I am wild about Katie Pertiet's Drop Shadows Styles collections. I use them on all my digital projects to create realistic dimension with glows and shadows. The styles are super easy to apply in both Photoshop and PSE and are fully customizable. Once applied, styles can be tweaked with the options in the Layer Styles dialog box, but can also be repositioned by dragging them while the Styles dialog box is open. Here's how:
Have fun giving your digital projects extra dimension using this simple trick. Your pages will take on a more realistic look with multilevel shadowing that mimics the effect achieved with traditional crafting.
- Begin by installing a layer style in Photoshop or PSE.
- Open a layered document, select a layer and apply a drop shadow style via the styles panel.
- You'll notice that a small fx icon appears on the right side of the layer when you are viewing the layer in the Layers panel.
- Double click the fx icon to open the styles dialog box. Click on the drop shadow tab. You can adjust the sliders to make changes to the layer style, but did you know that you can actually move the shadow while this box is open? Just move your cursor to the open document and click/drag the shadow. This is a quick way to add more dimension to one element on your page, making it appear to be mounted higher than the other embellishments.
- When you are satisfied, click OK.
- You can easily delete the layer style by dragging the fx icon to the trash bin at the top or bottom of the layers panel if you want to try a different look.
Have fun giving your digital projects extra dimension using this simple trick. Your pages will take on a more realistic look with multilevel shadowing that mimics the effect achieved with traditional crafting.