So I was looking at a Denny’s menu on Saturday and I saw that the whole menu was chocked full of drop shadows.
Although I use drop shadows myself, I really have to stress that there are things not to do when using drop shadows and other effects.
This article is dedicated to photoshop clichés. [please note these are my opinions, but they are shared by much of the design community.]
NO! (lol)
Drop Shadows:
Don’t use the default photoshop drop-shadow.
It looks tacky.
Try taking the the distance down a little.
Don’t use drop shadows that take away from readability.
You can’t read the text.
Take the opacity down a little.
Try not to use to many colors and to many drop shadows.
It doesn’t help continuity.
Just use one… unless your design really warrants it.
Don’t use different lighting angles.
Try to keep your continuity throughout your piece.
Weird drop shadows.
Keep it simple.
Bevel/Emboss:
Don’t use the default bevel.
Use it only for large text where you can really see the bevels.
Lens Flare:
Don’t use the lens flare. Its tacky.
Use it only for touching up lighting in an image, but even then it still may look tacky.
Filters!
Here are some filters that you really shouldn’t use by themselves.
You can use them to make other effects, but don’t use them by themselves.
Craquelure
Mosaic Tiles
Plastic Wrap
Well I hope this helps.
Cheers.
Thanks to http://www.sxc.hu for the photo
Tell me if you want anymore of these.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Hey, on the photo you use, isn’t Lyon in France ? I think I can recognize “le Crayon”. ^^
Great tips for novices…I used to be one…and I used to use the default setting, bwah that was ugly. ^^
February 5th, 2008 at 4:41 am
Hi, I’m a graphic designer, you’re totaly right.
There are a lot of tacky things peaple use and think it’s amazing.
:):):)
February 5th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Nice list. And when you think about it, those are just a few of them. I think the people over at Adobe did it on purpose so these effects look bad. It’s like they’re saying: “We can’t know what you need! See, it looks bad. Change them to your what you want!” Take the red stroke for example. I’m getting pretty tired of changing that color
February 5th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
We’ve all seen published work that falls into this category
jon
February 21st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Reminds me of when I was a Photoshop noob – every single piece of type, and I would add a red colour overlay, default drop shadow and bevel and emboss. Oh yeah, and it’s usually Verdana.
Ah, the “good” old days!
November 1st, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Thank you for your website
I made with photoshop backgrounds for youtube, myspace and ect..
my backgrounds:http://tinyurl.com/5cy5cq
have a great day and thank you again!