A drop shadow can bring a design to life, adding a three-dimensional element to it. Our Automated Task technology applies a drop shadow to selected layers at the click of a button. Alternatively you can apply this manually, making the effect truly unique. 

Using a Palette to create a drop shadow   

1. Open the design you wish to apply the drop shadow to.
2. Download the Effects Palette from the Downloads page here on Assist.
3. Activate the layers you wish to apply the shadow to.
   
4. Press the Drop Shadow button in the Palette.
5. Watch the shadow automatically appear in your design.
   
   

Manually creating a drop shadow

1. Start with a mask of the motif that you want to place the drop shadow effect behind.
2. Set up design so that any filter applied will work across the repeat joins (view one repeat, select all and save selection, view 2 repeats and drag saved selection back in over joins).
3. Select and snap to your mask shape, saving the selection into the Selections Palette.
4. Grow the selection by 20 pixels and save it into the Selections Palette using the shortcut ⌘ 7.
5. Fill the grown selection with solid colour.
6. Use the Filter Browser to add a large Blur Gaussian (about 20).
7. Restore the original mask shape selection and delete this area from your new blush layer.
8. Work into the drop shadow effect with a soft transparent brush to even out the tones, or you could offset the drop shadow effect slightly by snap selecting it and then moving its position so it does not appear too ‘uniform’.