Shadow Technique - Layered Paper

Discussion in 'Learning Pad' started by Karen, Feb 20, 2014.

  1. Karen

    Karen Wiggle it, just a little bit!

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    Jun 28, 2008
    Shadow Technique – Layered Paper

    When I discovered digital scrapbooking one of the things that I loved the most was that you could add drop shadows to pieces of paper and elements to make them look more realistic. Photoshop does a good job with the drop shadow styles, but sometime I like to do a little extra with my shadows to make a page even more like a traditional paper layout. One simple trick you can use is to create multiple shadows on a piece of paper depending on what is directly below that piece of paper. For instance, if you stack up three pieces of paper, the top piece of paper will have a small shadow on the layer directly below it, but if part of that top piece of paper hangs over the 2nd piece of paper, the shadow will be slightly larger under the overhanging part.

    To mimic this shadowing effect, I create two shadows for the top piece of paper and then erase parts of each shadow layer depending on what’s underneath.

    1. The first step is to create two different depths of shadow. I am doing this for the top piece of orange paper. Start with a small drop shadow (I'm using Distance 6px, 0% Spread and Size of 12 px). Then you will need to create a separate layer for your shadow. In Photoshop you expand the styles used on your layer by clicking the little triangle down arrow and then right click on the Drop Shadow Layer, and click Create New Layer. This puts the shadow for the orange piece of paper on a separate layer.

    [​IMG]

    2. Repeat this process with a larger drop shadow (on the same orange piece of paper). I'm using Distance of 14px, 0% Spread and Size of 19px.

    3. Now you should have your paper layer and 2 drop shadows on two separate layers. It will look weird (extra dark shadow) until we do some erasing. Add a layer mask to both shadow layers.

    4. CTRL-click on the layer directly below the paper you have two shadows for, in my example, I'm CTRL-clicking on the yellow banner piece of paper. This will put marching ants around the yellow banner paper shape. Click on the mask of the larger shadow and hit delete. (Make sure you background color is black) You want to remove the larger shadow over the yellow banner paper.

    5. With the marching ants still around the yellow paper shape, hit: CTRL-SHIFT-I. This does an inverse selection. Now click on the layer mask for the smaller shadow layer and hit delete.

    The change is subtle, but really can make a huge difference in the realistic look of your shadows. Here is my page before and after I played with the shadows. I added the two layers of shadows to the gray journaling piece, the orange paper, the book mark and both of my pictures:

    BEFORE:
    [​IMG]

    AFTER:
    [​IMG]


    BEFORE:
    [​IMG]

    AFTER:
    [​IMG]


    Note: I am aware that many people scrap with programs other than Photoshop. If that is the case I want you to use a soft edged brush with lowered opacity to create two different depth shadows under at least one element on your page. I used this technique on this page where the string threads through the date tag.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    PSE Users HERE is a thread discussing how to add drop shadows to a separate layer.
     
  2. KellyM

    KellyM Kickin' cancer's butt!

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    Nov 6, 2010
    Thanks for the tutorial. Off to try it out ...
     

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