Chapter 12. Dressing Up Images with Layer Styles
In This Chapter
Understanding layer styles
Applying layer styles with the Styles panel
Creating your own styles
Preserving your custom layer style
In artwork and photography, you use shadows and highlights in your image to produce the illusion of depth. Highlights and shadows lead the viewer to imagine that a light is falling on parts of a 3D object. You can also use a shadow or glow to make it appear that some distance exists between one object in the image and another object behind it. Photoshop's built-in layer styles help you add shadows, glows, and other effects almost instantly.
![Dressing Up Images with Layer Styles](/api/v2/epubs/9780470327258/files/figs/U1201.png)
In this chapter, I explain how transparent areas on layers enable lower layers to show through and let your layer styles appear on those lower layers. You get a good look at the Styles panel and how you use it to store and apply layer styles, including your very own custom styles. I then present the all-important (for layer styles) Layer Style dialog box and the various effects that you can add with it. I also show you how to save (and protect) your custom layer styles.
What Are Layer Styles?
A layer style comprises one or more effects that surround or are applied to all the pixels on your layer. Effects that surround pixels include strokes (thin or thick outlines of color), shadows (just like the one this book is casting right now on your desk or lap), and glows ...
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