Hi there! Amanda R here today.
Many girls are asking me how I shadowing my pages, I will show you how it is really easy!
Seven years ago, a friend told me that she’d miss the realistic shadows of her paper pages but she was very lazy to warp them with the warp tool in Photoshop, so she was doing it by the distort filter! And that way, Michelle Filo has changed my scrap, because I was too lazy to warp my shadows too! I use PSCS6 but you can do it in all PS versions.
1- do your shadow like always (the color I usually do mine is #2c1901 but you can use any you want)
2- create a separate layer for your shadow
3- with that layer shadow activate, go to Filter – Distort – Wave:
and use these settings:
Number of Generations: 5, Type: Sine, Wavelenght: Min.1 Max.999, Amplitude: Min.1 Max.6, Scale: Horiz. 100% Vert. 100%, Randomize: Repeat Edge Pixels
And voilá, you’ve done it!!! EASY! It’s exactly what she told me!
a. the shadow
b. the shadow distorted by the fiter
but after so many years I’ve done a little more. Sometimes I run the filter twice, maybe more time, until I have my shadow look how I want.
c. the shadow distorted by the filter 2x
Sometimes after the distortion I use the Warp tool (Edit – Tranform – Warp) just a little, but it’s rare.
You can use it for every shadow you think it’ll be cool to see warped. And I noticed that depends the position of the element in your page, the shadows will be different.
They are all three shadowing with and distorted by the same settings, but as you can see, they are subtle different.
Sometimes when I don’t like how the shadow looks, I duplicate the element, move it around the page and run the filter until I like it, then, I move back the element and shadow and place it above the original element and finally I discard it.
Sometimes after the distortion, the shadow don’t fit the direction of the rest of my elements’ shadows, so, I simply nudge it for the side I want it.
As I love actions and I do them all the time to make my life easier so, I did my ‘wave’ action. It’s here for you.
Hope you like it and if you need something you can leave a comment here.
And the papers and heart used here are from “Teen Love” kit by Lynne-Marie and it’s on sale today!
Jenifer J (rfeewjlj) says
Cool – thx for the tut!! :)
Laura O'Donnell says
thank you for sharing this!
Judy says
Looks good, as I don’t have PS but use PSE, do you think the action would work in PSE? Also the link to the action no workie. Thanks Judy.
Lynne says
Thanks so much for the tutorial!
Christa says
Very neat Andrea! Thanks for the tutorial and the action. (Those with PSE 11 and above can also use the action :) )
Hugs!!
Christa says
Amanda Resende says
thanks girls!! hey judy, try again, the link is good. and christa said it works with PSE 11 and above ;)
Judy says
Hi Amanda, I was able to download and have tried it out and it works!! Thank you so much for the tutorial and the Action.
Diane says
This is great! Thank you for sharing Amanda! <3
Dalis says
You rock. I do that with my papers (only when I remember… LOL!!!).
— Dalis
Jenni says
Thank you so much for this – I will use it daily :)
kyky says
thanks so much for the tut..and for the action ^__^
Trista says
Amanda this is a real time saver. Thanks so much!! I do something similar but with more steps, so I created an action for it, but it is not nearly as effective as yours. Thanks for sharing your tips and for the action!!
Donna Espiritu says
thank you for sharing your awesomeness, amanda! <3
Meibritt says
Thank you so much for this tutorial and the action.
KarenC says
Thank you, Amanda!! I can’t wait to try this.
heather says
You are awesome!! Thanks for sharing that!
Lisa says
This is great! Thanks so much
Dutch_Diva (Petra) says
Ohhh thanks so much for this tutorial Amanda! Dalis mentioned it today in the chat so I had to check it out as I always admire your layouts :) I always do the warp thing but this looks so much more realistic! Love it! Thank you for taking the time to take the screen shots and blogging about it! <3
Karen Poirier-Brode says
OK, this is probably dumb. I was able to make a separate layer for my shadow once and do this BUT I cannot figure out what I did to get that separate layer to do this again. What obvious step am I missing? I just cannot figure it out.
Karen Poirier-Brode says
I figured it out! Sometimes you just have to play!
Diane G says
I just saw this today and it looks very cool and so useful! I hope the link still works! Thank you!
Soco says
Wow! Thank you, Amanda!!! I just made a page using your tutorial and I LOVE how the shadows look! It’s amazing!!! Thank you very much!!! ♥
Laurel says
This is awesome. I’ve tried to download the action, and every time I do, I only get the action text. Has anyone else had a problem? Any suggestions? I’m running PSE 12 on a mac.
Judy says
Laurel, I had this same situation. What I did was I simply deleted the txt at the end, leaving the atn in place and voila it turned into a workable file. I am also running PSE 12 on a mac so this should work for you also.
Laurel says
Thanks so much, Judy! Worked like a charm :)
celeste says
i just run the wave on the shadow on a new layer though not on the paper i’m shadowing.
Pam says
Thank you so much for your tutorial. I am definitely giving it a try.
RMH84DK says
how do I make a separate layer for my shadow?
The Lilypad says
There are different ways to achieve this in different photo editing programs. What photo editing software are you using?
Lynne-Marie says
I learned something new today!! Thank-you so much for this!
ViVre says
Great tutorial. Something totally new for me! Thanks.
Natali says
Thank you so much for your tutorial.