drop shadow tutorial

Thanks for all the comments on my last post, mucho appreciated. :) Di, the papers on that layout are from Jillibean Soup, and the title is done with the new 'nutmeg' Thickers from AC.

I get a lot of people emailing me, asking me how I do the drop shadow effect on my layouts. If you're like me, and scrap mainly on white cardstock, your layouts will look much better defined if you add this simple trick. There's really only a few steps to it, and I think it makes a world of difference. I'm sure there's a better and faster way to do it, but I'm going to attempt to describe how I do it on my ancient Photoshop Elements program. I have version 5.5, but last May I downloaded PSE 7 trial version for the yearbook I did, and the same actions are there, just maybe not in the exact place. I really need to upgrade soon. I liked PSE 7 and found it really easy to use, so I may go that route and just upgrade online.

First, here's my original scanned layout. You can see how it looks blah and is totally floating on the white screen.

I'll omit the steps where I fix up the colours, sharpen & crop it, etc. I do that first, and then once I'm satisfied with how everything looks, I do the drop shadow last.

1. With your layout open on the screen, go to file \ new\ blank file. Open a document that is an inch or more bigger than your layout ( in this case, I made my blank file 12 x 9.5, and at 200dpi, since that's what my layout scanned at).

Once you have your blank file created, go to layer\new layer to create a new layer for your layout.

drag your layout onto the opened canvas.

Next, with the layout layer highlighted, go to your artwork and effects pallette on the right of the screen. Choose 'layer styles', and you should see a variety of drop shadow effects. Click on the one you like best, and then just drag it over to your layout and drop it on. You need to make sure you have this layer highlighted, or else it isn't going to work.

Once that's done, flatten the layers ( Layer\ flatten image), and crop your image if necessary.

The last step is saving for web, and you're done!

Here's what my final version looks like:

I used a different drop shadow on this than what I showed here, but the steps are the same. Much better!

Clear as mud, right? Let me know if this helps you and if you're unsure of any of the steps, just email me and I'll try to help. There's also a free action you can download and install if you're still having problems, but I prefer to do it this way.

Good luck!