Layer Effects

[IthinkthereforeIam]

I'd like to create a simple shape that I can reproduce many times by varying the shape (round, elliptical, rectangular, etc.) and the colour gradient. Nothing could be simpler, but...
Here's the shape with two crescent shapes at the top and bottom to give it a little depth.

 

I can't save this “design” in the styles as it's not entirely a... style 😁 I thought I'd use the Layer Effects to mimic this. Well, I can more or less reproduce the bottom shadow with the 'Inner shadow' function, but the inner glow won't let me do it because it lacks certain functions. Would it be possible to improve the inner glow feature?

 

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, IthinkthereforeIam said:

to give it a little depth.

Why don't use 3D effect? Alternatively with Bevel/Emboss.

[IthinkthereforeIam]

Thanks for the tip but I don't like much the 3d effect... I get something close with bevel but not exactly what I would like. To serif, why different features between inner shadow and inner glow ?

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, IthinkthereforeIam said:

why different features between inner shadow and inner glow ?

A shadow is cast by a light source, so you need to know its direction (and height in 3D), while a glow is created by the object itself.

[GarryP]

1 hour ago, IthinkthereforeIam said:

To serif, why different features between inner shadow and inner glow ?

I don’t work for Serif but...

You can, under certain circumstances, mimic an Inner Glow Effect by using an Inner Shadow Effect, but it’s not often possible the other way round.

My guess is that – along with what was said above – if both functionalities allowed for the same results then we would only need one of them, and that Serif may have split the settings between the two functionalities to make it easier for most users to understand and use them in most circumstances, which might not be ideal for everyone.

[IthinkthereforeIam]

yes indeed, but we could also put forward the idea that incident light is reflected by the object and creates a glow, etc. I've managed to get an interesting effect with bevel, but I'm thinking that adding these features could be interesting.

[carl123]

Is the attached what you are looking to do?

Slightly exaggerated so you can see the effects

 

shadows.afdesign

[GarryP]

It’s been while since Serif made any major changes to the Layer Effects – the last one I remember is being able to add multiples of some effect types – so maybe they are ‘due a spruce-up’ of some kind.

There are already requests to be able to reorder the effects, add new effects, temporarily switch them all off for a selected layer, and various other things, so this sounds like another reasonable possibility to me.

[IthinkthereforeIam]

14 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Is the attached what you are looking to do?

Slightly exaggerated so you can see the effects

 

shadows.afdesign 19.06 kB · 0 downloads

Yes, indeed... even simpler than bevel, we can add more than an IS effect (I did all this with v.1 and it wasn't possible)... I had just to see the "+" button. Thanks