How Do I Edit Shadows?

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In principle, all our items are ready to use out of the box and contain perfect shadows positioned at 60 degree angle (according to original shooting conditions). However, to allow to to be creative, we included customization functionality to all shadows.

Our items include dynamic shadows, meaning you can change them by direction, opacity, size etc. Often shadows are constructed from thinner to wider, but sometimes (like in case of flat items) you only have 1 shadow layer which is sufficient. None of my items have more than 3 shadows, because I didn’t find it necessary. In rare instances a shadow is not a separate layer, but a layer style attached directly to an object’s layer. This saves some space on computer.

Removing shadows

To non-destructively remove a shadow, just switch off the visibility of a shadow’s layer by turning off the eye icon next to layer. You could do that either for the whole “Shadows” group (will affect all item’s shadows), or just selectively on each shadow layer.

Dimming shadows

To reduce a shadow, you could try to reduce opacity of the shadow’s layer in Layers panel.

Changing look of the shadow

  • Locate the sub-layer or sub-group called “Shadow(s)”.
  • Double-click on each of shadow layers to open Layer Style dialog.
  • Click on Drop Shadow option to enter shadow editing dialog.
  • Change Opacity, Angle, Distance, Spread, Size and other features to your liking.
  • Keep Global Light feature turned on, below you will read why.

drop-shadow

Global Light

In any given document / scene the items would contain shadows attached to them. The look of a shadow is defined, among other things, by features like Angle and Altitude.

Global Light is a very useful feature in Photoshop that will align all shadows in your scene to the same direction and angle as if they come from the same light source. It adds more realistic look and comfortable perception of a scene.

  • Go to Layer > Layer Style > Global Light.
  • Choose the desired Angle and Altitude values. Check the Preview box to preview the changes.
  • Click OK when done.

Note

Global Light will not work directly on smart objects, but only on their contents (select smart object item layer, right-click mouse and choose Edit Contents). If you decide to work with items groups as smart objects, you may wan to first edit their contents, then drag-and-drop the group into your scene, delete the original smart object from the scene, and then, when all items are groups and not smart objects, you can apply Global Light to the scene.