To shadow or not to shadow

[Stephanie]

ok, so when you do your layouts, do you use a drop shadow? All the time? Some of the time? What is your basis. Inquireing minds want to know. Some say it's a must and some say its awful. What do you do?

[Lisa Dozier]

Hmm - not sure exactly stephanie what you are asking- but I will say that I think that most things need a drop shadow to add realism to elements on a digital page. The best way to know what the drop shadows should emulate is to look at real objects and study the shadows. Usually the global lighting is from the top left of an object or 120degrees. It is quite okay to change that degree- but then all the objects on the page should be with the lighting the same also. The larger the shadow the bigger the object - or heavier. I have read 2 schools of thought on the shadows- and I feel that I get a better "realistic" effect with a shadow that is a darker color of the object it is on. For example , if I am putting an element on a paper that is green, I will open up the color picker and pick a very dark saturation of that green for the shadow. The only things I usually do not shadow are things that are flat to a page- ie, something stamped, typed - things that in real life would not have any shadow to them. Sometimes it might need a slight contour or bevel and not necessarily a shadow. Manytimes I hand paint my shadows in on my elements as they could not be added later. Sorry - if this was not what you were asking or already knew- might help someone else. hugs!

It depends if I'm doing a paper-style or graphics style layout. Graphics style I don't normally shadow.

I tend to use a small shadow, maybe smaller than most, but to me it looks more realistic. And I got some settings from a really good friend who was a designer/instructor for most of my paper layers.

[Birgit Kerr]

The only time I don't use a drop shadow is for inlay type of backgrounds and blended LOs - for everything else I do use a drop shadow. They do however vary from paper to paper, LO to LO and element to element. My settings vary greatly.
In most LOs I actually use 2 drop shadows on the papers that I layer, so the top left corner doesn't blend into the background with whatever paper is behind it. For transparent objects I use the drop shadow on another layer and erase whatever would occlude the transparency but leave it around the edges.
If you look at the real objects and paper style LOs there is always some kind of shadow going on, however small. The minute you put one thing on top of another you have a shadow. So I try and simulate that as much as possible!

[MommySpice]

Ditto to what Maggie said. I use shadows on "paper style" layouts and no shadows on "graphic" layouts.