2. Magazine designers often use
drop shadows on some
elements of text to help them
stand out from the page.
It is a simple technique which
can add a nice finishing touch
to your work.
Be careful not to over do
it, often subtle is best.
3. To create a drop shadow, first select the text layer that you want to add it to.
4. Then double click in the blank space at
the right hand side of the layer in the
layers pallet.
5. This will bring up the layer styles pallet. There are lot of options in here but we will
concentrate on drop shadow for now.
6. Click on the option on the left hand side which says drop shadow. Make sure
the box on the left is ticked and that the option is now highlighted in blue.
7.
8. There are lots of
options to adjust.
Opacity
Angle
Distance
Spread
Size
Colour
You should be able to see the changes you make instantly on your page.
It is worth experimenting with different settings but often the default one provides a
nice, subtle shadow to start with.
9. I find changing the Blend Mode to ‘Normal’ gives a stronger shadow. If it’s too strong
you could reduce the opacity.
You can change the colour of the shadow by clicking on this box. It will bring
up the colour pallet.
10. To help make sure your text or images are lined up with each other, Photoshop has
some useful guides which can help you.
11. Go to the ‘View’
drop down menu
Select ‘Rulers’
12. You should now
see rulers at the
top and to the
left of your work
area.
If you click with the
left mouse button in
the wide part of the
ruler and then drag
across or down, you
will see a guideline
appear.
This straight line will
help you organise
you page but will
not appear on the
final work.
13. Here you can see two guides
(yellow) which help organise
different cover lines.
You can add as many as you
want to the page.
You can toggle them on and off
using the shortcut Ctrl+’
This is a quick way of making
them disappear when you
want to look at your work
without them.
Pressing it again will make
them reappear.
14. Photoshop is a powerful photograph
editing tool.
Whilst it can be used to create all sorts of
interesting effects, often it is best used for
simple but effective changes to your
photographs which will make them stand
out and improve the overall look.
One of these tools is the levels tool.
It improves the contrast of the image and
can improve a dull by making the blacks
black and the whites white.
15. To use the levels tool:
Open the photograph
you want to change
OR
Select the layer that
the photograph is on
THEN
Go to Image
Adjustments
Levels
16. The levels tool shows you a graphical representation of your image. This is called a
histogram.
17. It also has some small sliders that you can adjust.
Moving the black triangle will make the shadows in your image more dark and rich.
18. It also has some small sliders that you can adjust.
Moving the white triangle will make the highlights in your image more stand out more.
19. The black triangle has been moved to the right in this image.
You can create quite striking effects doing this but be careful not to over do it.
Sometimes only a small adjustment is needed
20. The white triangle has been moved to the left in this image.
In this case a large adjustment has been made but this is not always needed.
Be careful not to go too far or else the lighter areas of your image will turn totally white
and this does not look good.
21. Here you can see the difference between the pictures.
The picture on the right is the original image
The picture on the left has had it’s levels adjusted.
This simple adjustment will usually improve the look of most photographs.
22. Another useful
tool is the
Saturation tool.
It can change
the amount of
colour in and
image
23. Moving the slider to
the right increases the
amount of colour in
the image.
Be careful with this, it
is easy to make the
image look too
saturated.
Moving the image to
the left reduces the
colour.
This is can desaturate
your image all the way
down to black and
white.
