There are many sites that offer a broad range of clipart, either for sale or for free. But sometimes, you just want to use your own creations.
In this article, we’ll be teaching you how to make your own coffee clipart using PowerPoint and Photoshop.
What is Coffee Clipart?
In graphic arts, coffee clipart refers to pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clipart is used extensively – it comes in many forms, both printed and electronic.
However, most clipart today is created, used, and distributed in electronic form. Since its creation, clipart has evolved to include a broad range of illustration styles, file formats, content, and licensing restrictions.
Generally, clipart is composed of illustrations – created by computer software or by hand – and does not include stock photography.
A Brief History
The term ‘clipart’ originated through the practice of physically cutting images from pre-existing printed works which were then used in other publishing projects.
Before the use of computers in desktop publishing, clipart was used through a process known as paste-up. Many clipart images of this era qualified as line art. In this process, clipart images were cut out by hand, then attached via adhesives to a board representing a scale size of the finished printed work.
Since the 1990s, virtually all publishers have replaced the paste-up process with desktop publishing. In 1986, the first vector-based clipart disc was released by Composite, a small desktop publishing company. The black-and-white art was carefully created by Rick Siegfried using MacDraw.
This same year, Adobe Systems introduced Adobe Illustrator for Macintosh.
The mid-1990s ushered in more innovation in the clipart industry. T/Maker, whose success was built upon selling high-quality clipart packages of about 200 images, started to get interested in the volume clipart market.
In 1995, T/Maker became the exclusive publisher of over 500,000 copyright-free images which was, at the time, one of the world’s largest clipart libraries.
By the early 2000s, the World Wide Web started to gain popularity as a retail software distribution channel. Numerous companies started to license clipart through searchable libraries online. Because of the Web, you can now purchase clipart as individual images, through retail channels as packaged bundles of images, and subscriptions to entire libraries.
Image Rights
All clipart usage is governed by the terms of individual usage rights and copyrights. The copyright and usage rights of a clipart image are important to understand so that the image is used in a legal way. The three most common categories of image rights are public domain, rights managed, and royalty-free.Â
How to Make Clipart Using PowerPoint
Want to create your own custom coffee clipart? You can do it using PowerPoint! By using the ‘save as picture’ command on an object (or group of objects), you can create a clipart that can be stored on your computer and used in other PowerPoint presentations,
Word documents, blogs, websites, etc. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you make a clipart using PowerPoint. In the example below, we’ll be creating an iced coffee clipart.
- Select object(s) on the slide
- Right-click on the selected objects then select ‘Save as Picture on the flyout menu
- Give the file a name. Then, navigate to the place in your computer where you want to store the clipart and select the file type.
- As you can see, you can choose from many different file formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and EMF (Enhanced Windows Metafile). If you want your image to have a transparent background, you should choose PNG. If you want the ability to reformat the shape, size, and color of the image, you should go with WMF.
The ‘Save as Picture’ command is similar to the ‘Paste as Picture’ command in that it enables you to create graphics out of objects on a slide. But with ‘Save as Picture’, the image that you create is available for use again and again.
Note that if you add text to the image, both commands will render that text uneditable. So, be sure to keep a copy of your original text and images in case you have to edit something down the road.
How to Make Clipart Using Photoshop
Photoshop is a photo editing software that does almost anything related to digital images – and creating clipart in it is a very simple task. To create your own coffee clipart, you first need to have the Photoshop application installed on your PC (any version of Photoshop will do).
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you make clipart using Photoshop.
- Open Photoshop and from the menu bar at the top-left corner, press ‘File’. Then, choose ‘Open’ and choose the image for which you want to create the clipart. Or, you can simply drag the image into Photoshop.
- Choose the ‘Quick Selection Tool’ from the toolbar on the left side to select the borders of your image. You can also select the ‘Magic Wand Tool’ if your image has a plain background.
- Select the image along the boundary using the above tools. After selection, switch to the ‘Move’ tool or you can just press ‘V’ on your keyboard to switch.
- Now, you can find the cursor with scissors when you hover your mouse over your selection. Now, you can cut or copy your selection by pressing ‘Ctrl + X’ or ‘Ctrl + C’.
- From the menu bar on the top-left corner, go to ‘File’ and open ‘New’, or you can press ‘Ctrl + N. Then, choose the background as ‘Transparent’.
- Paste your cut or copied image by pressing ‘Ctrl + V’.
- Save your image in ‘.png’ format by going to ‘File’ and choosing ‘Save As’.
Note: The image format should be ‘.png’, otherwise the transparency of the image will be lost. And that’s how you create coffee clipart png through Photoshop!
The Bottom Line
There are many sites that offer a broad range of clipart, but if you want to create your own coffee clipart, there are various ways to do so.
Whether you want to create hot coffee clipart in black and white, iced coffee clipart, a cup of coffee clipart, or some other clipart, you can easily do so using PowerPoint or Photoshop. We hope this guide helps you create a coffee clipart with ease!
