Warning: These images are not optimized for downloading or for that matter Netscape's 216 palette, perhaps some day.

This Tutorial was created for PSP version 3.12. As of version 4.0 of PSP, Jasc has included a drop shadow function.

Source Image.

A couple notes on the source image. It should be on a solid background and not touching any of the edges. If it's touching an edge, create a new image with the same background color. Then you'll need to copy the original and paste it into to new image.

Select "Add Mask" with "Source Luminance" selected and "Invert Mask Data" Not selected. Then Split the mask.

Then use the blur function to get the greyscale image to look like a shadow.

Go back the source image, pick the "magic wand" from the tool palette. Now hold down the shift key and click on the background. This will select the image and not the background. Now use ctrl-c to copy the image. Switch back the shadow and hit ctrl-e, now you'll have the position the image so it looks like the shadow is under it.

Now that you have that down how about some variations.

Before blurring the image reduce it to 16 colors and then play with the palette to make the image all black except for the background.

Now switch this to 265 and blur it.

And then like before increase to 16.7M and then ctrl-c and then ctrl-e to place the image on top. Wa La darker shadow.

Ok why not go crazy, while you're still in 16 colors and the image is all black switch to 2 colors and then back to 16(so you only have one palette entry). Now edit the palette so that your once black and white image is now let's say blue and white. Then go ahead and increase palette, blur, and place the image. The funky blue shadow.

And of course you can use these methods to create a halo or glow effect around the image, by centering the image on the shadow.

Well there you go, a simple way to make drop shadows in Paint Shop Pro. But plugins are faster. :-)

If this made completely no sense or you have a question let me know.

URL: http://mbweb.com/drop-shadow.html

©1997 MBrunson Technologies