Photoshop Layer Styles: “One-Click” Flexibility
Layer Styles can provide an ideal way to get the quality, speed, and flexibility that make for successful Photoshop solutions. With Layer Styles you can design, save, and reapply an almost limitless number of combinations of colors, tones, gradients, strokes, and images (in the form of patterns and textures), plus the dimensionality of bevels, shadows, glows, and “reflections.” Once you’ve designed and saved it as a preset, a Style also provides you with the extremely practical opportunity to apply it to any other type, graphic, or photo and have it automatically conform to the shape of the new recipient.
The Layer Style dialog box is the “Erector set” that lets you experiment with the hundreds of variables that make up a Style, starting from scratch or modifying an existing preset Style. When you develop a Style you like, you can save it as its own preset by clicking the New Style button and naming your new creation.
Preparing the File
A layout was assembled, with each element on a separate layer. Type was set in two separate layers in Arial Black, so we would be able to apply different Styles to the two settings. We wanted to be able to use a Style to assign a texture or image to the background of our composition. But since the Background is the only kind of layer than can’t accept a Style, we double-clicked on the Background’s thumbnail to turn it into a “Style-friendly” layer with the potential for transparency.
A The converted background layer
B The headline type
C The photos
D The small type
“One-Click” Application
With the Wow Project Styles.asl file loaded in the Styles palette, each layer was targeted by clicking its name in the Layers palette, and with one click in the Styles palette a Style was applied:
A 185 Wow-Bamboo Wall, a Style made with a photographic Pattern Overlay
B 185 Wow-Big Cat Type, a dimensional Style made with shadows and glows, with a photographic pattern and a tint
C 132 Wow-Attention Type Halo on some layers and 100 Wow-Spot Type Halo on others
D 308 Wow-Haloed G Textured
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This article was last modified on January 3, 2023
This article was first published on February 6, 2002
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