Drop Shadow Jaggies

Hi All,

PSP8 user here. At one time, I thought I knew of a way to make drop 
shadows from vector objects (such as text) that blended nicely with no 
jaggies. My memory must be failing me because now I can't seem to 
reproduce the technique.

The attached image shows some vector text (blue) with a drop shadow 
(black) pointing southwest against a mottled tan background. The pink 
arrows highlight the jaggie problem.

I created the drop shadow by first creating a mask from the vector 
object (source opacity). Next I created a selection from the mask,
applied the drop shadow, then moved the shadow raster layer underneath 
the vector text.

I /thought/ this was the way to go, but as you can see, jaggies are 
quite prevalent along the southwestern edge of the vector text, allowing 
the light background to show through. Ideally I would like the drop 
shadow to have more opacity along this border.

Any suggestions?

smartin wrote:
> PSP8 user here. At one time, I thought I knew of a way to make
> drop shadows from vector objects (such as text) that blended
> nicely with no jaggies. My memory must be failing me because
> now I can't seem to reproduce the technique.
>
> The attached image shows some vector text (blue) with a drop
> shadow (black) pointing southwest against a mottled tan
> background. The pink arrows highlight the jaggie problem.
>
> I created the drop shadow by first creating a mask from the
> vector object (source opacity). Next I created a selection
> from the mask, applied the drop shadow, then moved the shadow
> raster layer underneath the vector text.
>
> I /thought/ this was the way to go, but as you can see,
> jaggies are quite prevalent along the southwestern edge of the
> vector text, allowing the light background to show through.
> Ideally I would like the drop shadow to have more opacity
> along this border.
>
> Any suggestions?
This may be due to the source opacity mask, but I did not dig in to 
see. Why go around the barn when you can use Selections > From 
Vector Object. The attached is my result from that.
-- 
Fred Hiltz,  fhiltz at yahoo dot com 

Fred Hiltz wrote:
> smartin wrote:
>> PSP8 user here. At one time, I thought I knew of a way to make
>> drop shadows from vector objects (such as text) that blended
>> nicely with no jaggies. My memory must be failing me because
>> now I can't seem to reproduce the technique.
>>
>> The attached image shows some vector text (blue) with a drop
>> shadow (black) pointing southwest against a mottled tan
>> background. The pink arrows highlight the jaggie problem.
>>
>> I created the drop shadow by first creating a mask from the
>> vector object (source opacity). Next I created a selection
>> from the mask, applied the drop shadow, then moved the shadow
>> raster layer underneath the vector text.
>>
>> I /thought/ this was the way to go, but as you can see,
>> jaggies are quite prevalent along the southwestern edge of the
>> vector text, allowing the light background to show through.
>> Ideally I would like the drop shadow to have more opacity
>> along this border.
>>
>> Any suggestions?
> 
> This may be due to the source opacity mask, but I did not dig in to 
> see. Why go around the barn when you can use Selections > From 
> Vector Object. The attached is my result from that.
> 

Fred, I wholeheartedly appreciate your suggestion ("Why go around the 
barn...") My way-back memory device specifically recalls using masks to 
do this (right or wrong!), but those instructions may have pertained to 
an earlier version of PSP.

Nevertheless, in PSP8, selecting directly from the vector object seems 
to produce similar results to my round-about method using a mask.

Thanks for your input!

smartin wrote:
> Fred Hiltz wrote:
[snip]
>> This may be due to the source opacity mask, but I did not dig
>> in to see. Why go around the barn when you can use Selections
>> > From Vector Object. The attached is my result from that.
>>
>
> Fred, I wholeheartedly appreciate your suggestion ("Why go
> around the barn...") My way-back memory device specifically
> recalls using masks to do this (right or wrong!), but those
> instructions may have pertained to an earlier version of PSP.
>
> Nevertheless, in PSP8, selecting directly from the vector
> object seems to produce similar results to my round-about
> method using a mask.

We must be doing something differently, then, as my PSP 8 
reproduction of your image lacks the jaggies. I drew the blue vector 
quadrilateral with anti-alias, selected from that object, ran the 
drop shadow, and accepted its warning about promoting the selection 
to a layer. I did not move any layers, just did those three steps.
-- 
Fred Hiltz,  fhiltz at yahoo dot com 

"Fred Hiltz" <not@home.ca> wrote in news:47fed455_1@cnews:

> 
> smartin wrote:
>> Fred Hiltz wrote:
> [snip]
>>> This may be due to the source opacity mask, but I did not dig
>>> in to see. Why go around the barn when you can use Selections
>>> > From Vector Object. The attached is my result from that.
>>>
>>
>> Fred, I wholeheartedly appreciate your suggestion ("Why go
>> around the barn...") My way-back memory device specifically
>> recalls using masks to do this (right or wrong!), but those
>> instructions may have pertained to an earlier version of PSP.
>>
>> Nevertheless, in PSP8, selecting directly from the vector
>> object seems to produce similar results to my round-about
>> method using a mask.
> 
> We must be doing something differently, then, as my PSP 8 
> reproduction of your image lacks the jaggies. I drew the blue vector 
> quadrilateral with anti-alias, selected from that object, ran the 
> drop shadow, and accepted its warning about promoting the selection 
> to a layer. I did not move any layers, just did those three steps.

Actually, I see jaggies at the left edge of your image also, Fred, just not 
as pronounced as the original.

Regards,

JoeB