed. Draw the centre right handle in a little to narrow it. When you have it looking something like this one on the right, go to the tools palette and click apply.

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Now, using the mover tool pic21.gif - 1kbdrag the window into the glass area, at the side about halfway down. Now we are beginning to get a glassy look, but we need some more highlights. On the next page we will add some different ones.

 

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