Advanced Shadows

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Advanced Shadows; Paint Shop Pro
Topic Started: Aug 6 2005, 01:28 PM (352 Views)
Zeerus	Aug 6 2005, 01:28 PM Post #1
Spank My Monkey! Posts: 1,596 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: July 31, 2004	Advanced Shadows In this tutorial you will learn how to create a nice, smooth drop shadow in Paint Shop Pro 8 and higher. These drop shadows consist of multiple steps and will give you a drop shadow that slowly fades into the background instead of abruptly stopping at the default black. The first thing you need to do is create a new document. Any size is fine. In this tutorial I started with a 400 by 400 document just in case I needed any extra space. That is always a good idea when working with graphics because it allows for expansion if needed. Now you need to grab a shape from the Preset Shape Tool. If you're using a Windows based computer you can just hit the letter P on your keyboard and it will select the tool for you. It may be the same for a Mac computer also. Now select your shape and draw it out on the blank document. Now open up or bring your mouse to the layer palette. There should be a new vector layer with an arrow next to it. Click the arrow and a second bar should show up with the shape properties. Double click on that and the properties should pop up. Now if the stroke controls the color of the vector, then change that color so the vector is the same color of the background. Do the same thing if the fill controls the vector color. Now that you have the general settings set up it is time to start adding the shadow to your image. Move your mouse up to the main menu and click on Effects --> 3D Effects --> Drop Shadow. Make the blur 2.00 and the opacity 70. Now make the shadow a dark color or a color that can fade from darker to a lighter color. White will not work for this type of shadow. The first shadow should be the darkest color. In this case I used black. Add the first shadow so the setting read Vertical 1, Horizontal 0. Then add another shadow with the setting Vertical -1, Horizontal 0. Then Vertical 0, Horizontal 1. Then Vertical 0, Horizontal -1. Now that this step is complete it is time to start the fading. Add another shadow using a medium color, like the medium gray we used in this demonstration. Add that shadow using the same settings mentioned in steps above, only replace the 1 and -1 with 2 and -2 for the horizontal and vertical settings. Finally, repeat the shadow using the lightest color replacing 2 and -2 with 3 and -3. For this final color we used light gray. I hope this tutorial is helpful in creating a smooth drop shadow that blends better and adds an extra touch of professionalism to your graphics. Adding this will also help to draw attention towards the object you are adding the shadow to.



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