Using layer effects |
With the text
layer selected right click on it and choose Effects
from the pop up menu. A small
dialog box
appears on the screen. From the top drop down box you can choose
which types of
effects to
use. Below are settings for the effects and an option to choose
colour. I won't go into
what the
different values are set to, only the ones I use. So if I don't
mention a setting (value) I
simply haven't
used it.
Note:
In order to apply any effects you must first check the box labeled Use
The first
effect you will se is Shadow.
This is a useful effect since it gives the text some depth.
For this
example I've chosen a gray shadow and set the spacing to 3 pixels.
Now the image looks
like this:
|
The next
effect we are going to use is Inner glow.
Choose it from the drop down list. As you can
see there is
almost the same options to choose from here except for the two radio
buttons down
below. Center
simply means that the effect will be applied to the center part of
the image, and Edge
that it will
be applied to the edges. Click in the Center radio button and then
choose Difference
from the drop
down list above (next to the colour rectangle). Now the image will
look like this:
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Not too bad,
huh? Still, we are not quite satisfied yet. After all, we haven't
used the perhaps most
interesting
effect yet. Go to the drop down list and this time choose Bevels
and emboss. This
dialog box
looks quite different. It is bigger and have more options. As you can
see there is two
drop down
lists for choosing styles: One for highlight and one for shadow.
Below these
are a drop down menu for choosing beveling and emboss. Click on it
and choose
Inner bevel.
Then go the Highlight
style menu and set it to Colour shading.
Next go the
Shadow
style menu and set it to Soft light.
And finally go down to the bottom box labeled Blur.
This isn't a
drop down menu. A click on the arrow button opens a slider (this is
the same for all the
small drop
down look-alike boxes). Adjust the slider until the amount of blur is
10 pixels. Then our
image looks
like this:
|
Maybe not too
much a difference but we will settle for this for now. Like I said
earlier this is just a
warm up :) Of
course, you can choose different settings if you like. Feel free to
experiment! And
remember that
everything you do (practically) can be undone simply by selecting it
in the Events
palette and
clicking the trash can. Just keep one thing in mind though:
Everything below the event
you delete
will be deleted with it |