Shadow Reduction Tutorial for Bend It Frames

Tutorial by request today to reduce the shadows on the frames I used on yesterday’s 3 LO. I use PSCS2 so you may need to make adjustments if you use different software. To make this LO I used Debbie Knorr’s Bend It Frame Templates. I love these frames and have used them several times, but I thought the drop shadows were a bit harsh for this LO. So of course I changed ’em! Her original files start out like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can see these have a pretty dark drop shadow, which works fine for darker backgrounds.

To lighten them I want to first duplicate the ‘Border with Shadow’ layer. My goal is to seperate the white border from the drop shadow so I can manipulate the drop shadow as desired.

Now I have:

Select the middle layer as I have above. Now use your magic wand from your toolbar to select the white border. Just click anywhere on the white border and you should see the marching ants around it like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we also want to keep that very faint outline that Debbie has around the white frame so that it doesn’t disappear completely. To do this I’m going to expand my selection just a bit. So go to Select Menu --> Modify --> Expand. A dialog box will pop up like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enter 2 into the dialog box and click OK. We want to delete everything outside the frame now, so go to Select Menu --> Inverse (or Shft-Ctrl-I) and the ants will select the outside of the frame:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hit the delete key, then Select Menu --> Deselect (Ctrl-D). Now you have just the white border on the middle layer and the file looks much like it did when we started:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can adjust the opacity of the bottom layer until you are happy with it. Here I’ve got mine set to 40% so the shadows are much lighter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can add your photo as the top layer and adjust/rotate it as needed. It may help to reduce the opacity of the photo while you rotate/adjust it so you can see the frame underneath. Now go to Layer Menu --> Create Clipping Mask (Alt-Ctrl-G) and you’re done:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can merge visible layers when you’re done to get the framed photo all on one layer, then add it to your LO. That’s it!

Angel