Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual

Layer Styles

After all that hard work learning about layers, you’re probably ready for some fun. This section is all about layer styles: a set of 11 fully adjustable, ready-made special effects for layers that you can apply in all kinds of cool ways. Consider this section your reward for sticking with this chapter till the bitter end.

Layer styles are a lot of fun and, since they appear on their own layers, they’re nondestructive and they remain editable as long as you save the document as a PSD file. Layer styles are great for adding finishing touches to designs, and they can really make text and graphical elements pop off the page (see Figure 4-36). They also update automatically as your layer content changes.

Note

If you add a layer style to a path in Photoshop CC (Drawing Paths with the Pen Tool), its gray outline temporarily disappears while the Layer Style dialog box is open.

Here’s how to add The Lord of All Styles, the drop shadow, to a layer:

1. Activate the soon-to-be-shadowed layer or layer group in the Layers panel.

   Photoshop limits you to activating a single layer when you’re adding a style. That said, you can add layers styles to layer groups (Grouping Layers into Folders).

   Tip

   If you apply a layer style to a layer group, Photoshop treats the group as if it were flattened so you get slightly different results than you do by adding the style to individual layers. For example, if you’ve got a slew of layers and you add a drop shadow to all of ’em, you end up with a shadow on top ...