Dave, control click the layer with the cap ( hold down ctrl key and click on hat layer ) this will give you marching ants around hat…then>select inverse>simplify…now you’ll be able to erase the outer shadow you don’t want.
That worked great! Now can I impose on you to explain what I did? This seems to me to be something that is both fundamental and important to the whole concept of working with layers, and I don’t want to move on until I know that I understand it and that I can make use of it in the future.
Dave,
I’ll save Jodi some time and answer your question for you.
Control clicking the cap layer makes a selection of just the cap (note where the marching ants are).
Taking the inverse of that selection reverses that selection so that everything but the cap is selected. This will make it easier to erase the shadow later.
Simplifying the layer converts the drop shadow layer style into an ordinary image and merges it with the cap image. You no longer have a layer style on that layer. You can now erase the drop shadow.
The point of the selection and inverse steps was to make it easier for you to edit the shadow. If you had not done those two steps, you would have had to have been very careful when editing the shadow to avoid erasing part of the cap. With the inverse selection active, the cap is protected and you can only erase the part outside the cap, i.e. the shadow.
I hope this helps.
Bob
Thanks, Bob. That helped a lot! Because I didn’t understand the point of inverting the selection, after I was finished with the steps as Jodi outlined them I deselected everything before I started erasing! That made it more difficult, but not impossible. Now I understand her point. The step of simplifying the layer was also lost on me. That’s why I couldn’t work with the original image. I now understand. Sometimes it’s amazing how appreciative a person can feel when someone takes the trouble to help make "the light come on" and I’m feeling that right now. Thanks to you and Jodi for your trouble!
Dave, it’s people like you that actually come back and post their results and appreciation that makes all the difference…Thank You !
I must be really different because I would have duplicated the hat, applied the style to the top duplicated hat layer, then erased from the top layer (containing the hat with drop shadow) so when I erased Part of the drop shadow the entire hat would be left intact regardless of whether there was shadow overlapping the hat. When it was erased to my taste, I would put the eye icon on those two layers (turn eye off any other existing layers) then merge them together. Maybe I’m backwards but to me it’s much easier than making a selection and maybe having to clone back part of the hat.
Terri, there must be six different ways to do everything in Elements. That’s what makes it so great. I printed out both suggestions, because each one could come in handy in a different scenario.
Terri, I used to teach software; Windows, MS Office, other office packages, and many miscellaneous applications. One recurring point that I brought up to my students was that in most software there are at least a half dozen ways to do the same thing. Most people will find a way that works for them and then settle down to using that method. For those who are novices with a particular package, the most confusing part of the learning curve is while they’re deciding what style they’ll use to approach a particular piece of software. From what I’ve been reading here in the past month or so it’s apparent that the same is true for PE. Your comments were fascinating because it gave me insight into a totally different way to approach the same task. I appreciate your post, and continue to look forward to the diversity of this list. Thanks!
