Chapter 13. Layer Styles

13. Layer Styles

Photoshop comes with several built-in effects: shadows, glows, bevels, textures, and strokes. These effects allow for quick changes to a layer's appearance. Layer Styles are "live" effects, which is to say as the content of a layer updates, so does the effect. For example, if you have a bevel and shadow applied to a type layer, changing the type will cause the effect to be applied to the new characters.

This flower was created from two basic shapes. The beveling, textures, and colorization were all done with Layer Styles. You can open the file Flower_Style.psd from the Chapter 13 folder on the DVD-ROM to explore the effects.

The effects that are applied to a layer become the layer's custom style. You can tell that an effect has been applied if an f icon appears to the right of the layer's name in the Layers palette. A Layer Style can be expanded by clicking the triangle icon next to the f icon to reveal the layer effects in the palette. This makes it easier to edit the effects to modify the style. Let's start exploring the powerful options of Layer Styles.