This Palette is designed to create a drop shadow effect under specific layer information. The drop shadow effect is created as a separate spot layer which can be recoloured, or gamma adjusted for greater effect.

The steps performed in the ‘Drop Shadow’ Palette

As there are no direct functions to apply drop shadow to areas in AVA files, this Palette takes on many steps to achieve the drop shadow effect including select and snap, fill, blur filter and nudge. Users also can edit the drop direction, shadow contrast and shadow colour.

How to use the ‘Drop Shadow’ Palette

1. Select and make active the layer you wish to add drop shadow to
2. Click the ‘Drop Shadow’ palette. A new ‘grey’ layer containing the drop shadow will appear at the bottom of the layer list.

How to edit the drop shadow distance and position

1. Hold ⌥ (option key) and click on the Palette to enter the editing window.
2. Locate the ‘Nudge’ entry and click it’s edit icon.
3. Enter new across (right) and down amounts to your needs. Entering a minus (-) number will nudge the resulting drop shadow left or up respectively.

How to edit the drop shadow contrast

1. Hold ⌥ (option key) and click on the Palette to enter the editing window.
2. Locate the ‘Filter’ entry and click it’s edit icon.
3. Adjust the blur scale to your needs. Lower numbers will add more contrast to the drop shadow, higher number will make it softer.

How to edit the drop shadow colour (in Palette operation)

1. Hold ⌥ (option key) and click on the Palette to enter the editing window.
2. Locate the ‘Set Spot Layer Colour’ entry and click it’s edit icon.
3. Re-colour the chip colour using any of the usual AVA colouring methods.

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