DropShadows@ImageMagic

Lesson Index for those who are just joining in

Quick and Easy Drop Shadow at Image Magic

Drop shadows are one of the things that make an image stand out, give it depth & make it look more realistic. Pc users can do it easily. And with the composite feature DSTOUT, so can webbies.

You need a jpg to composite on and a gif with a transparent background.

These are the two I worked with:

Moon's Grapes of Glass Fairy

I used Network 11 Image Magic . Not sure if this will work the same at all IM's, but you can give it a try.

At IM enter the url for the jpg first.

Go to COMPOSITE. Enter url for the gif.

Choose DSTOUT from the dropbox.

Depending on where you want your image, enter your co-ordinates.

I used NORTH +0+20 Click composite.

On the next page you will see a black silhouette of the comp'd gif. It should look something like this. Dstout Example

Go to COMPOSITE. Choose over from the dropbox.

Change the co-ordinates to +7+27. This will move the image over to the right 7 pixels and down 7 pixels, giving you a 7 pixel drop shadow.

Example 1

You can put the dropshadow anywhere you want it, or make it as big as you'd like just by changing the position of the 2nd comp.

For this example I used this Tag and the same fairy.

First set of co-ordinates: NORTH +0 +95 Comp DSTOUT.

2nd set of co-ordinates: NORTH -5+90 Comp OVER.

This moved the fairy over to the left 5 pixels and up 5 pixels. Example 2

Drop shadows made on the pc are generally the color of one of the darker shades of the background image. So, you can try painting the silhouette using floodfill, before you do the second composite. Note - depending on how light you background image is, It may cause bleeding, so you might want to stick with black.