I tried the 'Gaussian Blur' effect, but found that it had little to no affect on the DRO reflections or the page buttons/section labels.  I could increase the transparency a bit to lessen the 'glare' a bit.

The background texture is just a black rectangle with a frame bevel and some grain texture with a bit of transparency.  The holes through are black shapes with inset and shadow applied.

Okay, here's a generic one too 

The only bad thing with this, is I have lost my monopoly on using RealDraw.
The pupil has excelled past the tutor.

Actually can you do me a favor, and post the rdw file. I am yet to work out how you did the nice plastic grain, and the square bevel corners ?

Super Work,

I bow down before you Scott. Ben, you will have to invite scott into the realms of the graphic gods

Regards

Dave

Scott,

This should be the default Mach screen set. I think it would improve Art's sales!

Now you have to make a tutorial for us mere mortals.

Mike

The pupil has excelled past the tutor.

No, not really, RealDraw just makes it easy.    If they would fix a few quirks and add some more alignment options, it would be even better/easier.

"Pride cometh before a fall".... I actually had to remake half of the main screen due to a 'Save As' and a file overwrite that I still can't figure out what happened.   

Heres the 'Program Run' Screen.

What kills me is that Real Draw has some limitations that I thought were fairly significant. But it was very easy because of the video tutorials and the fact that it is a simple program. I already own Paint Shop Pro. It's so much more powerful that I can't figure out how to do the insets and things that make Real Draw so useful.

My RD guest license is about to expire too.

Mike

I've been a long time CorelDraw user for artsy designs for CNC cutting (TurboCad for exacting stuff).  I've used Corel Photo-Paint some for resizing photos and some touch up, but I'd never try to tackle something like this with them.  I looked at Illustrator and PhotoShop, but just never really got into them (something about their interface).  RealDraw was just plain easy and fun, not work.

CorelDraw has about the best set of alignment tools that I've used and RD would really benefit from the same.  RD's align top, bottom, left , and right are more of a align center vertically and horizontally instead of aligning to the edge of the last selected object.  A spread align would be handy also. 

When locking down the background, you should be able to box select on top of it and also not be able to move it with the arrow keys.

I've got a few other nits to pick, but that doesn't belong here.  I should look to see if there's a place for comments/suggestions on their site.

All in all, Ive enjoyed making this screen.  I just need some more time now to finish it, but I need to make a living too.   

Glad to see I have another convert, who enjoys RD as much as I do. Have you downloaded the power pack accessories for it too ?
For those who are wondering what we are talking about.
For a $55 dollar program it surely doe deliver lots of bang for buck. http://www.mediachance.com/
I bet you haven't discovered RDs web creation, html slicing abilities yet ?
The forum is here http://www.mmbforums.com/phpbb/index.php

It looks great Scott.

Brett