Web Design   Web Hosting   Photoshop Tutorials   Free Fonts   Drawing Basics  
 
Photoshop Tutorials - Free Fonts
[Home]
[Sitemap]
[Blog]
[Read Me First!]
[Photoshop Tutorials]
[Canvas Tutorials]
[Corel Tutorials]
[Quark Tutorials]
[Illustrator Tutorials]
[FreeHand Tutorials]
[Drawing Basics]
[Porting Files]
[Free Fonts]
[Font Tutorials]
[Misc Tutorials]
[Animation]
[About Mike]
[Gallery]
[Related Sites]

 
    Intermediate  
 
  Quick and Easy Gel Buttons in Canvas™ 7
Part Twelve

Creating Shadows For The Buttons

You can add a drop shadow to the gel button as a finishing touch. Canvas's built-in shadow effect is perfect for this job. In the real world the button would be either transparent or translucent, depending on the amount of opacity of the button. Some light would pass through the button and the shadow would be cast in the color of the button. In our examples the color of the button would be the color of "Object 2", but it would be made in the shape of "Object 1". Recall that the button's clipping path is an exact duplicate of this object. Following is a step-by-step example.

43. In a manner similar to a previous step, select "Object 2" from the middle of the stack. Bring up the Color manager and jot down the color of the fill ink. In this case, the button is using the RGB color model. The RGB values of the purple ink is 142, 0, 142 respectively.

44. Click away to deselect everything, then select the bottom object ("Object 1") in a manner described in a previous step. Click Effects > Shadow. This will bring up the Shadow dialog. Click the "Shadow color" button (circled below top) to access the Inks pop-up palette. Press the "Custom" button, choose the "RGB Bars" then enter the values from the previous step. That will set the color of the shadow. We want the shadow to be a paint object so select "Image" for the "Shadow type" (circled below). In this example we want the shadow to be offset 1 point to the right and 6 points downwards. Give the shadow a Gaussian Blur radius of 4 pixels and a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. All the settings described are circled in the screen shot below. Click "Apply" to see the shadow under the button. When you are satisfied with the results, click "OK" to close the dialog.

45. Next, bring up the Transparency palette and set the opacity of the shadow object to 70%. You can vary this a bit. Use an opacity that is appealing to you.

46. Shown below are examples of different colored buttons with drop shadows using the described technique to create them.

 
 

Previous   Home    Contact Mike   Related Sites    Next

Copyright © 1998-2016 Mike Doughty, All Rights Reserved Legal Notices
Page Last Revised: October 26, 2016
Privacy Policy