Comments on: Building a Shadow Sandwich

By: Dwayne Smith

Dwayne Smith — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:05:37 +0000

Ah, my mistake and my apologies – I should have followed your instructions more exactly. Thanks Claudia.

By: Claudia McCue

Claudia McCue — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:33:10 +0000

Dwayne,

Actually, since you copy the graphic to the Clipboard first, the Multiply blend mode isn’t applied to it; only the one that was “left behind” to accomplish the shadow has been set to Multiply. But it is good to check such things when you’re building such a construction.

By: Dwayne Smith

Dwayne Smith — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:14:23 +0000

This is a great tip – but one step was left out. You have to remember to change the the transparency of the top image back to Normal.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:34:33 +0000

Claudia, in Photoshop, you can apply a drop shadow (or other layer style) to a layer, then choose Layer > Layer Style > Create Layer. It separates the effect onto its own layer so you can make the “sandwich” you discuss in this post.

Perhaps Randy is asking about that. No, there’s no way to separate InDesign’s object effects into separate layers or objects or something like that. Oh well.

By: Claudia

Claudia — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:31:58 +0000

Randy,

I’m not sure I understand: Photoshop’s shadows are pixels (as in the Shadow Sandwich example), and InDesign’s shadows become pixels on the way out the door (when you print or export). What are you trying to accomplish?

By: randy griffith

randy griffith — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:25:40 +0000

can you separate shadow effects and rasterize that effect like in illustrator. if so, how is it done. thanks for taking my question

By: Claudia McCue

Claudia McCue — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:47:09 +0000

Ah HA! I told you it wasn’t you

Glad it had a happy ending (and the printer has now learned something very useful, too).

By: simon Cooper

simon Cooper — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:28:30 +0000

Claudia,

I contacted my printer and explained what I did. They spotted a problem they should have fixed it in the first place and now it OK.

By: Claudia McCue

Claudia McCue — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:58:24 +0000

Simon,

The printing device isn’t correctly interpreting transparency and overprint. Check out another post that will explain what’s going on. (http://www.indesignsecrets.com/index.php?s=yucky&x=0&y=0)

Hint: it’s not YOU. It’s the limitations of the device.

By: simon Cooper

simon Cooper — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 20:29:51 +0000

I imported a greyscale image psd file and set the opacity to 50% in Indesign CS2.
3 greyscale logo (black logo on white background) psd files on top of this greyscale image.
Once the logos where imported I changed the mode to multiply for all logos in Indesign CS2 so the background can be seen. I output for press quality in PDF, this look fine on screen but a proof comes back with pale blocks behind all 3 logos. I am not sure what I have done wrong here?
Please advise me.