Shhh… The secret is shadows

One of the faults people often find in digital scrapbooking is that the layouts can look flat without 3D elements attached to them. This, however, does not have to be the case. The easiest way to make your layouts “pop” and look more 3D is to use shadows. Try to picture your layout if it were made with paper scrapping. What things would stick off the page some? Actually everything except the background paper would be a bit raised, just different things to different degrees. The photo might be just a millimeter up off the page if glued, but it might sit higher if attached with photo corners or foam tape. A loosely attached tag might sit even further up off the page. When the light hits a page like this, each paper and element has the potential to create a shadow. Usually it is so small that we don’t consciously notice it. However, we do notice when it is missing from a digital page.

The trick of course is to play around with shadows on your page to make them look natural if you want a realistic looking page. Select papers and elements one at a time and play around with different types and different amounts of shadows. The larger the shadow you add the higher off the page it will look like it is sitting. The other thing to keep in mind is that for a realistic look, all of the shadows should be going in the same direction. If you are planning to keep your layout in digital format, work for the best look on your screen. If you are planning on printing layouts, I recommend trying to print a rough copy at home so you can see what the shadows will look like printed. It will take some time at first to add shadows to many things on your layout, but you will eventually get use to the look you like and it will go much faster. As a word of caution, though, you don’t want to overdo shadows. They don’t have to be on everything on every page and you don’t want them so large that the elements look like they are floating above your page.

Most digital scrapbooking programs have ways to create shadows fairly easily. Here are a few ways in some common programs.

Photoshop Elements: Look on the right side of the screen in the Styles and Effects Pallet. In the left dropdown box select Layer Styles and then in the right box select drop shadows. Click on an element on your layout or click a layer in the layer’s pallet. Then click on the shadow you want added. A little circle will appear to the right of the layer name in the layer’s pallet. If you double click on that circle a box will open with sliders that you can move around until you like the look of the shadow. Take some time to try out some different ones. My favorites for scrapbooking are often the Low and Hard Edge.

Digital Image Pro: Select the item you would like to shadow. Under effects, select the 'shadow' option. A left sidebar will appear along with the option to select the shadow you want to use. I always use the 'soft' option. Below the shadowing options there is a link to 'customize the shadow'. Click that option after selecting your shadow type. A different sidebar opens to the left and allows you to adjust the transparency & edge softness. The default is 88 for transparency & 50 for edge softness. You can also adjust the color of shadow you want to use. I standardly use black. First, slide the transparency bar all the way to the left (0). This will make your shadow very black & easy to see. Next, use the yellow guide dots located all around your object to adjust the size & position of your shadows. Now adjust the transparency from 0 to an acceptable level. At this time you can adjust your edge softness. Standardly I use an option of 60 transparency & 54 edge softness, but this varies based on the type of object & shadowing I wish to achieve. When you are happy with your shadow & settings, click 'Done' at the bottom of the side bar. You will return to the initial sidebar. Click 'Done' again. Your shadows are finished.
(These instructions were graciously written by Angela Fix (matthewsmom))

FxFoto: To add shadows in FxFoto just right click on the object you want to shadow. From the drop menu choose Add Shadow to Image and a shadow will be added. If you don't like it, right click again and click on Add Shadow and it will be removed. This makes in really easy to add the same size shadow to lots of elements like staples or buttons. To adjust the shadow click on Correct and the Info. Now click on the Image Placement and Shadow tab. On the right are slides to control the shadow height, color, darkness and feather. Increasing the feather gives you a soft shadow and decreasing it gives the type of shadow a hard object would cast. Click apply and it will shadow the object you selected. One nice thing - when you move or rotate an object in FxFoto, the shadow changes with the rotation so it is always on the correct side!
(Susan White (seswhite@gmail.com) was kind enough to write these instructions for you.)