Lesson B: Layer Styles

With layer styles, a layer can look dimensional, image-filled, or many other magical things. These pages will constitute your blind date with this feature. As always, you can develop a deeper relationship in the Compendium. In this case, “Layer Styles & Effects” (page 192).

• If necessary, reopen the document from the last lesson.

Drop Shadow and Bevel & Emboss

These are the core effects that constitute a layer style.

• Highlight the type layer.
• Click on the fx icon at the bottom of the Layers panel (Get it? “F-X” = “effects”) and choose Drop Shadow. Note that it’s highlighted at the bottom of the resulting dialog box.

Of the many attributes of a shadow that can be edited, I’d like to focus on the four most important ones: Opacity, Angle, Distance, and so-called Size.

• Move your cursor into the image to discover it’s the Move tool cursor. Press and drag on the shadow to move it where you’d like it. I moved mine down and right.

You just adjusted two of those four attributes! As you drag the shadow, the Distance and Angle change. The Distance is how far from the layer the shadow is, and the Angle is that of the light casting the shadow.

• Back in the Layer Style dialog box, adjust the Size. You’ll see the shadow get more (or less) blurry.
• Finally, adjust the Opacity. I suggest starting at 0 and going up until it’s subtle but useful.
• Click on Blending Options in the list on the left to see those controls. Our old friend the intuitive Opacity slider is here. But I’d like you to experiment with the Fill Opacity slider.
• Slide Fill Opacity to 0. The layer’s actual content disappears, leaving our effects (actually, effect, the drop shadow) intact. A little bit of substance would be nice: set it to 20%.

Now to give our ghostly text some depth.

• Click on Bevel & Emboss (the words, not just the checkbox). The settings we need are shown below, as well as generalities about the Layer Style dialog box.

• At the top, set Technique to Chisel Hard. This looks crisp and not as blobby as it started.
• To really make the letters shine, set the Highlight Mode (near the bottom) to Color Dodge and about 85% Opacity.
• Similarly, set the Shadow Mode to Color Burn and about 50% Opacity. Now the letters are well-defined, despite remaining translucent in places.
• So that this look can be applied to other layers in the future, click the New Style… button.
• I went with the name “transparent aluminum.” I disabled Add to my current library. You may leave that checked so you can access this style on any device on which you log in to your Adobe ID. Click OK in the New Style dialog and again in the Layer Style dialog box.
• Access the Styles panel (Window > Styles will summon it). Like the other preset panels we’ve seen, to see all the presets here, hold down ⌘/Ctrl and click on a small arrow to the left of a set’s name. This exposes the contents of all the sets (folders).

Your new style is at the bottom of the list. Also, in the Layers panel, just under the type layer to which you applied your style, you’ll find the “ingredients.” Double-clicking those will let you edit their settings. The eye icons let you hide or show each effect.

• Choose a different style from the Styles panel. Note its ingredients in the Layers panel. You can edit those too. Clicking your style’s thumbnail in the Styles panel restores it.