CDU mag 95 April2017-complete - coreldownunder.org.au 95... · CDU Meetings 2016 Tuesday – March...

Issue 95

April 2017 RRP $5

Treasurer:

David Mutch

03 9720 2913

[email protected]

03) 9729 5419

Richard Crompton

[email protected]

Fred [email protected] 382 965

03) 9008 [email protected]

[email protected]

Membership:

Corelunder Editor:

Vice President:

Geoff George

Library:

[email protected]

03) 9893 1029

Secretary:

Lance Fishman

Jenette Youngman

President:

[email protected]) 9876 9161

Darryl Howman

No. 95 April 2017

CDU Meetings 2016

Tuesday – March 21

Tuesday – February 21

Tuesday – April 18

Tuesday – May 16

Tuesday – June 20

Tuesday – September 19

Tuesday – July 18 (AGM)

Tuesday – August 15

Tuesday – November 21

Tuesday – October 17

This Month’s Cover & Member’s Gallery

By Richard Crompton

Cover photo: Karlu Karlu or Devils Marbles

Postal Address: Corel Down UnderPO Box 627, Heathmont 3135

10-11 Our Gallery

Phone: 03 9876 9161

How to Avoid Compression Corruption inVideo Studio.

4

Video Studio X10 Service Pack8

16 Why are so many Android Devices Insecure?

9 Image Manipulation using PhotoPaint

Corelunder, No.95, April 2017, 3

As promised, David Mutch showed ushis video of India at the Februarymeeting and again at the Marchmeeting. This video was assembledentirely using Video Studio. During theprocess David ran into a problem in therendering. It was interesting becauselast week I had a phone call from a userof Video Studio who had exactly thesame problem. I referred him ontoDavid who by this stage had found a fixto this problem. David has written upan article for this month’s magazine,along with screen shots, which fullyexplain the work around he used to fixthis problem.

This is largely what our group is allabout. There is always someone whohas experienced the same problemsthat you may be going through, and asa group, usually someone has ananswer.

Tinny Wu from the new Corel agents inAustralia, Aquion, has recently askedme to contact Australian Sign &Graphics Association, which I now havedone. I have made ASGA aware of CorelDown Under and invited any of theirmembers to come along to our meetingsto experience what we have to offer. The

members of ASGA are all in the signand allied industries, and most of themit appears use CorelDraw as their mainsoftware. I imagine their members willalso have much to offer our members,as they are heavy users of CorelDraw. Iam sure that we will all make theirmembers very welcome to our meetingsand hopefully some of them may alsojoin our group and bring their experi-ence with Draw to our members.

On June the 20th and again on Augustthe 15th we are going to move ourusual night time meetings to a daytimeformat. The times for these two meet-ings will be from 10.00am to 1.00pm.This is a chance for anyone who wouldlike to come to one of our meetings, butcan only attend during the daytime, tocome along. If you have friends or knowanyone who may be interested in adaytime meeting, please let them knowand invite them along.

Until next time…

Darryl HowmanApril 2017

4 Corelunder, No.95 April 2017

I recently created a fairly long videoshow of images and video I’d shotduring a recent trip to Northern India. Isplit the production into seven parts fora number of reasons: to simplify theoverall work load, to assist withproduction organisation, to reduceCPU, GPU and memory requirements,to reduce the possibility or effect offile/data loss in case of a crash, andsimply to make the job a whole loteasier and less stressful - I could easilyspread the work over a longer periodand have a break between sections ifneeded. I always advise people to splitup large video jobs into smaller, moremanageable segments if at all possible.

When each section was complete Irendered the output using VideoStudio’s MPEG-4 video output on theComputer options section of the ShareTab, with the Smart Render optionalways checked. (Fig 1). This is prob-ably the most usual method mostpeople would render out high quality,full HD video using the H264 codec.

For each of the shorter video segmentsthe rendered video turned out just fine.

However, when I put all of the renderedMPEG-4 segments together, with allseven sections now totalling approxi-mately one hour of video, I found thatEVERY time I rendered the projectusing the previously good settings, andtrying in both Video Studio X9 andX10, the results were often almostunusable. Video compression corrup-tion occurred seemingly randomlythroughout different renders (Figs 2aand 2b). In several rendering cases thevideo became so corrupted that all ofthe players I used to view/test theresult on would shut down with a fatalerror message. I’m really not sure whatthe problem is here but it only seemedto occur when I tried to render longstretches of video - my final piece wasabout one hour long.

Through a bit of trial and error I foundthat changing the output settings alittle resulted in a perfect render withno corruption or issues.

- David Mutch, April 2017.


➢ Next Page

Here’s how I did it:

1. On the Share Tab, still choosethe Computer section but thistime choose the CUSTOMmethod. (Fig 3).

2. Click the Drop down button onthe Format List to show theoptions and choose MPEG-4(again, Fig 3).

3. UNCHECK the Enable SmartRender Option (still Fig 3).

4. Now click the Options buttonjust to the right of the Format

List (icon looks like a little gearwheel - Fig 4), to bring up theOptions dialogue box.

5. Choose the Compression tabof this box, then in the VideoType drop down list chooseH264-MAIN (Fig 4 still). Thedefault rendering option for H264MPEG-4 files is H264-HIGH, sowe change this to H264-MAIN.

6. Click OK on the Optionsdialogue box and then set yourvideo file name and destinationfolder.

Fig.1


Fig.2b

Fig.2a

7. Click the big blue STARTbutton and you should be good togo with a great output with nocorruption.

� Previous Page – How to Avoid Compression Corruption in Video Studio


Fig.3

Fig.4

I am not quitesure what makesthis work,whether is notenabling theSmart RenderOption orchanging thecompression toH264-MAIN, but itseems to workwell for me whenproducing long orcomplex videorenderings.


▪ Triple Scoop Music or Muserk sound effects: Resolved a loading delay in theLibrary (app remained unresponsive for an extended period of time).

▪ Mask Creator: Resolved a crash that occured when applying a mask to aphoto.

▪ Mercalli effect: Removed "X" watermark from preview.

▪ Resolved issues that prevented users from restoring all purchases, includingthe Blu-ray plugin.

2017-04-04


Most of the photographs we take withour cameras, can be turned into some-thing far more exciting and imagina-tive. I remember walking on themillennium bridge in London, when alocal Londoner walking with his lunchdate, made a loud comment as if hewanted me to overhear him: “I don’t

understand why tourists take all thesephotos all the time”. Well this Londonerdid miss a point – I may have been atourist but I always take referencephotos as well. This is kind of in myDNA as I never know what my nextdesign and illustration work will beabout.

Image Manipulation using

As Stefan Lindblad walks you though hisphoto manipulation process, you willlearn about:

●Analysing a photo

●Using Photo Filter Lenses

●Adding Halftone Effects

By Stefan Lindblad

Take this photograph forexample, which I took ona trip to the former EastBerlin Mitte district inGermany a few years ago.Quite ordinary, right? Iwalked the streets andcame to a bohemianneighborhood. I tookseveral photos, and thisone is the one I will beusing for this tutorial, soit came in use.

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CDU Gallery Photos: Richard Crompton

Alice Springs

Ularu

Bird’s nest Coopers Creek


Sturt Desert Pea

Skyline near Coober Pedy

Devil’s Marbles

Ularu


Analyzing the photo

Looking back at this neighborhood inBerlin Mitte, I thought it would providean excellent example of making some-thing ordinary a bit more exiting andimaginative. I always begin by lookingat the strong and weaker areas in aphoto. They can turn out to be greatassets as work progresses during aproject.

Corel PHOTO-PAINT the magical tool

Open the photograph in Corel PHOTO-PAINT X7 and look at where thepresent lighting is coming from. Thelighting is very bland, almost dull. Butwhat is good, is that it’s possible towork with the light and shadows andcontrasts. I noticed the shadows underthe outdoor seating and the tree at thebottom right corner of the picture andwill have that in mind later on.

I start by creating a New Object in theObject Manager Docker(Object >Create > New Object), and using thePaint Tool(Toolbox > Paint tool), and asoft edge brush nib to add sun rays. Ichose the Art brush > Large Soft fromthe drop-down list in the Property Bar.I increased the width of the nib slightlyusing the Nib Size settings in the Prop-erty Bar. I now painted 7 sun raysfrom the sky down onto the streettowards the square, using white color. Ithen adjusted the opacity of the brushstroke object by tweaking the Opacityslider at the top of the Object ManagerDocker.

Next, I used the Mask Tool to mask thesky and copy and pasted this (CTRL+C,CTRL+V), to create a Group objectwith it. This way I only make adjust-ments to the sky, and not the entireimage, when I use the Lens ObjectAdjustment features.

� Page 9 – Image Manipulation in PhotoPaint


I make 2-3 duplicates of the mask, sothat I can apply different changes tothe sky, and quickly turn the specificobjects on or off. When I am done, Isimply delete any mask objects I don’twant to keep. So I will end up with onemask object of the sky. While selected,I applied a Tone Curve Lens(Object >Create > New Lens > Tone Curve) toincrease contrast, making dark areasdarker and with a rather soft S-Curve(Values in the dialog window: Blackapproximately 51,54 and White approx.172, 162).

Also adding a Contrast EnhancementLens Object effect, placed hierarchi-cally under the Tone Curve object andwith a Input Value Clipping of 12 –255. I now clean up parts of the mask Idon’t want to keep using the EraserTool(Toolbox > Eraser Tool).

I also applied Dodge & Burn effects,increasing shadow effects with theEffects Tool > Dodge & Burn > BurnHighlights, on the windows and facadeof the buildings. However, before I usethe Dodge & Burn tool I first use theMask tool to copy and paste those

parts of the image, and save them asseparate objects in the Object ManagerDocker.

On some mask objects I repeated theDodge & Burn effect like a paint brush.This gives me the freedom to paint theshadows and contrasts on to the imagewith the Effect tool, like painting withGouache water colour paint, tradition-ally used by illustrators and designersbefore the age of computer graphics.Each coat of the exact same paint, or inthis case, each coat of Dodge & Burn,makes it darker. In my photo it makesthe plaster and cement look more realand adds depth.

On the red building to the right, Irepeated Dodge & Burn quite exten-sively, adding more contrast, depth anddarker shadow. This brings thewindows more to life.

Looking at the Parasol just behind thesun rays, I can see that this needsmore contrast. I apply contrast usingthe Effect Tool >Dodge & Burn > andDodge Highlights instead of BurnHighlights as we used earlier. Thislightens up the top of the parasols.

➢ Next Page


The outdoor awning, over the outdoortables by the red house to the right, isempty and without any logo or text,which gives me an excellent opportu-nity to add text or a logo on top of it. Iwent for “Coffee”. With the Text Tool(Toolbox > Text tool), and the colourwhite, I chose a fairly modern bold SanSerif font. With the Pick tool selected, Iuse the distortion handles to shape thetext to fit the outdoor awning (click onthe Distort icon in the Property Bar).To make it look more real, I appliedopacity while I used the Eraser tool toerase anything that would overlap thetree, and make it fit in better. Whendone, I simply removed opacity fromthe text. I finished it off by adjustingthe opacity of the text object to around30 using the Opacity slider in theObject Manager Docker.

Using the Photo Filter Lens

I wanted to add a sort of old, yellow feelto the image, so in the Object ManagerDocker I choose Lens Object > PhotoFilter Lens (or click on Object >

Create > New Lens > Photo Filter). Ithen continued by adding another LensObject >Contrast Enhancement, andalso a Tone Curve Lens object.

After adding a final, Photo Filter lens,I moved on. All together, these lenseshave added a bolder, old yellow,warmer feel to the whole image. And ifwe now compare our current imagewith the original, rather dull lighting,we suddenly have a far more inter-esting feel.

Adding a Halftone effect

To add a Halftone effect I createdanother temporary New Image (File >New…). After painting random brushstrokes, I added a Halftone effect(Effects menu > Color Transform >Halftone). Meaning I now have a whitebackground object and another withhalftone dots. Selecting the ColourTransparency Tool in the Toolbar, Idragged it over the white backgroundcolour, making the background trans-parent. From there I simply copy

pasted the objectover to my Berlinimage as a newobject. This way Ican control whereand how the Half-tone dots aredistributed overmy image.

Adding import-ed art & imag-es to the photo

But I wasn’t quitedone yet as I hadthe idea of addingsomething to theempty housefacade facing the

� Page 13 – Image Manipulation in PhotoPaint


square. And I came up with a vectorimage of a dogs face, like a logo orbrand. Or Street Art.

I therefore imported (Ctrl+I), my vectordog image. Although it’s a CorelDRAW.cdr file in vector format, it’s noproblem for Corel PHOTO-PAINT toopen or import.

Click (don’t drag to place the file), andin the Import dialog window makesure that you choose the “Transparentbackground” option before clickingOK. I imported it as a single bitmapobject. I reduced the size by dragging itto size using the sizing handles andwith the Pick tool selected, I shaped itinto place on the house facade usingthe Transformation icons in the Prop-

erty Bar and then adjusting the appro-priate handles. It’s important to get theperspective correct so it follows theperspective of the wall facade. And thenadded some textures to it as well. Inthis case I used Textures in theEffects menu bar. To this, I appliedsome opacity to make it fit better withthe wall.

I finished off the image by drawing andpainting pennants in various coloursusing the Paint tool. And once thosewere finished, the resulting photo wassuddenly far more captivating than thefirst one I took. From something quiteunexciting to something far more inter-esting.

Editor’s Note: Corel PhotoPaint is bundled with CorelDraw and is a wonderfulprogram for editing your photos or getting creative with them as this tutorialdemonstrates. If it is not your usual photo editing software do give it a try outwith this tutorial. More available on Corel’s Discovery web site.


Would you use a computer thatreceived its last security update in2014? Most of us would probably referto to the need for regular WindowsUpdates and an anti virus solution inthe face of this question and feelmoderately secure (and rightfully so).But what about Android devices?Android is runs on over one billion cell-phones, tablets and other devices andis fairly secure, if those devices arerunning a somewhat current versionwhich is not always the case.

I recently picked up a seldom usedtablet and checked which Androidversion it was running. It was Android4.4 which, by today’s standards, can beconsidered antiquated. The device wasmade by Acer, didn’t come cheap andhad been left without updates for thepast 3 years. I reckon it’s safe to saythat there will be no future updates forthis device even though I’m an opti-mist. This is not an isolated case, 500million devices have already droppedout of the update loop. How is itpossible that devices are forgotten bytheir makers only 2 years after release?Why is there no centralized updatemechanism as is present in Windows?

To better understand this issue, weneed to take a closer look at whatAndroid is and how this system is

being distributed. Android is beingdeveloped by the Open Handset Alli-ance, a consortium of 84 firmsincluding (you guessed it) Google, thelead developer, and, here’s where itgets interesting for manufacturers,completely free. By using Android,handset makers can avoid majorlicense fees although they do have topay a small fee (rumoured to be around75 cents per device) to include certainGoogle services (like the Playstore).This is acceptable even for entry-leveldevices, consequently, manufacturerstake the vanilla version of Android andadapt it to their hardware require-ments, e.g. smartphones. This is calledporting. In many cases, they will alsopre-install their own or partner softwareand load their devices up with ads.Some even try to brand their productsfurther by forking the operating systemand modifying both visuals andfeatures to win customers over.

Google themselves usually releasesecurity updates on a monthly basisand are making every effort to improvethe overall security of their system. Thenumber of malware-infected apps inthe Playstore is steadily declining andnew security mechanisms are intro-duced with every major update. Asidefrom their own software developers,

Sven Krumrey


Google also awards over 1 milliondollars each year to users that discov-ered and reported security flaws backto them, but does this really helpcustomers? Most companies worry onlyabout their sales figures and would lovefor users to “upgrade” to their latestdevices as soon as they become avail-able. Even the 2011 agreement thatmanufacturers would provide theirdevices with updates for at least 18months (a ridiculously short timespan) had little to no effect. Some of thebigger players follow this “recommen-dation” but makers of smaller andcheaper models seldom do, mainly forfinancial reasons. This is all the moreabsurd and worrisome as especiallyolder models not only contain dozens ofsecurity holes but these are also wellknown to malware authors.

Things look different in practice: Let’ssay there's a new Android update thatcontains critical security patches.Manufacturers will be notified - and

from there on, the fate of your deviceis in their hands. Companies that relyon a vanilla version of Android withoutmajor modifications will likely roll outthe update soon, provided the companyis willing. But if the system is heavilymodified, it’ll take additional testingand cost money – money not all compa-nies are willing to spend (on theircustomers). Even if a company reacts,it’ll usually take weeks, even months,for “better” companies to provideupdates for devices that will most likelystill be online in the meantime.Branded cellphones (usually modifiedto work with a particular network) area special case as updates need to passthrough their respective mobile carriersfirst. Carriers love to “forget” prepaidcellphones or at least delay the affectedupdates for months. The makers ofAndroid have no means of enforcingtimely updates through contracts orpenalties, they depend entirely on thegood will of device manufacturers.

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However, companies have little incen-tive to act fast since many customerspay little attention to the security of theirdevices and fail to assert pressure. It’sthe price and feature lists that sellproducts. As long as everything (seem-ingly) works, consumers are happy.What is unthinkable in the world ofWindows appears to be perfectly fine inthe world of Android. It’s likelyconsumers would instantly get theirpitchforks ready, if Microsoft stoppeddelivering updates and yet there havebeen Android phones that never sawan update but still received highratings. Luckily, not all companiesneglect their products in this way.Motorola, HTC and Sony tend to actquickly, Samsung always takes a littlelonger to react. Xiaomi takes a differentapproach and installs their own MIUIsystem on top of Android that isconstantly being developed and hard-ened. So even though your devicedoesn’t receive the latest version ofAndroid (the best case scenario), if it’sfrom Xiaomi, you will still be on thesafe side.

It's clear the developers behind Androiddon’t like debating these issue in

public. Who’d want to admit that,though your system is steadilyimproved, these improvements willnever make it to many customers?Only spectacular security leaks, likethe Stagefright issue that affectedAndroid's Media-Framework and leftthe system wide-open to malwareattacks, make it onto the news. That’swhy, at this very moment, more thanhalf a billion online devices have easilyexploitable and well-known securityholes. This situation will likely onlychange once customers develop anawareness for these issues and startpressuring device and software makersinto acting accordingly. We need toconvince Google to use their tremen-dous market power in the customer’sinterest, for once, and device manufac-turers to keep their products safelyusable for longer time spans. Rumourhas it that Google’s keeping a list ofblack sheep. As consumers, it would beinteresting to know who's on it.

My Notes

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