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Giving a Shape "thickness"


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clayt101

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Hello,
I am what I would call and advanced beginner with photoshop (version 7.0 :) )

What I would like to do is make this image of Louisiana appear to have some thickness to it. Can someone tell me how to do this? The closest I have gotten is by using a shadow in powerpoint 9also attached).

Thanks

Louisianasmall.png
Shadow.png
 
Ok...this is simple but involved.

The best way is for me to just lay out the workflow....you should be ok with just that.

1. COPY your map layer.
2. Use the layer style "Colour Overlay" to slightly darken the LOWER of the two map layers.
3. CTRL + CLICK the layer THUMBNAIL of the LOWER map layer to create a marquee.
4. HOLD CTRL + ALT and hit 'T' to go into transform mode.
5. Release everything and hit the DOWN arrow ONCE. (The lower map should move 1px downward)
6. Accept the transform, (Click the Tick).
7. DO NOT DESELECT ANYTHING
8. HOLD CTRL + ALT + SHIFT and hit 'T' again.....and again....and again...
9. Repeat until you have enough 'Depth'.

Of course you can custom that to your specific tastes but the general workflow is 'Step and Repeat', but using a marquee so that the duplicates stay in the same layer.

Regards.
MrToM.
 
No worries.

To me that looks like a shape created from a marquee....whatever, its pretty nasty.

I may be wrong but the amount of errors in there suggest this is what you have and I doubt any method will be any cleaner without first cleaning up that shape.

Please share your 'idea', I for one would be interested to see how you tackle this.....the more methods we learn the better for everyone.

Regards.
MrToM.
 
I used a Bevel & Emboss layer style. I selected an 'inner bevel' and 'chisel hard". I also set the opacity of the Highlight Mode to zero, leaving only the Shadow Mode active. You then need to play around with the other settings (angle, size of bevel, etc.) to get the effect you want. Depending on the final look you're trying to achieve, this may be an alternative way to achieve it.

Louisianasmall.png
 
Well I am not sure what the nasty marquee is, but what I did was do make about 20 layers and just shifted it down by one pixel. When I tried the down arrow method, it would move down by a strange number, not 1, maybe 3.x px?

I have some others that I need to do. I realize now that I can just do like 5 layers, then merge the layers and copy and paste 4 more times or so.

I am sure that the bevel and emboss method is easier, but I don't know how to do that kind of stuff.
 
LOL.....yeah that's another way to do exactly as I suggested, the only difference being you have to 'merge' the layers during the process or afterwards but that's no big deal so yeah, good, glad it worked for ya.

Regards.
MrToM.
 
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