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This light blue pill has been shown in a staggering amount of TV footage (usually showing blue diamond-shaped pills being fed through a pill-counting machine). I will not discuss the product here, but this diamond-shaped blue pill is probably familiar to most TV viewers in the U.S. This pill image was created in about 10 minutes (allow 20 for first time through steps) using Painter version 5 for the Mac. Describing the steps required a fair amount of text, however, so be ready to scroll down a lot.
Create a new blank white image with a 4:3 aspect ratio (360x270 pixels).
Building a rounded diamond is the toughest part of making this image.
In the Art Materials palette, set the current color to be a 50% gray (H:any, S:0%, V:50%).
Select a round (72x72 pixel) area somewhere in the middle of the image area.
From the Effects menu, choose Fill. In the Fill dialog, set Fill With option to Current Color, set Opacity to 100%, and click OK.
Under the Edit menu, choose cut (Command-X). You may see some gray stuff left behind, but it's OK to just leave it for now.
To make the 4 corners, paste (Edit menu or Command-V) to place a gray circle in the exact center of the image. Hold down the left arrow key to move the circle close the the left edge of the image area, then tap the left arrow key until circle is positioned 1 pixel away from the left edge (you can zoom to see more clearly). Paste again to place another gray circle at the center of the image. Using the right arrow key, move circle to the right edge of the image. Paste and move circles to the top center and bottom center of the image using arrow keys.
The angled edges are a bit tricky. Make a rectangular selection in the middle of the image (so that no corners project outside of the future pill boundaries), about 175x50 pixels (Control palette shows size of selection while dragging). Fill the rectangular selection with the current gray color, and then Copy the selection. In the Effects menu, under Orientation, choose Rotate. Set angle to 34.5 degrees, and click OK. Then zoom to 200% and use the arrow keys to move the gray rectangle so it smoothly joins the top and left rounded corners without sticking out. In the Objects palette, choose Drop All from the Floater menu so that the gray shapes become part of the image instead of objects.
Now duplicate and mirror the first edge to create the other three. Use the rectangular selection tool to select the top left quarter of the image. Copy the selection and paste it once (note that if you did not Drop the gray objects in the last step, the pasted object would be empty, because floating objects are ignored by the area selection tools). From the Effects menu, under Orientation, choose Flip Vertical. Then use the arrow keys to place the bottom left edge of the pill to blend smoothly with the left and bottom rounded corners. Paste again, use Flip Horizontal, and place the top right pill edge. Finally, Paste again, flip the edge horizontally and vertically, and place the edge. Again, in the Objects palette, choose Drop All from the Floater menu.
There may be some fuzzy edges between shapes that are not quite gray, and the middle of the pill is still white. We will fix this now using Fill (instead of the paint bucket, which can leave fuzzy white edges within the pill area). Using the Magic Wand tool, click in the white area of the image (if you only get one quarter of the white area, go to the Canvas menu, Choose Canvas Size, and add 1 or 2 pixels to all 4 edges, then click OK and try the Magic Wand again; if the selection of white leaves some holes, use the Controls palette to increase the wand tolerance to 10 and then try again). Under the Select menu, choose Invert. Under the Effects menu, choose Fill. In the Fill dialog, set Fill With option to Current Color, set Opacity to 100%, and click OK. Leave the pill area selected.
In the Effects menu, under Surface Control, choose Apply Surface Texture. Set the Using option to Image Luminance using the drop-down list. Set Softness, Amount, and Picture sliders to maximum values, set shine and reflection sliders to 0, and keep other settings at defaults. Click OK to give your pill depth.
Select the text tool, then go into the Controls palette to set the text to a 72 point Times New Roman Italic. In the Art Materials palette, check that the current color is still set to 50% gray. Click anywhere in the left of the image area and type "Pfizer" into the image. In the Objects palette, click the button under the Floater menu to show the floater list. All of the floaters on the list (one for each letter) should be highlighted. Click the Group button and then the Collapse button (if a dialog appears, confirm that you want to do this). Now cut and paste the floater to place it in the center of the image (in Painter, Paste places the contents of the clipboard in the center of your image).
Check to make sure the text object (floater) is still selected. In the Effects menu, under Surface Control, choose Apply Surface Texture. Set Softness value to 4 or 5, leave other settings as they were in the previous step, and then click OK.
In the Objects palette, choose Drop All from the Floater menu to combine the text with the rest of the image. The text will no longer be a separate object. You should now have a grayscale version of the completed pill.
Tint the pill blue by choosing a sky blue color with hue (H) at 85%, saturation (S) at 100%, and value (V, equivalent to brightness) at 50% (this is at the right corner of the triangular color selection area) in the Art Materials palette. Make sure the pill shape is still selected (if necessary, choose Reselect from the Select menu to reselect the pill shape). Then choose Fill from the Effects menu. After setting the Opacity to about 50% or slightly less, select fill with Current Color and click OK. That's it.
You could also add a drop shadow if desired. Just expand the white space around the pill first by choosing Canvas Size under the Canvas menu, then copy (with pill still selected) and paste to create a selected object, which the Drop Shadow effect requires in order to work. With object selected, choose Create Drop Shadow under Objects in the Effects menu. Then go to the Objects palette, and choose Drop All from the Floater menu to merge all objects (the pill and the shadow) into the image.