New Drop Shadow and Neon effects

[Arwin Profile]

Hi all,

I just uploaded a bunch of new Drop Shadow and Neon effects.

They are a bit different compared to the ones AndrewB created (Simple Drop Shadow).
When I examined the ones that AndrewB has created I saw that they completely removed the background, the subject plus the drop shadow stays visible but the background is transferred to white.

The drop shadow effect that I like to have is the one that makes a nice drop shadow of a subject in an image and leave the image intact, also I do like to select the object instead of the background more, so that was the starting point for me.
If you like to cut-out the subject and add a drop shadow onto it, you need to use the ones AndrewB has created, they work great for that purpose!


Arwin's new Drop Shadow & Neon effects:
To find the effects i created, you need to use the 'Select Area' tool and choose for 'Subject', than select the subject you want a Drop shadow on, by using the brushes.

The effects are categorized on color and can be find in: Color > Red (or any other color in this category), also you can find them in the category: Style > Glow.

Effect names:
Drop Shadow Blue
Drop Shadow Green
Drop Shadow Grey
Drop Shadow Orange
Drop Shadow Pink
Drop Shadow Purple
Drop Shadow Red
Drop Shadow Violet
Drop Shadow Yellow

Drop Shadow Blue (Flip and Rotate)
Drop Shadow Green (Flip and Rotate)
Drop Shadow Grey (Flip and Rotate)
Drop Shadow Orange (Flip and Rotate)
Drop Shadow Pink (Flip and Rotate)
Drop Shadow Purple (Flip and Rotate)
Drop Shadow Red (Flip and Rotate)
Drop Shadow Violet (Flip and Rotate)
Drop Shadow Yellow (Flip and Rotate)

Neon Black
Neon Blue
Neon Brown
Neon Cyan
Neon Green
Neon Orange
Neon Pink
Neon Purple
Neon Red
Neon Violet
Neon White
Neon Yellow

The Shadow Drop effects are all adjustable, you can set the blur amount, the strength and place of the shadow and you can make the shadow bigger or smaller as you like.
The Flip and Rotate versions of the Drop Shadow effects, will drop a shadow below the subject, you need to drag the shadow to the right place.

Most important is that you use the 'Select Area' tool and choose for 'Subject' otherwise you won't find the effects.

Hope you will find them useful!
Arwin


Some examples:
Click the image to enlarge..

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Well done Arwin!

Really beautiful set of drop shadow effects - I have not looked at them all, but I think the effects are TERRIFIC - really easy to use and move & rotate shadows - I have not looked at the neon effects yet.

Might I suggest the addition of a 'Hue & Saturation' node just after the 'Tone' node prior to the connection to the 'Blend' node as this gives the user the opportunity of changing the hue of the shadow to suit their own needs without a manual edit or choosing another of your super effects.

I deliberately chose to default to white as I created my drop shadow effects for graphic images in the main - the idea was to easily drop in a new background from the effects gallery - that is why I chose a 'background' area selection. However, your selection choice makes perfect sense for more photographic images and would easily allow users to select a leaf, for example' and make it pop and stand out from the background. Both approaches have their benefits, but I think yours might find favour with pure photographers and be more generally used. In truth, I just did mine to see if I could get drop shadows to work. It is very interesting how we both achieved our goals from different perspectives. It was a nice little challenge and I enjoyed taking it up. I did say I was looking forward to what you would create yourself - well I'm not in the least disappointed as I think your new effects are stunning.

I might play a little more with such effects myself, but as you know I won't be uploading them to the gallery as I have retired.

Good luck in all you do - I look forward to many more amazing effects from your inventive mind!

Once again, WELL DONE!

Cheers,

Andrew

[Arwin Profile]

Thank you Andrew

I indeed saw already your effects are perfect for the use you described and they are stunning! They work great for cutting out subjects and play with them in an artistic/creative way. I do think to create the neons aswell for this purpose!

I did never understand when sliders does appear when using an effect from the gallery, looks random to me (but Im sure it's not ) I will add a hue node to the point you described in my next effects I create.
(@Tony/SPE): Maybe an idea to the developers of SPE to at in a checkbox to the nodes, which can be checked when you like to see the sliders of the node are availble at effect selection..?

The neon effects can easily colored when clicking on the color box and drag your mouse anyware in your photo to get the color you want to light up the neon.

I've uploaded a Drop Shadow White aswell as a Drop Shadow White (Flip and Rotate), I saw its a must have when you like to at a color shadow on a black background (dark), just at white first and add the colored one next, free to play with it of course, sometimes you dont want the white first, its just what you like to reach. (Vise versa, Black/Grey on a white (lighten) background would work in the same way of course)

Ive created another example to show the possibilities of the neon and shadow effects..
(Click image to enlarge)

Shadow and Neon Examples.jpg (218.22 KiB) Viewed 10606 times

Effects used (Select Area tool: 'Subject'):
1. Neon Black, Neon Cyan
2. Neon Black, Neon Red, Drop Shadwo Grey
3. Neon green, Drop Shadow White (Flip and Rotate), Drop Shadow Green (Flip and Rotate)
4. Neon White, Neon Purple
5. Neon White, neon Pink
6. Neon Black, Neon Purple, neon Red
7. Neon Black, Neon Yellow, neon Yellow
8. Neon Black, Drop Shadow Blue, Drop Shadow White (Flip and Rotate)
9. Neon White, Neon Red
10. Neon Blue, Neon Purple

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Great examples Arwin - particularly like the effect used on the date (2014).

Intrigued, as always, to see what you come up with next.

Many happy creations!

Cheers,

Andrew

PS. the 'Hue' node can be added at the very end of the structure too and it should appear for users. I sometimes place interim 'Hue' nodes in a structure to increase the possibilities when doing manual edits as altering hue at early stages can have a significant affect on complex finished effects. They don't necessarily have to play an active role in the uploaded effect, but can certainly be useful for manual manipulation without having to add in a new node.

[Arwin Profile]

Thanks Andrew! Glad you like them

Thanks too for the extra info about the position of the hue node, I did add a hue and tone node to my watercolor effects, at the point you describe, but I see only 'some' sliders from I think the tone node, thats why I dont know when they are available at effect selection, it still looks random to me

But Im sure, one day..

Thanks again Andrew, take care!

Cheers, Arwin

[andrewb2012 Profile]

Hi Arwin,

There still exists a few anomalies in effect creation - I agree with your request to Tony, that the effect creator should be able (to some degree) to choose which sliders appear for users. One thing I noticed, is that if you use, for example, a Hue node in your effect - if any of the sliders are left at zero - then that slider does not appear in the effect slider dialog box. To give the best chance of all the sliders appearing for users, I tend to set the sliders to a minimum of either -30 or +30 so that the particular slider is activated - any less than this often seems to be ignored and that slider does not appear. I find this frustrating, as it is easy to forget to do this for all sliders - this then leads to disappointment when the effect appears. I think in particular the Hue Dialog box with all the sliders available should be available for most effects by default.

Another thing is that the position of the last Hue node in the effect structure seems to be quite important as this seems to take priority over previous ones. Likewise, if you only want to alter hue & saturation of, for example, one part of a 'picture within a picture' then you must make sure that the 'Hue' node occurs on one path leading to the final blend node - if it appears after a final blend, then it will have a generic effect.

These are some of my observations.

Thank you for this interesting debate - if Admin read this then they can correct my assertions if I am wrong.

Cheers,

Andrew

[Arwin Profile]

Thanks Andrew, I see that your investigation to this, is a bit further than mine was! I was still in a process of seeing what is does when I use a hue or tone node at the end of a blend path, playing with tone first following by a hue node or vise versa, but it did never make sense to me, sometimes I saw some sliders and nexttime there where none..
But it seems (I think) that I did some small adjustments in the nodes of some effects, thats why the sliders showed up.
I place those nodes at the end of a blend path for end-user purpose, like you suggested already, just to give them more room to play with the effect-output, but than again, would be nice when they show up really

Now I played with what you suggested (-0.031) and I see some sliders! Still thinking of being random, cant see all the sliders that I give -0.031, but it does someting indeed!

Still thinking an option of a check-box would be great..

Im aware of the positions of the nodes to have the right control of the effect (or at least what I have in mind that it need to do), in that case it would also be great that the sliders of tone/hue node of a pre, pre blend are visable at effect selection, like for the neon effects.. a node at the end of the path would adjust the entire photo, instead of only the neon, you need to edit the effect now to apply changes to the node, if you wish.

Great to have this discussion/debate indeed

Arwin

[admin]

Hi Guys,

The way that sliders appear in the gallery is that it goes backwards from the final node adding non-zero sliders until it goes over a certain number of sliders. I totally agree it would be great for effect authors to specify sliders themselves, however it's a huge job for us, which is why it hasn't had a very high priority.

Tony

[Arwin Profile]

Thanks Tony for the clarification, is there also a max of sliders per node? Because I changed up to 6 sliders in the tone node, and only 2 of them are visible as extra sliders.

Arwin

[admin]

There shouldn't be a max of sliders per node. Which effect are you talking about?

Tony