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To add a drop shadow only takes a couple of seconds and you can fully customize the shadow to fit your needs. Drop shadow is available in both the basic and advanced editors. To find out more about each of these editors click here for more information.
Ok, lets dive in! (If you are a familiar with editing pictures, you can skip the first step)
Step 1
First, you have to get or select a picture to edit. Providing that you use the extension for
Mozilla Firefox or
Microsoft Internet Explorer, or you have an account with at least one picture, all you have to do now is to load the picture into either one of the editors.
Click here if you are not sure how to get this done.
Step 2
Now, you should be in either the basic or advanced editor. After the picture has loaded successfully, you are ready to begin. Just select '
Shadow' from the list of '
Basic Effects' to your left and this will automatically show the '
Shadow Settings' above.
You should notice that several options appear in the 'Shadow Settings' which are:
Soft Shadow - If this option is checked, the shadow is given a soft look as opposed to the regular square shadow.
Width - This slider determins the width of the shadow. The smaller the width, the thinner the shadow. Likewise, the larger the width, the thicker the shadow. A good width is about 8 pixels.
Margin - This slider determins the starting position of the picture. This is great for adding extra padding around the picture so the shadow can be seen clearer. The smaller this value is, the less padding is put around the picture. Likewise, the larger this value, the more padding is put around the picture. A good margin is about 8 pixels.
Opacity - This slider determins the opacity of the shadow. This is great to adjust the darkness of the shadow. The smaller this value is, the more transparent the shadow becomes. Likewise, the more this value is, the darker the shadow becomes. A good opacity is about 40 percent.
You can fiddle around with these options until you finally found the perfect drop shadow for your picture.
Step 3
After you have finished fiddling around with the options, you may want to get a preview on the current picture. Just hit the '
Apply Now' button and watch the picture update itself within seconds.
Please remember that depending on the combination of the values set in the previous step, the size of the actual picture will increase to suit your settings.
Once the picture has been updated, you can:
You can always remove the current 'Shadow' changes by clicking the 'Remove' button under the 'Shadow Settings'. The picture before the drop shadow changes should restore to its previous settings.
Remember, you can always apply and combine multiple effects to get a better picture. This means that after you add a drop shadow to a picture, you can still apply a grayscale effect, adjust its brightness, flip or rotate the cropped picture and many more...