![]() You can then just drag and drop the effect to a layer on the timeline and proceed to adjust its settings in the Effect Controls panel. The Perspective folder in the Effects & Presets menu contains the Drop Shadow effect, and the only thing you have to do to access it is to type its name in the Effects Browser. ![]() If a shot contains one or two objects against a solid background, then applying drop shadow can be effective, but if the background contains a lot of details you might want to consider other methods of creating shadows in AE. How to Apply the Drop Shadow Effect in AE?Īdding a drop shadow to the footage you’ve chosen randomly won’t necessarily produce the results you want, because how visually pleasing the effect is going to be depends on how the shot is composed. Read on if you would like to find out more about the process of creating the Drop Shadow effect in Adobe After Effects. The Drop Shadow effect is commonly used to add depth to static and animated text, but there are lots of creative ways you can use this effect to enhance the footage you’re editing. Learning how to control the shadows in the footage you’re editing, will enable you to improve its quality, which is why you also need to know how to add artificial shadows to images or text layers you use in your projects. In this example, I’ve not only skewed the shadows upward along the sides, I’ve also used a very slight gradient in the layer mask to make the shadow fade a bit as it extends backward along the sides of the pillars.Capturing the play between the light and shadow is what makes cinematography an art. To finish the effect, I can individually select and transform the parts of the drop shadow that fall on the “sides” of the pillars. With the selection active, we can fill with white to reveal those areas on the drop shadow’s layer. When it’s active, a double-box appears around the thumbnail.) (The layer mask thumbnail appears to the right of a layer’s thumbnail in the Layers palette. Note, however, that the drop shadow’s layer mask is still the active layer in the Layers palette. That makes a selection of the layer’s content. To do that, we can Command-click (Mac) or Control-click (Windows) on the Layers palette thumbnail for the layer below. Next, we’ll reveal the drop shadow only where we want it to fall. In this case, the menu command Layer> Add Layer Mask> Hide All is appropriate, which adds a layer mask that’s completely filled with black. To edit the drop shadow, we’ll use a layer mask rather than simply erasing the unwanted areas of the drop shadow. This not only keeps the bevel as a “live” effect that can be updated, it simplifies the Layers palette and prevents any unwanted misalignment of elements. ![]() ![]() In a normal workflow, I would apply the drop shadow, use the Create Layers command, then apply the bevel as a layer effect to the original Layer 1. NOTE: For the purposes of this tutorial, I used the Create Layers command after applying a drop shadow and a bevel. This prevents accidental misalignment of the elements, which could lead to an unwanted (but rather interesting) mis-registration effect. Also observe that immediately after creating the layers, I linked them to the original Layer 1. In the Layers palette, note that the new layer “Layer 1’s Drop Shadow” was created below the original layer, while the shadows and highlights of the bevel were added above the original layer. If in fact the image’s appearance changes, you can use Edit> Undo to restore the layer style.) (You’ll generally be notified that some aspects of layer styles cannot be retained through the conversion. Using the menu command Image> Layer Style> Create Layers, we can convert the layer style elements in to actual pixel-bearing layers. We’ll need to convert the drop shadow layer effect into an actual layer and then mask (or erase) the areas of the shadow that should not be visible.Īs you can see in the layers palette, this artwork consists of three layers: The top object, with both a Drop Shadow and a Bevel and Emboss applied as a layer style a middle layer that contains the four “pillars ” and a Background layer with a “sky.” In this example, the shadow of the foreground object should fall on the “pillars” but not on the “sky” behind. You’ll need to convert the drop shadow layer effect to a layer of its own, then edit that layer. Perhaps the shadow should fall on the content of the layer immediately below, but not the layer below that. Sometimes a drop shadow needs to fall on only part of the layer or layers below.
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