The best way to master Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop Tips & Tricks is built on reader questions about image manipulation, painting and getting the most from Photoshop. In the Design & Publishing Center,   Photoshop Tips & Tricks Department. . .

Katherine Jope
Soft Shadows from Photoshop to Quark 

I was having so much trouble trying to clip the graphic 
"A-D Edge PC" in the attached file because of the soft 
shadow around it. Can you please offer me any 
suggestions??? Sincerely, Kate Jope kjope@loveamac.com

Kate sent the file but we were unable to open it! Keep getting error messages from Quark. Got mixed up in the email transfer, or something.

NOTE: If you want us to look at a problem file, don't send it... send a screen capture instead. Many times we can't get the files open. You could capture a small screen shot to show what's happening.

A

Generally for soft shadows from graphics files imported into Quark, one would first 'attempt' to match the background perfectly, in the graphics program (Photoshop in this case) create your drop shadow, then import the TIF file, hoping the backgrounds match.

Exporting from Photoshop with a clipping path must be done as an EPS file, with Clipping Path attached. (in the "save" dialog.) However the nature of (and purpose) of clipping paths is to render a prefectly hard edge... NOT what you want for a smooth, feathered shadow.

To get the smooth, feathered shadow, separate the shadow generator from the image and import them as two separate files. First the graphic, with clipping path as EPS file... that gives you an outlined (knocked out) image where the background shows through the non-image areas of the eps file. Then the actual "shadow" filled with black.
Now using Quark's screen and shadow tools, simply create the shadow, offset it and send it behind the placed EPS object. Voila.

We reported in the July 1998 issue of DTG the launch of Extensis QX-Shadow, and I believe it still might be available! Try this link:
http://www.extensis.com

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