Photoshop 6 First Impressions
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New: Photoshop 7.0 is now available!

Layer Styles

“Wow!” The "Wow!" image on page one of this article was created entirely with layer styles. The effects used to create the image were Outer Glow, Bevel & Emboss, Satin, Pattern Overlay, and Stroke.

If you thought layer effects in Photoshop 5 were impressive, you're gonna love the new, improved Layer Styles. Not only are there a few new effects like Satin, Gradient Overlay, Pattern Overlay, and Stroke, but all the old favorites have had several new options added to them. Bevel and Emboss now has hard, soft, and smooth options, as well as contour controls and a texture option. The Stroke effect may not sound terribly exciting, but I found it to be one of my favorites... you can fill a stroke with a color, a gradient, or even a pattern. Many of the effects have a new contour option which allows you to apply a curve which distorts the effect in interesting ways.

Here's several examples of the effects you can creating using various combinations of layer styles. Many of these are preset layer styles that are included with Photoshop 6.

Any combination of layer effects can be saved as a Layer Style. Using the styles palette, the combination of effects can be reapplied to the contents of any layer with a single click. Of course, there's plenty of preset styles for you to explore. There's even a preset manager to organize your collection of layer styles, patterns, brushes, shapes, contours, swatches and gradients. Below you can see a few of the custom shapes and gradients included with Photoshop 6, displayed in the Preset Manager.

I couldn't resist showing you even more effects, all of these were applied to warped text with just one click. Not one of the layers had to be rendered to create these effects, so everything remains completely editable.

Continue on to learn about vector shapes and the vector editing tools.

Vector Shapes & Editing Tools -->

1. Intro & Tool Options Bar
2. Enhanced Text Features
3. Layer Styles & Presets
4. Vector Shapes & Editing Tools
5. Content Layers
6. Web Photo Gallery, Action Droplets, Conclusion

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Sue Chastain
Your Guide to Graphics Software
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