Make your selection, make sure the background colour is black. Hit Delete
or
command click the layer make a new layer.
fill the selection with black
If you want to ensure that your Black is 100% K (and not a Rich Black), you need to do this in a CMYK file.
A little more info about what you are trying to accomplish will help us help you
Thanks everyone.
Sorry, John, I thought what I posted was enough.
A couple weeks ago I learned that one way to create a shadow of something you have selected was to make a duplicate layer of your selection, then hit Command S (or whatever – that’s not the correct key stroke) which would turn your selection black. You then use the Transform tool to lay it on it’s side, use the Feather Tool to soften edges, then the Gradient tool with black, with another layer, to fade shadow to be stronger at the selection base and fading to nothing at the far end etc. I remember the whole process but the key stroke which will turn the selection black.
I may have remembered it wrong and maybe Cybernetic or Buko are suggesting the step I forgot and I’m just not remembering. I have learned so much by teraching myself PS that unless I use what I have learned right away I tend to forget a step or two.
Did that explanation help you understand what I am doing more?
Hey Lee,
I’m not positive I understand exactly but it seems to me that you don’t need to turn anything to black because you are creating a shadow with a feathered mask and the gradient tool.
If I’m correct you only need to create a layer to put the gradient. For the Gradient the values must be cmy0 and varying values of k for the background and foreground.
alan
Lee, what you are after sounds like the way I done this for years (old dog no new tricks). Set foreground colour to 100k or what ever you want, dupe your layer, select the layer below, click the "lock transparent pixels" button, now use keyboard "alt+delete", then un-click the "lock transparent pixels" button, then fudge, smudge, and the rest of your stuff
A shadow made from all the colors (CMYK) looks much better than a shadow just made from 100% black.
"A shadow made from all the colors (CMYK) looks much better than a shadow just made from 100% black. "
Not in my experience. I think every prepress and printer I’ve know prefers 1 color shadows to avoid a "rainbow" effect. You only need to be sure there is enough common black between the shadow and image so there isn’t a trapping problem.
alan
Makes things easy when trapping out in addition spot channels too. I prefer dealing single black overprinting the PMS.
That was it, Mark. Thanks.
Thank you to everyone else, also. Good information in my never ending quest to learn this program.
Single color black.
Black dominant 4 color black
or
a double hit black.
Black dominant 4 color black
will look more real with a 4 color image
So the answer had nothing to do with selections at all, as I suspected.
That’s why I asked for clarification.
A shadow made from only black might have dots of 15% black which look poor compared to a rich black shadow which might have 4C 3M 0Y 6K or something like that. The eye cannot see individual halftone dots, giving a superior appearance…
Browse a few high-end books, you will see the difference, and it actually causes no trapping issues whatsoever….in fact a plain black would be more risky, the cyan in the pic will blend with the cyan in the shadow to avoid aliasing of the shadow.
