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Edit your shadow
Let's face it, automatic settings always run down the middle of the
road. Nothing too terrible, but nothing exciting either. To add real
life to your pages, you will have to step off that middle road into
customized shadows.
I have included a sample at the left that shows a custom shadow. I
created a light shadow in the normal way with a rectangular selection.
Once created, the shadow becomes part of the layer, and you can edit
it as you would any other graphic.
When you are working with custom shadows, it is a good idea to save
your selections. Choose Selections>Save to Alpha Channel to save
the selection with the document or Selections>Save to Disk to have
access to that selection from any Paint Shop Pro document. See Paint
Shop Pro Selections for full, step-by-step instructions for saving
selections.
You will usually want to invert your selection, since you want to protect
the object from editing as you work on your shadow. Choose Selections>Invert.
The inverted selection is shown for this example (in a reduced size)
at the left.
Create a new layer. Using the Paint Brush or Airbrush, with a white
fill and a low opacity value (under 20%), paint over the shadow at the
left and top edges until they nearly disappear. As you work, blend the
edges into the area that will remain.
You can also use this selection to add other effects to your shadow.
The original object is protected. Try adding noise, or blurring more
if the shadow is not as smooth as you desire.
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