Drop shadow not working...

[Emerald Jay]

Hi Everyone,

I ran into a problem.  I just completed a page and now it's time to add drop shadows to all the papers and elements and photos.  What I do is start at the top of the layer panel and just go down and add the shadows not on a separate layer.  At the top of the layer panel was my text and I had to add a shadow because I used a light grey text on a dark paper and the shadow did work on the text.  I added a shadow to two elements and it worked.  Now it's my photo's turn and I add the shadow and nothing.  I then clicked the add shadow to a separate layer just to see what would happen and nothing happends.  I proceeded to try other paper layers that were under the photo and no shadow will apply.  I tried another element and nothing.  I reset my drop shadow to default which is 10, 10, 50 opac and  5 blur and tried the papers again and it just will not apply.

 

Any suggestions?  Has this happened to anyone before?  

Thank you,

Em

 

[Susan Ewart]

This has not happened to me.  In regard to the text, if it's still a Vector you will have to turn it to a raster to add shadows.  I always add on a separate layer, that way you will see for sure if there is a shadow.  Same if your photo's are in a mask group.  Usually to retain the Vector or Mask group for later use, I will duplicate those layers and hide the original Vector or mask layers and then change the duplicates to a raster.  But I've never had the shadows not work at all.  I'm sorry, I'm at a loss with that one.  Unless they are hiding under papers or frames or something like that.  

Edited December 4, 2023 by Susan Ewart

[Cassel]

Do you happen to have a selection? Sometimes, a tiny selection is present and makes a tool "not work". Try to deselect with Ctrl-D, and then try the shadow again?

[Emerald Jay]

I did duplicate the vector text and then convert to raster.  The drop shadow did work on the text.

I don't understand what happened, but this is what I did.  I started clicking on all the paper layers and there are four of them plus the background.  When I did that with the pick tool, it highlighted in the layer panel, but on my canvas it showed the pick tool always right in the center of the page and I tried to rotate it or move it and I got that symbol of a red circle with a slanted line.  The void mark maybe?  Anyways, I'm really stumped.  The different layers are actually highlighting in the layer panel, but I can't do anything to the layer itself.  I closed the image multiple times and opened and closed PSP a few times.

I'm going to reconstruct the whole page one piece at a time now.

Now I'm thinking maybe there is something up with the template I'm using.  I did duplicate the template before I began, so I still have the original.  

Hmmm...I don't know if I had a little selection.  Going to check that now too.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Emerald Jay

[Emerald Jay]

Thank you, Ladies!!  Carole, you were correct.  I had to copy and paste an apostrophe and it was a tiny selection I made. Whenever I would slide one of the layers to my workspace to get the image, it came back as a tiny little thing.  I couldn't figure out what the heck that was. It's all fixed now.

[Cassel]

7 minutes ago, Emerald Jay said:

Thank you, Ladies!!  Carole, you were correct.  I had to copy and paste an apostrophe and it was a tiny selection I made. Whenever I would slide one of the layers to my workspace to get the image, it came back as a tiny little thing.  I couldn't figure out what the heck that was. It's all fixed now.

Glad to hear that it was such a simple issue (although it can cause a big headache!).