Prior to January 21, 2002, it was a fairly tedious task to add a drop shadow to an object in a page layout document. You had to create the effect in Adobe Photoshop and then import the file into your Adobe InDesigndocument, creating yet another link to manage. If you wanted text to wrap around the shadow's contour, you also had to create a clipping path -- a process that usually resulted in part of the shadow being cut off. And if you were placing the drop shadow on top of anything other than a white background, you also had to make the background in the Photoshop file the same color as the background in the InDesign document to prevent unsightly white areas between the shadow and the clipping path. What a pain!

Then, on that aforementioned fateful day, InDesign 2.0 was released and, with it, came the ability to create professional-looking drop shadows without ever leaving your page layout document.

The Truth and Nothing But
Is it true? Can you really create great-looking drop shadows directly in InDesign? The answer is a resounding "Yes!" and we'll show you how. In this article, you'll learn how create drop shadows in InDesign 2.0 to enhance the look of your pages, as we've done to the page shown in figure 1. You'll soon see what a difference a few drop shadows can make to your page layouts. You'll also gain an understanding of the various options associated with creating drop shadows in InDesign and how to set those options to ensure your drop shadows not only look good onscreen but print and export flawlessly, too.

Figure 1: It's easy to add professional-looking drop shadows to text and objects in InDesign 2.0.

Note: To work faster, use the shortcut keys for the commands we use in this article, as shown in the table below.

Know When to Say When
As with all new toys, the Drop Shadow feature may tempt you to add drop shadows to everything and anything you can select with the Selection tool ... but don't. The first tip-off of a page layout designed by an amateur is the gross display of his or her inability to recognize when enough is enough.

By adding a drop shadow to just a few key elements, you can take an ordinary page, as shown in figure 2, and really make it pop, as shown in figure 1. As a general rule, the key elements that usually benefit most from the addition of drop shadows are graphics, headlines and boxes. Besides headlines and drop caps, avoid applying drop shadows to text or risk losing its legibility.

Figure 2: The same page layout without drop shadows lacks depth and visual appeal.

Text and Drop Shadows
Drop shadows are only applicable to text when their text frames are selected with the Selection tool, which means all the text in the selected frames is affected. If you want to apply a drop shadow to just the drop cap of a text paragraph, for example, you have to turn the character into an inline graphic so you can select its frame with the Selection tool.

To do this, select the drop cap with the Type tool and choose Edit > Cut. Next, select the Selection tool and click off the page to deselect the text frame. Now, choose Edit > Paste and then choose Object > Fitting > Fit Frame To Content. Now you just have to position the drop cap back in place. To do so, choose Edit > Cut. Then switch to the Type tool and click an insertion point where you first removed the drop cap. Lastly, choose Edit > Paste.

Another, perhaps easier, option is to turn the character into a path. To do this, select the drop cap with the Type tool and then choose Type > Create Outlines. Either way, the drop cap becomes contained in its own frame, which can then be selected with the Selection tool -- the necessary ingredient for applying a drop shadow to individual text characters.

Tip: To create a drop cap, select the character with the Type tool and then enter the number of lines you want it to descend in the Drop Cap Number Of Lines text box in the Paragraph palette (Choose Type > Paragraph to display palette).

Note: To apply a drop shadow to just the drop cap of a text paragraph, you'll need to turn the character into either an inline graphic or path. Be careful, though. Once the drop cap is separated from the rest of the paragraph, it has to be formatted separately; or if you convert it to outlines, its character and paragraph attributes can't be changed at all.

Graphics and Drop Shadows
Now that your drop cap is contained in a graphic frame, it can be selected as such and, therefore, take advantage of the Drop Shadow feature. As shown in figure 3, it's in the Drop Shadow dialog box that you have ultimate control over the appearance of the drop shadows you create in InDesign and how they interact with the rest of the elements on the page.

To see this feature in action, select the drop cap you created earlier (or another object) with the Selection tool and then choose Object > Drop Shadow. In the Drop Shadow dialog box, select the Drop Shadow check box to make the other options available. Also, select the Preview check box so you can see how your settings affect the selected item while you work.

Figure 3: You can control the appearance of your drop shadows and how they interact with other elements on the page.

Blending the shadow with the background. The first decision you need to make is which blending mode you want to use. Each one affects the way in which the base color of the shadow blends with the underlying color below the object. If these blending modes look familiar to you, it's because they're the same as those found in Adobe Photoshop.

Each mode's effect on a drop shadow on a colored background is shown in figure 4; depending on the base and underlying colors and the blending mode you select, your shadow may appear differently.

Figure 4: Each blending mode has a different effect on the intensity of your drop shadow and how it blends with underlying colors.

Read the following definitions for each blending mode before making your choice:

• Normal. With this blending mode, the underlying (background) and base (shadow) colors are not blended and the effect is unchanged.

• Multiply. The base and underlying colors are multiplied to produce a darker color. White blend colors are unchanged, and multiplying any color with black results in black. Multiply is the default mode, unless you previously selected a blending mode without first selecting an object.
• Screen. This mode multiplies the inverse of the base and underlying colors, usually resulting in the base color becoming lighter. However, a solid black underlying object produces a black base color and a white underlying object produces a white base color.
• Overlay. Depending on your base and underlying color, this mode either multiplies or screens the colors, making the base color darker or lighter, respectively.
• Soft Light. If your underlying color is lighter than 50-percent tint, this mode lightens the base color, as if it were dodging the light. Similarly, if your underlying color is darker than 50 percent, the base color becomes darker, as if it were being burned in.
• Hard Light. This mode also depends on the gray level of the base color. Lighter than 50 percent lightens the shadow, as if it were screened and a value more than 50 percent darkens the shadow, similar to multiplying it.
• Color Dodge. To dodge an image is to make it lighter and that's what this mode does. The base color is brightened -- to what amount depends on the underlying color.
• Color Burn. This is the inverse of Color Dodge. To burn an image is to make it darker.
• [b}Darken. This mode analyzes the underlying and base colors and uses the darkest colors from both layers to create the result.
• Lighten. This is the opposite of the Darken mode. The lightest colors from the base or underlying layers are retained in the result.
• Difference. Depending on which has the higher brightness value, the underlying color is subtracted from the base color or vice versa.
• Exclusion. This mode is similar to Difference but produces an image with lower contrast.
• Hue. The result of this mode is a combination of the base color's luminance and saturation with the underlying color's hue.
• Saturation. This mode combines the luminance and hue of the base color with the saturation of the underlying color.
• Color. The result of this mode is a color with the luminance value of the base color and the hue and saturation of the underlying color. Gray levels aren't affected.
• Luminosity. This mode is the opposite of the Color mode. It combines the luminance value of the underlying color with the hue and saturation of the base color.

Note: You can't blend spot colors using the Difference, Exclusion, Hue, Saturation, Color or Luminosity modes. If blending your colors takes priority over an exact color match, a solution to this limitation is to convert the spot colors to process colors.

Customizing the look of your drop shadow. Once you decide on a blending mode, the next step is to specify an opacity value for the drop shadow. The higher the percentage, the more intense your drop shadow becomes. To specify an opacity value, either enter an amount in the Opacity text box or click on the adjacent triangle to access the slider. Moving the slider to the left decreases the opacity.

The X and Y Offset (Placement Of Shadow in Windows) controls the horizontal and vertical position of the drop shadow in relation to the object it modifies. Placement is determined by the X and Y zero-point of your page's ruler origin; the increments are based on the measurement system specified in your preferences.

The next-to-last setting is Blur (Blur Distance in Windows), which is fairly self-explanatory. The higher the increment, the softer the edges of your shadow appear. If you prefer something other than the default, continue to enter an amount until the appearance of your drop shadow is to your liking.

The final setting enables you to apply a color other than black to the drop shadow. From the Color pop-up menu, you can choose Swatches and then select a color defined in your Swatches palette, or choose RGB, CMYK or LAB and mix a custom color. After you select a color (or choose to leave it the traditional black), click OK to create the drop shadow behind your selected object.

Tip: Be careful to base the color you mix for a drop shadow on a color-matching system guide. The color you see onscreen isn't an accurate representation of what you'll get in print.

Know Thy Pages
After you create your drop shadow, you may notice that the page icon in your Pages palette displays a checkerboard pattern, as shown in Figure 5. This is to let you know that transparent items exist on the pages that have to be flattened during print. (Flattening is part of InDesign's new printing architecture, which we'll cover in more detail in a future issue.)

Figure 5: Pages with transparent items display a checkerboard background on their corresponding page icons in the Pages palette.

What You Can and Can't Do
The Drop Shadow feature in InDesign is in its infancy stage and there will probably be improvements made to it with each version update. For now, though, it works pretty well.

You should also know before using the Drop Shadow feature that if you fill a text frame with a fill color, the drop shadow automatically switches from the text to the frame. To sidestep this limitation, you can place a separate (color) frame behind the transparent text frame and then apply a drop shadow to each. However, when we placed an object with a drop shadow on top of another object and printed to a Phaser Tektronix 850 PostScript printer, the object's bounding box printed with a tinted fill color. We discovered (thanks to the techies at Adobe) that one of the printer's default settings was causing this to happen. To fix the problem, we simply had to click the Printer button in the Print dialog box, choose Printer Specific Options > Color Correction and then choose None (the default was Automatic). After changing this setting, we were able to print the page without the extra fill color in the object's bounding box.

And finally, you'll be pleased to know that drop shadows created in InDesign feature a live redraw. That is, as you edit an item, its drop shadow automatically adjusts to the changes. Cool, huh?

What You've Learned
You should now have a complete understanding of the Drop Shadow feature in InDesign 2.0 and feel confident in using it to enhance the overall appearance of your publications with professional-looking drop shadows. And you can apply all the time you're going to save using it toward reading this journal cover to cover!