Happy Saturday everyone! I’m sneaking in with a quick and fun tip for you this weekend about creating patterned shadows in Photoshop. Have you ever wanted to add some pop to a solid colored alpha? There are several ways to do this, but one of my favorites is to add a colorful patterned drop shadow to it. How do you add patterns to drop shadows, you ask? Well, it’s even easier than you think. :)
Take a look at this sample with one of the alphas from Sweetest Thing by Little Butterfly Wings and Studio Basic Designs (on sale in the New Releases section this weekend).
Don’t you just love the pop the patterned shadow gives to the solid white alpha? This effect would look fabulous on an art journal page. :)
Steps to Create a Patterned Shadow
1. Create a drop shadow on each letter. I used these settings for my drop shadow (notice that I set the opacity to 100% for this technique):
2. Move the shadow to its own layer. In Photoshop you can do this by right clicking on the drop shadow style in the layers panel and then choosing “Create layer” in the fly out menu.
3. The next step is to warp the shadow layer. You can do this with several different tools including the warp tool, puppet warp tool, or wave distortion filter. Because the alpha was already a bit wonky, I used the wave distortion filter to warp the shadows. If you are working with a more linear alpha or element, you might want to use a tool that gives you a little bit more control over the warping function (such as the warp or puppet warp tools). You can also mix tools and filters by using the wave filter first, then adjusting it with the warp or puppet warp tools. OR you just enlarge the shadow a bit with the Transform tool, if you do not want a distorted effect.
4. Once you have the shadow warped to the shape you like, just clip a piece of patterned paper to it. I also added a very slight drop shadow to each of the White Alpha elements, using the following settings:
And that is all there is to it! Who knew that such a fun technique could be so easy?!? I hope you have fun with it on your next artful creation. :)
Until next time ~
Judie
Diane Howard says
GREAT tip. I can do this in PSE, too. I never would have thought to do a patterned shadow, but I love the look. I will DEFINITELY use this technique and SOON!
Georgia Brooks says
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