Beginner' Photo Effects Tutorials

Layer effects can be an effective way to add shadows or glows to your images - but it certainly helps to understand what they are.

I have prepared a picture of a flower, already cut out one a simple background to illustrate the layer effects

First of all - where do you find layer effects? In your layers palette there is a button that says fx. Clicking on this will give you a menu of different effects. I will be focusing on the top ones.

Drop shadow

Drop shadow will add a shadow underneath your image which you can adjust for opacity (darkness), size and location/angle

When I click on this effect this is the default I get:

Not terribly interesting but what if I made some alterations to the settings?

Changing the distance to 10 pixels I can see a difference. THe shadow is larger and intense black, as if the lighting was harsh.

This time I changed the size to 10 pixels which made the shadow softer and perhaps more natural

This time I changed the lighting angle and I can see the shadow is in a different place.

What if I combine settings? Now the distance is 10, the size is 21 and the lighting angle is different

Obviously experimenting is the best way to find what's right for you. Always consider if the sun is strong or diffuse, and looks at other shadows before you decide what settings to use.

Inner shadow

This will add a shadow inside the edges of the image. It can help to give some three dimensionality to your image, to make it appear under something else. It can also be adjusted much in the was the drop shadow was.

Here is the same flower with the default settings:

It doesn't look like much right now but I can change the settings.

(yes I was watching Star Trek Voyager)

With some new settings here is what I get: (again experimentation is in order)

Notice that although I've boosted the size and distance I've decreased the opacity. Now I have a flower that appears more three dimensional and leap out of the page

inner glow

Pretty much the same as inner shadow but with a highlight instead.

This can be helpful when pasting an image onto a well lit bright background. It will help the edges blend more with the surroundings.

This is the image with default settings:

Note that the default color will always be yellow. It's a good idea to change the color to something off white that is more closely related to the color of your image (in this case lavender). SO here is the image with some adjustments both in color and size:

Outer glow

Exactly what it sounds like. The default settings don't show much:

But with some adjustments and a change of color:

Bevel and emboss

This is one of the more useful ones. It makes it look as if light is coming in at an angle and adds a shadow on one side and a highlight on the other. You can control both the angle and depth on this one to make it look at if the light is coming from wherever you want - as deep as you want.

The default settings give me this:

Obviously the possibilities are great. I'm going to change both size and color:

Once you've clicked ok on any of these, you can alter them again by click on the fx button and choosing which effects you want to alter. You can also turn on and off effects by clicking on the eyeball in the layer. Mixing different effects is also possible, you can use as many as you like.

Here's mine after playing with it and turning some on and off:

It's up to you how set the layer effects and which ones you use, but they are great tools for adding some depth to your image!

Have fun!