7.0

A very popular graphics effect is to create a soft drop- shadow under a graphic or some text. This
serves to lift the object away from the background.
The Shadow Tool lets you add a soft shadow to any object, text,
graphics or photo. Select the Shadow Tool
and just drag on the object. You can adjust the shadow blur and
transparency using InfoBar controls.
Some text with a soft shadow.
To adjust the position of an existing shadow, go into the Shadow Tool
and drag on the shadow
Advanced note
: Note that because a shadow itself is semi- transparent (part of the objects below show through the
shadow) objects with shadows are converted to PNG images when saved on a web page (it's the only
image format that supports transparency). PNG images can be quite large, especially for photos. It's
perfect for images such the above shadow graphic.
You may find you can convert the whole graphic to a JPEG to save space. Whether this works or not
depends on what's behind the shadow. If it's a plain or static non-text background you can probably use
a JPEG which is a much smaller file size (quicker website download). To force an object to be a JPEG
use the Image tab of the Web Properties dialog.
JPEG images cannot have semi-transparent parts, so when creating a JPEG of a semi-transparent object
Web Designer Premium includes the background (what's behind the semi-transparent part) as part of the
JPEG image, but because of the pixel perfect positioning on the web page you can't tell this. This doesn't
work if the shadow or semi-transparent object is placed over some text, as the text will be included as
part of the graphic.
Example Graphics
This is a perfect example of what can be created in Web Designer Premium. This button combines many
of the features described above - it's drawn by combining just a few feathered shapes, and using
graduated transparency (the white reflection effect). The text has a slight soft shadow and the button has
a glow shadow. The whole thing is grouped. (You do not need to draw this button as it's provided in the
Button category of the Designs Gallery
).
The huge benefit of vector graphics, compared to 'bitmap' graphics created in pixel editing software such
Photoshop, is that you can re-color, edit, rotate, and resize the button with no loss of quality. Make it
huge and it remains pin sharp:
On top of that you can re-color using the Named Color system, and it will even stretch as required -
everything in Web Designer Premium remains non-destructive (which means you can always edit it, with
no loss of quality).
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