Do you like to play in the shadows? Do you get
bored with Photoshop default shadows? Know how
to play with them? Then join me on the darker
side of things for the next couple of months. No
you don’t need to know how the light falls, etc.
This is just for fun!
I love to play about with shadows, so I am going
to give you a few hints on how to change things
up a little and have your digital layouts
looking full of depth and shadows! This is
mostly geared up for those with PSE5 (and
upwards) and PSCS versions, as that is what I
know best.
So open up your element in PS and plonk it down
on top of some paper or colored background. I
find paper best, especially textured paper as
this mimics doing a digi layout (Figure
1).
I am adding a drop shadow to the heart, with
default settings of angle at 120 degrees,
distance and size at 5 pixels and the spread at
0%. You can see how this looks at 100% viewing.
I decided I want to do away with such a
harsh-colored shadow. Click on the thumbnail of
color that you can see on the drop shadow box
and you will get a color selection panel shown
based on your shadow colour (Figure 2).
Move your mouse or pen tool to the background
beneath the element you want to add the shadow
to and you will see the colour selection
dropper. Click and you can then choose your
shadow color, go for a darkish color on the left
side (the greys to blacks) and select OK. This
will change the tone of your shadow and it will
blend in more naturally.
To alter things a little more and make your
element look as though it has been stuck onto
the background paper, change the distance,
spread and size sliders and the angle. I used
an angle of 78 degrees and then played with the
sliders until I had a combination that went
around the element and showed a slight shadow
around the majority of it (Figure 3).
With PSE 5, things are a little different.
You have no spread or blend mode, but you can do
exactly the same thing with the color and angle,
distance and size of the shadow (Figure 4).
So off and play in the shadows. Next time
we will see how to make false shadows - a little
trickery for you!
