PS helps you quickly and thoroughly understand the inner shadow function

PS Layer style has always been a powerful weapon to add special effects, such as projection, stroke and so on, they will not destroy the original information of the layer, it is very useful. With the right knowledge and experience, you can almost complete any special effects, in order to achieve these results, you need to understand what each function is, and some of the settings are how to control the changes in effects. Hopefully after reading this series of tutorials, you can unlock the seals and make better work.

　　The application of Inner shadow

In general, the inner shadow is used when simulating 3D effects on a 2D image, making it appear to have a certain depth by creating a shadow with displacement.

The following figure is two examples, through the inner Shadow can be distinguished from the two examples of light source direction, intensity, distance is also different. Through the inner shadow, it will also greatly alter a picture.

　　Inner Shadow dialog box

The Inner Shadow dialog box looks like this in the following image, almost exactly the same as the "Projection" dialog box. The only difference is that the way shadows appear is not behind the graph, but in the graph.

　　Blending mode

You can set a different blending mode for your inner shadow, which is usually a multiply or linear light, so that the inner shadow is deeper than the color of the image.

If you have any questions or ignorance about the blending mode, I highly recommend that you take a look at this tutorial: "Get you to know the blending mode of Photoshop."

Here you can also set the color of the shadow, in the Mixed Mode Pull-down menu on the right side, there is a color selection of small squares. By default, the color of the shadow is black, but you can try other colors or interesting things, and there may be unexpected effects.

The following example shows that the color of the left shadow is black, the blending mode is positive, the right is dark purple, and the blending mode is normal. Different combinations can have different effects.

　　Opacity

Opacity pole allows you to control the transparency of the shadow. Pole to 0%, the shadow disappears completely, and 100% is completely opaque.

The following example shows the effect of transparency on the image. The left side is only a subtle inner shadow, and the image on the right is much more visible. This picture can easily see the effect of inner shadow on depth.

　　Angle

The angle of this option, as the name suggests, is to control the angle of the light source causing the inner shadow. Check the "Global Light", you have any one layer of the settings change, all add the effect of the layer will change accordingly, even relief, projection is no exception. But if you don't, you'll only control the inner shadow of the current layer, and no special effects on any other layer will change.

Recommend or check this setting, after all, sometimes we want the same picture of the light source is also from the same location.

In the following example, you can see the impact of the angle on the effect, because the "use of global Light" is checked, so the projection, inner shadow, vamp and relief effects are the corresponding differences.

　　Distance

Distance pole controls the distance between the object that adds the effect and the background. In the Inner Shadow dialog box, the distance pole control is the distance between the shadow and the object.

The following case can be seen, the left is just a simple sunken effect, very much like cardboard on the hot word, and the case on the right, the distance between the shadow and the text is larger, feeling the depth of space is much larger.

　　Blocking

Blocking pole mainly control the disappearance of the shadow edge of the way state, popularly speaking is the disappearance of the shadow of the boundary is clear, or feather the same disappearance. Normally, we don't have to talk about this function, on the default 0%, if you want to create a seemingly hard shadow, we can appropriately push the pole to the right; for the edge of the more hard shadow, this value should be increased, if you want to stroke the effect, you can adjust to 100%.

The function of blocking pole and distance is almost the same, two functions will produce similar effect.

In the following two sweet examples of powder, the blocking pole is pushed to 100%, and the inner shadow appears on a very hard edge.

　　Size

Size pole control is the size of the shadow. When the pole is at 0, the shadow and the object are the same size, pushing the pole to the right, and the value of each increase of 1, the shadow area will increase by 1 pixels.

The following two cases show that the larger the size, the softer the edge of the shadow.

　　Contour

Contour shape and shadow display effect is closely related to different curves will appear different effects. The Curve tool works well when you want a more specific shadow or abstract effect. In fact, in the usual UI design, changing the curve will make the design look more comfortable.

In addition, the anti-aliasing feature improves the quality of the shadow and can also degrade the performance of the PS. But performance is less important than the effect of the final manuscript. I recommend this or hook it up!

The following example shows that different curves can have different shades. When the curve is anti-u, there is a small gap between the shadow and the edge of the text. The shadow on the right is special, but it's not the effect we normally want.

　　Noise

Variegated pole can give the shadow a gravel-textured texture. If you're doing something concrete or dusty, adding some noise will make the effect better. But in general, we still want to have a smooth inner shadow, and leave this pole in the position of 0%.

In the following example, when the noise is set to 30%, the shadow is not very smooth like the grains of sand. In general, 0%-30% in this range, the effect of noise can still be, more than 30%, it will look very unnatural.

　　Save and load default settings

Each effect dialog box in PS can save custom data and set it to the default value. You can click "Set as Default" in the panel to set the current setting as the default value.

Click "Reset Defaults", PS will restore the default data, so you can reset the effect.

　　At last

At any time, PS is a powerful weapon in the hands of designers, but also the designer to create all the tools. The inner shadow effect can help us to be magical at the right time, but it cannot be used indiscriminately. Remember, there are no ugly effects, only useless effects.

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